Lisette Cooke's Evaluation

Our final music video does both challenge and use forms and conventions of real media products. The band we chose is a typical quirky Indy band that uses conventions in their genre such as make believe lands, mixes of real narratives and shots of the band in unusual settings. We tried hard to keep the conventions of our genre throughout the music video. One of the ways we did this is through not having the band playing in the music video and not having the band playing in the music video and only having short sharp clips of the other musicians. It goes against voyeuristic treatment of both the male and female stereotypes. It does not have a women showing off her body or men dancing and wearing tight tops to show off their abs like in a lot of boy bands such as JLS in their ‘Beat Again‘ video . It also challenges the idea of having a set storyline you would find in a lot of other music videos such as Wheatus’s ‘Teenage dirt bag’ or Counting Crows‘s ’accidentally in love’ . It’s bright daylight setting also breaks the conventions of strobe or effective lighting in the background,, linking back to the intertextuality reference of having a live action feel that challenges community and surrealism inspired by the Film Borat. However we have also managed to use conventions and forms by creating a quirky /cheeky Indy band with the use of the giant bear. We maintained this throughout with upbeat editing that links with the timing of the music. We followed the style of 1980’s pop editing with cross fades in the slower bits through to amplifying with spit screens. We also used the notion of “looking” as we linked the lead singer looking into a mirror, fountain and at a photograph. The relationship between lyrics and visuals was brought into our product as we used text to amplify the lyrics in the music; whilst also having contradicting it with ironic twists such as having the bear sitting on a punting boat relaxing, as the lyrics sing “ I’m in hell” . Finally we also used more visual intertextuality references by creating a fun and humorous link through the use of props. We did this with items such as superman cape, toy soldiers, lightsaber, Winnie the pooh books, swords and eye patch. These link to film references with others such as the bear swinging on a lamp post from singing in the rain and him sitting on the bench a scene from Forrest Gump. We also combined a reference to fun and through influence from the Tv comedy show ‘Peep show’ which uses our chosen song Harvey danger as it’s theme tune.

During creating our ancillary texts we found an effective combination to that and our main product. In designing our Digipack we tried not to let it mirror our main music video as we wanted to have a broader feel to the band and the album as a whole. With this in mind we designed an image of a mini van on the front cover to link back to the 60’s Peace campaign this was effective as it had an intertextuality reference to the bands former songs like “ Carlotta Valdez” a character from the 1960’s Alfred Hitchcock Film ‘Vertigo’ However we felt it best to continue some themes into both the digipack and magazine poster. We added footprints along the side of the poster to link back to the video that the bear is travelling around the world. on the poster we did not put a picture of the band on the front, instead we added silhouettes to represent the band as during the video there is a lack of visual presence of the band as a whole. Plus during our planning research we found this a recurring theme amongst the bands past posters and album covers that don’t actually featured the band. The sign “ bend ahead” relates to the album name “ problems and bigger ones” this is very effective as it suggests that the band, like the bear have had difficulties and have been down bumpy roads ( also seen on the poster, by the swerves in the road behind the van) but there are bumpier roads to come. This works well as after researching we found out that the band had broken up this year, this then seamed like a good final album design. we discovered by adding some reviews onto the poster, found on the internet, of the bands music also very effective as a combination to the main production. with quotes like “individual and fresh” by NME gives the viewer an idea that they are going to see something different in this particular band.

We learned a lot from our audience feedback that made us think how we could improve our piece. Although we got very good and positive feedback from our roughcut about our use of shot types, paced editing, location and mis en scene, there was still a few things that needed some thought to make the final product better. After some group discussion we decided to re-shoot some of our footage inspired by some of the feedback we got from our peers. One example of this would be the lip syncing and close ups of the lead singer. we learnt after the re shoot and new editing that you may not always notice little things when your working on the product, but with another’s opinion, they can spot those small things and this helps you to sort them out. Lip syncing tuned out to be our biggest problem to deal with when re doing the sequences, as we had trouble getting enough good footage that matched the song and backing track. We also learnt that there is a big change in opinions and suggestions based on the audiences ages. The general feel from the under 25s was positive and enjoyed the quirky fun of the lion and stop motion soldiers. however the older audience viewers found the lack of storyline a little less enjoyable than the younger audience. with this in mind we had to find a way to combine both opinions so that our final piece would both still be quirky Indy band and still have a balanced ground. we worked on this by taking out earlier shots of the lead singer in the bed outside on the field as we felt it confused the audience on where the story starts. Then by our final cut we added more close up shots of the lead singer, sticking to the idea that a record company may want more coverage of the lead singer, it took away from having a lack of storyline and overdoing the bear gag. by repeating shots of the lead singer and the bear doing the same thing and mirroring each other this then lead to having a storyline where the audience work out that the lead singer is the bear. We got good response to this as the viewers begin to understand the storyline we presented.

The use of new technology helped us greatly in constructing, researching, planning and evaluating our product as a whole. Before using digital cameras and tripods to capture our footage we used a great deal of the internet’s resources to plan and research details of our chosen band and music track. we did this through sites such as www.myspace.com to track and email the band, www.google/images.com to get an idea of the style of the band, www.wikipedia.co.uk for past and upcoming information on the band and then Harvey danger’s main fan site to find information on the band’s break up. whilst doing this we used www.blogger.com to retain and this enabled us to keep all of our research for future reference. We also found using www.youtube.com as a source of inspiration to find other music videos, films and TV shows for our intertextuality references. we found that you tube was also a great site to learn different skills, one of these was using videos to understand how to do green screen, stop motion and different camera angles. using the applications on the computer such as using itunes to preview our song choices and Microsoft PowerPoint to create a pitch for our final idea. Photoshop was a great application to work with to create mood boards, early designs of poster and our final Digipack. Final cut express enabled us to edit, cut and sort through our footage to create our final product for both our music video and creators commentary.

Lisette Cooke