How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Throughout our project media technologies have been extremley important in helping us to develop our ideas and to create what we wanted to achieve. The blog format has been very useful because we have been able to keep track of the rearch we have made and to evaluate out ideas. It has helped to keep our work in organised state so that we can keep refering back to points that we have made and then devloping things from there. Furthermore this format allows us to copy in pictures, videos and screen grabs to link all our ideas together. It does have some weaknesses in the way that we can only use a digita tetxt and stops us from showing skills through texture and the written form, however images and text can be scanned in to the blog and pasted in. It did allow us to conduct our planning and research more effectivley because it keeps it organised, it also helped greatly with our textual analysis because we were able to click back to the you tube video with just one click. As shown below we were also able to create our own you tube page which allowed us to upload our videos at different stages of the editing process and aqquire added audience feedback. This was hugely valuable because it meant we were able to use another technology making the process easier and more professional. Click to access our you tube page. The internet is a very valuable resource for us in our research stages because we can look at and analyse videos on youtube or look at album covers on google. It means that we can access any information that we want. We have also been able to look at statistics and websites to increase our knowledge of music videos. The internet has also allowed us to create our own youtube site which we have uploade videos, giving us another way og gaining audience feedback. The editing and filming stages of our process have been made much easier by the software we have been able to access. The final cut express software on the Mac computers is very easy to use yet we have been able to experiment and achieve some really effectove results. This has meant that we have no limit to the ideas we can process into actual work. The video equipment is also simple and easy to use and we have experimented with thye tripods to achieve a range of shots and angles. The software has then meant that even with a low quality range of footage we were able to develop it and edit it to achive amazing results. Final cut express and imovie have allowed us to upload videos with a click of a button and change their format so that they can be uploaded too. We have found final cut easy to use and having npot used this program before we picked it up easily and have been able to play around with techniques to achieve amazing results. The process of using these technologies was quite easy to use and once we were accustomed to it it was quite straight foward. We also used th internet to find out how to create certain effects and make the video the highest quality we could.

Final cut allowed us to create a range of techniques and be adventurous in what results we could achieve. One of the main things that we had decided in the planning stages of creating the video was that we wanted to edit some shots by changing the colour to give them red and pink tones, we felt this would emphasise the femininity and desire of the woman, reinforcing the idea of the main character being a prostitute. As the picture below shows we achieved this quite well and it gave the shot an aged look. This along with some sepia camera effects made the video have a variety and keep the viewer interested. When planning the video we knew that although we wanted a narrative we wanted the audience to create a narrative for themselves. By using certain techniques and editing it enhanced their ideas and reinforced what they already think about the girl and about what is happening to her.


We had also decided that we wanted to give the video quite an abstract, arty edge to it to give an interest and to allow us to play around with the techniques and effects we could achieve. We used a spiral/kaleidoscope effect on this sequence, it shows how her life is spiraling out of control.

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

The colours we chose to emphasise in our video are reds and pinky tones, this was also present in our ancilary tasks of red and pink to make it a common occurance and also to make sure they were correctly related. The effects of the red and pinky tones were so that the audience would make a relation between this and could start to decode the meaning of the video, without seeing it. Red represents lust, sex, danger, and also has relation to the red light district (our actress is a prostitute), and the tradition of a prostitute having a red light on in her room. The colour pink is used to emphasise romance, love, feeling, and femininity, which emphasises the other part of our video, as she is in a dream. These colours are present in all of our ancillary tasks, and are the main emphasis of our products in concern of colours: This then helps to add to the brand identity of our products. 

The images used in our advert were screen shots of the music video as an unfinished product, as we wanted to put something more into our video, without giving too much away in our ancillary tasks, so therefore we chose to leave the last bit of filming out. The image used in our cd cover was also taken whilst filming our first part of the music video. This means that in concern of images, they are all correlated. The types of fonts we decided to use were on the fireworks program, as we found that finding a font from the internet that would match which we wanted, which would be to be simple and classic, was very difficult to cut out the background and insert it, especially when we had alot of writing to place on the CD cover in loads of different places. Therefore we came to a group decision of a classic font which we thought suited the choice of song and the label we wanted to create for it. This font was then used on the advert and also the CD cover/digipak. This was to ensure that they matched eachother in concern of the style we chose.

