Music Video Evaluation Tasks

The questions that must be addressed in the evaluation are: 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and

conventions of real media products?2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research,

planning and evaluation stages?NOTE: You could do a filmed group presentation, embedded in your blog, for one or

two questions (if you want to do it for question 1, you still need your 9 frame selection) instead of the suggested activity for that question. If you have a different idea for any of the evaluation activities 2-4, please discuss it with one of us first; we will be happy to let you go ahead if we feel that it will still allow you to get as many

marks as possible. Some past students have created a video covering all 4 questions.

Evaluation Activity 1:1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. music videos)

For this task, you will do something very similar to the film opening; take nine frames from your video and put them into a grid. The nine frames need to represent the following features of your music video:

1. a shot that shows a link between lyrics and/or music and visuals2. a shot that typifies the way a record company would want their artist to be represented3. a shot that illustrates how your video uses music genre4. a shot that shows an intertextual reference5. a shot that demonstrates your use of camera6. a shot that demonstrates your use of lighting7. a shot that demonstrates your use of mise-en-scene8/9. Two shots which you feel demonstrate something which shows you have watched other music videos

For each of these nine shots, write a couple of sentences explaining how they fit the brief here.You then need to take screengrabs from other (real) music videos and construct a second nine frame grid which you will use in parallel to your one on your blog. There must be at least THREE music videos which you have grabbed from.Again for each of the nine frames, write a couple of sentences about how they meet the brief. Similarly, take the panes of your digipak and set them alongside images from other album covers to show similarities - take your advert and set it alongside an advert to show how you have used conventions. (screengrab of your website if that is the option you’ve chosen) In each case, you will need to annotate your work.

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Name:

This task is to be done individually.

Additionally, complete the analysis of your video using the two-sided sheet with writing frames, one referring to Goodwin, the other to Vernallis.Student’s example:

a/ 'In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?' (Part Two)

*Click on the image to enlarge*

1: This image (taken in the bar scene) shows our main character stealing some vodka from the bar. This section is accompanied by lyrics saying 'stole some vodka, took a swig'. Showing that we have related our narrative to the song. This happens quite a lot in the song and video, however none of them are as synchronised as this.

2: This image typifies the way the record company would want their artist to be presented as it depicts the band standing on a stage in front of a seemingly large crowd of cheering fans. Making the band seem loved and popular.

3: This is a shot of Becky dressing up in an 'emo' style. This is a clear representation of genre, as emo is one of the largest groups of fashion around. This also correlates to the song name being 'Slits on Your Wrists' as self harm is a trait often associated with the emo style.

4: The bathroom scene in music video is a very common affair. For example the music video for Bowling For Soup's song Emily revolves around this sort of venue style toilet. And also this bathroom reminded us loosely of the one used in the film the Shining (that was also recreated in the film Charlie's Angels).

5: The camera styles we use (mostly in our live show footage) are often 'up-close and personal' to the band. They show the band and the bands' equipment closely and in detail whilst always maintaining a hectic moving theme to make the video seem more lively. This shot perfectly shows the combination of stylistic lighting and equipment shots we have tried to integrate into our video.

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6: This shot shows our use of lighting in the video. Our most prominent lighting design was in the live show. We sent a clear email to the lighting staff at the junction describing what it was that we wanted. I think it turned out really well. At one point we also had a strobe light which worked really well with the video but I couldn't capture a picture of the strobe effect.7: This shot not only shows our location, but character and clothing mise-en-scene. It shows the girls dress, the Junction and her make-up and hair.

8: This shot I got the idea from from watching other music videos. I liked the idea of the characters in the background and an inanimate object occupying some of the foreground. I think it makes the shot more interesting, as well as more stylised. 

9. Before we filmed our music video I was watching a video for the live performance of the singer José González' song Heartbeats. I noticed that it looked very effecting because it used several close up shots of the equipment (such as the microphone and the guitar) and the singers face. I tried to recreate some of this style when filming, and this shot is the result.

b/ Here are the nine key frames that we took from other music videos.

