Friday
BIG THANKYOU
We want to thank Josh, Charlie, Sam, Lew, Mrs. Davies, Mr. Evans, The CLC, GEORGE FISHER-WILSON, Karen Paul, Frankie J, Tom Holmes, Becky's mum, Redcliffe caretaker for letting us stay after school until he had to kick us out, The Croft, BS8, The general public on Park St...
Thursday
Evaluation Pt.2
2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The main motif that links our music video, CD cover and advert together is the use of the disco ball. The disco ball seems to be a universal element in all three products. We wanted the disco to symbolize life. Even though we don’t have the disco ball in the video, even the association with the word “discotheque” creates a link between the video and the album cover. ‘Disco’ is also written in talcum powder on the ground in our advertisement. All three products are cohesive, because the disco ball on the CD cover, represents the meaning of having fun. The bold colours in the music video, correlate with the bold CD cover and advertisement. We wanted the Hit-ups trademark to be youthful and eye-catching. The use of colourful props such as the red blazer had to fit in with our vibrant music video. Even the care-free mannerisms of our actors during the advertisement, has to reflect on the mood of the video . There is a ray of sun in the top right hand corner of our advertisement, and our video ends with a ray of sun when our protagonist finally dies, we wanted the video to subtly have a happy ending, without it being too obvious. Cohesion is extremely important, because it is the foundation of the trademark of the band. Once the band has ‘an image’, they have to maintain it continuously. Like any brand, or product on the market - the band needs to be recognizable and have its own flair. If they were to suddenly change their image, their fans may feel that they have ‘sold out’. There is an extreme amount of pressure for indie bands to maintain an ‘indie’ image or being non-conformist individuals. I really admire the Hit-ups for just being themselves. I don’t think it would make sense for us to only be playful and comical in one product such as the music video, there needs to be an element of satire in all products for continuity purposes. I think its also important for the band’s music and visuals to be recognizable. For example, if the ‘Eastenders’ theme tune is heard from another room –you would know that ‘Eastender’s’ had started without having to look at the visuals. If our song were to appear on ‘Radio1’, we’d want it to be instantly recognizable if it was seen in a magazine such as ‘NME’, because of the element of ‘disco’. Even though I do think our products are cohesive, I would change the advertisement and add the disco ball into it subtly. I think it would be too obvious and cliché for us to add the disco ball into the music video.
The main motif that links our music video, CD cover and advert together is the use of the disco ball. The disco ball seems to be a universal element in all three products. We wanted the disco to symbolize life. Even though we don’t have the disco ball in the video, even the association with the word “discotheque” creates a link between the video and the album cover. ‘Disco’ is also written in talcum powder on the ground in our advertisement. All three products are cohesive, because the disco ball on the CD cover, represents the meaning of having fun. The bold colours in the music video, correlate with the bold CD cover and advertisement. We wanted the Hit-ups trademark to be youthful and eye-catching. The use of colourful props such as the red blazer had to fit in with our vibrant music video. Even the care-free mannerisms of our actors during the advertisement, has to reflect on the mood of the video . There is a ray of sun in the top right hand corner of our advertisement, and our video ends with a ray of sun when our protagonist finally dies, we wanted the video to subtly have a happy ending, without it being too obvious. Cohesion is extremely important, because it is the foundation of the trademark of the band. Once the band has ‘an image’, they have to maintain it continuously. Like any brand, or product on the market - the band needs to be recognizable and have its own flair. If they were to suddenly change their image, their fans may feel that they have ‘sold out’. There is an extreme amount of pressure for indie bands to maintain an ‘indie’ image or being non-conformist individuals. I really admire the Hit-ups for just being themselves. I don’t think it would make sense for us to only be playful and comical in one product such as the music video, there needs to be an element of satire in all products for continuity purposes. I think its also important for the band’s music and visuals to be recognizable. For example, if the ‘Eastenders’ theme tune is heard from another room –you would know that ‘Eastender’s’ had started without having to look at the visuals. If our song were to appear on ‘Radio1’, we’d want it to be instantly recognizable if it was seen in a magazine such as ‘NME’, because of the element of ‘disco’. Even though I do think our products are cohesive, I would change the advertisement and add the disco ball into it subtly. I think it would be too obvious and cliché for us to add the disco ball into the music video.