The brand identity we as a team beleive we have created for our pieces is artistic, as they match our artistic needs and our expectations. We made sure we were able to use some of our artistic skills, and make it classy and edgy aswell as being contraversial, outlining a different subject to most music videos. (we wanted ours to be a little like this, in concern of style, but less in your face) This would mean our intended effect would be to match the song with the ancillary products and also main product, in concern of the mood they set and the meanings that they represent, using the colours and fonts this was how we did it, also interlinking pictures from our video so that the audience is aware of the main character and it being about her life.

The package as a whole has the same font, colour scheme and stylised layouts, so it could be said that they all interlink with eachother and match eachother's profiles. The target audience would be one of which is interested in alternative music, and has similar a similar interest in art. The age can vary depending on how each audience decodes the meaning of the products, for example, some (such as younger people) may have a sympathetic view on our character, whereas an older audience may feel as though she is to blame for her ways, but this is due to individual differences and people will claim from the products what they please, and may have our intended effect, or may rebel against this. The products would be placed in upcoming and cultural places, such as the cultural capital of Liverpool/ cultural quater of S-O-T, Manchester, London, based around arena's and band venues, which is aimed at the main audience. Adverts could also be seen on websites related to festival/concert/gig searchs. The video would be seen on music channels such as Q, KERRANG!, Scuzz, and others, depending on which audiences like the song best, as recently many indie type musics are being recognised by institutions such as MTV.

In what ways does your media product use, develep or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

At the beginning of our coursework, we wanted to create something that enabled people to make their own assumptions from our media product (the video)

 using their own thoughts and their own experiences. From that, we needed a brief storyline and narrative, in order to not outline it bluntly to our consumers. From this, we also didn't want to make the narrative too clear, so we decided to not make the obvious obvious. Our storyline was a prostitute/escort, who was alone and stuck in a cycle of routine and loneliness. We decided upon this after choosing our song, which was something we both really liked, and were familiar with, also something we beleive that the video didn't match the so

ng aswell as it could have done (click to view video).

Using existing videos and looking at artists that were based in a similar genr

e, we textually analysed them to see what narrative, mise en scene and editing techniques they used. The plain white t's, hey there delilah has a similar song, as it is acoustic, so we anaylsed the video and decided to make our mise-en-scene simmilar, by using simple colours and soft lighting to make things look subtle and to create a calm atmosphere. This can also be seen in Coldplay's video Fix You. Our media product (video) resembles these forms in the ways of mise-en-scene, but also develops them as it uses different sets of mise-en-scenes, as we have 3 different locations, unlike the video listed above, of which one, has one location.

The types of camera work we used enabled us to develop existing ones and also use similar ones that we thought were particulary effective in order to understand our product. Close ups were a common occurance, which meant the audience could clearly see the actress and using Dyer's theory of stereotypes, they will decode the meaning of our music video, understanding then that the actress is a prostitute. The editing we used needed to be similar to that of existing ones, so that the audience was able to decode the meaning of the editing techniques we used. We used a sepia effect :

to show the past tense of a dream, and also made this sharper to make it more outstanding, compared to our other content. We also made an emphasis onto the colour red,

as red represents lust, danger and sex, going with the red light district, and also the tradition of a red light being on in a prostitutes room. This colour red also helps the audience to decode the story of our intended, more than any other colour.

Andrew Goodwin's theory states a number of key features which distinguish the music video as a form. A relationship between the visuals and the lyrics is shown, as the lyrics resemble a lonely person's life, and how it's "not good enough for me, no.", and the visuals show a lonely life of a prostitute, they amplify eachother. The second feature is that genre's ar

e complex and diverse in terms of music video style and iconography, the genre to be decoded needs the audiences' social and cultural experiences, meaning the story may be differently understood by different types of audiences, however, certain aspects such as the costumes and props make emphasis on our main character. For example what the character wears is an icon to what she is. The third aspect is that record companies will demand a lot of close-ups: 

of the main artist or vocalist. However, because we didn't use the artist in our music video, as the song is quite emotional, we beleived it would be extremely cheesy and would label our music video as not artistic and different, this is why we chose to use an actress which had no relevance with the artist himself, as they are totally different. Instead we used close ups on the main character as shown in the picture above, this helps the audience identify her. 

