Music video evaluationBy Tyne Courtney.

• In Andrew Goodwin's book “ dancing in the distraction factory” the highlights some key music video codes and conventions of what a music video usually includes. This consists of 7 simple points

• 1.relationship between the lyrics and the visuals• 2.relationship between the music and the visuals • 3.video style and iconography• 4.close ups of the artist/band• 5. star iconography • 6. likely to be reference to voyeurism • 7.intertextual references to other music videos/texts

In my music video I included close ups of the artists, relationship between lyrics and visuals, music and the visuals which makes my video recognisable to the audience as a music video following the codes and conventions

• The introduction to my music video introduces the main character of the music video and follows a storyline. The phone box scene is the beginning of the narrative with the artist representing the narrative having an argument with her soon to be husband who calls it off over the phone. The artist/actress then goes into a spiral of despair and wonders around the lonely beach in her white wedding dress and veil, her rose and all of her stuff. She then finds out that her partner has passed away and at the end commits suicide to be with her partner and this matches with the lyrics “ im talking to you now” meaning that they can both talk in heaven.

Music & the visuals.• In my music video I have chosen a song that has a very fast tempo

and beat so I have edited my footage to the song with a slow beginning to match the slow start to the track and more quick cutted editing when the track fastens up and reaches its climax. In parts of my video I enhanced the speed of the footage as the beat increases but the beginning of the video starts of slow as the beat gradually kicks in.

• The music has a very dark tone and this is reflected in the scenery

of the dark lonely beach and the colours I have used, e.g. black and white with a high contrast. This is reflective of the mood/tone and to get across a sombre tone.

Examples of the editing I used to match the visuals with the beat and tempo of the track are the shots of me walking up and down the stairs ……..

Editing to the visuals!!

Lyrics and the visuals

• Firstly I made a direct link between the lyrics and the visuals by using “listen to me” text flashes throughout the video editited in time to the lyrics.

I wanted to create a “ghosty” effect with my music video and the lyrics to the song have that freaky feel to it, especially when the voice echoes and repeats over and over to make it appear to be a voice talking to her inside the artists head . I made another link between the lyrics and the visuals at the end of the music video “ I'm talking to you now”

Aim of my music video

Close ups of the artist

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The purpose of the ancillary texts is to give the audience a real feel for the genre of the music, the stars iconography and to represent the artist in a way that would be aspirational and attractive to the target audience. I designed a DVD digi pack and a magazine advert to support my music video.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

• I designed my DVD digi pack and magazine advert to support my video and keep the consistent dark style throughout my project. This was important so the audience would understand what age range and gender/style of intended audience I was looking for. I kept the style of the pack black and white to match with the music video so you can see that it is similar to the main product and so the style I was going for is recognisable to the audience. I used the colour red because my artists song is a dull depressing narrative but it involves love and that is also why I included the faded out broken heart.

What did I learn from audience feedback?

• To get feedback from my audience I posted my video on to YouTube to collect comments from other media students and the public. I also made a survey using survey monkey to ask some questions I felt were important to get for my feedback using questions that gave the audience a free text box to write what ever they liked without having to chose from some options. I felt this would make my audience feedback more detailed and open to criticism and improvements.

YouTube comments!

YouTube comments • The positive feedback about my music video is that it was cut well to the

beat, good use of editing, The way the the video captivated loneliness, the use of the props and the open ending.

• The Improvements that could be made to my music video are the long slow paced shots which many people agreed could have been speeded up and more action shots added too it to make the video more visually exciting for the audience.

• Two points that were made on my audience feedback contradicted each other because one person commented to say that the genre and action didn’t match as well as it could of done but others commented to say the genre of the music fitted the video well, so their was two points of view to this. This is one of the benefits of audience feedback as everybody has their own opinion!

Survey monkey

4 out of 6 respondents were female and in the age range of 16-19, which Is my intended audience for my music video! It would most likely appeal to a young audience because it is a new style of music. Only one person who answered my survey was over 25.

Survey monkey

The respondents to my survey all agreed that the visuals matched with the genre and that my video was interesting visually to watch. due to its suspension, stylistic features and cut editing.

The respondents agreed that edited my video to the beat effectively to go in time to the fast tempo.

I asked for a detailed response on what the audiences favourite part was and were people answered : the use of transitions, the narrative to the video and the cutting up the stairs leading to the beach.

The above were my text responses I received on the parts of the video that they disliked which repeated the YouTube comments with parts being too slow.

