STAY ALIVEJOSE GONZALEZ
Q2 - How effective is
the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? Throughout this course I have been challenged with the creation of three main products, a music video, digipak and advert all relating to each other. My music video was the initial piece that I worked on that the advert and digipak subsequently evolved out of. My music video ‘Stay Alive’ by José Gonzales follows the indie genre and is a song that can hold a variety of representation through its lyrics, I chose to adapt the lyrics to tell the story of two friends who’s friendship falls apart and ends in one of them killing themselves. The creation of my music video was by far the most time consuming with both shooting and post production stages of editing. However as my intentions for my narrative were clear from my initial ideas, it was the most rewarding stage as it allowed me to watch my ideas develop and I could be creative. Overall I am pleased with my work on the music video and have made a clear, rich narrative.
My music video uses a variety of shots to tell a story of the journey of friendship. Each shot was carefully considered to portray meaning and representation, for example shots’ pacing was edited to match the song’s speed and cut to change shot on the beat, along with high angle shots to convey powerlessness. Showing that a large purpose of my music video is to create a clear narrative by using conventions. My music video was strongly influenced by the notion of foreshadowing and theory of Chekov’s gun, this is evident as my choice in locations are visited by both main characters, however within a sequence after one character dies, these locations are revisited. However this time only by one character, symbolising his friends death and how alone his feels. This subtle change majorly alters shots, making the fame seem empty, this is done purposely. For example one pivotal scene shows the pair walking up a hill, this shot was composed to use convention of the rule of thirds, with the pair positioned to the right of the shot. However when the flash forward is shown within the music video, I specifically displayed this scene then added a fade effect in postproduction to transition to a shot of the protagonist walking alone. This then creates a barer atmosphere to the shot, representing the emptiness of the protagonist’s world now that his friend his gone. This scene, to me, was vital, meaningful and emotional. Due to this I chose this shot of the pair walking up the hill to be the main image of my digipak, further aided by its significance and memorability I feel viewers will engage well with this scene.
as the images can be associated with the artist, song and video whilst clearly portraying the songs genre, catering to both target and a wider potential audience. This was a major draw and why I aimed to maintain a continuous appeal to my images. The editing of the images also corresponds with the feel of the indie genre, for example I did not wish for the images to have a bright, vibrant look that is typically associated with the pop genre. Instead I opted for editing the images to have a misty, darker tonal aesthetic and kept this consistent throughout.
My videos narrative then allowed me to set the tone of all my tasks. This was the initial step of creating a brand identity. The variety of shots used in my video are reflected in both my digipak and advert as they use alterative views of shots from the music video, this both creates a brand identity and allows the consumer to feel closer to the narrative of my music video, feeling they have more involvement in the story due to them seeing these new images. I feel my ancillary tasks of digipak and poster are effective both independently and combined. I did not wish for the two pieces to be repetitive and use the same images, therefore I used varying images for each. However the style and colour scheme of the images were altered on Photoshop to fit the song and videos tone. For example creating a blue cast over images, this can be argued to be a stereotypical convention of the indie genre, showing my clear use of research and how it positively influenced my work. This also created a familiarity of images, which can then aid the brand identity
My main poster image was also edited to incorporate an appropriate amount of blur that doesn’t distract from the main focus of the image but represents the uncertainty of the friend’s fate throughout the video until the end. Said image is also is an exclusive image that is not pictured within the music video, its purpose was to establish to two main characters so potential consumers feel engaged with the story, further enforcing a brand identity as all 3 products revolve around narrative. This is done by showing characters, this was a conscious choice. Previously I had the idea of using mise en scene to create a bridge in narrative through props. Initially the prop of a bike was going to be a main focus of all advertising as it is consistently presented in crucial moments of the music video. However I decided that by showing main images, viewers can engage and emphasise more with characters as well as story. Evidently this idea was not entirely scrapped as my digipak still uses one of the taken images of the bike on one of its panels, partnered with an important quote.
The use of the graphology in fonts also helped establish a brand identity by maintaining two consistently throughout both my digipak and advert. The main front is ‘FuturaHandwritten’. As pictured, this is the font I used for my title of my poster. I chose this font as it is stylised whilst looking handwritten, as the name suggests. This creates a personal feel as if the protagonist, who within the video is singing, wrote it for his friend to see, in his moment of desperation. Much like how the song can be interpreted as dedicated to him. The font is also featured on my digipak, although not on the title of the song. This was a conscious choice as this font is not bold and it is conventional and most effective for a title to stand out. However to maintain the brand identity it is still present and used on the artist’s name and the song list on the back cover of the digipak. The second font I used is ‘Bebas’. This is a bold front that I used on the front panel of my digipak and on reviews on my poster. This consistent use of fonts, much like my main font, aids my brand identity by creating familiarity whilst also fitting a purpose of making font stand out. This is crucial in both my digipak and poster as the purpose of both pieces is to create interest for the music video, so by making the products use fonts that grab the viewers’ attention, it allows more interest to be generated towards my music video. Overall, the combination of all three of my main tasks is effective and creates a successful brand identity through its shared incorporation of narrative and tone set by the music video. Similarly, the consistency of fonts and related images within my digipak and advert allow the pieces to blend and complement each other seamlessly.
