Emily Devlin - A2 Media Studies - Advanced Portfolio

In what way does you media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My coursework portfolio for A2 Media Studies consisted of a promotional music video, accompanied by two ancillary texts, a 6 panel digipack, and a magazine advertisement for the artist and song itself. All three of these products should be in keeping with the conventions of their form and genre. The song I chose was the already well established ‘Two Fingers’, by young and upcoming artist, Jake Bugg. The genre of this specific song is ‘Indie,’ although the rest of Jake Bugg’s self-titled debut album could be argued to blur the lines between Indie, Folk and Rock, hybridising its very own genre.

When filming my promotional music video, I decided to go for performance and narrative structures for my diegesis. This was based on the conventional three options for narrative structure, abstract, narrative, or performance. During the pre-production stages I conducted research into media texts of both the same form and genre. From this, I discovered that music videos matching my genre, indie, tended to stick to showing mainly performance from the artist or band, occasionally accompanied by a narrative starring the artist.

I believe that mise-en-scene is a very important factor in correctly following the conventions of a genre,

especially in a music video, due to the lack of dialogue. It is very easy to create a gen

eric stereotype through the careful manipulation of the mise-en-scene, this avoids any initial confusion for the audience. In my promotional music video I have made use of colours as a visual embodiment of mood, personality and personal relationships. For example, my artist and his fictional girlfriend have matching hair colours which connotes to the audience that they are a perfect match.

Throughout the flashback sequences, my fictional artist continually wears a plain black t-shirt. This reflects the turn his life has taken, connoting that the hedonistic relationship and lifestyle he is leading is a largely negative factor in his life.

My fictional artist begins the dressing montage, yet again, in his black t-shirt, which he quickly covers with a white shirt, connoting that he sees hope for himself. It becomes apparent after he has visited the graveyard that he sees this as a new leaf in his life. This reinforces the ideology of the song’s lyrics about getting away and changing for the better, hence why my fictional artist is sitting in a white room, wearing a white shirt during his performance scenes.

I have purposely placed the alcohol and cigarettes to the left of Liam in the main shot whilst the guitar is placed to the right. This provides a reference to where he started and where he ended up. The fact that Liam is central to the shot connotes that both of these items were once a factor in his life, and made him who he is as a person. Liam's centeredness could also be seen as his ongoing battle of having to choose between the music, or a hedonistic lifestyle.

I wanted my audience to feel as if they were going through the story with my artist.

The medium close-up shot, depicting smoke going into my artist’s mouth in reverse time, which then fades to a flashback shot of smoke leaving his mouth, is a visual representation of my artist’s memory, regressing back to the point where the flashback sequence begins. This, along with the grain filter, shows the audience that he is thinking of the past, and provides cohesion for the non-linear narrative structure whilst avoiding confusion with the audience.

My intention throughout the video was to represent my artist’s girlfriend as the disruption of the narrative’s equilibrium, which would mean that something would have to happen to her in order for the new equilibrium to develop within the diegesis. I tried to provide hints towards this throughout my music video. The most apparent hint, I believe, is the mid-shot of my artist looking into the mirror only to have his girlfriend appear next to him and then fade away as he tries to touch her. I have also placed this shot and edit directly before she is fatally hit by a car. The purpose behind this is, at first, to trick the audience into thinking she is still alive, but then when she fades, they realise that something has happened to her. I wanted this to create suspense for the audience whilst giving a visual hint that my artist will never be able to touch her ever again and he is haunted by his past.

In the majority of shots of the couple in my music video, I have purposely placed my fictional artist’s girlfriend in the left side of the shot. I wanted to connote her badness through her placing within a frame. The fact that she is frequently seen to the left side of my fictional artist suggests the negative influence she is having on his life.

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

I wanted to keep both of ancillary texts within the same style as my music video so that the combination of all three texts was effective overall.

For my magazine advertisement I used a screen shot from my promotional music video in order to provide a connection between the two. In order to add a personal touch to the magazine advertisement and not just take everything directly from my video, I added a few edits. I decided to take some original images of my artist and used one of those in the picture too. The intention with adding my original image to the already selected screen shot was to reflect the narrative of both my selected song and promotional music video. The screen shot depicted my fictional artist in a flashback sequence within the video whereas y original image was intended to be the ‘modern day’ version of my fictional artist. I made the younger photo black and white just to make sure I avoided confusion amongst my audience. This main image connotes the ideology of changing for the better, which is also the reason behind my music video’s cautionary tale and the message that my selected song delivers to its audience. This images warm subtle colours make them stand out against the white brick background of the advertisement. I chose a white brick background because my intention was for the writing to look as if it had been on the wall itself. This is in keeping with the style of my selected genre.