All of the respondents said that they enjoyed watching my music video which was veryRewarding after spending many weeks planning and editing my video which I found wasn’t my strongest point but this project has helped me to develop my skills.Taking inMind of all these comments if I had another chance to re-do the music video againI would keep the same narrative but I would add much more action and would of Captured more footage so I could use it to make more cuts and to split up the slow parts In the music video, However I do think some of the slow parts reflected the depressive Angle I took to the video and created a suspense.

Survey responses

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Construction of my music video and my research

• In order to construct my music video I needed to research other music videos in order to find out what techniques I could use in my own music video, what videos I liked, what videos I disliked and what ideas I could use or challenge. I used YouTube and tumbler to look at music videos and other peoples work that had been posted. I also made a presentation on a video analysis of beyonces music video “ why don’t you love me?” to try and spot what conventions she had included in her videos. Using YouTube also helped me get some inspiration and capture some ideas.

• I created a presentation on Microsoft office PowerPoint on hype Williams- a famous music video and film director in my research and looked at what conventions he included in his famous videos, what colours he used in the videos, what editing tools he may of used in the videos and his main genre. To create the presentation I used Wikipedia to search up on background information and what artists he had created music videos for. All of this helped me to know what made a good music video!

• I had to create a DVD digi pack for my cd so I searched up other cd covers and fronts on Google and Google images so I could see the layout and form out of the covers and how my cd cover could look like or use as an inspiration.

Construction of my music video and my research

Before I created my music video magazine I went into w h smiths and looked at nme magazine to look at the styling of their adverts they used for new and upcoming artists. I also used Google images to get examples of other magazine adverts and chose the ones that I particularly liked and put them into a PowerPoint presentation

I was very precise on what type of genre of music I wanted for my music video. I wanted something dark and original, like no other music I had listened to before.

I knew that I wanted to create some kind of depressive/spooky state in my video so the music had to reflect this. In the stages before I got to my filming I spent my time on jamendo.com flicking through original unsigned artists till I find my ideal song.

• Once I had completed all my research I had a few ideas in my mind of what kind of shots I would like to use, what editing I think looked creative and the scenery of where I would like to shoot my video ( although this changed once or twice in the project) you can see this by looking at my treatment sheet. The reason for this was because I had originally planned on getting a band but it was difficult to organise with little left time to arrange.

• I completed an animated storyboard showing a basic sketch up of what the scenery and location would look like, what action would be going on in the shot and the basic narrative story to help me devise a plan for my music video.

• In terms of construction of my music video I had already learnt a few techniques with my media teacher on how to use the timeline on adobe premier and how certain effects could be used on my music video. In order to support this I watched some videos on YouTube on the tutorial of adobe premier to help me pick some techniques of my own, another website I also used was videocopilot.co.uk

• Filming and editing : to construct my video I used a tripod and a hd camera which I borrowed from my college to take for the day to film. The programme we used was adobe premier. Examples of my construction of my music video is my timeline where you can see all the shots cuts up. The video effects that I used in Adobe premier was the black and white with a high contrast to make the scenery more intense and the blurring effect to create a ghostly effect. I changed the speed in some parts of the video to edit it in time to the music, I also cut up all my footage by using inputs and outputs to get the particular bit of footage I wanted to use and get rid of the bits that I didn't feel were necessary or fitted my music video. I also used text in my video so it would demonstrate that I made a clear link between the links and the visuals and make a deliberate point to the reader of what was happening in the narrative by emphasising the importance of the lyrics. I also used transitions where I added another part of a clip into another to merge together, an example of this Is where I added text into the footage.

• To create my DVD digi pack and my magazine advert I used Photoshop which I was first introduced to in AS level, I feel like I have developed my previous skills and now i feel more comfortable in using this programme to edit my pictures, crop and position them which helped in the construction of my advert and DVD digi pack. In my advert and my digi pack I used brushes, text, contrasts, shapes and images. I used all of these to create a certain styling and to demonstrate creativity.

Construction of my music video and my research

Timeline- Premier pro editing

In my evaluation I used the programme survey monkey to collect responses from my audience so I could see what improvements and positives they had on my music video and the comments off YouTube to construct my final evaluation of my music video, In some of the above sections I have shown print screens off the YouTube comments I received and print screens of my survey monkey questions. To get people to fill out my survey I posted it on to face book along with a link of my video so people could click on and fill it out for me to help me evaluate my work and analyse the results. This helped me looked at the critical points that other people had to say and made me realise what the good points to the video were.