Week 14: Evaluation
1) In What ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real life media products?
Our response to the brief, was to create a fun and energetic music video that could be enjoyed by viewers of all ages. ‘Welcome to the Discotheque’ by The Hit-ups is an extremely up-tempo song, therefore we wanted to creature visuals that had a correlation with an animated feeling of the song. By having a youthful and playful creative vision, we decided to make our music video extremely satirical; we wanted to convey a light-hearted approach to the cycle of life. We wanted to tastefully poke fun at the stereotypical views of “the meaning of life”. Defining our genre was quite difficult, as the band are heavily influenced by many genres such as indie, funk, and hip-hop. I think that the song ‘Welcome to the Discotheque’ is the perfect fusion of all three genres. Although it’s hard to pin-point their genre, I think that they have more of an indie background. Looking back on my research, I found out that the main convention of many indie videos, (such as The Smith’s “How soon is Now?”) was to subtly construct a narrative. The story-telling came through the lyrics and was also incorporated in the visuals to set a basic mood and tone of the video. However, another convention of many indie music videos, is the use of performance. Many indie videos have some sort of live performance in it, for example “Use Somebody” by Kings of Leon. Performance may be a key element, but it is not the most important thing. We wanted the performance to only be a small part of our music video and the storey of our protagonists emotional re-birth to be the main focus.
Our perception of the song was about having fun and living in the moment. We thought that the use of the phrase “welcome to the discotheque” was an analogy for reminding people about the joys of life such as falling in love and happiness. We wanted to represent these elements in our music video through the eyes of our protagonist. From our research, we found out the band’s target audience is of an average of 16 – 25. However, we wanted to create a music video that could appeal to everyone.
The generic conventions of an indie music video are based highly on the narrative structure. I feel that many indie music videos have an essence of the concept being the most important element of the video. There is always a message being subtly thrown in, whether it is through visuals or lyrics. We wanted to make an emphasis on various views on the meaning of life. Our protagonist was pining after an ‘old flame’, when he could’ve been enjoying himself at a gig. In the end, his Ipod battery had run out and he had another heart attack and this time he died. Even though we wanted to make a humorous video full of satire, we also wanted to create a thought-provoking one too. Another convention of any music video is the use of mise-en-scene. We thoroughly planned out our filming location. A lot like TV programmes such as Channel 4’s ‘Skins’, we wanted to use locations that are instantly recognizable to fellow Bristolians, such as Park street and Brandon Hill. It was an ode to The Hit-ups, as they are a famous Bristol based band. Our opening shot is in a park, we wanted to create a tranquil and peaceful setting, and then immediately create tensions and suspense with the stranger looming. I think that the opening of our music video is alot like the opening to a film. Just Jack’s video 'The Day I Died', had an element of a daily routine in it too.
