The Music Video

This is the final music video...

The Digipak

This is my digipak I created. I created the logo for our group 'Reflection of State' and decided to have it coloured white to stand out from the black background and the rest of the images on the front cover. The black background also helps to make all images stand out and creates a nice border too. I placed 'The Case study" at the top as this is the album title and believed it will benefit the album the best by being placed where titles are suppose to be; at the top. The back cover includes a group photo of us showing us in a more... cohesive light compared to that of the promotional style front cover. I made the song titles red and chose the particular font style to emphasise the case study theme of the digipak and album. To finish off, I added photos of instruments and locations used.

The Advert

The Introduction to my Evaluation

The Evaluation 2: Cohesion

I believe my main product and the ancillary texts make a cohesive unit that compliment each other, although in contrasting ways. The similarities involve the band members, which are included in the digipak and advert. This lets the audience know exactly who it is they are buying into; an instant recognition. However, similarities stop here in effect, which proves to be a weak point in the combination. On the other hand, similarities do begin to pick up in the magazine advert and digipak. They both compliment each other perfectly; they use the same font, same black, red and white colour scheme and the same images. This  keeps a level of consistency that is required in promotional tools. This is why the lack of similarities between the music video and the ancillary texts is a limitation.

The Evaluation 1: In what way does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our music video definitely challenges the forms and conventions of media products of the same type of genre.  The original music video to our song by Kanye West is a popular rap song and includes a range of things typical to such a genre such as costume and location.  Our video is more artsy/ montage video which features all of the band members, and therefore goes against the typical conventions of a rap music video.  We have locations such as a studio and gym, places which wouldn't really be associated with rap, as they usually contain locations such as, basketball courts, parties/clubs and against walls. This may have actually been more effective had we conformed...

 The dress code of our band members are also non-conforming.  Common costumes in rap music videos include vests, hoodies, caps, jeans or baggy trousers, sunglasses, lots of jewelry; ours is opposite.  We decided to go with the smart casual look, consisting of trousers and shirts, suiting us much better.  We were afraid that by going with the typical rap dress code,  that it might come across like a parody and we didn't want this, although that was our initial idea. Also, the fact that we are a band performing a rap song is definitely challenging conventions, as most rap songs are performed mainly by a solo artist.  Bands are more associated with the genres of pop and rock. 

Digipak and advert-wise, they seemed to not be very conforming also. I was given criticism for my advert as it was said to resemble a film poster, not a music one. However, this was the aim, as i didn't want it to look the same as any other music advert. Plus, a little controversy will do no harm.

The Evaluation 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages

Our planning stages allowed us to use many media technologies in order to help us with a range of tasks, this includes one our most important choices; our final song choice for the project. YouTube was a service  we used, as it allowed us to explore a range of songs and aid us in deciding which song we would pick. We used Blogspot to record everything we have been doing in the project. This is where we put down a few videos which we believed could be our potential final choice and eventually, we decided to use Stronger by Kanye West. Me and my group made a powerpoint presentation, which we showed to the class. This Powerpoint included all our song choices and why we chose them; the class majority told us to pick Stronger by Kanye West.

Initially, we were going to film our music video in croydon. However, we needed to get contact details in order to obtain permission, so we decided to use Google maps which gave us contact informations and picture of the location. Google maps was also helpful when it came to the risk assessment, as the images allowed us to see what potential risks could happen. YouTube was used again whilst we research; not only did we use it in the research stage, but we also looked at other videos, analysing them to see what features and ideas we could incorporate into our own music video.

Constructing our video; we used many different media technologies in order to do this. We used a camera to take pictures that we later on used for our digipak and magazine advert. A digital camcorder was used to film the raw material for the video, and for editing we used different softwares on Mac OS X. As a group we decided to use Adobe Premier rather than final cut express, due to the fact that it allows us a lot more freedom to construct the video we envisioned. Freedom was given for more flexibility when it came to animations and effects. Photoshop was used to to make the digipak and magazine advert. Like Adobe premier did for the video, photoshop gave us a range of effects that proved effective for the digipak and magazine advert.

