Question 1. In what ways does
your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real
media products?
This year I decided to embark upon making a music video for
my media portfolio. Major media technologies that I used in platforming my
music video was YouTube. By platforming my music video onto YouTube it made me
treat my music video professionally. For example, many signed professional
artists broadcast their music video in order to reach a wider audience. A
strength in using YouTube to platform is that it would reach a wider audience
and people could comment their own opinion as YouTube provides a comment
section underneath the video. However by using YouTube it came with its own
disadvantages. For example, at one point my video couldn’t been seen on mobile
devices which is something I didn’t like. In order to reach various audiences
it needed to be able to stream on all devices. The mobile phone market is
monopolised by teenagers who my video attempts to appeal to. With that they are
mostly on their phones listening to music and watching videos; if the video
doesn’t stream onto mobile devices, I would have isolated a major audience.
However that minor problem was sorted through the settings and is now able to
stream onto phones. To platform my ancillary tasks I simply used blogger.
Blogger has millions of users and is also open to the public so my audience
would be limitless. I created a 6 panel digipak alongside a magazine advert to
advertise the digipak. By platforming my ancillary tasks on blogger it gives me
access like YouTube to a wide audience. Again like YouTube it has its own
comment section so that I can receive commentary from many people. However when
using blogger the quality of my ancillary suffered and looked poor compared to
the original picture. To resolve this problem I went back and improved the
quality of my pictures and reposted them. Overall the platforms I used to
broadcast my finished media products where quite good. Blogger and YouTube
being very popular amongst the public it allows my product to receive a lot of
feedback and allows people to have easy access to them.
The genre I wanted to tackle through my music video was
R&B. Rhythm and Blues conventions revolve around male superiority through 3
concepts; money, women and possessions. To demonstrate these concepts I have
three case studies which display these.
Women: Snoop Dogg ft. Pharrell Williams – Beautiful.
This song demonstrates the sexualisation in females R&B
music videos. In the opening sequence you see the first example. When first
seeing the artists he is pictured sitting in a lounge chair whilst a half-naked
women is braiding his hair. This suggests that she is either is ‘main chick.’
Or just one of his groupies.
When you see the supporting artist he is pictured with a
different female. Unknown what see is actually wearing you can see that she is
a pretty girl which entices the male audience through male gaze. The male gaze
being a concept from the feminist film critic Laura Mulvey. Referring to the
way the visual arts are structured around a masculine viewer. Describing the
tendency in visual culture to depict the world and women from a masculine point
of view and in terms of men’s attitude. To summaries the female was only placed
there to gather more attention from male viewers and make them men in the video
look irresistible.
The next shot you see is of two girls walking on the beach
different from the two pervious girls already seen. Both dressed in bikinis it
does coincide with the fact that they are on the beach. However by using
different girls to the ones we previously saw suggests that these men have
different women in their arsenal. Referring to phrase of quantity is better
than quality in this video.
A group of women are all lined up sitting on the beach in
their bikini’s admiring the supporting singer. Suggesting that all women want a
man who is successful musically.
Even when playing sports the females are seen to be playing
them in their bikinis. For example a women headers the ball in her bikini.
A common theme seen in this video is that throughout the
video the women are seen to be half-naked or in bikinis but when looking at
what the men are wearing they are fully clothed apart from when on the beach.
Suggesting that these women are only desirable when half naked.
Possessions: Sisqo – Incomplete.
Even though this is a break-up song throughout the music
video Sisqo constantly refers to everything that he has or has access to. For
example in the first line, Bright lights, fancy restaurants, Everything
in this world that a man could want, Got a
bank account bigger than the law should allow, Still I'm lonely now. Suggesting that even though he has all of this at
his mercy that it doesn’t equate to the love of a good woman.
In the chorus of this song Sisqo perfectly demonstrates my
point above. As seen in his lyrics here,
‘Even
though it seems I have everything, I don't wanna be a lonely fool,
All of the women, all the expensive cars,
All of the money don't amount to you, I can make believe I have everything, But I can't pretend that I don't see, That without you girl my life is incomplete, Oh yeah that without you girl ahh.’ Somewhat proving that this is what
R&B revolves around.