We also carefully selected our protagonists outfit and the props used such as the pipe and fake moustache. We tried to think of the stereotypical attire associated with an elderly person, whilst still fitting the mood of the scene. For example the use of the dressing gown when the protagonist, ‘G’ is feeling sad and the use of a bright, tartan blazer to reflect his new youthful mood. Influenced by 'Bugsy Malone', we chose to leave the talcum powder stains on the bowler hat to ‘poke fun’ at our concept of using young people in a video about old people. Our plan to include a vast amount of satire needed to be continuous in order to be effective. As a performance is a key element in many indie videos, we wanted to include a small amount of performance in our video. When we interviewed the band, we were moved by their love for performing and engaging with the crowd. They wanted their music to be enjoyed by all ages. I think that the visuals from the performance scenes in our video, sets the tone of a lively song. The hustle and bustle of the party scene correlates with the energetic nature of the song. As does the ending part of the music video features lead vocalist Josh, swaying slowly to the soft music as the melancholy instrumental kicks in. We used many close-up shots to make an emphasis on the instruments and band members to show that it was a live performance. We wanted to capture the boisterous activity that our protagonist was missing out on. For the album cover, we placed a disco ball at the corner of a ‘water hazard’ sign in Brandon Hill. We edited the sign in Photoshop, and replaced the ‘water’ with ‘disco’. We wanted to create an abstract album cover and still get our message across of taking a light-hearted approach on discovering the meaning of life. The Hit-ups are fun-loving and modest, they aren’t concerned with vanity and fame. We thought that the band members themselves were irrelevant and it’s all about the music. We didn’t use generic portrait shots of the band on front cover, as it would’ve diverted the attention from the music, to the importance of the band members. A lot like the Maroon 5 album cover, ‘Songs about Jane’, the album cover is abstract and trippy, it reflects the mood of the album. We wanted to create a playful, colourful, eye-catching album cover to correlate with our comical music video. The use of the word “hazard” encourages the CD buyer to think that we are insinuating that our album is ‘dangerous’, again it adds to the satire and light-hearted concept of our music video. The CD advertisement didn’t come out exactly how we wanted it to. We wanted to create a collage of still shots throughout his day through Photoshop. During an editing session in IMOVIE, we created still images from the video, unfortunately we discovered the quality of the still shots were very bad when we went to the CLC. The disco ball is shocking blue, and we wanted to carry on this blue theme throughout the prints. The disco ball on the cover, the inserts inside of the CD and the writing on the advert all correlate. We wanted the image of the two main characters, ‘G’ and his ‘old flame’ to be recognizable. We wanted these two characters to be The Hit-ups trademarks. In terms of developing and challenging the conventions of indie music videos, we decided to poke fun at how serious the majority of indie videos our by using satire. Bands like ‘The Smiths’ have videos such as ‘How Soon is Now?’ that are dark and mysterious, we wanted to create a colourful video that was original and had never been done before. Whilst interviewing the band, we found out that they preferred performing to an audience at a boutique festival, Shambala than a well known mainstream festival like Glastonbury. The Hit-ups encourage the notion of making music for because they love it, not because they want to get famous for it. By making a satirical video, whilst still incorporating an element of performance from the artist, we wanted the message of the song, album, and advert to convey a message that it’s all about the music. I think that we challenged the generic conventions of a typical indie music video by contradicting the seriousness of indie videos, the satire element in many music videos lie in the genre of Pop.
Our response to the brief, was to create a fun and energetic music video that could be enjoyed by viewers of all ages. ‘Welcome to the Discotheque’ by The Hit-ups is an extremely up-tempo song, therefore we wanted to creature visuals that had a correlation with an animated feeling of the song. By having a youthful and playful creative vision, we decided to make our music video extremely satirical; we wanted to convey a light-hearted approach to the cycle of life. We wanted to tastefully poke fun at the stereotypical views of “the meaning of life”. Defining our genre was quite difficult, as the band are heavily influenced by many genres such as indie, funk, and hip-hop. I think that the song ‘Welcome to the Discotheque’ is the perfect fusion of all three genres. Although it’s hard to pin-point their genre, I think that they have more of an indie background. Looking back on my research, I found out that the main convention of many indie videos, (such as The Smith’s “How soon is Now?”) was to subtly construct a narrative. The story-telling came through the lyrics and was also incorporated in the visuals to set a basic mood and tone of the video. However, another convention of many indie music videos, is the use of performance. Many indie videos have some sort of live performance in it, for example “Use Somebody” by Kings of Leon. Performance may be a key element, but it is not the most important thing. We wanted the performance to only be a small part of our music video and the storey of our protagonists emotional re-birth to be the main focus.
Our perception of the song was about having fun and living in the moment. We thought that the use of the phrase “welcome to the discotheque” was an analogy for reminding people about the joys of life such as falling in love and happiness. We wanted to represent these elements in our music video through the eyes of our protagonist. From our research, we found out the band’s target audience is of an average of 16 – 25. However, we wanted to create a music video that could appeal to everyone.