This is a selection of 9 key frames from selected music videos. *Click to enlarge the image*

1: This is a shot of the music video for ''White and Nerdy" by Weird Al Yankovich, we chose the shot because at this point in the video the character is riding a segway and the lyrics are "They see me roll on, my segway". Clearly with the video referencing the song.

2: Is a shot from Chamillionairre's "ridin' dirty'', This shot tipifies the way the record label want to portray the artist because hes a gangsta with a big chunky chain infront of bright lights making him seem very important and powerfull.

3: Shot 3 is of My Chemical Romance's song ''Welcome to the black parade'' it illustrates the typical 'Emo' genre that MCR are commonly put into by having everyone dressed up in alot of black with pale make up etc.

4: The 4th shot is from another Weird Al Yankovich song called ''Fat'' the song is a mock of the micheal jackson song ''Bad'' and there for has extensive intertextual refrences to micheal jackson and his style etc. The video is a literal copy of Jackson's video but with altered lyrics and characters, it is a parody.

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5: This screen shot shows a good use of camera technique by framing the crowd half brilliantly with the artist silhouetted in front. The way it is framed makes the performing artist   This shot also uses lighting to create the desired effect.

6: Has a good effect of lighting by making the outside in total darkness and only lighting the center where the dancers are, much like the effect we attempted to have in our video, the lighting is also selective, giving each 'sound' a different light.

7: Demonstrates a clear use of mise-en-scene by putting each group of dancers in a different costume, these different dancers represent a different sound and rhythm in the song.

8: This is a shot of the Black Eyed Peas video for their song 'Boom Boom Pow'. I think that it relates to our video well as we have our lead singer Rosie dancing in a similar abstract style in front of a completely white background, which relates to this singer standing in front of a background that's completely green and black.

9: At this point in the video I took this screen shot as the song quotes Daft Punks' lyrics ''Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger'' as well as the dancers in the background are dancing in relation to the sounds and beat like in Around The World, also by Daft Punk.

Example student 2:In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products ?

I created my nine frame grid in photo shop

Two shots which you feel demonstrate something which shows you have watched other music videos

I watched this music video that was aimed at young teenagers which included a young male teen on a seat singing changing costumes. I thought it was really effective and looked really interesting and kept me entertained. Also he changed his costume to the beat which looked really well planned and

edited, So the shots of Yasmin changing costume in the music room to the beat in 1234 relates to this music video I watched. This shot relates to a lot of band type music video where they are performing on stage and sing right in front of the camera projecting their voice and self expression clearly. This is

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effective and for this type of music video it helps to relate to the music genre because it sets an edgy atmosphere to the viewer. Although as for 1234 is a different type of song genre we was not intending to perform edgy singing in front of the camera, we thought it would look effective because it identifies the importance of 1234 lyrics in front of the camera.

A shot that demonstrates your use of mise-en-scene

In this shot it shows the costume and background props and location, it shows the audience that our music video is simplistic but entertaining and interesting to view even though we have not planned to adapt more to the location with more props.

A shot that demonstrates your use of lighting

This shot shows the lighting we set up, the shot shows Yasmin in a spot light and centre of attention, because she is representing 'Feist' so it displays the importance of 'Yasmin' being shown more than others. Everyone is lit up and around them it is more shadowed to make it look more like it is full of people.

A shot that demonstrates your use of camera

This shot in the music video demonstrates good use of camera work because it was planned to be taken in fast movement and unsteady swaying towards Rob the guitar playing starting from the ground working the camera up to Rob. When we watched the footage of this clip it look really effective and thin it is one of the most interesting shots we have demonstrated in the music video.

A shot that shows an intertextual reference

This shot relates to Newton Faulkner 'to the Light music video where he performs in a field just him and his guitar. So this shot is very similar to Rob playing and fading Rob playing on the guitar with shots of Yasmin, this relates to the shots where Newton Faulkner is playing and being faded into other shots in the background.

