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Evaluation Question 1
The video below will answer the following question:
In what way does your music video promotional package use, develop or challenge the forms and conventions of existing music video/promo packages?
The pop-up video above outlines the development and challenges of our music video that revolves around the genre we’re working in.
Simply put, our music video for Australian rock band Tame Impalas “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” captures many forms of conventions of existing music video but also challenges and develops them. Likewise, both the magazine advert and the Digipak do the same thing all to plant the idea of star image and public image in the heads of audiences. When it comes to Tame Impala, it is safe to say that they jumped on the bandwagon of alternative music which started to become popular in the 1990’s. However instead of completely copying the texts of founders like “The Sex Pistols” and “Pink Floyd” they have made vague references and decided to challenge and conform conventions, much like us. Here is an example from themselves.
In the video above, they portray many real-life situations that are talked about frequently all whilst conveying religious connotations. These are relatable but vague references to the real world and pop culture.
The video below is a so-called “pop up video” that we created as a collective to briefly identify the creative decision making and technical aspects of our music video. The points selected in the video both conform and subvert conventions of the genre which is Psychedelic Rock, as real psychedelic rock music videos do the same thing. It also gives us more creative leeway in our own video as we don’t have to stick to a convention tick-list.
Prior to the production of the video, hours of research into themes of existing videos has allowed me to understand what type of themes to convey or subvert in my own product. Doing this research was so important as it has given me the confidence to make important decisions in regards to my video, such as whether to make an amplification/disjuncture video, whether to use effects like slow motion and many other creative elements.
One of the most popular themes/conventions of music videos is the artist or band performing the lyrics either live on a stage or through the art of lip syncing. The majority of music videos include this in them for any amount of time because it creates authenticity which is a very key element of a music video. Authenticity makes the audience think that the artist can perform the song. The performance also immerses the viewer and makes the viewer feel addressed on a personal level whilst adding meaning to the lyrics as you can see the emotion on the performers face. At the beginning of the project, we had to do our own lip-syncing task to understand how difficult it is to pull off and to get used to syncing audio with footage in editing software.
In our music video, our main star which is Liam is a typical young adult with an indie dress style. He is portrayed as a believable, normal human with real problems such as alcoholism and relationship issues. All whilst this is being portrayed, Liam is made extraordinary as he is stylised and has been made the star image of the video. The fact that he lip syncs turns him into an artist and the colourful and stylised nature of him turns him into art. Psychedelic rock bands such as The Beatles use animations in their music video, making this an existing genre convention. We have developed this convention by adding meaning to the piece of text, whereas the Beatles did it simply just for style.
In the small sequence shown above, we use a similar style of animation on Liam’s face to represent him as being a monster. To do this is very time consuming so that is why it is only for 10 seconds, but this suggests meaning behind the animation and is not there just for good aesthetics.
In our video, Liam acts in a certain way to represent and promote a specific social group. In this case, it is a standard young white middle-class class male but also aims for a niche of people with alcohol, drug and mental issues. As I have previously said, lip syncing is a standard convention in music videos which I have conformed to. However, this being said I have developed the idea in ways such as using it less frequently and adding lyrics into digital effects, such as on street signs. This means I have not created the video around the lip syncing. The only time lip-syncing is seen is when it is Liam doing it and he only lip syncs important and meaningful lyrics. The fact that he only lip syncs meaningful and important lyrics foreshadows ending parts of the video and the narrative as a whole, making the audience want to pay attention more carefully and adding to its repeatability factor. This technique draws attention to their failing relationship, meaning lip-syncing is not just used to create authenticity for Liam, but to connect with the audience directly and to make them feel the meaning of the lyrics.
During the planning stage of the project, we realised that it would be important to have some sort of narrative in the video to create a sense of repeatability and to keep the audience interested if all else fails. Having a narrative also link the themes that we tried to represent together which were created by the visuals. Most music videos create their narrative based off of the lyrics and the mood of the song, which is simply called a narrative video. We do this to an extent, as by instead of creating a narrative off of the lyrics, we create the visuals off of the lyrics. Once the visuals style, imagery and general visuals of the video is established we then produced a narrative around that.
