1. In what ways does your

media product use,

develop or challenge forms

and conventions of real

media products?

Music Video

Andrew Goodwin-Dancing in

the distraction factory

A book wrote by Goodwin himself in which he talks about 5 codes and conventions that all music videos have in

common. These elements that are all included are-

1. The demonstration of genre characteristics

2. A relationship between lyrics and visuals

3. Demands of the record label (this may include lots of close ups and thus leading to the artist developing a certain motif or visual style which reoccur across all their work)

4. Reference to the notion of looking/voyeurism

5. Intertextuality or the reference to other media products

Genre characteristics

• Smash Mouth are classed as a pop/rock genre and this genre of music typically use interpretive visuals in their music videos so we used a narrative story of one guys journey to find the girl he loves.

• Interpretive music videos are normally combined with cut away’s of live performance however we chose to challenge this typical convention and chose to leave a stimulated “live performance” out. We decided to concentrate more on the narrative side instead and this allowed us to include a more humorous feel to the video, which reflected the lyrics and beat of song.

• Seeing as it was a narrative genre we chose to use unusual camera shots like POV shots to tell the story. This gave an interesting first person perspective to the video and places you in video. The audience can then feel a closer connection to the main character.

• Edits and special effects are both characteristics of 90s pop music videos as technology was less advanced then so we chose to incorporate a few of these, like split screens and fade to white’s, this gave a retro and amateur feel to the video.

Lyric and visual relationship

• Seeing as the style of our music vid was interpretive we really concentrated on idea of a lyric/visual relationship that could appeal to both existing fans and hopefully attract new ones.

• We used fairly literal visuals but we built off the ‘feeling of the song’ rather than lyrics. To do this we used rhythmic cutting to the songs beat.

• In the above example, the lyrics were “somebody once asked could I spare some change for gas” so we used a literal visual of swapping ‘change’. However he’s not using money for petrol like the lyrics suggest so this was less literal lyric/visual but still strengthens the songs concept about changing and being happy in life.

Demand of the record label

(close ups)

• We challenged this convention as we did not include any live footage so we don’t have any close up of ‘artist’ but we did however use close ups on our main character of the narrative.

• Below are examples of shots we included like an over shoulder MCU looking at his reflection in mirror, which focuses us on the clothes making a point that he’s a nerdy character. An ELS and another MCU were also used which shows us the contrast of his clothes to what the public are wearing. He’s in a suit which is stereotypically not social norm, which adds humour to the video.

Notion of looking and voyeurism

• This is a typical convention for most music videos so we included a lot of examples of screens.

• As well as the notion of looking we used polaroid picture which is quite retro in style, this links to genre of 90’s music as they didn’t have things like Instagram and Facebook then (which is what we intended to use originally). The picture also adds an emotional touch which reinforces the narrative as it shows feelings towards the girl.

• In a way it could be argued that we used voyeurism as he is looking at girl in a romantic way through the POV shots at the end of the video. The girl is also blonde too- this is a suggestive Propp stereotype.

Intertextuality

• We incorporated this into our narrative to enhance the storyline and add to the humorous feel.

• We reference the Shrek films a couple of times (see examples of him turning Shrek off and seeing the Shrek DVDs in a store on his way to see the girl). The audience will recognise song from the film’s soundtrack. Shrek is also a comedy film so it links with the humour of our video.

• We also used product placement of Berroca as the slogan is “You but on a good day” which sums up the narrative of our video. The audience will hopefully relate the slogan to the music vid adding slightly comical element aswell.

Other conventions

• Split screen’s are sometimes used in narrative genres to help with the storyline. So we used shots of a similar composition (a wide shot of him walking away from the camera) which emphasises his journey.

• Rhythmic editing is another typical reoccurring convention of music videos. As the narrative was a big part in our video we thought it would be good to include this technique as cutting to the fast upbeat tempo enforces the ‘feel good’ mood and engages the audience.