Q1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
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hrough this course i have been tasked with creating 3 main tasks, a music video and accompanying digipak and poster. In order to make these products as authentic and professional as possible i followed typical codes and conventions within the music video genre.
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irsty, I decided my music video would be of the indie genre. I chose this as music videos of this genre have a range of options and songs of this genre are well adaptable into a music video. I chose the song ‘stay alive’, immediately the songs title has strong implications that i wanted to play with, therefore ultimately my music video portrays the story of a loss of friendship then ends in a character killing himself. The indie genre is known for tackling or referring to issues like this one so it seemed appropriate. Audience was always a key consideration in my music video so if fans of the genre enjoyed deeper meanings behind stories then the indie genre seemed perfect for my video idea. Additionally, it order to follow the genre’s codes and conventions i had to research into other videos, a great aid of this was mise en scene. This means i looked at typical locations, how actors dressed and even the type of video it was. From this research i
constructed the look of my video accordingly, with clothing such as shirts, jeans and sweatshirts and i believe, although a simple detail to overlook, it lends to the genre created. Clothes are also symbolic of mood throughout my music video, for example flashbacks of happier times show my main character wearing brighter clothes, however the actor who dies wears mainly white clothes at happy times or alternatively black. This was done consciously as the colour of black has connotations of death or mourning so the use of the colour could be decoded to indicate foreshadowing. These factors then lend to the genre of my story, I aimed for the main theme to be friendship, however did not wish for there to be one objective genre the story can be applied to, therefore it follows conventions of hybrid genres, with moments of drama, comedy, love and then thriller/heartbreak. It should also be noted that conventionally stories depicted in the media have happy endings, with resolutions to all issues, this can be shown in Christopher Booker’s plots and Todorov’s 5 stages, in which all scenarios are resolved with harmony being brought back to the story, however mine only ends with the protagonist making peace and saying goodbye to his best friend. Evidently, my music video follows the conventions of a story telling narrative, whilst beginning and ending with a performance narrative to enlighten the viewer that the words within the song are those of the protagonist. This is a common convention throughout music videos that I thought worked well within mine whilst aiding narrative to allow the story to follow a circular narrative, beginning at the end and circling back to it, with the majority of the story being displayed via flashbacks. Throughout these flashbacks I wished to use a variety of narrative devices, a main one i incorporated was ‘Checkov’s gun’. This uses foreshadowing my positioning a picture of
a person, thing or scenario which is then later made more relevant towards the end of the text. I used this with my locations, for example shots of the pair of friends walking are then later shown with just one of them, indicating loss. Locations are also revisited with one the protagonist present, showing him reminisce. The ability to show both the past and the future shows that my story uses an omniscient narrative. Narrative must also focus on character portrayal, my video could be argued to stray from convention as it does not have a villain as most narratives do, as highlighted by Vladamir Propp. My story revolves around two characters with the primary character telling the story through the song, however the secondary character can be considered equally a protagonist. However a typical inclusion of a love interest is present towards the end of the music video and she can be interpreted as part of the reason the pair’s friendship began to fail, however this is not shown enough to make her a villain. The inclusion of a female love interest, only positioned in the story when with a male could lend to Laura Mulvey’s male gaze, believing women in media to only be shown through the eyes of men, without independence and often heavily sexualised. I decided the sexualising would not fit the tone of the video and did not wish to make the love interest seem manipulative or a ‘vixen’ but simply provide part of a reason why the friendship failed whilst also allowing audiences to theorise and decode potential other reasons, for example depression and the tablets, the one thing intending to keep him alive, were ironically the thing that killed him, although this is not explicitly shown but could be argued to be hinted at as a scene with him on his own had a dark tone and lighting, showing how mise en scene reflected his inner feelings when not with his friend. My other tasks were to create a poster and
digipak for my music video. Within my digipak I had to use six images to build the backgrounds, once again i wished to display my music videos narrative within this, therefore I chose images taken of pivotal locations and scenes to build the digipak. This is also due to these shots often being most experimental/ effective so therefore memorable. The digipak also uses stylised fonts and is made up of 2 main ones, the main font is bold and is used to display the album title, I chose to use a bold font rather than the same font used for the title of my advert as i wanted the text to stand out and didn’t have the availability of space to make the original text (‘FuturaHandwritten’) stand out, as it does in my poster. Although this stray from convention may prevent the creation of a trademark/ familiarity of the song through font, I feel the change is neccessary and the artist can still be associated with the font as his name on the first panel is still shown in this font. I positioned the album title at the bottom left of the front panel. This is conventional to most album overs, along with having titles in the middle, however I thought if I did this it would cover too much of the image and disregard its meaning, showing the two main characters. The second font is used to display the artist’s name and also the track list on the back panel, a typical convention, which each track being numbered and is displayed in the centre of the image going down as a list. The colours are purposely chosen to stand out from the background. A large amount of editing also went into the images to make them appealing at fit convention with the tone of the song and the indie genre in general. I feel the edits aid the images and allow them to be visually pleasing, so far less bland and plain. The poster is an A4 landscape image of the two protagonists. I wanted this image to not
match any image used in the digipak so took a separate one. The image is darker and uses the same font (‘FuturaHandwritten’) as the digipak, this is a noticed convention with a music videos related products, such as in Taylor Swift’s ‘bad blood’ video showing the title in bold red front and all promotional posters using the same. This is done to easily distinguish the text and relate it to the album/ video, creating a trademark/signature feature. Another convention I followed in the creation of the poster was the inclusion of reviews from related, known music magazines. The reviews are shown with a simple quote and then the addition of stars, I feel the positioned at equal distances at the side of the poster allows the text to stand out and look professional whilst not subtracting from the image itself. The quotes I used considered carefully, researching into typical wording of reviews and altering it to suit my music video and genre. This shows that I followed typical conventions whejn creating my advert. Also the inclusion of a release date was added upon final draft, this was an idea that was also generated from research into other real, contemporary examples and I believe it gives the poster a sense of professionalism. A stray from convention that I actively chose to not include is a website. Many music adverts provide links to the artists website, tyoicall positioned at the bottom boarder of the advert, however I decided to avoid this as the space is being used and i thought the inclusion of a quote is more effective than a website as a quote is also used in my digipak so the pair partner up.
