Final music video

evaluation question 2

evaluation question 4

evaluation question 3

Question 3

Evaluation - Question 1

Firstly the brief for my task in advanced portfolio was to produce a music video, magazine advert and digipak. A music video is to entertain the audience, promote the artist and also to allow the artist to express themselves. I decided to create a music video in the soul genre using the song 'Hometown Glory' by Adele because I  had an understanding that I could create a narrative based video that the audience could relate to, due to the lyrics being deep and meaningful which I could express through a music video. I developed a conventional soul genre music video by following and adapting conventions of the soul genre through various different aspects, for example the use of a black and white filter within my music video to represent the artist reflecting on her past.



Before I could begin to create any of my tasks, I had to carry out sufficient research into the soul genre so that I had a good understanding of what will appeal to my target audience. In order to research I used: macs, google, youtube and blogger. After researching I was able to successfully follow and develop new ideas of the conventions of a soul genre. This was because I had analysed successful soul genre artists such as; Duffy, Paloma Faith and Adele.
Firstly one of my inspiration to include in my music video was from Adele's music video 'Someone like you' I found the use of a black and white filter which was being used to represent Adele as reflecting on her past, this filter was used throughout the music video. The filter allowed the audience to gain a stronger understanding of Adele, specifically that her past experiences are still having a negative effect on her now. I decided to then incorporate the use of a black and white filter in my music video because the narrative I constructed was developed around my artist being surrounded by fame and losing her friends on the journey. Therefore by including a black and white filter when my artist was reflecting on her past and how she misses her friends, it would make this representation clear and relatable to my target audience, as they would be able to reflect on relationships they have lost over the years. Therefore by using the inspiration from Adele I was able to follow the conventions of the soul genre successfully to create an understandable and relatable convention in my music video.


icongraphy - pictures
performance


Secondly I was inspired by another soul artist Paloma Faith, this was through her music video 'Only love can hurt like this' In this music video I found the use of many close up shots to emphasise the artist emotions and feelings. A specific close up shot that I found in Paloma Faiths music video was at the beginning when she is standing outside in the rain. This close up allowed the audience to clearly identify Paloma's facial expressions of being upset. Which makes the audience question why she is feeling like this engaging to continue watching the video to find out why she's upset.
I then included close ups of my artist, through out my music video to illustrate my artists emotions. A specific example of where I included a close up shot was in the performance scene of my artist on stage singing. This close up showed my artists emotions in a greater depth, the audience were then able to identify that my artist was upset and trying to hold back her emotions in order to sing the song. This helped me to portray my artist as broken, which is conventional to the soul genre because the soul genre is a very emotional genre, therefore the audience are able to gather an in-depth insight to my artists personal emotions and can relate to my artist if they have been through similar circumstances.

Another convention that I found when researching the soul genre digipak's was the use of non eye contact to the camera. This immediately makes the audience wonder why the artist would not look at the camera, which then leads the audience to believe that the artist is vulnerable and insecure. I then developed this convention into my own digipak, I done this by included a image of my artist not looking at the camera, but then developed the idea by also incorporating an isolated location. This allows my target audience to understand that my artist is insecure, vulnerable, lonely and depressed. All of these representations are key to illustrate to my target audience, because it makes them aware that it is within the soul genre. The representation also suggest to the audience that something or someone is the cause of my artist's pain. Therefore the audience want to find out more about why my artist is down and depressed, which then lead to promote my artists interest and will lead to my target audience watching my music video in order to try and find out more.

Another convention of the soul genre that my music video follows is the mes-en-scene, costume. I decided to use dark colour clothing, in specific black clothing.
I found this convention from the artist Duffy, this was in her music video 'smoke without fire' within this music video the artist, Duffy was in black clothing through out the whole music video, this enabled the audience to be able to understand that the artist was depressed and down, Which therefore allows the audience to build up a relationship with the artist because they are able to understand how the artist is feeling and try to work out why.
The use of black clothing inspired me because it connotations were representations that I wanted to illustrate to my target audience. The connotations of the colour black are: fear, unknown and depression. I then incorporated black clothing into my music video and is present through the majority of my music video because it shows to the audience straight away that my artist is down and depressed, this then leads the audience to question why my artist is feeling like this. this leads to the audience building a relationship with my audience because they want to find more out about why my artist is so upset. Overall the audience will continue to watch the whole music video to try and find the answers to their questions.                  

 Another convention I followed in my music video and ancillaries was the black and white filter effect. The black and white filter connotes reflecting on the past. This is something that I was inspired to do after watching Adele's music video 'someone like you'.  The black and white filters are evident in Adele's music video when she is walking down the pathway in Paris. I then decided to incorporate the use of black and white filters on my music video. This is when my artist is playing the piano and reflecting on memories of her friends. I made this using final cut pro x and dragging over the black and white filter on to the footage. I then incorporated the black and white filter on my digipak this is evident in four out of my six sides. I done this on photoshop cs6 and clicked on the black and white filter, then adjusted the opacity and brightness to create the best shade of black and white. The use of the black and white filter allows the audience to build a relationship with the artist, as they begin to get a better understanding on the artists past, and can therefore understanding her deeper feelings and emotions. Which overall makes my artist more relatable to the target audience.