The Evaluation 3: Results

Results were not what we were necessarily expecting. We received back mostly unfavourable statistics. It was found that our digipak lacked interest, mostly due to lack of effects. the video lacks typical features of the genre of music. Although the genre is wrap, it actually has an electro sound to it just like Earthquake by Labyrinth which reached number 2 chart position, and still currently charting. Unfortunately our video didn't take much cues from the typical features of such a genre such as a plethora of effects, flashy colourful lighting and fast cutting/editing; this may have given our video more favourable critical response.

Also, people didn't find the cover typical of the genre, although this isn't really a main issue. Special effects are possibly what people look for in there album covers and music, giving them a greater incentive to buy and recommend the video, which was also low on score. This is something of concern as attracting people to buy the CD is whats important, and if our ancillary texts don't have that X factor, then we wont get good results with our single. It would effectively have been better to conform to expectations.

The Evaluation: Survey

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Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

The Production Log

Production Log

The Logo

Here is the logo for the band. I created it using photoshop. I used an image (the cityscape) from google, altered the colouring, size, orientation, texture, and more to make it my own. Then I added the text, and incorporated text and image into one to become the "Reflection Of State" logo.

The Label

This is our record label. Mohammed built upon Luke's initial concept design and this is the final result. The overall idea is inspired by Gibson SG Guitar.

The Costume

Costumes worn in our music video i would describe as smart casual. And we also wanted to make it suited to the college vibe, as we filmed in a college. Therefore this makes it even more suited to our group and video.

The Location

We decided to use as less locations as possible in order to keep trouble to a minimum. So only 2 location were chosen to film in. These are the Harris Academy South Norwood film studio and HASN gym. 

In the film studio we filmed 2 musical performances, and in the gym we filmed a workout scene.

The Call

Filming Call Sheet

The Auditions

The Band

REFLECTION OF STATE

We have decided to call our band name Reflection Of State 
We were having a bit of trouble trying to come up with an idea for a band name so we used band name generator to help us  have a bit of inspiration.  We decided not to use any of the names in the end as we felt that it was not original and none of the names sounded that good. 

The Final Decision

As a group we have chosen to do Stronger by Kayne West. This is because of the feedback we got from the class (when we presented it 2 weeks ago), they preferred this song compared to the rest of the song choices. It will also allow us to put some creativity behind the idea of this music video.

1st Idea (by me)

• It will be a narrative and a performance music video
• He will sing/rap inside and outside the car - Performance
• He will be walking into the club and people greeting him by the door - Narrative
• Switching to another scene where he will be by himself singing/rapping into the camera with a soft spotlight on him
• All these shots will be cut from and to each other

2nd Idea (by Luke)

• He is hit by a car and becomes unconscious, this is when flashback/dream 
• It will then link back to the 1st idea

3rd Idea (by Jordan)

• This will be a parody version of the song where instead of the main character being portrayed as "Strong", they will be portrayed as weak. This will then mean this will be a prominently a narrative music video.

Chosen Synopsis Idea
Instead of choosing one idea, we have chosen to do a combination of the ideas. My idea is linked to Luke's idea and Luke's idea is linked to Mohamed. Though we will not be using all the ideas stated above.

Final Synopsis
The car will be coming towards the screen, whilst shot reverse shots between this and the actor will show that the car is about to hit the actor, therefore creating story through camera shot techniques. Thereafter, will follow a sequence of unfortunate events to the character that will portray him in a weak manner. This includes being frightened by a dog, falling over something, a door swinging back in the characters face, all whilst skipping. After all of these scenes have past the character will wake up in a library with a text book in front of him, only to realise it was a dream.

Location

• Croydon Central Library
• Fall over stairs - subway walkway
• Green screen (Studio)
• Whitgift Centre (Back door)

This is a summery of the locations that will be used. We will have to get permission from Croydon Library and the Whitgift Centre and make sure that we do a hazard summery of the area we will take the music video scenes.

The Risk

Risk Assessment (Studio)


Risk Assessment Template


Gym Risk Assesment

The Permission

 We decided to ask for permission to enable the production process to go smoothly, instead of there being an unplanned hitch in the plans. Also, it is a public area therefore it is important to get the go ahead.

