Finis

“Anybody who thinks pop music's easy should try to make a pop single and find out that it isn't” Says Robert Wyatt. I think this is right, to make a sucessfull pop song is difficult. To make a succesfull pop video is hard enough when you have to consider the target audience the brand you were trying to create, the song you were trying to sell and the general audience that you are seeking to address. We had problems with our locations which meant that we had to build a set within our small studio in the end rather than having lavish locations is a statley home as we had planned. As well as having to choose the song, we initally as a group chose to do the song 'Up in the clouds by Darwin Deez', but when luc and matt came to us with a chance to work with a real band on there song, we chosse to do that idea as it could possibly be an expericance that we wouldnt get again. Once this was decided we had to looks at possible video plans, of which with this particular song, we found very difficult as it was a song that the initia image wouldnt work with as well as looking at the song lyriclly and rhythmiclly, and seeign what would be best.

During the process of editing the pop video, we realised that the 360 degree orbiting camera might not have been the most effective way to portray the bands image. And this is something that i have leant i wouldnt do again, as well as it being mentioned during our focus group audience feedback.

I think if i was able to do this again, i would make sure that we had -

• A real location to fit the song, such as a stately home.
• Two days to film in rather than one as we were rather rushed and with two days we could of had longer on particular shots, tracks, lighting and makeup.
• Possibly a differnet song, wether that be a change of band or another song within The Toy Hearts. To target a younger generation. 
• Different image for our band.

This Little Kitty Commentary Josh and Storm

We did a directors commentary to comment on our script. Our group split into two people to do two different commentarys. This was to enable a clear understanding of the pop video and also to get different interpretations of the video. My text is below, the recording above.

MY SCRIPT - The mise en scene within the pop video was very plain, we wanted the audience to focus on the band members and reduce potential distraction. We used costuming to portray meaning and message, this is why the girls were dressed in a very “femme fatale” style. To exaggerate their independence and genre they operate in. The costuming of these 2 girls was also shown in a very edge way to reflect the lyrics “I am not a good girl, and I was meant to be free”. This was portrayed by heels and a tight fitting dress for one of the main band members. And for the other it was a corset kind of dress, with extravagant make-up and sparkly heels. Later on in the video we started to introduced sets and environments to the video, we did this later on so the audience got used to the simple image of the band and their style of music. If we were to re-do the pop video we all agreed that we would add more of a set to the video. This was because the plain black background did start to look boring after a while. We would probably add a very plain background with limited set design.

TASK 2 - A presentation to explore the effectiveness of my pop video and ancillary products

Blog task 2

View more presentations from hurtwoodhousemedia5.

I had 2 major problems with this presentation.

The first was the ideas of Richard Dyer and stardom.

In order to understand the relationship between the music industry and its audience, it is important to consider the roles of music stars. The term 'star' refers to semi-mythological set of meanings constructed around music performers in order to sell the performer to a large and loyal audience.

Irrespective if the medium, stars have some key features in common : a star is an image, not a real person, that is constructed out of a range of materials e.g advertising, magazines etc ... Stars are commodities produced and consumed in the strength of their meanings.

He says that stars depend upon a range of subsidiary media - magazines, TV, radio, the Internet - in order to construct an image for themselves which can be marketed to their target audiences. The star image is made up of meanings which are attractive to the target audiences.

The second was the ideas of Levi Strauss.

Levi Strauss was a french structural anthropologist. He was interested in finding those features which underline all societies, no matter how developed they were. Through his works, he identified a large number of universal social structures- importance of kin, nurturing role of females, taboo on incest etc...

One of the key features identified by Levi-Strauss was the universality of myths. Myths are narratives which belong to cultures rather than individuals and which tend to be passed down in generation's. The origins of myth tend to be obscured by history. Levi-Strauss believed that myths were more than just ‘entertainment’ for a culture. He said that they perform a valuable social function by embodying values and ideas which are important for particular societies, often in the form of binary oppositions. By dealing with these values through the fictional forms of myth, a society can defuse potential conflict and tension – a kind of safety valve.