In the opening sequence to the song they are including shots
which highlights expensive possessions. For example silver chain and gold
watch. This is done throughout the video showing expensive clothes fortune
estates and even owning a white tiger.
Money: The Notorious B.I.G. – Mo Money Mo Problems.
The song released posthumously in homage to Notorious B.I.G.
is all about the burden of having money after success even with the chorus
lyrics being. ‘I don’t know what they want from me, it’s like the more money we
come across, the more problems we see.’ Suggesting that when you become
financially successful in the music world that is your biggest problem.
In the ending scenes of the song money is put in a dome let
to fly about once the men walk away. Suggesting that money means nothing
because they have more anyway.
Even a little speech interlude from the late rapper Biggie
Smalls. ‘That’s real yo. I ain’t exaggerating at all man. The more money you
make the more problems you get, and jealousy and envy is something that comes
with the territory man. A lot of people it’s just negative energy like my man
puff say.’
To summarise this is the depiction of R&B whether it be
male or female as I have clearly shown above.
R&B music videos particularly likes to focus mainly on
the artists unlike some genres such as metal. I made a decision to make sure
that my artist was the main focal even up to the point of using her leading man
more like an glorified accessory reversing Laura Mulvey male gaze theory.
Technically I followed the similar conventions as you can see in the reference
to the music videos above it is most mid shots featured in R&B; which I
decided to followed in my music video.
With my music video I set out with the intentions of challenging
preconceived notions of R&B. R&B is a genre which is dominant by black
artists particularly being men and the three previous stated concepts. In black
media women of a darker skin tone aren’t normally celebrated for their beauty.
Also whenever a black female artist features a love interest he is normally
black. Or if he is white the relationship isn’t portrayed positively. As seen
in Alicia Keys’ Unthinkable. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhuGQUZJot8)
so I decided to use my video to challenge the concept of beauty on dark skin
black women by casting a beautiful with dark skin. I also used a white leading
male to challenge the ideas that interracial relationships cause trouble.
When showing my final product to an audience they seemed
very surprised when they saw that the leading man was white. Showing me that my
idea to shock people with juxtaposition from R&B concepts seemed very
successful. Even breaking stereotypes in my ancillary task. Challenging the
stereotype of black people not liking nature. My advertisement poster featured
my main artist in field. My mission was to break any stereotype when it came to
black people in the media and in R&B. By portray her as intelligent through
her use of glasses, emotional through her documenting her day through her diary
and caring through the affection she shows to her love interest.
My musical inspiration was Jhene Aiko particularly her song
‘Bed Peace.’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoIpx1ZxFeM)
through the idea of self-love in order to love another. Aiko’s vibe is what I
really wanted to emulate. Which I believe I did so successfully. Aiko is known
for breaking boundaries in R&B by going against the grain. Again something
that I wanted to do and I believe that I did so successfully.
Question 2. How effective is the combination of your main task and ancillary products?
Question 3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Part 1
4. How did you use
new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and
evaluation stages?
During my A2
year, I used many different media technologies throughout completing my media assignments.
I used a number of media software and platforms to help me in my research
planning, construction and evaluation.
Research
During the
research stages of my project the main media platform I used was YouTube. Being
one of the biggest media outlets it was not to use it. Being one of the media
technologies I used to assist me during my research for my music video. I used
YouTube initially to look up songs I could use for my main task for my media
portfolio. Later used it to research music video’s which I wanted to emulate. I
feel as if it was a good technology use as there was an infinite amount of song
to choose from and use. This is because YouTube allow people with access to the
internet stream songs. Also you don’t need an account in order to access them.
Its available to all. Besides listening and watching music videos, YouTube also
allowed me to view previous student made music video’s which I gained
inspiration from. This was really good in making come conclusive choices in how
to go about my main task and producing a final product. So to summarise YouTube
was a highly effective piece of technology to help me with my research. It
quickly helped me get started on giving me ideas generated from watching
previous A2 students work and other music video’s particularly Jhene Aiko’s
‘Bed Peace.’ Which I generated at lot of inspiration from. This gave me a lot
of choice when it same to picking a music genre and the content I could put I
the final music video. However as effective as YouTube was it did come with its
cons due to where it can be accessed and what I had access to. For example,
when doing research at home I couldn’t access certain videos on my phone.
