Evaluation

After completing the planning section of my music video I clearly distinguished my target audience which I shall be referring to throughout all my theory work. I aimed for my target audience to be young viewers between the ages of 12-18 purely because the content of the music video is childlike and my alternative music genre is specifically aimed at a similar target audience. The main purpose behind my music video is to follow Andrew Goodwin’s theory and entertain my young audience by creating a music video that is repetitive and simple to follow. My young viewers can understand the purpose of the video by reflecting upon their childhood experiences in order to relate.
My music video is both narrative and performance because by having a variation of both music video types it means that I am able to cut between the narrative and the performer singing to help narrate the story and this conventionally makes the music video contemporarily realistic for my audience. The main idea which I kept referring to and using throughout the making of my music video was to repeat certain camera motifs for example when the young female actor in my video is moving rapidly and swinging a blanket in a circle. I decided to repeat this motif by rewinding and reversing the motif but this time decreasing the speed to show the young girl reflecting back on her memories. I wanted to reinforce how the young girl is reflecting on her experience with her imaginary friend as it is coming to an end. Another repetitive motif sequence which I decided to include was the young girl dancing outside in the fields, we added a special effect to blur the imagery so that it clearly distinguished to my target audience that this was a dream that the young girl had already lived. I used a range of establishing shots particularly outside to clearly distinguish the location as to where my actor was. I wanted this to set a prime location to commutate that she used to spend her time being free outside with her imaginary friend. I included a range of mid-shots and long shots of the back of the young girl running away from the camera, the blurred imagery and unsteady camera shots were intentional to create an informal hand held camera effect to target my young audience. I wanted the hand held camera effect to represent an informality to portray the child’s youthfulness and freedom and communicate that she is unaware that she is being filmed to narrate that she is with her imaginary friend in a world of her own. This informality came from my inspiration of a music video by the Los Compesinos, this band use a lot of blurred imagery in their music videos as though it’s been created as a home style video. This informality helps portray the representation of memories and events that have happened in the past.
This intention clearly ran with my narrative as it clearly distinguished at the beginning of my video that the range of conventional close ups and extreme close ups to reinforce the young girl searching for her imaginary friend. There is an extreme close up of the young girls diary placed on the bed as she wrote the lyrics to the song in her diary. The reason I chose to use this shot is because it helps progress the narrative in the video. I wanted it to be clear to my audience that the young girl is trying to communicate to someone what she isn’t able to verbally communicate, which is why she’s writing the message down on paper. The simple and basic idea behind my music video made it very easy to follow music video conventions as I had my artist holding a hand held guitar and singing into a microphone, I also conventionally chose only one location to video my performer. This made it clear to my audience to differentiate between my performer and artist. I have followed music video conventions by having a clear structure and ending to my music video, as we see the narrative unravel and come to a close we see the narrative end as there is a close up shot of the young girl getting into bed to confirm that the story was just a memory. The correspondence between my action in my music video, the song choice and the lyrics worked effectively and communicated with one another. The purpose and the main theme in the song Peter Pan is to reinforce the idea of having an imaginary fairy-like friend during your childhood. I have taken this idea and expanded on the theme and purpose to make my video have a clearer and more effective narrative structure. The combination between the music genre and the location in which we set the music video, I felt worked effectively. As we shot a lot of the music video in a field outside, it reinforced the idea of nature and freedom gained as a child. This idea reflected the song lyrics “teach you how to fly” as the young girl ran around the field as though she was pretending to chase her imaginary friend. We chose to shoot a section of the music video of the young girl having a tea party with her imaginary friend the combination of a fast motif as the beginning illuminated by a slower motif towards the end which creates the imaginary feel for the music video. We used a range of close up shots of the young girl setting out the cutlery for a tea party. We see an extreme close up of her drinking from a cup. We chose to hold a cup towards the camera to create the feel as though the camera is the make believe friend, following the girl as she explores her freedom. The camera reinforcing the imaginary friend can also be distinguished in a scene where the young girl is running down a flight of stairs trying to search for her imaginary friend. As the camera follows her down the stairs, by decreasing the pace of this shot I was able to make her slowly turn towards the camera with an extreme close up and then gradually zooming out so got a mid shot of her waving her hand, as though she’s communicating to the camera as her imaginary friend.
To portray the characters youthfulness and happiness I included a lot of close ups to portray her excitement this is conventional to use close ups in music videos to portray the actor or artists mood in the mood. It clearly creates an intimacy and connection between the audience and actor when they can clearly distinguish the characters face and their mood. It was very important that I conventionally used these close up shots because I wanted to create an active audience relationship.
During the planning for my music video my orginal intention was to have a animated Peter Pan which would've been created by drawing the image and animating it into the video. During the planning we did interpret this idea as we created different images for the animated character. However we found this idea very time consuming and I wasn't sure whether this would be very beneficial and productive because the idea could turn out unsucessful and time would have been wasted. Instead we then considered perhaps using a male actor to play the part of a young boy which would be the young girls imaginary friend. The reason we went against this idea was because we felt it would be less obvious and more intruiging video to watch if we kept the imaginary friend asthough it's in the childs mind. This enables an audience to interpret the video as they wish to and allows for us to be less strict on the idea, to make a more personal experience for my audience.
As my young audience is the main source behind my music video and their opinion is crucial, I carried out a short questionnaire to receive productive feedback on my video. I asked a series of questions relating to my music video about the camera shots, the correspondence between the song choice and the action and what they thought of the music video as a whole. I gave my questionnaire to ten members of the public between the ages of 12-18. The feedback I received was interesting however mostly positive. A few generalised comments were made about the narrative, some of my audience were unsure what the main narrative was until I explained it to them. This should be clear to my audience, so an improvement it would be to perhaps change the structure and order of the narrative so it became clearer. Another feedback comment was the blur effect which I added to distort the colour of the young girl’s memories. Some thought it wasn’t as effective as the rest of the music video because it was unclear to see the range of camera shots and fast cut imagery. Another feedback comment I received was about the pace of the editing and that some was slightly out by a few seconds. However, I strongly disagree with this statement because the hand held camera effect which I used a lot in my video was purposeful and intentional to create a youthful distorted effect. As a whole the comments praised how well the song choice, lyrics, narrative, choice of actor and range of shots communicated together. Overall from my audience feedback I thought it was constructive criticism and as my target audience enjoyed the video it means I am hitting the right audience I intent to attract.
In order for me to create a video that was successful I had to overcome working with a range of media technologies that were relatively complicated. After downloading the music and video recordings onto the computer it was crucial to sync the action and the lyrics and beat of the music together. In the song choice by Jose Vander’s there were a lot of fast cut ins of strong beats which meant an instant change in the action. It was important for me to change the camera shot so that it matched with the music for example on the line “I’ll teach” I had my young actor quickly move her head towards the camera, to show a sudden change in movement and mood. Also as I chose to have a performer in the video is was important for us to sync the lyrics with the movement of the artist singing the lyrics, I overcame this problem by experimenting with the pace the action and finding a meeting point between the speed.
After completing the music video I designed a digi pack and poster in order to illuminate and support my music video. I had to communicate the childhood and make believe theme which I have running through my video and reflect this in both my practical projects. I drafted a series of eight products altogether, four initial digi pack designs and four initial poster designs. This enabled me to experiment with colour and imagery. Before choosing my final design I again carried out audience feedback by creating a questionnaire to again given to 10 audience members between the ages of 12-18. This feedback enabled me to choose which design would be the most effective to illuminate my music video and song choice. I effectively received my audience feedback and was able to take my final designs further to a finished product.
To conclude, by consistently referring back to my original objectives and my young target audience I have managed to productively create a finished product that is aimed and appreciated directly by my target audience. Directly, I feel as though the most effective part of my video was the collaboration between the song choice and the narrative as I feel the childhood representation was clearly supported and presented. As a generalised improvement I feel I could have used a wider use of locations to illustrate that the girls imaginary friend was a part of her during her childhood, for example a few shots of them at the park or in a more childlike setting. However, as a whole I feel a well thought out, thorough project was completed.