TASK 3 ‘What I learnt from audience feedback”

To Asses the audience feedback we took data from various sources – youtube, focus group, our peers and our family. I tried to use open questions throughout and realised this was a small-scale trial of our pop video and ancillary products.

Our target audience was primarily to a female audience aged between 20-60. This aged target is because folk music tends to be enjoyed by older aged groups. According to Billboard and NME folk music is especially strong with the over 35’s and is growing I’m popularity with those in there 20’s. This is why we aimed at this audience.

The Jictar social scale can be applied. The ABC areas were are target audience as again the magazines say that these social categories are drawn to folk music. Category A is the wealthy and the educated. Category B is the educated but not necessarily wealthy such as teacher, managers and lawyers. Category C is the skilled working class who have some education but probably not to a degree level. In terms of social class and gender this was our target audience.

We put our music video up on the hurtwood youtube account to get feedback and see how many hits we would get. The video was up for 2 weeks until the band decided there were a few changes that they wanted to be made, which resulted in the video being taken down. During the 2 weeks we got 178 hits but no comments. As a result this was quite difficult to get some feedback from the public, so we therefore decided to do a focus group.

The points that we wanted to address to the focus group was, did they enjoy it? Did they understand the message being portrayed or was in not clear ? Representation and narrative of the performance and how might it be improved ?

With the focus group we took 12 AS students aged 17,8 girls and 4 boys and 4 A2 students aged 18 2 boys and 2 girls, to get a balance and perspective of our pop video. We then showed the group our pop video and then asked a series of 11 questions towards the pupils to get their feedback from the video. This came across as a lively discussion between our group and the students, which was very helpful towards our audience feedback.

The ten questions that we asked were -

1. What did you think of the video overall ?
2. What message do u think was being portrayed ?
3. Do you agree with this message ?
4. What narrative do you believe was being shown ?
5. How is each member of the band represented ?
6. Do you think they have the potential to be stars ?
7. Is the video entertaining ?
8. Do you identify with any of the band members?
9. What do u think could be improved ?
10. Did you find the spinning distracting
11. Out of 10 what would you give it?

The overall response that we got from the focus group was good feedback , they all liked the pop video. Some answers that we got were - Did they have the potentionl to be stars ? Vibrant and vivacious Mimi 17 from Sussex said 'no, maybe in a different country, but the band looked quite random and european. What did you think of the video overall ? Bubbly Charlie 17 from london said 'couldnt understand the words and the spinning made me feel quite dizzy afterwards' What do you think could be improved ? quiet will 17 from east london said 'More time on their faces, slower spinning to see the image clearer and possibly stop spinning after a while to allow the audience to understand what it going on' We then asked the group to give us a rating out of 10 , of which 14 out of 16 rated it a 8/9 and 2 rated it 6.

Blumler and Katz had a theory of 4 broad needs fulfilled by watching TV:

1. Diversion - a form of escape or emotional release from everyday pressures.This part of Blumler and Katz does apply to my pop video as the performance is a form of escape for the audience into a happy, carefree world.
2. Personal Relationships- companionship via TV personalities and characters, and socialabilty through discussion about TV with other people.
3. Personal Identity - the ability to compare ones life with the characters and situations within programs, and hence explore personal problems and perspectives. The audience can identify with the members of the band, perhaps envy them and enjoy the fun they are having in there performance. Our series of closups of the band having funn stresses this. The tracking shots that circle the band stress the intimacy , the closeness that we wanted to create for the band, with the audience.
4. Surveillance - a supply of information about 'whats going on in the world'

Stuart Hall had a theory offering 3 positions for an audience to take differnet meanings from whatever film or pop video they watch. These are :

1. Dominant - where the audience accepts the viewpoint of the producers (sometimes known as the preferred meaning). In our pop video our preffered meaning was that our band was having fin and saying that life can be good. Of our 17 focus group members, 13 agreed and understood the prefered meaning. Nial, 17, said ' good band. good atmosphere.'
2. Negotiated - Where the ideological content is altered to fit with the audience's own viewpoint. Of our 17 focus group members, 3 thought that the pop video shows women in a sexist and demeaning way, which was a negotiated meaning.
3. Oppositional - where the dominant viewpoint is understood but contested and a reading which opposes it is produced. One of our focus group did not like the video at all.