However, that wasn’t a major problem as I had access to a laptop so it was just
a matter of switching devices. Another problem arose simply due to the country
I was in due to certain laws in America that didn’t apply in the UK I was
unable again to access certain videos. Perhaps due to the content. This
obviously created barriers and limited the technology due to not being able to
access all the videos. However, I simply looked to other media technologies
which you will see in the next paragraph which allowed me to just listen to
music. Apart from these problems these little problems that arose there wasn’t many
negative aspects that caused any issues on this piece of technology.
Another
technology which I used during my research was SoundCloud. SoundCloud is media
platform like YouTube allows people to stream their music and share it anywhere
online including social media. People can record and upload the own music to
SoundCloud making it accessible to public; allowing people to easily share them
on to social sites. For example, Facebook, Twitter and Blogger. It allows
people to easily share their music. Like YouTube SoundCloud was used to
research different music that I could use. Sound Cloud was a very useful tool
when I played around with the idea of using unknown or unsigned artist. This is
where I discovered the song that I used Tink ‘I Like.’ I preferred using
SoundCloud to YouTube because even though it didn’t provide any visuals like
YouTube did it did allow me to see easily and quickly other music that, that
artist had done or similar to those. Allowing me to view songs of similar
calibre. Which makes it easier to look through songs and explore similar songs
that you may not have discover on my own. Through SoundCloud I was able to
create an account (already had an existing account) to form a playlist which is
uploaded below of all of the songs I considered using for my media portfolio.
Disadvantages of using SoundCloud is that I was unable to see videos as they
only streamed sound so I could gain no visual inspiration. However, that was an
easy fix as I could simply search them on YouTube.
The most
useful media technology that I benefitted from was internet explorer via google
chrome. This was the base of every application I used for research. There was a
vast range of things that I was able to research on many different devices. By
using Google Chrome, I was able to do research into institution that helped
with making a distributing music videos even based on genre. For example, how
Def Jam works with R&B and Rap artists. Looking these institutions made it
easier giving me many choices to choose which ones I gain inspiration from.
Evolving in me then making my own.
The internet
was also a great help during research on outfits. For example, I did a blog
post based on the evolution of outfits in R&B. Getting many pictures on
Google Images.
Also I
researched lyrics where some website explained what the lyrics meant. This was
a useful aspect of the website making sense of my chosen song. It helped me
gain more knowledge and allowed me to see how I could tackle the song and
construct my final product.
Planning
In the
planning stages I had to think of a name for my album cover. Originally I was
just brainstorming names to myself. However, when having to come to a
conclusion I found myself writing up a work document and having people vote on
the best name. I felt as if I had to do this because my main task had to appeal
to my audience. With the result being ‘No Evil.’
I felt as if
by opening it up to the audience through survey would be very helpful as it is
something for the audience. So why not have them pick the name? By the audience
picking the name they relatively picked the theme. So I applied the ‘No Evil.’
Theme to the rest of the digipak in order to create synergy. This made it stand
out in very intense way. By using a phrase that everyone is familiar with in a
different way. By figuring out a name this way I feel as if it had given my
digipak a mysterious essence.
The media
technologies that I used in creating the plot for my story was Microsoft word.
I displayed it to my peers using this platform as it was very easy and
accessible. I then displayed them on blogger. By first using Microsoft word it
was easily transferable to blogger, which is open for the public to see making
it easy for my teacher to mark it.
When it came
to organising my cast I used texting and social media. For example, Facebook.
It was a good method of communication. However, it did have it drawbacks as
some people could choose whether or not to reply but that wasn’t really a big
issue.
By using the
internet during the planning stages was an overall success with minimal
setbacks. With that being that if I didn’t have any internet connection I
wouldn’t have been able to contact my cast, I wouldn’t have access to email
etc. however, this wasn’t a major issue for me.
Most media
technologies that I used involved me using internet which was very important in
my finished product and without not much progress would have been made.
Construction.
For the
construction of my finished product and ancillary tasks I mostly used
computers, Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro and cameras. However, during filming I
used object such as mobile phones for lighting using the torch. As some scenes
where had poor lighting. Mobile phones were also useful when it came to lip-syncing.
For example, I played the song during the scenes that the lyrics fell in
helping the actress sync correctly and it also helped me during editing.