In conclusion, different social and cultural experiences mean that they will decode our storyline and narrative differently to others and therefore the music video will be a different experience for different people. Our choice was that our music video represented the song, but also was quite controversial in concern of social context, as we wanted to create something that people wouldn't be used to seeing, but using editing techniques and such in order for the audience to understand.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback is hugely important to our video because it can help us to improve it to meet the audiences needs. After doing our first inital cut we showed the video to our audience to see what their initial thoughts were and how we needed to change the video. Our first feedback was that the video lacked a narrative and needed to have more of a story to keep them gripped. We then were able to go out and film more footage in a different location to achieve a higher standard of video. We felt that by acquiring audience feedback we were able to analyse what the video was missing and how it could be improved. In general audience feedback is how every media producer survives because it can only improve the video and result in more money being made. 

After devising a questionnaire we were able to find out what effect our video had on a wide audience. We have collated the results so that we can analyse them and see what parts were successful and not. We wanted to ask the audience how successful they thought the overall video was and what feelings they felt towards the girl as well as what they felt she was feeling. We also asked the audience what improvements they would make to the video to make it more successful. 

Overall we found that the audience thought the video portrayed the feeling of being lonley and sad, through the use of only one person. As we have previously stated in our research we wanted the stereotype of a prostitute to be clear to the audience but then because there is a lack of narrative it allows themto build the story for themselves. All the results show that we were successful in creating this stereotype and allowing the audeince to decide why she feels lonley and what she is going through. Our results also show that were successful in our whole editing process and that the techniques we used (adjustment of colour, speed) all added to the mood and mise en scene of the video.

However our results also show that we could make improvements on creating a clearer narrative. We feel this could be because the audience wants to be able to understand her story better. Through our planning stages we had discussed what the narrative would be and how we didn't want it to be too clear to the audience. We wanted to use Barthes action code, in which we expexted the audience to create meaning through the use of clever mise en scene. Also linking to his enigma code in which we wanted the audience to ask questions of the narrative so that they could decide what was going on in the video. This can be seen in videos such as the plain white tees-Hey there delilah.



The costumes and props in the video become hugely important because they create an idea of a stereotype similar to Dyers theory suggesting that stereotypes reinforce the idea that there are big differences between people. This is true for out video becasue the girl is not relateable she is different to many people. However the emotions and the flow of the song make it easier for the audience to understand and empathise with her feelings of abandonment and lonlieness.
The main need that we satisfied within the audience is of the woman being the visual pleasure and resulting in the object of the male gaze. Mulvey suggests that film always produces a woman that is "to be looked at". This is true for our video not only because of the provocative clothing that the main character wears but also because she is the only person in the video it makes sure that the audiences full attention is on only the girl and nothing else. our feedback shows that we were successful in showing this because the audience felt that they understood she was a prositute and that the mise en scene and costumes were successul in guiding their attention to her.

Final Pieces

Here is also a link to out page on you tube and the final piece is also posted onto there too. 

Jose Gonzalez-Heartbeats.

Here is our final cd cover: 

Here is Our Final Advert:

Magazine Advert Analysis

Compared to the rest of our magazine advertisements, this was our shortest and most contrasting. A new and upcoming artist, who has shown her face and name to make sure people will recognise her in the future, as she hasn't already got a reputation in the music industry to the public. The colours are bright and eye catching, in order to stand out and catch the attention. It is still kept simple, so the public doesn't have to take too much into account and be confused as to what the advert is meant to be doing.

The colours used in this advert are quite simple, but as they used the black, it stands out and grabs the reader's attention. The logo is central and controversial, adding to grab the reader's attention. The artist's aren't shown on this advert, which shows the reader that their reputation is already formed, and the reader should already be in acquaintance with them and their music. 

This artist's reputation has already been profound, however, as she is still an upcoming, new artist, she still wants the public to know who she is and what she represents. By showing calm colours and a photo of herself to emphasise her reputation and aura. The colours used are related to the indie music crowd, which Florence and the Machine is a part of. The photo is central which is the first place where the consumer looks, with a bizarre photo, that will grab further attention.