The Creation Of My Digipack Cover

The digipack is a CD cover that our group made for our pop video song 'This Little Kitty' by The Toy Hearts. This was all done collectively on photoshop. It consists of

• Front Page
• Back Page
• 2 insert sheets

The brand image that we were trying to convey for our digipack was that our band was funny, wacky, eccentric, wild and folky. We wanted to also portray the genre of music that the band was which was 'bluegrass' .

Each page we did as a template, i.e same background colour, which for us was what looked like a coffee stained old piece of paper. With pinup girls, old coca cola bottle top, American flag and an ace card. Each page contained an image of the band that we had taken ourselves during the shoot day with a digital camera.

The front page included the background and 4 images as well as an image of the whole band ,a bar code and the name of the band, of which the font for the name was carefully picked out to work with the image that we were trying to portray. The front page was just to advertise the band image and genre as well as making it colourful as to stand out.

The back page was again the same template but with an image of a bass player taken by Josh Gorman on the day of the shoot. The back page was for the track list allowing the consumer to know what other tracks were on the CD and other music that the band had created. We also put the bands web address to add an advertisement element to the digipack.

The middle page was again the same template but with 4 images of the band playing the instruments. This was to allow the consumer to see what they were buying into and showing what instrument the band played.

The other middle page was also again the same template but had the lyrics to the main song 'This Little Kitty' that featured on the CD to enhance again advertisement for the band, as well as two logo images for the band.

Throughout this process we had to look at semiology, denotation and connotation of which we used both, semiology meaning that pop groups and singers use there images to link there brand to what they want to say which is what we did with our image on the front page, allowing the audience to see the bands image and also what genre of music they mightt be, which links into mise en scene and the image that the band is portraying. We then looked at denotation which was when looking at an image, what can you say about it. And we used this with the back cover, whilst having a closeup of the bass player, allowing the audience to see as well what genre the music might be and also enhancing people who might like listening to that particular instrument to buy the CD. Connotation is what you connote, when you attach a cultural meaning to the image i.e MacDonald's logo (M) is immediately recognised as well as Starbucks logo. The connotation of Toy Hearts digipack would be old fashioned/worn out of colour; font is old fashioned as is the name of the band based on the connotations that we bring to it.

A topical example of selling the brand would be the super bowl. A 30 second advert during the breaks in the match cost $3 million dollars , but snickers had 10 of them which means they need to sell 6 million snicker bars to get there money back, but the estimate is they probably spent $10 million on producing the advert. This therefore relates to our pop video as its all about a brand and shows ways of advertising and that creating the brand is very important.

TASK 1 - In what ways do your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products ?

For our pop video of ‘This Little Kitty’ by The Toy Hearts we researched and analysed the major conventions of a pop video. We did this by looking at Negus conventions, of which include
• A possible performance element
• Use of special effects
• A wide and extensive use of shot types, camera angles and movement
• A carefully constructed mise en scene appropriate to the content and tone of the track
• The featuring of the artist
• A possible narrative structure

We used these by firstly, looking at possible performance element as to what ‘story line’ would work with the image of the band, would it be a performance element I.e. just shooting the band whilst they are performing as to give in a concert feel or would it have a storyline where the structure would be narrative which brings us on to the next convention of possible narrative structure which is where the video would have a storyline and would relate to the lyrics, allowing the audience to connect more with the song rather that watching it.
When looking at special effects of which include (lighting, animation,

CGI’s,In-Camera effects) we used a lot of lighting, as we were shooting with black screen around all 4 walls of the studio ,we had to look at specific lighting in order for us to see the band and what they were wearing. With animation we didn’t use these, neither did we use CGI’S. With the shot types we used a wide range of different ones to make our video seem somewhat surreal , ranging from close-ups straight into mid shots, wide shots, extreme close-ups and establishing shots. With the mise en scene point of view, the band bought there own clothing to fit with the image we were trying to portray as well as fitting to the lyrics of the song, making the band look similar to there genre as well as looking ‘rebellious’ and ‘sexy’. And obviously the featuring of the artist is simple as we were lucky to be shooting the actual band The Toy Hearts we didn’t need to worry about getting other people to ‘star’ In the video for us.