In the research and planning stage of the project, we came across Andrew Goodwin’s theory of Synaesthesia, which is basically that directors and audiences can link imagery with lyrics. We used this theory and incorporated it into our own video, an example being where the lyric says “The seed of all this indecision” is paired with the visuals of flowers. This helps us develop existing conventions, as the fact that dark imagery created in the lyrics juxtaposed with a bright coloured music video is used often in real music videos. This creates a direct link to the lyrics about “backwards” as the images are reversed.
Another type of music video that we adapted conventions from was the amplification style. Amplification is where the visuals on the screen amplify and emphasise the lyrics using imagery. This can be done having images on screen that directly link with the lyrics as well. An example of this is from Baby Driver, and is used in the same scene I referenced earlier. This is used in our video where Liam walks past a road sign that has the lyrics “Every part of me says go ahead” on them, as those lyrics are being played. We also try and connect the lyrics to the visuals in the video when alcohol is involved, especially in the scenes below.
Whilst the general concept of our narrative certainly conforms to most music videos, it ends quite differently to most which means that we have subverted them. In our video, it starts off happy and ends in death whereas in most videos it is the other way round.
Although we have subverted or completely conformed to a lot of conventions of music videos, we have certainly conformed to some. One of those being the use of titles at the start of the video that includes the name of the artist and the name of the song. It is not only integral for advertising and marketing purposes, it also creates a mood instantly for the rest of the video through the selection of colour and font. It also allows the audience member to know the name of the artist and song instantly. Another example of us conforming to conventions in our music video is using gimmicky tricks such as slow motion. These are used my genre inspirations such as Tame Impala themselves and Coldplay. We have used this in the balloon and bottle shot.
Through the use of editing to the beat, we have created a professional looking video which definitely adds the repeatability factor. When this is combined with the complex and choreographed cinematography used through intense lighting and 720-degree shots of Liam proves that we can understand and perform a range of shots, with movement, which is a key part of music video construction. In terms of post-production, we have certainly built on the convention. Some music videos rely on post-production to add to the repeatability factor of the video, whereas as we have relied on it massively in order to greatly enhance the themes and especially the visuals. Post-production has allowed us to transform bland, colourless and boring visuals into powerful presences with deeper meaning to what meets the eye originally. An example is the stage door.
Here are some of Tame Impalas existing album colours and whilst the similarities are clear, it is also clear that we have developed their ideas, whilst making them our own.
Evaluation Question 2
Evaluation Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and the two ancillary texts?
When we were in the planning stages of our project, we set out from the start that we would symbiotically link the three products together with visuals, stylistic approach, and motifs to create a cohesive project. We linked visual and conceptual design features and used an ide called synergy to do so. As a group, it was obvious that this was an important factor because it gives the project authenticity and makes it look believable. Audiences will be able to relate with the three individual pieces because of their visual style and recurring themes and images, as after all, the three pieces all aid the aim the promotion of the artist.
Using Richard Dyer’s theory on Star Image which has been mentioned in my secondary research, we created a star of our own in Liam. In our video, Liam is a symbol and is not based on a real person. This is called commodification, and is done because artists can make profit from the sale of merchandise, makeup or other materialistic items. An example of this is Pop Star and apparent massive contributor to the victory of the human race, Kanye West. Kanye West has used his “taste” in fashion and clothing in his music videos to promote his link to Adidas sub-brand, Yeezy. This shows the effectiveness of symbiotic marketing as music doesn’t have to be made for the sake of making music, it can be an advert for a product. This turns the respective music video into a product or commodity that can be sold. This example is something that inspired us, and we thought we would use this renowned technique to test symbiotic marketing. This also drove our creative decision and made them easier.
Colour:
The first thing we spoke about when to comes to symbiotic marketing was the colour. Usually when a brand makes something, they will use a colour scheme they have done before and stick with a maximum of 3 colours that they will use throughout their line of work. In terms of colour, we used general psychedelic effects in our main product and ancillary texts which happens to be all colours. From the very beginning of the project, we agreed include lots of colour in everything and not specifically have a colour scheme and the best way to do this was with using psychedelia as a theme. However, there was a point in the project where we realised that using too much psychedelia isn’t always visually pleasing and that it had to be balanced out with a general colour scheme that is quite basic. We did this with the use of Teal and Cream. We used Teal and Cream in our ancillary texts, and the examples below show how it neutralises the chaos of psychedelia. We made sure we used this colour scheme throughout the project and not just in the digipak to keep the symbiotic link. The colour scheme was inspired by the poster for La La Land
Imagery:
In the same way we linked the colour schemes together through our main product and ancillary text, we also linked imagery. The images we included in our main product and ancillary texts were: a Chevrolet Impala, and Impala (the animal), a monolithic door, an outstretched coloured hand, alcohol, an animated monster face and ethereality. As these images are used in the main product and the ancillary texts then the consumers can establish and interconnectivity between all 3 projects.