Another convention I was inspired to use in my music video, was the use of iconography to portray the artist as reflective and regretful.
A music video that I found this inspiration from was 'rolling in the deep' by Adele. Within this music video plates are smashed in order to represent the artists frustration, regret and isolation. I developed this representation into using photographs of my artist with her friends in the past. This allows the audience to gain an understanding of how my artist has lost her friends. Therefore the audience can begin to understand why the artist is so depressed and down overall leading to the audience being able to relate to my artist if they have gone through similar circumstances.

Finally another convention I included in my music video was inspired to me when i watched the music video 'Rehab' by Amy Winehouse. Within this music video the artist has performance scenes where she is singing to the camera. For example when Amy is sitting on her bed with a band in the background. The performance element allows the audience to feel a more personal feel towards the artist and in this case, the audience begin to understand that the artist is surrounded by music as she is performing in her bed. I then decided to include performance elements in my music video. This is evident in the scenes where my artist is on stage singing into the microphone. This makes my artist look professional which the audience look up to and see as a role model. This leads to my artist being idolised, which is important as she is a successful singer, I want to make sure that the audience would want to aspire to be like my artist. Overall the performance convention in my music video promotes the success of my artist.




In conclusion my finished music video and ancillaries successful develop and follow conventions from the soul genre. This is evident as a range of different inspirations lead me to incorporate a range of conventional aspects to my music video and ancillaries. Some of the conventions I had to develop in order to suit my work and make my work more successful. Throughout producing my work I had to keep adapting and changing my work so that all of my work matched the soul genre and matched each other.

final individual ancillaries

Rough cut - Miss Miller

Rough cut

Audience feedback was critically important to our production. This is because when you watch and edit your own production so many times, you can't see the errors. Therefore some feedback from the audience is helpful in order to highlight where the production may need to be changed and edited. Also a rough cut is essential to carry out so that the group can understand how much time, effort and footage we need in order to make a successful production. Our rough cut proved to us that we needed to film more footage as our music video, is hard to follow and understand for the audience. Due to audience feedback we was able to understand that the narrative was not clear, without feedback this we would not be aware of the narrative not being clear.


Firstly we received audience feedback from screening our production in class and on youtube. When screening our production in class, the first form of feedback was from our teacher, who outlined how the video was good, but had to much overlapping of shots. Therefore we began to adjust and better our music video. We then showed our music video to peers within the classroom and the feedback was similar to our teachers feedback before. The feedback we received from friends were that the music video was good, but they found difficult to understand without my group explaining the narrative to them. Therefore we went out to film more footage of the friendship, memories scenes. We also received feedback via youtube.

One of the comments on youtube we received suggested that we should include more camera angles on the performance scenes, and to include more scenes as it is repetitive. This constructive criticism is feedback that our group will take on board and use to improve our music video.

Feedback will benefit our production and music industry. Firstly the benefits it will bring to our production is that, we will be able to adjust and adapt our production in order to suit and appeal to our target audience. This will then lead to a more successful production. Using the feedback we will be able to easily identify the sections of our production that need to changed and therefore will make our time more efficient and effective in creating the best possible music video production we can.

Firstly as you can see from the youtube comments, Danny Wheeler gave us a positive and negative comment. To begin the positive comment was how we had good transitions between scenes. After receiving this feedback we ensured that we carried using transitions between scenes when making final adjustments. Danny also gave us negative feedback, which was that our performance scenes were repetitive. This meant that although we had good use of transitions between our scenes, the performance scenes were to often through out the music video therefore as a group, we decided that we need to film some more footage and incorporate a bigger range of scenes into our music video.

Secondly another comment we received was from Kerry Boyne, she also gave us one positive and one negative feedback. The positive feedback was our editing techniques and especially the overlapping of shots. We had also received negative feedback, so this was difficult to take on board and we decided that this editing may be a controversial part of our video and may be liked and disliked. Kerry also left some negative feedback on our music video which was, that our narrative is not very clear. The outcome to improve our work after this feedback is ver similar to Danny's, the outcome is to incorporate more scenes into our music video, in order to make the narrative clearer and overall a more successful music video.

Finally and thirdly another positive comment we received was from Alfie Harris via youtube, The positive feedback was that we had good camera angles, this was due to our group having used the tripod effectively, we then made sure that we kept a range of camera angles when we filmed any more footage. Alfie also left a negative feedback which we had also already received previously, which was that our narrative was unclear. This meant that as a group we had to change and adapt our music video dramatically in order to improve and make our music video narrative easier to understand. Therefore our plan is to film enough footage to include more scenes and clear up the narrative.

In conclusion the feedback we received was very useful to our group in order to make our music video as successful as we could. We have taken on board all feedback constructively to make sure our  target audience can understand and like our music video. Overall this has helped our group make our time more efficient in targeting parts of the music video that need to be changed and adapted in order to succeeded