Blink 182 music video analysis

     

  This video is Blink 182 'Up all night', the video is both performance and narrative based. This video definately lives up to Blink 182 reputation, the song appears to be about peoples downfallls, 'everyone lies and cheats', the burning fire and graffitti reflects this anger. The bands outfits are very well suited to their song and location, hoodies are commonly known for violence and trouble and this video clearly displays alot of that. By using a performance as well as narrative it helps to make the song more personal to the band, everytime is cuts back to the band it reminds the audience that this is about thier struggles and mistakes. The narrative of the song is very well constructed throughout, although the lyrics dont match the specific lyrics, it still reflects a very troublesome life.

Red Hot Chilli Peppers music video analysis

      

This is Red Hot Chilli Pepper's 'The adventures of raindance Maggie', the video is performance based, the band are singing infront of a large crowd on top of a building. Thier outfits are very 'rock n roll' which doesnt suprise their audience, this emphaises theiir performance based video as if any other band were to perform infront of a crowd topless, the audience would probably think that they were too confident, however the Red hot chilli peppers have an edgy reputation. The fact that the band are stood on top of a building also tells us its performance based and that they are a superior band, they have attracted a mass crowd. The camera angles circle the band from the air, this is very effective in showing their performace as it highlights all of their equiptment, it also shows the huge crowd.

Laura Marling music video analysis

                    

  This is Laura Marling's video called 'Sophia', compared to many other artists laura Marling has decided to take a different approach when creating her music video. It is perfomance based which means that she is sat down singing to the camera without an audience, which makes the video more personal.

Regina Spektor music video analysis

                      

Regina  Spektor's 'Us' video follows both a conspetual and performance based theme. I think that the conspetual idea was very effective in demonstrating her ideas throughout the video, for example 'they'll name a city after us', Regina Spector then sprinkles magical dust that creates mini cities on her living room floor. Another good example of this would be when she does not understand about thieving and says that its 'contageous' then the video shows her grabbing at other countires to signafy how contageous it is. The perfomance side of the video was also a good way of portaying her views, throughout the video Regina Spektor lip sinks to the lyrics, it entices the audience to listen deeper into the lyrics of the song. Regina Spector's costume and make up also signafies to the audience that it is performance based as they are all perfectly done, if the video was a narrative it may be that there were a varierty of costumes and different style of make up.The fast paced editing is very effective as I think it reflects how confused she is about the worlds situation, by choosing this type of editing it also confuses this audience as the whole video is a bit of a montage, there are clips of newspapers, cartoons and random famous cities poping up everywhere!

Ben Howard music video analysis

                                                                             

Ben Howards, 'Keep your head up' is a conceptual music video, this uses simple lyrics that have a powerful meaning, by deciding to create a conceptual video it has emphasises this idea, the fact that he is out in the courtyside building a waterslide represnts to the audience that he is keeping 'his heart strong' by having fun. Ben Howards uses acoustic sounds in the majortity of his songs, for example 'The Wolves' is a slow and acoustic song, so it was no suprise that 'Keep your head up' used acoustic sounds too. I really like that this music video follows a conseptual idea, Ben Howard has followed through with this idea with the misenscene, again the song is very simple so outfits for him and his freinds were very casusal, this emphasises the lyrics to 'keep your head up' because his music video is something that anyone can do, it would make no sense for them to all be dressed smartly and go to a formal event, I think the casual theme that seems to flow helps the audience relate to the song and almost become attatched to the lyrics. The lyrics relate to the movements in the video, for example when he is by the lake 'the sun so hard upon my side' the camera turns to out of focus to emphasise this. Lastly in the end of the music video when they are coming down the water slide a hand held video camera has been used, this is a brilliant idea as the jerky movements capture the essense of the mood, which again empasise the lyrics to 'keep your head up'.