Advert

• Research showed us the majority of adverts had a border of empty space so the information about the album could stand out clearly to readers. We used this convention when designing our own advert.

• Another convention we included was the release date in bold text, again, making it stand out clearly to readers.

• The use of the album’s artwork is typical of album adverts, creating continuity within the brand making it more recognisable.

• The use of a retailers official logo (in our case HMV) and web link enhances synergy within brand and also references other technological entry points. The web link is useful as it gives readers a chance to find out more information on the band and album that isn't included on the advert.

• Because we used these conventions it made our advert look professional enough to appear in NME/Kerrang.

Digipak

We wanted to maintain a theme with the previous albums Smash Mouth had released so we included text of the album and artist’s name on the cover. To also keep with this theme we used the same text as the magazine advert for the artists name. We skewed it so it laid flat on the ground in line with the pavement which added an unusual element of fun which is typical of Smash Mouth albums.

We also included the album and artists name on the spine so if the album were stacked on display in a shop it could still be easily recognised. We kept it simple in contrast to the actual cover so again, easy to spot the artist.

A normal convention for a digipak is the track list included on the back so we included this feature but we also challenged the typical convention of numbering the tracks because we thought it looked neater.

During our research we found that another reoccurring feature was that normally digipaks will have an image that spanned out across the inside of the whole album when opened. So we used a panoramic (took on an iPhone app as it was easier) as it links to the music video, because this is the street he walks down (again, adding continuity).

Overall, the digipak uses Smash Mouth conventions of bright colours that are quite childish and appears a little 90’s retro. The montage edit of images from the production of the video adds a personal touch to the album which is good for existing fans as it feels like they’re engaging with the band.

2. How effective is the

combinations of your main

product and ancillary

texts?

Henry Jenkins

• Talked a lot about media convergence-which creates integration within a media sector. He explains this is because 2 companies want to expand and consumers wanting to access media in a way most convenient to them. This, in turn, can also lead to synergy where consumers access a brand or product through a variety of sources.

• It is important that we took a synergistic approach within our promotional package in order to sell Smash Mouth’s album, as well as thinking about what technology has an impact on todays consumers. We had to ensure each part of our promotional package was suitable to create a recognisable brand for Smash Mouths album to increase its outreach to consumers, and increase sales.

Music video

• This gained the widest audience because music videos can be accessed through different forms of technological convergence like laptops, tablets, phones, games consoles and TV music channels which could be played anywhere. Our target audience were teenagers and young adults who are more likely to use these forms of technology.

• The video targets existing fans of Smash Mouth and also similar artist like Reel Big Fish (found through research) because nowadays channels which videos are viewed, like YouTube, give you recommendations of other artists. The interpretive style of our video also appeals to those who are familiar with the genre but the lack of stimulated performance included challenges genre conventions which is unexpected and could keep the audience interested.

Digipak

• Our audience research suggested many prefer to buy music on things like ITunes rather than a physical copy. So we incorporated the music video and digipak in a number of ways. The album artwork appealed to the younger audience as it spreads awareness of the band to those who don’t buy physical albums from shops. The bright colours help the album stand out on shelf to those who are not used to going out and buying a physical copy.

• As we took elements of the music video and put them into the digipak to maintain continuity between each component of the promotional package, we thought this created a recognisable brand.

• The front cover is a photo of the main character in the music video. The skateboard adds a comedy element because he can’t actually skate so it becomes a recognisable symbol of the video. There is also a similarity between the feel good, fun style of the video and the use of fun, childish, bright colours (continuity).

Inside is a montage edit collage of photos from the production of the

music video which links the video and album. This appeals to existing Smash Mouth fans making them feel closer to

the artist. Whereas the cover draws attention with its bright colours to different consumers (who may also recognise the skateboarding photo symbol from the video), the inside works to appeal to existing fans.

The text works with the advert creating a house style associated with the band and different albums of theirs.