For my digipack I decided to use a combination of screen shots and original images. I thought this would be a good visual embodiment of the combination of things that had led my fictional artist to write this song. The front over is a mid-shot of my artist stood against a white brick wall, the colour white has positive connotations whilst also following the same style as the background for my magazine advertisement. My artist is dressed in a green parka, a clothing item which is similar to all the clothing in the music video, it provides continuity through my different media texts. For the back cover I decided to use the same screen shot from my advertisement, without the edits, as the main image. My artist is to the far right of the frame in this image which gave me plenty of space to work with when including the barcode, record logo, track list and copyright details. For the CD panel I took an original image of the centre of the guitar that I used during filming. This fitted perfectly and was also in keeping with the genre and also more eye-catching than the conventional block colour cd panel. For the other panels I used Screen shots from the music video which included two medium close-ups of my fictional artist and his fictional girlfriend and the opening shot of the music video, an ashtray surrounded by beer bottles. I wanted to provide connections to y music video so that all three products worked together in promoting my fictional artist and his song.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback? Audience research is a very important ingredient in the production of any media text. It allows you understand the wants and needs of your demographic whilst receiving constructive criticism regarding your work. It is a way of a producer working with his or her audience members, to achieve a product which works for them both.

As part of my pre-production processes, I decided to film a focus group video with four people who fitted into my demographic and asked them these questions:

· How old are you?

· What is your favourite music genre?

· What attracts you to this genre?

· How important is a music video in the promotion of a single/artist?

· What type of music videos do you prefer? Narrative, performance or abstract?

· What don’t you like to see in a music video?

· What do you like to see in a music video?

· What in a music video would attract you into listening to this artist/buying the single?

I decided on these questions, because it helped me find out what people looked for when listening to a specific genre of music, and what things people in my demographic believed were overused or too generic in a music video.

Although I found the results helpful overall, there was one answer that I believe had a big effect on the narrative of my music video. I discovered that the people I interviewed accepted that the promotion of drinking, heavy partying and drug culture was a common convention of music videos from the indie genre, but that they didn’t agree with it. My interviewees all agreed that the visual depictions of this hedonistic lifestyle had become boring and exaggerated, whilst giving the artists and genre a negative image overall. This heavily influenced my decision on the initial idea for my music video’s diegesis.

I decided that since people who fitted into my demographic tended to agree that showing drinking and drugs would poorly influence the opinion of my target audience, I would make my depiction of them into a cautionary tale. This concept was highly relevant to my lyrics as they promoted the ideology of being toughened up by a rough past and getting away from the demons in life. I believe that this really influenced me, and was, overall, a positive way of conducting audience feedback that helped me understand it a lot more. This opinion also influenced the design of my ancillary texts.

For both of the magazine adverts I designed (A4 Portrait and A5 Landscape), I had originally intended the main image to be a screen grab from my music video, a mid-shot with my artist smoking a cigarette, to the right side of the frame, in front of a rural landscape. Instead, I opted for a photo shopped version of that image. The left side of the image was taken up by a second image of my artist, after he had ‘cleaned up his act,’ with the background fading from colour to black and white, in keeping with both images’ timeframes. This connotes rehabilitation and positive change; a message I hoped would be further transmitted to my audience. For my six panel digipacks, I decided to show images of both my artist looking clean cut, and alcohol and cigarettes. This juxtaposition represents what he had to go through to write these songs. I hope it had an overall positive effect on the final drafts of my coursework pieces.

After completing the second draft of my promotional music video, I decided to use social media as a tool in obtaining my audience feedback. I shared the YouTube link in a Facebook status in which I asked people to take five minutes to watch the video and then leave a comment on the status with their opinions and possible changes/constructive criticisms. Considering that the majority of my friends’ list were peers of mine, who also fit into the demographic, social media seemed a good way to obtain a high amount and variation of audience feedback whilst using another media platform to receive these results. Posting the video on a social media website proved highly successful, I believe this was due to the availability of Facebook meaning that it is a regular part of people’s lives, and therefore my status would be seen by a lot of people.

The feedback I received was very helpful. A few people commented that the death of my artist’s girlfriend had made them feel sad; this was the emotional response I was looking for. Other positive feedback mentioned how clear the overall story was to understand, this was very helpful considering the narrative of my music video was non-linear in structure. The only criticisms I received were that at times the lip syncing seemed out of time, but people were unsure of whether or not it was caused by their slow internet speeds. This seemed too common a criticism to be blamed on internet connection, so it provided me with the knowledge that there was a change to make in my editing processes. The positive comments I received boosted my confidence in what I was doing, which I believed had a highly positive influence on my work. They also helped me to see if my encoded message had been successfully decoded by my consumer audience.

Once I had received and applied the improvements from my teacher I made another questionnaire with these questions:

How effective do you think this media text is as a music video?
How clear is the narrative of the video? (Is it easy to follow? If not explain why)
What did you like about the video?
What didn’t you like about the video?
How do you feel after watching the video?
Does the video match the genre of the song in your opinion?
What attracts you to a music video? (What do you like to be shown? Why?)

These questions allowed me to receive opinions from my audience that were brief and anonymous. I arranged a screening of my music video for a small audience of 15 and asked them to fill in this questionnaire.

The audience of this screening consisted of a fairly even amount of both male and female media and/or film students ranging from 16-18.

Apart from one or two minor comments, there were no points that my selected audience did not like about my music video. I believe that the audience’s enjoyment of this video is a reflection of the success of my video as a promotional tool.

The majority commented that the factors of my video’s diegesis (narrative and performance along with issues discussed i.e. alcohol, drug taking) was relatable due to their age. I also believe the narrative stopped people getting bored as a lot of people commented that they did not enjoy music videos containing only performance.

This final piece of audience feedback showed me that I had succeeded in my goal of creating a promotional music video that appealed to people in my demographic and kept audiences enthralled and entertained. J