Analysing our coursework in relation to genre

As part of our first years coursework we had to make a music magazine, I feel that my magazine conformed to my Indie rock genre in many different ways. The color was important in capturing our specific audience so I created a color wheel that enabled me to analyse colours in depth, I looked at colors such as puple which showed connotation of mystery, confusion and it wasnt aimed at a specific gender. The other colors were black, white and red, I found that these colors were very suitable for my genre. However I did look at colors such as yellow and I didnt think that these would conform to my genre as it is normally associated with happiness and sunshine. Font was also a important convention to capture our audience, throughout the magazine I used a gender free font, so it could relate to everyone. The banner which was the most striking font was quite plain but also had a slighly edgy side so that it would enhance the magazine, most importantly to capture our specific audience. As our genre was indie rock it was important to advertise products and events that suited, I advertised Reading and Leeds festival on the front page, as everybody who reads this magazine would be interested in going to these festivals. By advertising these festivals it also enabled me to create sub texts in relation to the festivals, for example I had an article on Festivals Top Tips. The image that I displayed on the front of the magazine was the most important factor for me, it would be the first thing that our audience would look. I chose to convert my image into black and white so it would reflect a very mysterious look, also the effect enhanced the magazine as it made the colors and text blend together to make it look realistic. When taking the pictures we decided to use amps, guitars and microphones so that the images would look like a real band, I feel that by using these props it also helped to emphasises our genre.

The music magazine did appeal to the fragmented audience, however the main reason why we chose to do this genre was because it was growing in popularity. From our questionairee resluts we found that everybody reading magazines such as NME and KERRANG are all very interested in music and like to keep up to date with every gig and every festival, so as part of our topics we created a page on  top festival tips and also where bands were going to playing in upcoming weeks, by doing this it emphasised our genre as all the bands were part of the same category and everybody could relate to the article.
A big part of our research was looking at magazines such as KERRANG and NME and this really helped us to look at the style of magazine and how we wanted ours to look. We tried to look at thier ideas but construct them into our own as our genre was very simular. I reesearched many of their images on google, all of them were very influenctial, I based my double page spread on one of their additions, I liked the way they had used the images and text, but especially the banner as it was very captivating. When beginning looking at how I would write my interview, I struggled for ideas, however looking at NME and KERRANG really helped me as they had a very interesting style that captured the audiences attention, I wanted to use this style on my double pag spread but add a few of my own ideas.

Questions on conventions

1.) Which were the most influential conventions for you? How did your study effect your decisions and outcomes?

When making my music magazine I felt that there were many conventions that influenced me. Budget was very important during the task, as we were not a proffesional company we were very restricted on our props and the software that we used, so the budget was very important when considering how we would take our pictures and where. Due to our budget we borrwed the schools equiptement, this was everything from lighting to guitars and amps. The budget effected the outcome of the magazine as we could have used different software and perhaps chosen a location that would have fitted in with the genre of the magazine, for example we could have booked a stage room, which would have made the images more realistic. The color scheme of the magazine was also very important as it had to fit in with the style, to help me with the colors I researched into colors and made a powerpoint presentaion, this was extremely helpful for me as I was able to narrow down the colors to purples, blacks and reds, which were all associated with the genre. This research helped me to produce many mock ups, all including the different colors but using them in different areas, which enabled me to produce my final piece. The layout of the magazine was also very important for the outcome of the magazine as it had to fit in with the genre. We had looked at other magazine covers such as KERRANG and NME so we had a good idea of what we wanted it our final outcome to be. Also we had produced many mock ups of our magazine which enabled us to experiment with different layouts.


2.) Did you subvert any conventions that you studied in your music magazine?