The generic conventions of an indie music video are based highly on the narrative structure. I feel that many indie music videos have an essence of the concept being the most important element of the video. There is always a message being subtly thrown in, whether it is through visuals or lyrics. We wanted to make an emphasis on various views on the meaning of life. Our protagonist was pining after an ‘old flame’, when he could’ve been enjoying himself at a gig. In the end, his Ipod battery had run out and he had another heart attack and this time he died. Even though we wanted to make a humorous video full of satire, we also wanted to create a thought-provoking one too. Another convention of any music video is the use of mise-en-scene. We thoroughly planned out our filming location. A lot like TV programmes such as Channel 4’s ‘Skins’, we wanted to use locations that are instantly recognizable to fellow Bristolians, such as Park street and Brandon Hill. It was an ode to The Hit-ups, as they are a famous Bristol based band. Our opening shot is in a park, we wanted to create a tranquil and peaceful setting, and then immediately create tensions and suspense with the stranger looming. I think that the opening of our music video is alot like the opening to a film. Just Jack’s video 'The Day I Died', had an element of a daily routine in it too.
We also carefully selected our protagonists outfit and the props used such as the pipe and fake moustache. We tried to think of the stereotypical attire associated with an elderly person, whilst still fitting the mood of the scene. For example the use of the dressing gown when the protagonist, ‘G’ is feeling sad and the use of a bright, tartan blazer to reflect his new youthful mood. Influenced by 'Bugsy Malone', we chose to leave the talcum powder stains on the bowler hat to ‘poke fun’ at our concept of using young people in a video about old people. Our plan to include a vast amount of satire needed to be continuous in order to be effective. As a performance is a key element in many indie videos, we wanted to include a small amount of performance in our video. When we interviewed the band, we were moved by their love for performing and engaging with the crowd. They wanted their music to be enjoyed by all ages. I think that the visuals from the performance scenes in our video, sets the tone of a lively song. The hustle and bustle of the party scene correlates with the energetic nature of the song. As does the ending part of the music video features lead vocalist Josh, swaying slowly to the soft music as the melancholy instrumental kicks in. We used many close-up shots to make an emphasis on the instruments and band members to show that it was a live performance. We wanted to capture the boisterous activity that our protagonist was missing out on. For the album cover, we placed a disco ball at the corner of a ‘water hazard’ sign in Brandon Hill. We edited the sign in Photoshop, and replaced the ‘water’ with ‘disco’. We wanted to create an abstract album cover and still get our message across of taking a light-hearted approach on discovering the meaning of life. The Hit-ups are fun-loving and modest, they aren’t concerned with vanity and fame. We thought that the band members themselves were irrelevant and it’s all about the music. We didn’t use generic portrait shots of the band on front cover, as it would’ve diverted the attention from the music, to the importance of the band members. A lot like the Maroon 5 album cover, ‘Songs about Jane’, the album cover is abstract and trippy, it reflects the mood of the album. We wanted to create a playful, colourful, eye-catching album cover to correlate with our comical music video. The use of the word “hazard” encourages the CD buyer to think that we are insinuating that our album is ‘dangerous’, again it adds to the satire and light-hearted concept of our music video. The CD advertisement didn’t come out exactly how we wanted it to. We wanted to create a collage of still shots throughout his day through Photoshop. During an editing session in IMOVIE, we created still images from the video, unfortunately we discovered the quality of the still shots were very bad when we went to the CLC. The disco ball is shocking blue, and we wanted to carry on this blue theme throughout the prints. The disco ball on the cover, the inserts inside of the CD and the writing on the advert all correlate. We wanted the image of the two main characters, ‘G’ and his ‘old flame’ to be recognizable. We wanted these two characters to be The Hit-ups trademarks. In terms of developing and challenging the conventions of indie music videos, we decided to poke fun at how serious the majority of indie videos our by using satire. Bands like ‘The Smiths’ have videos such as ‘How Soon is Now?’ that are dark and mysterious, we wanted to create a colourful video that was original and had never been done before. Whilst interviewing the band, we found out that they preferred performing to an audience at a boutique festival, Shambala than a well known mainstream festival like Glastonbury. The Hit-ups encourage the notion of making music for because they love it, not because they want to get famous for it. By making a satirical video, whilst still incorporating an element of performance from the artist, we wanted the message of the song, album, and advert to convey a message that it’s all about the music. I think that we challenged the generic conventions of a typical indie music video by contradicting the seriousness of indie videos, the satire element in many music videos lie in the genre of Pop.