Q4-How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Throughout the entire creative process of my music videos creation I used a variety of digital technologies to aid me in my construction, research, planning and evaluation. Firstly, when thinking of initial ideas for my music video I conducted a variety of research into other media, to do so I used the digital technology of YouTube. This allowed me to access a variety of established music videos and asses their effectiveness. This then allowed me to incorporate elements from each to be used in my music video. The digital technology of PowerPoint was the used to note my annotations. I could then present my analysis via another online medium of slide share, which presents the PowerPoint online. This then allowed me to show my work professionally by embedding it on to my blog. My blog is an integral part of both my research and planning as all my conducted work is presented on this format. I have found this digital technology highly beneficial as it is easily navigable and allows me to document my work, allowing me to refer back to it for ideas form planning. I had previously used WordPress in my AS coursework so I was familiar with the technology and knew how to use it most effectively. It can hold different documents from the internet, another vital technology. I embedded videos from my YouTube channel and linked programmes such as prezzi and slide share to the blog along with images, showing its reliability in showcasing my work. A key media technology that has
been used consistently is Adobe premiere pro. This is the video editing software that I have used throughout the construction of my music video. I have become far more familiar and confident with the programme as construction developed and this has allowed me to use it in a variety of tasks such as music video analysis for research and within my evaluation, using it to create a podcast and a documentary. The programme allows you to place all recorded footage into the programme and place them into layers to present the story. It can also perform useful effects on pieces such as warp stabilizer, steadying shots and image transitions, which have allowed my music video to seem more professional and can even conduct meaning, for example within a flashback sequence I used transitions to highlight the memories. As my familiarity with premiere grew I was able to insert text and use a variety of layers to better my music video. This also aided my planning as I could use layers to compare and choose which shot was most appropriate at each section of the song. Hardware was also vital in the creation of my music video, with the use of equipment in the creation of my music video. The camera I used was the Cannon 550D with a prime Cannon 50mm F1.8 lens, I had previously never used this camera for filming and it required a lot of manual control such as influencing lighting via ISO. However as I practised and mastered the cameras abilities it allowed me to conduct professional shots. My progress is
evident in my reshooting of certain scenes either with appropriate equipment e.g. shoulder rig or tripod to reshoot a shot to make it more stable or cater to lighting better. For both my tasks of poster and digipak, I used the digital technology of indesign. I had previous knowledge on this programme as I relied on it heavily in the construction of my AS coursework of a music magazine. Due to this I was familiar with how to use the format effectively. Therefore elements such interesting fonts were imported from the website ‘DAFONT’. To do this I also used the technology of Nexus Font to download fonts and allow them to be usable on adobe programmes. I had also previously used this feature so was able to navigate it with ease, yet still took precision in deciding distinguishable, appropriate fonts to use as my online research had proved there to be a regular convention of creating a brand identity for an artist which is strongly influenced through their choice of font that is prominent in their marketing and therefore becoming associated with both artist and their work. Once fonts were decided and imported I used InDesign to position fonts and also used previous knowledge to use the shape of stars on my poster to present it professionally. The images used on both my poster and digipak were thoroughly edited in order to match the songs aesthetic and tone. This editing was done via Photoshop. Although I have previously used this programme, my confidence with it was not as strong
as InDesign. Therefore I used the internet to watch tutorials and refresh my knowledge. This proved very useful as I was able to alter my images, changing their brightness, edges, and sharpness among other features. This editing procedure was repeated a variety of times due to a variety of different images being used on each product so overtime my ability developed. Overall I am pleased with the final look of my images and feel far more confident with Photoshop.