Notes on section A-1b

List of concepts:
- Genre
-Narrative
-Representation
- Audience
- Media language

Analysed in relation to any of the comments

KEY- Use any ideas which you have encountered in relation to section B of the exam

The questions will want you to delve deeper

Genre- AS music video
Narrative- A2 music video
Audiences- You could choose anything- targets, responses- facebook, youtube

The task should be seen as an oppurtunity to relfect on how your chosen project actaully works as a text- Judgemental- critically objective

Media language- You can consider all the specific features of your text- camera work, editing, graphics, title, page, layout, fonts, elements of semiotics, design and structure

Mark schemes are equal= 25 marks
10 marks- explanation, analysis and argument, 10 marks of examples, 5 marks for terminology

Always plan for all concepts to come up


Example question:

"Media texts rely on cultural experiences in order for audiences to easily make sense of narratives". Explain how you used conventional and/or experimental narrative approaches in one of your production pieces.

Questions on research and planning

1.) Detail how your understanding of the importance of good research and planning skills developed throughout the pre- production of your AS and A2.

Good planning and research skills are essential in media, at the beginning of my AS media year I was unaware of just how important they were, however throughout the year my skills developed. When beginning our music magazine it was important to find out what music our year group were into as our music magazine was aimed at people 18-30, to find this out we created a questionnaire, we did find out some very useful information that helped us plan our own ideas, however reflecting I think it would have been better to ask a variety of the age group, I now see this as something that I could do next time. There are two types of research, by now we had already completed the primary research, so for the secondary research we used Google to search for NME and KERRANG. I found that by using this type of research it was very beneficial in creating our drafts as we were able to get a good idea of structure, layout and fonts. Since doing the planning for our music magazine my skills have developed considerable as I am now starting my A2 project and am able to adapt these skills to what I am doing now, I have already started my planning and research and have a very clear direction as to where I am going.
The planning was just as important for our magazine, there were many things that we had to consider such as the location and when the equipment would be available. As I was working in a group one of my team members strengths was organization and this was something that I was able to develop over the year and now I am able to carry this through to my A2 year. When creating our music magazine we also did many drafts of our ideas so that when we came to the final draft we could converge all of these ideas together, this is something I will continue with this now as it is vital that my music video is very well thought through.

2.) How did your knowledge of digital technology aid your research and planning skills throughout the pre-production of your AS and A2.

We began our music magazine by researching into different genres, YouTube became a vital part of our project as we used it to look into music videos and reviews of music videos, as I was already well established with YouTube I was able to easily research into the videos. When we had researched all of our ideas the next step was to find somewhere to keep it, I was aware that you could set up blogs, however I was unaware of the site Blogger, however this was something that became essential in our everyday work, blogger was a brilliant way of keeping our research as well as keeping it organized. Facebook and my mobile became very important in our planning and research as well as we used them to contact our other group members to organise times and meetings as well as any new ideas that we had. They were essential in contacting our actors that we were using for out front cover, so that everybody was clear as to where we were meeting and what time.

Research and Planning

What skills have you learnt?

Blogger- Organised, online diary

Team work- Split up the work and apply work to peoples strengths and weaknesses


Types of research

Secondary- Second hand information, work on codes and conventions
Primary- First hand, textual analysis, audience feedback

Narrative theory: Todorov- expectations of narrative, what happens in the beginning, middle and end

PROP- Character function- Villians and heroes

You have to think about advantages and disadvantages:
- Expense cost- How much did the research cost?
-Accessibility- Was the research easy to find?
- Time- Was it time consuming?
-Reliability- Was the research measured to be consistent- was it a trustworthy source?
Accuracy- Were facts and figures correct? Did your audience feedback results provide a fair sample of overall results?

Bias- Textual analysis can be biased as it is subjective
Validity- Was there a link between research and final product

Evaluating my use of digital technology

When beginning my first year of AS media I found that the technology maybe very daunting and I was right! Throughout my mainstream education I have always used a PC however in media it is benificial to use the MACS as they have many more applications, this was something that I struggled to use at the beginning as eveything was so different!