Evaluation Question 3
During the process of our project, it was made clear to us that doing extensive research about audience feedback is very important, since the audience is who it is directed at. When you are making creative and technical progress in the midst of the video, it is important to be critiqued regularly after every step of progress in order to improve and strengthen our work. A common feature of a big project like this is that the mistakes you make become invisible to you as you put so much effort into it you think its perfect. Therefore, we ensure that through all stages of the project, especially the production stage that we conduct questionnaires and interviews we could possible get the best feedback from, like media experienced adults, fellow classmates and definitely the target audience we are trying to hit.
The first questionnaire that we set out was set around our initial ideas, to see what target demographic we are aiming for and to see how mainstream the genre we are working in is. After the data was collected, it was quantified Microsoft Excel into clear and visible Pie charts and Bar charts.
From these questionnaires the most noticeable thing we learnt was that 60% of the audience members who likes the genre of music we are working in are aged 15-19. This gave us the epiphany that the themes, imagery, visual style, and general creative ideas should be based around pop culture that is currently popular with this group and a narrative that involves problems that the age group are familiar with. This makes it relatable.
To get further insight, we then conducted a seemingly professional interview with a Tame Impala fan, which happened to be one of our group members, Idris. This helped us understand what they like about the genre, what’re the must have themes and what they are expecting in a psychedelic rock music video for it to be good.
From the video above, we learnt the aspect that a typical Tame Impala fan would like. Which were the bright colours, intense use of practical and digital effects and how this surrealism blends its way in to natural and realistic imagery. There is also a subtle social commentary, meaning all of these elements will have tried to be woven in to the project as a whole.
Since then, filming had started and an assembly cut had been made to give audiences, and ourselves, a taste of the structure of our video. We also obviously got some audience feedback on it.
In the video above, the boys make short comments whilst the video is playing, most of which are criticism as we advised. To generalise the video, the negatives were that some of the shots were quite boring and could be filmed at a much better standard. They also said that these particular shots seemed rushed. Also, one of the most hard hitting criticisms is hat the narrative isn’t clear enough and that we need more of it. As we didn’t have time to fit more narrative into the video, we improvised by giving the existing narrative more context with the use of digital effects. This seemed like a god idea to them as the effects was some of their favourite parts. I’d also like to point out at this moment of time not all footage had been shot.
Once the final bits of footage had been done, we created the final assembly cut and sat down a number of individuals to get more criticism. This was successful, as in this video they state that the narrative is very clear and actually quite compelling. This is a massive improvement on the last one we did in which they said that the narrative was unclear. They also appreciated our skill for good visuals, pointing out the colours, good lighting and camera movement. However, they said that this only applied the indoor shots and that the outdoor shots needs to rely on visual effects in Post Production to make it better. An example of this is the shots revolving around the door, however we did mention that this is more than unfinished. From the last audience feedback to now, we have learnt and developed on weaknesses that we do not notice ourselves and we have redrafted and revised on ideas as a result of this audience feedback. It has also taught us that including more of the stuff the audience likes is a good idea and beneficial.
After a positive group reflection based around the previous audience feedback, we used their criticism to start editing the main bulk of the video. Shots such as the tracking shots, door shots and any shots that are shaky have been edited and hopefully improved. The feedback interview video above, which has been conducted with different people includes comments that our narrative and themes are very sharp and concise. The special effects were artistic and went really well with the mood and genre of the music video and reminded people of Tame Impalas own videos, which is a desired effect.
Also, the pictures below show a questionnaire that we conducted which asked 20 people about issues previously brought up with our video.