The Equipment

Equipment List

The Synopsis: Ideas

Our video is going to start with a fade in from black. This will be synchronised alongside

Idea Number One:
This will be a narrative and performance video combined. Narrative-wise, the actor will be walking into a club where there will be a fanfare of people greeting him by the door. Regarding performance, there will be rapping outside of a stationary car. Shots will include shot reverse shot.

Idea Number Two:
This idea is a parody take on the song, where the actor is hit by a car (not for real, of course) where he then becomes unconscious; this is when it becomes a flashback/dream. It will then link back to the first idea.

Idea Number Three:
This idea is also a parody, in which instead of the the character being portrayed as "strong", they are portrayed as weak. Therefore it will be predominantly narrative of structure.

The Auditions

So as a group we have decided to hold auditions to hire an actor for our music video. We have decided to create a poster to advertise our idea of the auditioning process. This will be placed on the main post 16 board where it is most likely to be looked at.

The Version

As a group we have decided to use the radio edit version of Kanye Wests song 'Stronger'. The original version is over the limit at 5 minutes long and even if it was possible to use all of this time, it is still too long for our liking. The radio edit weighs in at 4 minutes, however, we still look to cut this down even further. We want to get it down to 3minutes to 3minutes and 30seconds, and to do this we will be cutting out 0-24seconds, and we will also be taking out 3.04-4.01. By doing this we can make the video content make more impact, and the length wont make it drag and be boring.

The Proposal

We chose many different potential videos we could have used for a music video. However, some stood out more than others and we considered doing these the most. These videos include...

We believed this was a strong choice because the message in the song can be applied to many concepts, and will allow us to make many ideas work with the message. The video could be abstract, or it could be narrative, or performing could even be done too. Plus its something different and I like different (y)

Teardrop has a very strong backdrop will we could easily work with. An abstract video could be implemented, which is suitable for such a song. However, narrative elements could be encoded, and many camera angles can go into it too.

The Final Decision

We decided to choose Kanye Wests Stronger due to high favourism compared to our other choices, and due to the fact we can make it work around us instead of us working around the video. We can be flexible with the song, and I believe it will provide us with the best outcome possible.

The Feedback

Feedback wise, we were told that Stronger by Kanye West was our "strongest" choice, as there was much we could actually do with it. It has a prominent beat that we could work with which will allow us to easily edit and cut to our liking. We have considered feedback, and we may choose this is our final music.

The Analyses: Music Video

50 CENT PIMP 2003



In this video, there is a heavy presence of stereotypical masculinity with flawless physiques, money, expensive possessions and girls. These features are typical of many rap music videos, along with the expensive cars like the Roll Royce Phantom and Cadillacs. There is heavy focus on the iPod and Phantom (product placement), with the camera lingering on them with multiple shots, in effect emphasising luxury. Expensive branded clothing is worn, and flashy jewelry is constantly on focus, and combined with the white clothing, conveys even more of a sense of luxury. The song was significant success, peaking at 3 on the Billboard Chart.

The Analyses: Magazine Advert

Here we have a double paged magazine advert, with Binary opposition in play. On the left side we have the vulnerable, pure Beyonce, highlighted by white coloured clothing, transparent logo background and general lightness to the image. She has her hair pulled back illustrating a sense of exposure, and we see she has a slight smile, showing happiness. In the opposing photo, we have the "fierce" Beyonce; darker colours replace the pure white, and the transparency of the logo background is now black. Her eyebrows are thicker and her face is now expressionless, giving a tougher exterior then the opposing image. This advert shows that Beyonce as an artist is versatile, with different genres and styles in both her music and performances. Also the fact that the logo is very minimalistic shows that the artist doesn't need an obvious signpost for the audience to know who she is, and this gives off a high status.

The Analyses: Digipak

This is the Sasha Fierce album cover. There are many connotations to this image which show wealth, luxury, and even mystery. The colour scheme of black and gold found in her clothing, her hair, the lighting and the logo, portrays a sense of luxury, and also compliments her skin tone. The dark background also highlights the gold colours along with the main artist herself. The black panther in what called be called shadows, gives a sense of mystery, and the fact that it is in the background could represent a sense of underlying aggression, along with the scratches on the wall. Her stance is reminiscent of a model, giving off a sensual image, along with her lack of clothing. Many of these features are found in the same genre (pop/r&b) featuring female artist, or similar genres.