When beginning my research for the music magazine I would do some of the work in the lessons and some at home, it came to my attention that MACS and PC software are not the same, perhaps this is something I should have already known, when I came to transfer my home work I was unabled to so on the MACS this meant that I had to figure out how to change to file type that I had saved on my PC, at first this caused some difficulty however it has now enabled me to use this skill in the future.
Using Photoshop was a skill in AS media that had to be learned, I have previously used Photoshop as photography was one of subjects at GSCE, however the Photoshop CS4 is slightly different to a PC version, everything seems twice as difficult! Doing a preliminary task at the beginning of the year ws benificial for me as it allowed me to practise and explore the MAC Photoshop so that I could duplicate the skills that I learnt on this task and expand on them in my main task.When working with Photoshop it is always important to save the image as either a JPG or a PSD, by saving an image as a PSD it allows you to come back to it to develop it further, by saving it as a JPG it means that you can open it up on your preview screen without the  Photoshop application coming up.

The music magazine was a great oppurtunity to pracitse using a proffesional camera, this enabled me to look at different settings and lightings on the camera to capture the best shot, although I had used a camera before the camera we used during this task was a far more complicated task, but now it is something that I woud be able to do again. Once we had captured our images it was then time to transfer them on to the MACS so that we could get editing, this meant that we would have to use a firewire cable and then save the images into a new folder so that they could easily be found, I had never transferred pictures onto a MAC computer so this was something that I would have to learn. When I finally started to create my magazine double page spread I had to use a programme called Illustrator, this seemed just as diffcult as Photoshop to me as I had never used it before. However slowly I started to adapt to the progamme and found myself learning new skills.
I feel that my digital tecnology has developed emmensely, I have not forgotten any of the skills that I have learnt in AS media so that I can carry them through to my final year.

Notes on digital technology

Always be specific to what tools you have used on the software

- Filters
- Layers
-Marquee
-Colour dropper
- Dodge

Be confident in the jargon used
Analyse always soloutioned focused= progressive

PSD and GIF- always save file types
With JPG talk about the picel size

Evaluate what you didnt do aswell

Show how you have represented research and planning for exmaple:
- Posts/uploaded/comments/embedded/followers/archaving/interactive


How did we test the product- research or real media output

Always say the positives aswell as the negatives for technology

How did we orgainse ourselves- facebook or mobile so that we could do filming and auditions

What type of hardware did we use-
- Firewire cables
-I movie

How do I think my creative skills have devloped in AS?

 My AS media task was to create a music magazine, although this was a very exciting task I realised it would have its difficulties. The magazine was highly dependent on creative skills so it was important for me to develop these throughout the project so I could create a magazine that was going to reflect a professional look.

 The daunting task all began with the planning, where would I start? How would I even begin to plan? The planning was the beginning of my creativity as I wanted to create a broad plan of all my choices, As I was working within a group I did find this very beneficial as normally I would only consider going down one route whereas this time we were all very considerate of everyone’s ideas and it enabled me to think in depth of what I wanted to.

Researching was the next step, our group researched the main genres in the music industry, we looked at genres such as rock, indie, folk music, and R&B, we then thought it was important to look at how much money each genre had generated, who had sold the most albums. We also used a questionnaire that was very influential in deciding what genre of music we would choose to use in our magazine. We created the questionnaire ourselves and asked friends to complete them; the research concluded that we would use Indie music as our genre. As Indie is such a dominate genre in the music industry there were many magazines that we were able to research into such as NME and KERRANG, the research of these magazines were extremely helpful for me, it helped me realise that it wasn’t just the pictures I needed to focus on but everything from the colours, fonts, structure and layout, all of these factors would be important in creating our magazine.

The practical side of the magazine involved us finding a room that was suitable for us to fit all of the equipment in and had the appropriate lighting. At the beginning this was quite a difficult task as many of the rooms were occupied. Organisation was very important in this task as well as we relied on borrowing our equipment from different departments, such as cameras and lighting effects. This was a great opportunity to experiment with different creative ideas.   

Using Blogspot was very benifical for me as it made me realise you dont always have to use a pen and paper to express your ideas, Blogspot allowed me to experiment with different layouts and structure. 