Something as trivial as mobile phones helped me so much during filming and
communication between myself and my cast.
In
conclusion, without the support of the mobile phones some problems may have
arisen which could have led to filming delays.
In the
construction of my music video I required a quite a few pieces of media
technology from my school in order to create my music video and edit it to a
high standard. One technology that was a necessity was the filming camera. The
model I used for it was Panasonic HC-V500 along with a tripod for support. The
camera helped me put immensely was a fundamental part in creating my video. The
camera in itself was a HD camera and was very advanced this seriously helped
improve my footage. I feel as of that camera was a major benefit to the
construction of my final product as this was a step up from the camera I used during
my AS level. It provided better quality giving my music video a nice
professional look. Overall I believe that I operated the camera without any
problems. The camera was supported well with the tripod making shots very
steady making it look more professional. However I did find that whenever I was
filming looking back at the shots they didn’t fit the way that I wanted it. So
to improve that I could have filmed everything several time and use various
shots that differed from my original plan.
Another piece
of software I used to make my advance portfolio was Photoshop. I used it to make
my advertisements and digipak. Adobe Photoshop is an application made by Thomas
and John Knoll in 1988. It allows users to edit images and was a key necessity
in constructing my digipak. Using it to transform my images by turning them
black and white to suit the mysterious theme. The software I used is also is
used by professional. Showing me that this is a trustable and recommended
software to use for editing. Being a novice to Photoshop did mean I struggled a
lot. A very challenging part of my construction although the images I picture
were simple to create I still found it quite practically. I decided to look at
tutorials in order to make my images better, having successfully learnt how to
use Photoshop I endeavoured on creating my images. Gathering inspiration from
TLC’s CrazySexyCool album.
To summarise
using Photoshop was good in a sense. That being because it was a professional
application it was really advance way past my comprehension so I didn’t know
correctly how to use it. However in watching tutorials online it made me very
confident in using the software.
When I had
finished editing the pictures I imported them onto PowerPoint a simple but
useful piece of software to add text on my digipak. By putting it on to
PowerPoint it allowed me to also to add features which made the digipak seem
more real. For example the barcode and parental advisory sign. This made my
advanced portfolio seem genuine.
For question
three in my evaluation, I had used YouTube to broadcast my music video to an
audience of different ages and backgrounds and record the reactions it via
camera. This allowed me to quickly record answers given to me by audience. I
felt as if this was a very effective way of answering that question as I can
quickly record various people’s answers in one sitting. Also it’s a good visual
answer. However I did feel that answering the question in this form seemed
quite redundant as I still had to write paragraph’s summarising what I had
learnt. Perhaps to change this I would answer everything via questionnaire
through survey monkey. Survey monkey is a website that allows you to generate
your own questionnaires and provides you a URL for people to be able to share
it. So that would allow my audience to be quite big but I wouldn’t know there
backgrounds without including questions that directly ask them.
Overall this
method was very useful in terms of it serving its purpose, helping me to answer
my evaluation question. It didn’t bring about many problems and seemed very
practical to use. I was able to gain first impression reactions and me being
able to put in my own input.
In platforming my
evaluation for my media project I felt as if I should use blogger. Blogger is a
very good technological platform giving you a variety of how you can present
work. For example videos and pictures. It’s such a versatile piece technology.
When posting on blogger I found that the text I could use was limitless. This
is really good for my evaluation as I can thoroughly explain my process through
my evaluation. Blogger allows me to structure my work the way I want to. Very
similar to Microsoft Word. It also allows me to use various media outlets to
platform my work through images and videos like I previously mentioned. It also
allows me to provide links to website which may have helped me during this
process. Making my working look neater instead of just regurgitating
information from that website. Blogger also provides a comment section this allows
the general public access to feedback on the content which I had provided.
Giving advice on how to improve my work.
However, unlike other
platforms the text content can only be formatted in limited ways. For example,
like I said previously its very similar to Microsoft Word however I couldn’t
put information in tables, I couldn’t mind map information showing innovation behind
any ideas I had. Making my blog quite blog bland and just similar to everyone
else.
To conclude every
technology that I used throughout my evaluation seemed very successful, however
it just seemed very basic. To improve on it next time I would probably use
information that’s more innovative.