The band also gave us a lot of feedback and wanted us to look at spe

cific music videos that has already been produced to get a feel of what they wanted as well as inspiration to what we could do, one of these was Mumford and Sons video of Little Lion Man, of which they liked the overall feel of the music video and related to what was happening as well as it relating to the music that they were producing themselves.

We looked to imitate the pop videos to give plaisir, the expected pleasure to the audience as Barthes explains with his two theories of Plaisir being pleasure from the unexpected and Jouissance, which is pleasure from the expected. We used Plaisir in our pop video, and we also subverted the conventions in order to give jouissance, something new or unexpected in Barthes terms.



The message from the song itself that we tried to convey was that our song had two messages. We wanted the story to sell the song, so the lyrics portraying it as a girl who is ‘crazy’ not in the psychological sense but in the way that she is a bit of a ‘rebel’ breaks the rules and goes through a lot in her life, yet she is still find and finds her ground in the end. As

well as the brand image being ‘crazy and wacky ‘ the whole image has to conclude with the song. We wanted what the lyrics were saying to match the image in the band whether that be through the set/ props or the mise en scene of the video.

With this screen shot from our pop video, it is a wide shot of the whole band, the two girls being the selling point of the brand image. With this shot we coveyed the meaning of the video through again Negus conventions, as we have with all the images. With this particalar image, minus the bass player, we are trying to pin point on mise en scene and to show what clothing the band wore to portray the ‘bluegrass’ genre. Within this image , using the rule of thirds, the blonde singer is particular central as well as the red haired girl, which immediately grabs your attention therefore allowing the girls to be the brand image selling point.

This a long shot taken of the two girls during a close-up shot being taken of them. This again shows mise en scene with the outfits the girls were wearing. Looking at the rule of thirds, the attention is brought to the right hand side of the picture where the two girls are standing, as well as the fact that the background is black also draws attention to the colour of the girls. This picture reflects the brand image, as it’s a long shot, again portraying the mise en scene of the girls.

This is a wide shot of the band. This shows the image of the band as to be of country or folky genre. Again it uses Negus conventions by showing mise en scene and allowing the audience to relate to what is going on. The song is about a girl who is quite rebellious and free and this shot shows the ‘rebellious’ image that the band have.








This is a close-up of the two main girls. These two girls were the main selling point of the band, and as a result, many of the shot used throughout the video were of these two as it appealed more to the target audience.

This is a photo of one of the panels from the digipack that we made. We used the same design as the CD as so allow continuity between the two so it would not only relate but grab the audience attention. We used Photoshop for this process, and produced 3 of the same but with different typography font. The faded/stained look to the image , portrays the bands image.

This is an image taken from our digipack of the front cover of the CD. We gave it a stained look to go with the vintage feel of the band and also because it suited the genre. We did this on Photoshop and has images of the band that were taken by our group member Josh Gorman.

This again is a picture taken of our CD Digipack - and is of the back cover. It has the same template as the last two pictures, but is different as it has a different content. Different font has been used from the poster to the didgipack.

TASK 4 - A DIRECTOR’S COMMENTARY ON HOW I USED NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES.

New Media Technologies :

New media technology is where the technology is based on digital storage and communication of data, using a code known as 0-1 to compress that date into tiny packets, which give greater speed, quality and huge amounts more storage space for data. This is a lot better quality that analogue system of communication and data storage that proceed the digital. New media technology looks at computers, mobile phones, modern video and still cameras, editing, internet, MP3 and I Phones, modern radios and most technological equipment ranging from in hospitals to school and transport. Media Technology means that media productions are of higher quality, with proliferation, interactivity and convergence as advantages for the viewer. For the producer of media products the advantages are speed, lower costs, higher quality and ease of production. Our group used new media technologies extensively at all stages of the production process, from research and development, planning construction, post production and distribution/evaluation. New media technology meant that we could search the internet easily for locations.