Magazine advert

• This targets our target audience more specifically as it is featured in a specific music magazine. So the consumers who see it are more likely to be interested in Smash Mouth’s music genre. NME/Kerrang would be most likely to feature a band like Smash Mouth because they feature pop/rock artists therefore the consumers who come across our advert will be more likely to buy the album.

• We tried to follow typical conventions like adding a release date, album title, artist name, website, official retail shop logo and lots of empty space as a boarder. By using the digipak’s album artwork the consumers can recognise it.

• The lined paper links the ancillary advert to the school flashback scene in the music video which is quite a subtle use of convergence. The colourful and retro composition of the album cover may seem interesting to consumers which makes them want to find out more about the band by using different entry points like the digipak and music video.

Overall the combination of main product and ancillary texts work together efficiently as each

component helps to reach out to lots of different consumers as lots of different media sectors are involved. Each component of the promotional package can act as a different

synergistic entry point because a may only have to buy/see one to decide they enjoy the band’s music and then go onto purchase album (digital

or physical).

3. What have you learned

from your audience

feedback?

Survey monkey-audience

research

• Pre production we conducted research on survey monkey in order to gather ideas on what our target audience liked . We considered these responses in order to successful product. The questionnaire itself consisted of 10 questions and gave us quantitative data which we analyse to find trends with the answers given.

IMPORTANT POINTS• Our target audience were between the ages of 17-30• Things that were popular in a video; comical elements, narrative

structure, reference to lyrics• Dance routines should be avoided for the pop/rock genre• Although this is good in some ways because it was quick and easy

to send to large quantities of participants and also very easy to analyse, there wasn’t enough detail in responses. This meant that we needed some more clarification on some answers like if people said they liked a connection between lyrics and visuals, how strong?

Interviews-audience

research

• Provided better responses than survey monkey as it was very informal and allowed us to get some expansion on answers (we used the same questions as we used as in survey monkey.)

• We also included some questions on what features of digipak the audience liked.

IMPORTANT POINTS• Platforms such as YouTube are the most popular for

viewing music videos .• Technological convergence is an important thing to

consider-the TA used mobile phones to view most videos and to download music from ITunes.

• Also became clear that physical copies of albums aren't widely purchased by our TA anymore and they are more commonly downloading music straight to their devices or streaming through apps like Spotify.

4. How did you use media

technologies in the

construction and research,

planning and evaluation

stages?

Technologies

RESEARCH

Survey monkey gave us responses that were easily interpreted into graphs which made the answers easy to compare. We used closed questions in order to get quantitative data to help us plan all the elements of the promotional package. The biggest benefit of survey monkey was that it was quick and easy to send out large quantities of TA via social med (we used Facebook).

As you can see from this response everyone appeared to like special effects in a music video but most of them only preferred them in a certain genre. So we made sure we took this on board and ensured we asked this question in the qualitative interview, so we could get a clearer idea to make sure we didn’t include anything that didn’t appeal to the TA.

• A DSLR camera and tripod were used to conduct the interview. The tripod gave us a steady shot so we conduct an informal interview in order to expand on the quantitative data gathered on survey monkey. Windows movie maker was used to edit the interview clips together and create a clear, linear structure of question/answer responses so it was easier for us to analyse and appear more viewer friendly and creative on our blogs. Movie maker was also a quicker program to use than Premier which we found was more time consuming and we didn’t want to spend too long on the interview video as it wasn’t our main concern.

How useful was audience

research

• It was useful as it helped confirm to us our ideas about what people liked that we were unsure of (like the narrative journey, we really liked this idea but weren't sure it would be suitable for our TA but the audience research confirmed it was). The interview and survey responses matched up which was positive and easy to take features from, making it accurate and reliable research.

• We also were notified about how important the influence of technology was to our TA (and the fact they didn’t really buy hard copies of albums anymore).

• If I ever re-did this portfolio I would definitely include a bigger sample size for my audience research as well as a wider range of consumers to get more research to compare too.