A shot that illustrates how your video uses music genre

This shot helps to illustrate the music genre because of Rob our actor playing the guitar and that instrument is clearly identified in 1234 song. Also our actor is young and

in teenage years and 'Feist' is appealing to teens with all her crowd shots of people dancing in the 1234 song music video 'Feist' is in so this helps to set a example of the type of music genre and audience.

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A shot that typifies the way a record company would want their artist to be represented

This shot represents how a record company would want to project their artist 'Feist' and her music because this shot focuses on herself and the background is blurred which takes the importance of the actors from the viewers eyes and draws more attention to her being important role of the scene, also 1234 is a upbeat song and the party scene I have took the shot from helps to associate the artist with her music and social life.

A shot that shows a link between lyrics and/or music and visuals

This image shows clearly Yasmin in a music room location lip syncing to 1234, the piano and drum kit within the room shows the types of instruments used in the 1234 song by 'Feist' which helps to set atmosphere. And the costume shots that show Yasmins feet and odd socks which are bright and colourful which adds to the beat and positive tone of the music.

Question 1 Part 2 Here is my nine frame grid for all the music video shots listed below:

Two shots which you feel demonstrate something which shows you have watched other music videos

These two shots are from the music video 'We Have Band' (You came out) which surrounds close ups of peoples faces in make up it is a animated music video, I like the stye because it is creative also I view it as video art, It also

relates to my groups music video with the colour changes of costume but in this they change the colour of their make-up wit animation, we used the stop motion effect for our music video setting it in just one frame and having Yasmin move around in different costumes, like this music video from the video how they made it they have one setting and one position with mirrors that reflect peoples faces and edit between their movements and snap shots taken.

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This shot from 'Bjork' 'All is Full of Love' is a close -up of a female robot also the intertextual reference to the music video 'We have Band' ('you came out') is similar because they use close ups of people with face paint and mirror reflections.

This shot from Newton Faulkner music Video 'To the Light' relates to the visuals and music genre, the fact that in most of the shots in this music video is seen as Newton playing his guitar that creates this beautiful harmonic music helps to represent his music genre also. So it would be a recognizable association the audience would instantly make.

In this shot from 'Lily Allen' (The fear) music video Lily is walking towards the camera and there is paint spraying in different colours as soon as she walks pass. It looks really interesting and reminds me of video art, I think that this shot would be away of a record company representing Lily because she is upbeat singer who has magical colours released behind her as she walks with a building behind which projects to me as a 'palace' (so this princess symbol)

In Sigur Ros music video Svefn-g-englar they use a location with people dancing in a field passionately, also there are a few close up shots like this of actors alone dancing in front of the camera projecting their angelic features the lighting really sets the feel and effect to this planned shot.

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The music video 'Bat for Lashes' (Daniel) uses mise en scene in this shot the location is simple and contains a lot of props that are displayed to set character to the music video. her costume stands out in the music video as she wears red and everyone else wear's black costumes to convey shadows around her.

Representation of music/lyrics/music genre.

This shot of a brick wall is taken from Pink Floyd music video 'Another Brick In The Wall' the song titles represents the visuals and the lyrics, and the music genre because it is set in old fashioned way and uses old fashioned locations and train tunnels.

1. The Use of camera work in the sigur ros - Svefn-g-englar music video is very detailed and creates the illusion that the watching audience are apart of the performance. The camera uses slow motion and gently pans around the dancers in the field. It sets atmosphere and helps add to the music genre.

Self-Assessment / Peer-Assessment / Teacher’s comment: Date:

Evaluation Activity 2 : How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

For this task, we want you to take your finished video and grab some stills from it and put them on a document alongside grabs from your digipack and advert /website and to annotate the document to show how they all go together. This should be done in lesson time and may be done as a group.

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Example student 1:

Example student 2:

Example 3:

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Below are some screen grabs from our music video and my digipak/ poster.

The comparison in this shot is that the performer is sitting alone in a white room, near a window letting in lots of light. In the digipak the performer is also sitting alone, looking out of the window. In the music video this shot goes into a memory scene. Therefore these two shots link because they both show the performer sitting alone reminiscing old memories.