Since then, many more improvements had been made regarding their constructive criticism, such as the use of special effects. Since this, a rough cut has been made with some of this special effects included in them. More audience feedback was then carried out in the simple form of a Facebook Messenger Group Chat.
For this feedback review, we messaged fellows classmates who are at the similar stage to us at the time as we felt that they have a similar idea about progression. From the messages, it is clear that it is generally liked, however, it was noted that the editing can be increased in quality as the visual style is not consistent and the colour schemes do not match up. Luckily, we had the ability to address this later in post-production. Unfortunately, we had a focus point of negative criticism which was the bedroom mirror scene where Belle and Liam lip sync. Contrary to the rest of the video, the shot is very poorly lit and is quite grainy which makes it stand out and really pulls the quality of it down. Due to time restraints, we couldn’t refilm the shot so resorted to changing the colours in post-production thanks to colour grading. We did this by lowering the shadows, contrast and added brightness whilst selecting a blue hue for indoor shots and a green hue for outdoor shots.
Throughout the post-production stage, we have done lots of audience feedback, and one prominent thing we’ve learnt is that we have learnt how to improve our develop by listening and understanding multiple outside perspectives. This is important because it is hard to judge your own work without being biased, and that it’s easier to understand because you came up with the themes yourself. Another interesting and important thing we learnt is that when we are trying to portray certain themes, audience members disregard them and recognize other themes that aren’t necessarily intentional. Originally, this was frustrating and it was making us try and re-develop ideas in ways that would be clear to understand. However, we soon realised that this is not necessarily a bad thing and that it opens up new meanings of the video. I’ve realised that instead of trying to drill themes and ideas into audience member’s minds, planting a seed of thought and letting them make their own mind up is a clever and thoughtful idea. In other words, leaving ambiguity for them to decide on themselves is what we ended up going for, as other real media texts do this often. Another thing to point out what we’ve learnt from this is that even though we don’t always agree with certain bits of feedback, the project isn’t made for us and criticism isn’t an attack on our ability. A method getting round this was to colour grade instead of refilm as a sort of compromise with the audience. This improves the quality of the video for them, and means we do not have to re-film as well.
For the final cut of the music video, we went onto survey-monkey to get the last bit of feedback obviously on the final cut. We were hoping that the feedback was minimal due to the fact that its the last draft.
Luckily for us, the responses to the 10 questions on SurveyMonkey are generally positive in response to the final piece. This final questionnaire proves that we have definitely listened to previous feedback and developed on it. There was confusion where someone suggested that Liam’s character had murdered Belle which is something that did not cross our minds. I said previously that leaving it down to the audience is okay, but this is certainly not what we wanted. We are happy to keep the ending ambiguous but this is obviously a misunderstanding. Everyone who answered the questionnaire said that the video is good, and there is obvious talent on both sides of the camera. They also said that it is well made and well thought out. The other questions relied on people opinions, and there was only 1 common noticeable problem which was the mirror shot. As stated previously, this was colour graded as we didn’t have enough time to re-shoot. This seems to have worked as they said that although it is still not great, it has improved since last time. Another notable point of enjoyment was the use of special effects, especially with the door and bubbles, and how the transitions used make the video flow fantastically. “All the ‘trippy’ effects do work well with the song, the volcano, paint and beer smashing looks really effective”. This was most peoples opinion however there were some people who said the effects were overused. What we learnt from this however is that we cant make everyone happy and that is part of the process, but on terms of all round quality there was no debate.
Furthermore, an independent YouTube channel who scout and critique music videos found our work and left a very positive comment.
To add to the glory, the channel added the video to a “Best Upcoming Music Videos”. This was a fantastic achievement and allowed us to get an completely outside opinion from people we’ve never communicated with.
Overall, feedback has given us the opportunity to improve our project massively. Without the help of audience feedback, we would be blinded by the positives of our project and would probably cause us to overlook the negatives. Therefore, feedback has helped us. With the use of targeted research on specific audience members we could identify areas of weakness and reassess them for them to be improved on.
For the promotional poster/advert we created a draft to test whether this style was good. The feedback was negative, and people stated that it was boring and nothing special, which I agree with. From this feedback, the idea came to us that we should change it from landscape to portrait and completely changed the design. We also picked a colour scheme that we can use consistently through all of our products.