Evaluation Pt 3:
3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?
We made a questionnaire – people thought our music video was original and funny, they hadn’t seen anything like that before. I’m really happy that people said that because that’s what we were aiming for! One person said: “ It was incredibly unique and a brilliant performance”. I’m unsure whether or not it was a performance from the band they were referring to, or a performance from our brilliant actor. Many people thought that the intro was a bit too long, however we tried to cut down a lot of the footage but it all just fit in so perfectly (to the timing of the music at a later date). Majority of viewers understood the concept and humour of the music video. I know that a lot of music videos use long film-like intros, but they are done professionally with the right camera equipment and more time. Maybe if we had hired actors that were being paid to work, we could’ve shot our scenes many more times. We asked an art student in our sixthform what she thought of our music video cover, she loved the colour and the vibrancy of the product. We aimed to create a colourful, eye-catching CD cover and we did. Audience feedback is crucial to the media and music industries because it allows producers, directors and even the artists to reflect on their work. It outlines the flaws and what is needed to improve, and it can also encourage people to work harder. Positive feedback allows producers to acknowledge their success, so they know what they're doing right. It also helps in terms of research for their target audience. If they’re pleasing their target audience, it means more money for the media and music industries. More sales from bands, more demand from the press, more concerts being fully booked, more money being spent by their fans – it’s a vicious circle and it all benefits the musicians and their team. A consequence in ignoring audience feedback, whether good or bad – means that the production companies, managers etc do not know the views of their target audience and they don’t know if they are pleasing them or not. If the audience feedback is bad and they don’t act on it, they risk losing money, endorsements, fans and of course respect from the public. Once an image of a band is made, the band has to stick to it to please the fans and the public. I wasn’t surprised by the positive feedback, because we knew we had made a humorous video. I had all faith in our product and we followed our creative direction through and succeeded. However, I was aware of the weaker elements in our work. I feel that we could’ve worked harder on the advertisement and communication skills within the group. Even though it took us 4 failed attempts in 3 hours at the CLC, we could’ve come up with a solution to the collage of pictures. I don’t think the advertisement is our best piece of work.
We made a questionnaire – people thought our music video was original and funny, they hadn’t seen anything like that before. I’m really happy that people said that because that’s what we were aiming for! One person said: “ It was incredibly unique and a brilliant performance”. I’m unsure whether or not it was a performance from the band they were referring to, or a performance from our brilliant actor. Many people thought that the intro was a bit too long, however we tried to cut down a lot of the footage but it all just fit in so perfectly (to the timing of the music at a later date). Majority of viewers understood the concept and humour of the music video. I know that a lot of music videos use long film-like intros, but they are done professionally with the right camera equipment and more time. Maybe if we had hired actors that were being paid to work, we could’ve shot our scenes many more times. We asked an art student in our sixthform what she thought of our music video cover, she loved the colour and the vibrancy of the product. We aimed to create a colourful, eye-catching CD cover and we did. Audience feedback is crucial to the media and music industries because it allows producers, directors and even the artists to reflect on their work. It outlines the flaws and what is needed to improve, and it can also encourage people to work harder. Positive feedback allows producers to acknowledge their success, so they know what they're doing right. It also helps in terms of research for their target audience. If they’re pleasing their target audience, it means more money for the media and music industries. More sales from bands, more demand from the press, more concerts being fully booked, more money being spent by their fans – it’s a vicious circle and it all benefits the musicians and their team. A consequence in ignoring audience feedback, whether good or bad – means that the production companies, managers etc do not know the views of their target audience and they don’t know if they are pleasing them or not. If the audience feedback is bad and they don’t act on it, they risk losing money, endorsements, fans and of course respect from the public. Once an image of a band is made, the band has to stick to it to please the fans and the public. I wasn’t surprised by the positive feedback, because we knew we had made a humorous video. I had all faith in our product and we followed our creative direction through and succeeded. However, I was aware of the weaker elements in our work. I feel that we could’ve worked harder on the advertisement and communication skills within the group. Even though it took us 4 failed attempts in 3 hours at the CLC, we could’ve come up with a solution to the collage of pictures. I don’t think the advertisement is our best piece of work.