In conclusion my AS media year was essntial for me to devlelop my creativity skills and I hope I will be able to expand on them in my second year.

Questions on creativity

1. What ideas did you communicate and what stylistic techniques did you use? How did it relate to your interests/self identify?  

 When creating my Music magazine alongside other group members, there were many factors we needed to take into consideration before we thought about producing our product. We needed to make sure we were constantly thinking about our neiche audience of 18 - 30 year olds, whilst thinking about the sorts of things they would like to see in a magazine. Firstly pictures were a must, they are a vital feature within any magazine becasue they create a visual representation of the information given. The way in which the articles and the magazine is layed out is also important when trying to communicate ideas; It also adds to the list of stylistic techniques we used in order to grab our readers attention. We wanted our music magazine to communicate to the public that it was all about music and following the new indie fashion. As a young teenager myself I am constantly aware of the new fashion changes taking place around me. From this I was able to add some of my own intrests into the magazine, for example the way in which we took the pictures and how we edidted them. I really enjoy photography, and for me it was important to make sure the pictures were eyecatching as well as a clear representaion of the band through the magzine.

2.) Was your product influenced by your enviroment?

In my opinion, any new product released into the market in this day and age, is always influenced by the environment it has come. Our magazine is so different from this, because I think that the final product represented our neiche audience very well. Not only from out questionairee research but just from general knowledge we knew that the Indie genre was becoming increasinly popular so this definately persuaded us to use this genre in our magazine. Indie genre has become a fashion staement as every teenage seems to expore thier new music tasted, nowadays it seems to be that everyone wants to be unique.

3. Was it original or did you add something extra to an original media text?

It was an original idea however we did research into many other magazines such as, KERRANG and NME so that we could educate ourselves on how we can do better and perhaps have a unique selling point. As NME and KERRANG have done so well in the media industry I think that it was very important to look at them and see why they have done so well, what have they done that we could do.By lookng at these magazines it has benfited us as looked at the most populaar interested and adapted them into our own magazine.

 4.   Would you take any creative skills into future projects?

Yes I would definately take my creative skills that I have learnt into future projects. Photoshop was a very good program to gain skills from as before I wasnt sure how to use it however since doing our project I have now leant many skills, from editing the contrast and colors, to using a magnetic lasso to cut a picture out. The magazine was also a brilliant oppurtunity to enhance my photography skills, we borrowed a proffesional camera and also use lights, this enabled me to explore different angles and compositions. 

What is creativity?

"The making of the new and the re-arranging of the act" (Bentley 1997).

• A work in progress- skills development and future projects? 
• Challenging conventions of replicating furthering knowledge of them? 

This progmatic approach suggests the creation or bringing something new into existance "this particular understanding of creativity involves the physical making of something leading to some form of communication, expression or revelation" (David Gauntlett)

How we are influenced by social/cultural/enviromental/biographical backgrounds. How have you tried to expand the boundaries?

Look at your creative application of

• Composition and framing 
• Abstract natures and ideologies, representation and identities 
• Narrative 
• Design and layout
• Hypertext and convergence

Unit G325 Theoretical evaluation of production

Section A: Theoretical evaluation of production
             B : Contempary media issues

You awnser two questions 

1. You have to descirbe and evaluate 
2. Indentify one production and evaluate it in relation to one theoretical concept 

A.) Relate these skills to:

• Digital technology- Camera, computers, software, mobiles, blogs
• Creativty- Drawing (layout), logos 
• Research and planning- Album covers, music 
• Post-production- Blogger, Youtube, Facebook, Broadcasting
• Using conventions from real media texts- Magazines, clothing, merchandise 

Describe and evaluate your skills devlopment.
Over the course of your production work from foundation portfolio to advanced portfolio.

Descibe: How you learned them, detailed exmaples
Evaluate: Problems and soloutions

• Point, evidence and explain- Very important 

Where do I have my evidence saved?

• Blogger 
• On site/ in folder
• Document folder on computer 
• World wide web