We also got important feedback about the colour scheme, which was originally orange and cream, but was changed to teal and cream and we maintained this throughout the digipak swell for Synergy.
Feedback for this adaptation was very important, as when you create something that needs to attract attention, you need to make something visually that does just that. It has to be engaging. The feedback on the final chosen color scheme, the Teal and Cream was mainly positive, as people said that the simplicity of the 2 colours counteracts the vibrancy of the psychedelia, making it visually pleasurable. This is encouraging because it reassured us that our advert will be effective at what it’s purpose will be, to attract the eye and promote the album.
Once the final advert had be completed, we received verbal feedback in which people said that it prioritises the promotion of the tour, not the album which is what it is made to do. We did make a slight change from the 2nd last draft to the final piece, and that was making the font bigger, including the Digipak cover on it for association and synergy between the products and reducing the amount of tour dates. Without this feedback, the album advert would not have fulfilled its purpose and would have looked less authentic and more detached from the rest of our work.
In terms of our Digipak, we also had lots of feedback to help us improve it. Likewise with the advert, we were not sure on the design so decided to make lots of drafts and see which ones people prefer the most, and either stick with it or take the positive aspects and create the final one. One thing we made sure however is the colour schemes would be similar and the images link back to the existing media products.
Evaluation Question 4
1. How did you go about using technologies for research purposes?
We used the internet to do research into the genre of the video, and to figure out the style of video we want to produce. Apps such as YouTube to see real examples.
2. Can you give a specific example of a research finding which has a direct impact on your final work?
3. How did you carry out meaningful primary research into target audience, genre and subculture? What role did technology play in this stage?
4. How did technology help you construct a work-plan to identify milestones, resources, time management?
We used Google Docs and Google Sheets to create a shot list. On the shot list, each shot, sequence was numbered. This gave us a clear understanding of what shots we had to deal with. On the same document, there is a section that tells us what props and equipment we need for each shot, who we need, what costumes we need, the location of filming, how long we have in the location, the lyrics for the respective shot and how long the lyric is. We also had a key on the document which tells us which shots we have done. We can all access the document and edit it at any chosen time meaning we can all highlight the shots that have been done, the ones that haven’t and the sequences that are almost finished.
5. In terms of finding suitable locations, how did you use technologies to identify appropriate settings?
We used Googled Maps on our phones to look for locations as it is cheaper and easier to send a location scout. Using digital technology meant we could get together and search for locations in a short period of time, rather than sacrificing time, resources and money on looking for locations that could not be suitable.
6. Did you use apps or other forms of technology for storyboarding or creating mood boards? How useful was this in helping you create an effective filming process?
We used Adobe Photoshop CC to create a mood board as it allows you to put lots of images together formally, like a template. Also, we used Google Docs and Google Sheets to create a complex and developed shot list. On this, we had a list of each shot number, along with what we need for that shot, who was needed for it, the props, the costumes, the location and who long we had there. This was easy as we could all access the same document at any given time and all had the ability to edit the document if we needed to.
7. Which editing software did you use for your video? Compared to your AS work, how did you manage to exploit the settings to create more sophisticated effects? Did you supplement this with other software? (for example with After Effects, Audition and Media Encoder) In the Adobe system, you can download a plugin that links the systems and projects together.
8. Which image manipulation software did you use for you digipak and advert? Did you use additional brushes, fonts or other downloadable content in the creative process?
We used Adobe Photoshop CC to create the digipack and advert as it is the most sophisticated software that we had at our hands. We used additional downloadable content called LUT Packs (Look Up Tables)
9. Which cameras and lenses did you use? Which settings did you exploit? Can you give specific examples of how this helped you to create more sophisticated work in terms of mise-en-scene, depth of field, ambience, narrative?
We used the Nikon D5100 with a standard, 18-55mm lens. A problem we had when shooting some scenes was that the footage was grainy and noisy because there was not enough light in the shot. We only have 1 studio light that we used as a distant key light that produced 112 lumens. When this light was placed at a distance, it simply didn’t produce enough lumens to illuminate the actors face in a way we wanted. Therefore, to solve this problem I increased the aperture on the camera to let more light into the shot in to camera and then in post production I decreased some of the light settings such as: shadows, contrast and hue to get the lighting I want, as it is easier to take away light then to add it (in post production).