The comparison between these shots is that they both feature the "faded" effect. The both also show the performer sitting alone, but they have other images within, for example the music video has the image of the performer and a boy sitting together, and the digipak has the images of textures and dressing table bits. The faded effect really does add something extra to these shots.

The comparison between these shots is that they both have the happy emotion behind them. They both have the close up of the face showing the whole emotion of the smile and happiness.

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This shot is a really simple connection - the tree silhouette. I've linked these because the of the strong outlines of the tree's branches against the pale skies. The effectiveness makes the comparison strong and memorable.

This is also another simple comparison, which is the outfit. The white dress, with the Andy Warhol Campbells soup can print, features in both and they are really strong against the pale white background, and make the poster and music video stand out.

The reason for this last screen grab is that the whole atmosphere is happy. The happy theme runs throughout the whole music video and digipak/poster. I made a lot of memories during this project, therefore the memory theme is also another key element that features through this entire project.

Self-Assessment / Peer-Assessment / Teacher’s comment: Date:

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Evaluation Activity 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

For this task, we want you to consider four stages of feedback:1. class and teacher feedback on your initial treatment2. rough cut- class feedback and teacher feedback3. class feedback on your digipack roughs4. final version of everything- class feedback and feedback from anyone else

For 1. You need to have a paragraph which notes what people said at that stage and illustrates changes you madefor 2. You need a paragraph about what the class said and what you changed as a consequence- with screengrabs/examples from planning or storyboard / shotlist to illustratefor 3. you need a paragraph on what was said and grabs of your sketches/ early drafts (even if already on the blog, link to them)for 4. again note down any responses you get. This task may be done as a group.Examples:

I remember being really pleased with this feedback for our initial idea for 1,2,3,4. Looking back on this it made me think of how we stuck to our original idea, but simplified it. I think we took all of their concerns (bottom) on board and tried to to answer their questions. I think that the simplicity of our idea made it a lot more easy for the audience to believe and give us clear feedback.

The feedback for our rough cut was exactly how we wanted the audience to react. They all felt really happy, and understood the concept. We knew that the video wasn't what we

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wanted so the improvements were fair because we needed to re-lipsync certain parts, and some parts were held for too long etc, but it was nice to have reassurance of what needs to be improved.

The digipak feedback was also reassuring because I was proud of what I'd accomplished but I liked that the audience understood the link between the font and the paper effect. Also they all appreciated the digipak which they would be the target audience for.

This feedback was a nice surprise. I'm still glad that everyone understood the concept and also that the comments made keep improving, because everyone seemed to appreciate the rough cut, and they seemed to like the video even more. I didn't realise that the lipsync was a bit off, and if we had more time I'd obviously go back and improve this. We converted our mp3 to an avi file because we'd gotten use to the "popping" sound that the audience had picked up on, therefore that's probably why our lip sync is slightly out. We didn't realise that some shots are too long, because we were editing to the beat and syllables (in the verses). Overall I'm over the moon with the feedback that our final video has received.

This feedback is fair. However I have to argue against some of the points. I have to disagree with the similarity to the music videos. The official 1234 video is filmed in one continuous shot, with dancers in colourful outfits, performing a dance routine including the performer, who is in a blue sequin jumpsuit. The only similarities between these videos is the fact that both performers have brown hair, and are wearing blue. In the sesame street version the only similarities are the fact that at one point there are six people who sing and wave the heads like in

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our video. Maybe the main similarity is the happy atmosphere between both videos. However the points are appreciated and I do take every criticism on board.

This feedback made me very happy. It was completely out of the blue after I posted my music video on my personal blog and asked for people to watch it, and to "feel free to give feedback". I don't really talk to Sam about my media work, so for him to tell me that he understood the happy theme and it made me smile, made me feel like the concept was accomplished and to make people feel happy is a great feeling. He also saw the lipsync out of time, so I was expecting that comment.Overall I think we took on board all of our feedback and tried to make it fit around everyone - I am extremely pleased.