Week 14: Feedback
We held a screening at Redcliffe's 'Film Night'. We wanted to ask people who obviously had an interest in media and film products, but didn't necessarily study the subject to get an outsiders point of view. We asked a group of year 12's, who fit perfectly into our target audience, about what they thought of the video.
Becky came up with a few questions to ask our viewers:
Becky came up with a few questions to ask our viewers:
-Did you enjoy watching the music video? Yes or No
-Did you understand the concept of the video?
Yes or No
(If no, what didn’t you understand?)
-Did you think the visual went with the music?
Yes or No
-Did the music video remind you of any other music video?
-Was there anything that you didn’t enjoy about the video?
-Any thing else you would like to comment on?
One person said: "I thought the video was original and unique, I've never seen anything like it".
Another said: "I liked the video, it was funny but it the intro was way too long..."
The first quote stood out to me the most, because we wanted to create a satirical music video that still had an element of originality - for an outsider to say that about our product, it really makes me think that we accomplished what we set out to do. I do agree that introduction to the video was long, but we liked it that way!
I posted our album cover onto my flickr page and it immediately got lots of comments. I thought putting our work online was a good way to get feedback from various people. An art student said: "I love the vibrancy and colour, it's really eye-catching". We wanted to have an albun cover that was a reflection of the song, not the band - I think we achieved this by focusing on the bigger picture and trying to remain cohesive, with all of our products correlating.
Many people thought that the blue writing on the advertisement stood out, this is positive news - if this were to be on a billboard, it would attract alot of attention.
I'm yet to find out what the band have to say!
Sunday
Week 13: Success?
The group decided, that if the band were to be signed - it would be by atom sounds, an indie label. Atom are an individual label that promote new artists worldwide, via the web. The band are well-known in the Southwest and are starting to have a loyal following in Southampton...
Labels such as the infamous Rough Trade Records who signed indie sensations, 'The Smiths' may take an interest in the band, as they're youthful, developing talent. I can definitely see 'The Hit-ups' eclectic sound being played in Rough Trade (record shop) in East London, it definately fits into their demographic.
Labels such as the infamous Rough Trade Records who signed indie sensations, 'The Smiths' may take an interest in the band, as they're youthful, developing talent. I can definitely see 'The Hit-ups' eclectic sound being played in Rough Trade (record shop) in East London, it definately fits into their demographic.
Wednesday
Week 13: WE'VE ACTUALLY FINISHED!!!!
!!!!!
After an hour of editing and saying "we've finished!" we came back after the weekend, to realise that we had major jumps to re-edit. :( Becky, Paul and I disputed and disputed and disputed, we cut up to 0.4 seconds off but that still didn't make a difference in what was obvious to us, but not to a outsider.
I'm really happy with our product...I'm nervous to hear the feedback from our peers. We know that feedback is important, so that we know what to improve the next time we do a project like this. Constructive criticism is always useful.
After an hour of editing and saying "we've finished!" we came back after the weekend, to realise that we had major jumps to re-edit. :( Becky, Paul and I disputed and disputed and disputed, we cut up to 0.4 seconds off but that still didn't make a difference in what was obvious to us, but not to a outsider.
I'm really happy with our product...I'm nervous to hear the feedback from our peers. We know that feedback is important, so that we know what to improve the next time we do a project like this. Constructive criticism is always useful.
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