Also, because we only had a standard 18-55mm lens we couldn’t directly exploit the width of the shot and use a different lens. Therefore I changed field of view on the camera to 250-300mm. Throughout the project, we agreed as a group to use many close-ups and extreme close ups to emphasise the emotion on the stars face, but as well as this we wanted to accentuate the colourful sets and costumes. This means that increasing the field of view keeps the shot a close up, but warps the background and brings it closer together, allowing the viewer to see the actors face and the colourful background.
Furthermore, I used a technique called Lens Whacking, which is a technique that helps try and create a more cinematic, professional and stylised look. The technique isn’t a setting on the camera, but is done by detaching the lens from the camera and letting more natural light hit the light sensor, which makes the footage look flared and stylish.
10. How did you manage the sourcing and storage of your rushes and final clips? Did you use appropriate naming conventions and iterations? How did you gather and store the images used in the ancillary texts?
At AS, we deleted footage we felt that we didn’t need which came back to haunt us. Therefore, at A2 we kept every single second of footage we filmed just in case we needed it in the context of a cut for example. This turned out to be pivotal as there was some footage that didn’t visually match other shots, meaning we had to revert to using some old footage.
11. If you used add-ons or additional content, where did you source them and how did you use them creatively to enhance your final cut?
We used LUT (Look Up Tables) packs from a website called TriuneStore.com where you can pay anywhere from 15-170$ for a list of pre-set colours from Hollywood films and place them on your footage. This is a plug-in in Adobe Photoshop CC, Adobe After Effects and Adobe Première Pro CC. You simply download the file to your computer then add them in on the app. We also used a plug in that was used for Adobe which was “Saber”. The Saber plugin allowed us to create the light effect around the door frame. Across our whole project, especially in the digipak we used the light effect more than once. Luckily, the Saber plugin can link between all of the Adobe Systems, meaning we didn’t have to create the light effect again once we did the Digipak.
12. In the editing process, can you identify at least 3 features of the editing suite that you used effectively to improve the quality of your final edit? (eg filters, transitions, Gaussian overlays and animations)
The first feature we used was transitions. We said from the start of the project that we want the video to visually flow as it is a narrative video. Therefore the choice of transitions was quite easy. For the majority of the transitions, we used a screen warp in which the screen would be sucked in to the next shot. This effect makes the video flow and move forward. Another transition we used was a swipe, where we used a tree to swipe the screen and change shot. We chose to have the tree move from right to left so it looks like he character is moving from left to right. We did this because western culture see lateral movement from left to right as “positive” and “forward”, so this really was an easy decision. These transitions definitely improved the quality of our work as it looks more professional.
The second feature was animation. This was used at the start of the video where the main character has a animated monster as a mask over his face to connotate that he is losing his mind. This was done by drawing the image of the monster in Adobe Photoshop CC, ands then linking it to 1 frame in Adobe After Effects. This sequence would take up 42 frames meaning we had to draw the monster image 42 times to make it look like it was moving in Adobe After Effects and Adobe Première Pro CC. We also used this technique similarly at the end of the video where we used a stop motion effect. For this sequence, we drew lyrics on the actors body and took a still picture of each letter as the progressed round his body. In post production, we would put all of the 70 pictures together to make it look like the images are moving, and to make it look like the lyrics are bei9ng drawn on to his body. This technique also made our work look more professional and a higher standard.
The third feature we used was Gaussian Blurs.
The third feature we used was
13. Based on what you learned at AS, how did you approach managing the editing process? (eg did you import more or less footage, did you delete footage you weren’t using to avoid rendering slow-downs, did you have to manage disk-space or storage?)
14. How did you use technologies to gather and analyse audience feedback? How did you present this feedback to identify specific areas for improvement? Can you give examples of qualitative and quantitative data you used and identify the impact this had on your final cut, with examples?
15. With hindsight, is there any way you could have used the technologies available to you more effectively in your project? Is there any technology you did not have that you would.
Final Advert/Tour Poster
Final Digipak
Front Cover:
Back Cover:
Inside Left:
Inside Right:
Final Video
5 Things We Have Learnt About Post Production
Tim Warburton 