Self-Assessment / Peer-Assessment / Teacher’s comment: Date:

Evaluation Activity 4: 'How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

This is similar to the suggested film opening task: have a photo of each person with the technology used and a screengrab of each website/program used as part of the project: Facebook, MySpace, Blogger, YouTube, Final cut, etc

Put it together and annotate it in Photoshop then upload to your blog. Focus on how technologies fostered your creativity and give specific examples of what the technologies have allowed you to do, particularly as you became more proficient.

This task must be done individually.

If you are feeling up to it, construct a Prezi for one of the tasks. A good Prezi has a strong chance of top marks.

Example 1:

Here is an image I made on Photoshop showing all the physical and digital equipment we used. This includes an HD camera, a Mac G5

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computer (along with a mouse, keyboard and screen) with the programs Final Cut Express, After Effects and Photoshop on it. These pieces of software and hardware have influenced our project very heavily. Using these we were able to create lots of effects such as editing the blue screen footage, and cutting the clips (which allows us to cut to the beat and use different sections of footage whenever we wished to). If technology were not so advanced we would be met with a series of problems such as:

- The special effects in our video from After Effects could not exist, there would be no such thing as blue screening, colour correction, overlapping effects or typography. As a result of this our video would suffer. We wouldn't have had any of the blue screening, layering or fading effects.

- Without social networking such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo, many of us would not have originally been able to contact the band they wished to make a music video for. Meaning they would have to use a local band, like ours. We would also have had to advertise our music video using posters or leaflets. Producing these would cost money where as advertising online is completely free and is an easy way to quickly communicate with your friends. Being your friends, they would be more likely to partake in helping distribute and making the videos.  For our video, our whole crowd was created by inviting people on Facebook to come.

- If we didn't have Final Cut we would have to use the 'crash editing' technique. You do this by using two tapes and cutting from these instead, completely skipping the use of editing programs which would make life a lot more difficult and would make the video less effective. We would also have to me a lot more selective with our filming, meaning we would miss some of the better footage.

- The HD cameras are also much more effective than the DV cameras. They produce a much higher quality of video improving the overall look. Using DV cameras produces a much more grainy image quality.

- Using websites such as YouTube and Vimeo, we are able to broadcast the things we make to an enormous audience. It stops just being a local audience and immediately becomes viewable worldwide. If these websites didn't exist then we would have to show the video to a media producer/advertiser to get it public in any way. As well as leaflets, posters etc. that I mentioned earlier. Feedback can also be given in the form of YouTube comments and Facebook feedback, rather than us having to show it to an audience and them to log their feedback.

Example 2: Below are the things that we used to create our music videos for this project.

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Below are the programs and websites used in this project.

1- Photoshop: This is where we created our digipaks and also any kind of graphics. This came in handy when we first started the project and created our shapes video. It was really easy to manipulate photos on and piece together our digipaks. 2- Blogger: This is where we wrote all of our posts and homeworks/courseworks. It was really useful for our music video research because you can upload and embed pictures and videos.3- iTunes: Where we uploaded and listened to music from the artist. 4- Facebook: How we kept in contact and also to look at fan pages/ contact the artists.5- Myspace: This is also how we contacted the artist, and listened to their music.6- Google: We used Google to search for other sites.7- Final Cut Express: This is how we edited all of our videos for this project. 8- Flickr: We used this to upload our photos from class and on set; we also uploaded our digipaks and posters onto here.9- Youtube: This is how we researched other music videos.10- Vimeo: This is where all our video work was stored.11- Wikipedia: We found out a lot about the music video history, genres and information about the artists etc.12- Safari: This is how we accessed the internet.13- Creative & Media Music Video Blog: How we accessed our blogs via blogger.14- CRAM website: This is how we accessed the different Long Road links, such as Vimeo, Blogger, YouTube & Flickr.

THEN WRITE ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES AND CREATIVITY.

Self-Assessment / Peer-Assessment / Teacher’s comment: Date:

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