Research and Development:

With this process we looked at locations for our shoot, ranging from cellars to warehouses to roof tops, by searching on the internet for such places. In the end, with the help of one of the members of the media department, we found a location ‘Grange Park’ which suited all the right criteria’s that we had first anticipated. Myself and Ben went along to the location to take some shots and get a feel of the place in whole. Unfortunately later that day we were told that the location was no longer available to us, due to bats living within that house that might get disturbed by the music playing. We then had to find yet another location or video plan. We also researched the band itself, seeing as we were shooting a real band we had to do some research as to there image, genre of music and overall feel to the look and sound of the band, to help us with the forthcoming process. We looked at the relevant competition with the band to see what kind of artists the band was up against, so that we made something similar, better and individual in a way. As well as looking at other music videos that the band had produced and also music videos that the band wanted us to take inspiration from, such as ‘Mumford & Sons’ videos. Throughout this process we were in constant contact with the band via email, to not only tell them about our progress but also about there feedback and ideas. We also looked at various props that we might need for the music video, ranging from ‘Jack Daniels’ bottles to juke boxes and a pub set. For our pop video we didn’t need any costumes/clothing as the band decided to bring there own , allowing us to concentrate on other elements in the pop video. We used new media technology to see what country music videos used as their style.

Planning :

In the planning process we took stills from certain images on the toy hearts website http://thetoyhearts.com/ which gave us an idea of the image of the band. We took pictures of the original location so that we could get a feel of the place as well as allowing the band to see where the possible shooting location would be. We also looked into album covers and printed of the lyrics of the song to get an overall fell of what is being said throughout the song to link with the genre of music (bluegrass) and the image of the song. We also storyboarded the video, choosing various different shot that might work with the lyrics and timing. This process took about 1-2 weeks to accokplish as it was quite challenging to stop being so repeated. Again new media technology underpins the internet, meaning that we used this to research certain aspects for the production of our music video.

Construction -Shoot :

Within this factor od the process we looked at lighting and that we didnt need to worrry so much about the light in the room due to the use of digital cameras that we were using, as you can shoot alot more quicker and with better quality, lighing included. We looked at the 'ratio' as if we wanted to use a green or blue screen, it wouldnt pass without digital technology. Fortunatty we didnt have to use either of them, so the editing process as a result became alot quicker. We then had to focus on the manouverbility of the camera, if we would use a tracking device or handheld etc.. we came up with the idea of spinning the camera in a circle, therfore we didnt need any extra equipment to allow that. New media technology underpins the cameras we used - sony Z1, JVC 1500 and the DSL 570 cameras. These are easy to use, light to move about and give very good quality. Some shots we could only do using digital- some involved tracking which meant we did it over and over, but only because we had a small digital camera. While a hight shot was easy in poor light through using digital.

Construction - Post Production :

With this we had to look at colour grading within the camer and editing process as well as making it either a sigular or same colour throughout, without a wash i.e 'red'. This sort of thing was used throught Rhianna's Only Girl music video ..
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa14VNsdSYM&ob=av2el)
but with our's we just wanted a clear and same colour throughout.
Again we didnt use a blue or green screen , but for others that did, this would have to work within what the actors were wearing i.e in a blue screen the actor couldn't wear blue and with a green screen etc ...
Within the editing process we used a software called 'Final Cut Pro' which enabled us to cute down shots, merge them and so on .. the whole editing process was divided between each of our groups and most times/lessons were spent with us all working on it together. There was also an opportunity to use 'Adobe After Effects' but as we didnt need to use any effects, we didnt use the programme. This process took about a month and was the most important part of the whole process so far.

Distribution and Evaluation :

The internet underpins much of distribution and evaluation. New media technology makes the internet possible by linking tens of millions of computers together, with millions of pieces of binary code whizzing about. New media technology would mean that we could do two things that we could not do without the internet.
Through youtube we could put our pop video up for the potentional of 123 million people to watch it and give us their comments very quickly and easily. It would be impossible to get such a vast amount of audience and there reactions without new media technology.
The internet also means that we can put out pop video up on our website and people can download it if they want to broadcast I, so radio stations and TV stations can see and use the pop video instantly if we email them, and this is all very possible through new media technology and the binary code system.