Digi Pack Construction

As I began creating my digi pack the first thing I did was to find the basic template which i could then work on and add my designs to. I inserted this template into photoshop and then began sizing my designs so that they fit the template. I began creating the animated images which i added to my digi pack design. Firstly I sketched the images of the child toys which i want in my digi pack and I then scanned them into publisher and began colouring them in. I experimented with different shades and brushes to create a washed out effect to create the effect of a young childs drawing/ colouring book. I experimented with all the animated designs and coloure them in using the paintbrush tool and reducing the darkness of the colours so that they naturally contrast and blend into one another.

After I had finished colouring in my sketched out designs on photoshop, I then began creating the actual digi pack. Firstly I chose my background colour to a light pink because this is very femnine and links in well with the childlike effect. I then began adding my images by inserting them into photoshop and then resizing them and adding them to the front cover, I also decreased the darkness so that they slightly blended into the cover so it looked more realistic. I then began adding my text onto my digipack I decided to use a pale orange pastel colour as this shows up well against the pink background.

After I added all the text of the list of song choices I then inserted a picture of the inside of a book which I took on a camera and then inserted into photoshop. I inserted the image into photoshop onto a transparent background and then cut around the image and put it onto my digi pack. I then wrote the first line of song lyrics across the book pages, my intention for using the book was asthough the whole idea of having a make believe friend is the story behind a childs story. Below is my finished Digipack.