Incorporating research into

texts

Digipak-we found that using bright and colourful photos grab the attention of potential consumers so chose to touch up our album front cover to make it very vibrant. SCREENSHOT

We also discovered from feedback that narrative structure is something that is very popular with our TA, as well as adding a comedy element. So, for example, we chose to dress our main character in a silly and humorous costume choice of a suit.

Our interviews suggested a lyric visual relationship should be subtlety incorporated. So here George is giving change to the flower woman while song says ‘spare some change for gas’. We also tried to portray a visual relationship between the overall message of the song and our fast edits of the video. Thus, mimicking the upbeat happy attitude of the song.

Post production feedback

• We received this comments from friends via Facebook and actual verbal feedback from family and peers and tutors in class time. We found that there was a general response of it being ‘really funny’ and people ‘really enjoying it’. However these were not constructive enough comments so we had to push to get comments that we could take criticism from. Although it’s good to know that people understood the humorous nature of our video that we were trying to portray as it suggests our use of typical codes and conventions were successful.

• The students in our class gave more constructive feedback like how steady the shots were and they also recognised the codes and genre conventions we followed.

• The feedback was useful though as it positively reinforced that we met the codes and conventions we intended.

• Examples on the next slide. THERE IS ALSO AN EMBEDDED VIDEO LINK ON THIS BLOG POST UNDER THE SLIDE SHARE POWERPOINT OF OUR TA’S RESPONSE WHILST WATCHING THE VIDEO-

‘It didn’t look staged, it looked like it was actually happening.’

‘The use of a cutaway was really interesting and helped with the context of the story.’

‘I didn’t get the POV shots of walking down the street until explained that it was supposed to be him on his journey, looking for things to buy the girl.’

Planning stage

• Without technology the planning stage would have been extremely difficult. We all used a Facebook group chat and IMessage on Iphone’s to communicate as a group. These chats allowed us to come up with ideas outside of lesson time and keep us up to date on issues or any questions that we had throughout the whole process so everyone was aware what was happening at all time.

Construction stage

• A DSLR camera and tripod were used to shoot the video and take photos for the digipak/advert. The tripod gave us a steady shot which looked very professional. The shots on the DSLR were 1080p which also allowed us to film high quality shots, again, giving it a professional feel.

• We used Adobe Photoshop to create our magazine advert and also our digipak and this program allowed us to play around with the different layers and text tools. We used a variety of tools like vibrancy levels, contrast, dodge and burn which came in handy when creating the album artwork because we wanted to create a very bright, vibrant, cartoon style. We wanted to maintain house style across all elements of our promotional package so used dafont.com to find a font that matched our ‘childish’ theme because Photoshop only had a small variety. This text then became a recognisable aspect of Smash Mouth branding. We imported this text font into Photoshop using the ‘run’ programme.

• Adobe Premiere was the programme used to construct our music video. As none of us had ever used it before it took a bit of getting used too and was very time consuming at the start because we had to trial and error a lot of the effects as we’d never seen them before. It allowed us to manipulate footage creatively in a non linear way which was useful to us as we ended up filming clips in a different order. Also allowed us to put in video transitions, like cross fades, which helped our narrative used between open shots to give feeling of time passing.

• Another feature we used was the fact we could layer footage using 2 different platforms so the 2 clips could run simultaneously. The cop and move tools let us create a split screen effect (which is a typical convention of music videos).

Evaluation stage

• Blogger was probably the most important piece of technology used as it is where I presented all my work for the advanced portfolio. It is easy to access through internet and also set out very easily so I could organise my work clearer for examiners and tutors to view. It allowed me to embed videos, images (both from the web and ones I took myself of my work) and scans.

• Powerpoint and SlideShare-Blogger also let me embed slideshare powerpoints too. Slideshare was a site I had used in my foundation portfolio and I decided to use it again because it was successful. It also gave me a better structure to work with and allowed me to split text up and insert images easier.