Audience Feedback

"I thought the colours worked well and I like how both the poster and the digi pack link by using the same image twice"

"I like the illistrations because they create a childlike effect"

"The contrast between the different images work effectively. Well done"

"The digi pack is very simple. Could've perhaps experimented with different colours and more imagery but overall it's good"

Poster Construction

I created my artist poster using Photoshop as this allows for me to use the effects and tools which I need to make a professionl product. Firstly I inserted the image of the young girl which you can see in the image below and I then made alterations to the background using the wand tool and the bucket as this allows a even base of colour on the poster. I then created the letters for the artist name and the song choice. I did this using the text box tool and experimented with a range of colours and opacity so that the letters slightly blend into the background and aren't as prominent.

I then began adding more information onto my poster to follow the conventions of music posters. I added this text using the text box tool and decided to write the letters in a clear pale yellow so that the text is more bold. The information which I added to the poster is a star rating which is conventional on posters and reveiws as this helps sell the product as it demonstrates members of the public that already have bourght the product. I have also included the date of the release so that this is clear to my audience. Below is my final magazine poster.

Audience Feedback

"The poster is very simple but it easily portrays the idea of childhood"

"I think you'd have to watch the music video in order to understand the story behind this"

"The way in which the poster has broken conventions by using several different colours rather than a basic colour works well to create the effect of youth"

"I like the image of the girl writting of the wall. Well done"

Music Video Construction

I opened up the final cut pro software which I used to create my music video. Firstly I inserted the music and then began inserted the music video. I then began cutting in between the images and scenes to peice my music video together. I inserted the opening section for my music video and then carried on peicing together the video. I wanted to include cut ins off the young girl outside to break up the action in my music video. I intended to create the outside cut ins to portray the childs dream and create the feeling asthough the dream is a flashback of what has already taken place. When making my music video I experimented with different special effects for example I altered the speed of the action as the music video is coming towards an end. As the music becomes slower and quieter I wanted to gradually decrease the speed of the action so that the music and the action is sync. In wanted to make sure I included a range of shots so when editing my music video i had different cut ins of the range of camera shots which I have included. This is conventional in music videos and makes the video visually interesting by using a range camera shots. Also another special effect which I used throughout my music video was the faded wish-wash effect to hyelp support the idea of the childs dream. This distort colour helps distinguish between the present and the past tense of action. I cut in the action between the beginning and the end by repeating a series of motifs to create a repetitive and simple video. I then added the ending to my video which is when we see the young girl going to sleep. By using this software it allowed for me to take snippets of action and piece together the different camera shots to create the video. Below are a few print screened photoshots of the editing of my music video.

Audience Feedback For My Digi Pack

I have created a questionnaire to gain audience feedback from my target audience because I wanted to gain feedback before making my final decision because I wanted to choose the design which is most effective and favoured from my audience. As a result the design idea for my digi pack was my forth idea because my audience felt that the designs were more appropriate and worked effectively with the narrative for my music video. This audience feedback allowed for me to get direct feedback from the audience I am targetting.

Rough Music Video Audience Feedback

I have created a questionnaire in order to receive audience feedback to determine how productive my target audience thought my finished video was. I have created a list of questions that relate to the finished product, including the video narrative and the music choice and how well the special effects worked. After receiving this feedback it became clear that my music video wasn't as clear to my audience as I intended, some comment which I received were about the special effects which I chose to distinguish between the young girls dream and reality, some viewers felt this wasn't very clear. A more positive feedback comment I received was about how well the song choice and the narrative of having a girl searching for an imaginary friend corresponded because the music was slow and childlike to reflect the narrative for the video.

The Filming Of The Music Video

During filming the action for the music video I have photographed different establishing shots of the action in order to support the evidence of me creating the music video. The first two shots are establishing shots of the location in which we set up the performance to take place. We had our artist sat on a white seat holding a hand held guitar and a microphone. The colour scheme for this shot is both bright and neutral colours to reinforce the youthfulness of the song. By using this simple location it allowed for us to use cut ins in between the action taking place with the young girl and refer back to this location.

This shot was taken at the beginning of our filming as we shot the opening sequence for our music video. The young girl is writting the song lyrics "Peter Peter was your name" in her diary. The femnine location allowed for us to illuminate the youthful effect I was trying to create in order to link with the childhood theme in the song. Below us also another closer shot of the actor writting in her diary.

The following shots were taken again in the middle of our filming as you can see were still on the set location we shot most of the video. As the young girl is searching around her room looking for her imaginary friend. The range of shots support the filming that we did, as the audience can see us practically working on the project. Below is a picture of me videoing our actress alex, this shot was used in the music video just before the young girl began looking around her room for her make believe friend.

Below is a picture of our actress Alex finding her costume which we used for the artist in the video. She wore a simple cream cardigan and a flower in her hair. The set location was very countryfied and allowed for us to reinforce the theme of freedom and youth, especially the field outside.