Sunday, 29 April 2018
Evaluation 3/4: What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Our audience and their visual preference held a significant role in our production.
At the beginning of our production me and my partner decided to make a doodle concept-based music video however we didn't have a solidified depiction of what the illustrations would look like. Using our Pinterest board we collected a diverse array of illustrations and in our first audience survey we asked our target audience which of the illustrations they preferred. The verdict and the tally are below.
Our second question in the primary focus group survey was about costuming and which style was most popular with our audience. We presented five very different outfits and asked them to choose their favourite. The answer was tie between a sexy outfit which accentuated the female physic and curvaceousness, and the other was a plain normal minimalistic outfit.
At the beginning of our production me and my partner decided to make a doodle concept-based music video however we didn't have a solidified depiction of what the illustrations would look like. Using our Pinterest board we collected a diverse array of illustrations and in our first audience survey we asked our target audience which of the illustrations they preferred. The verdict and the tally are below.
Our audience admired this one because the use of colour allowed it to "pop against the page" due to the "graduation of colours involved". This influenced the illustrations in our video to transition through the colours of the rainbow.
Our concept of doodles (and the colours of them) was a frequently raised positive in our second focus group task. One participant commented that "the overlaying symbol theme was a very clever idea and with the song being upbeat I thought this was well captured in the video".
In the music video every illustration was relevant to either the song or the branding or a specific theory. However one comment about illustrations which we received in the primary focus group survey that I kept note of was, one participant said she liked how in the illustration of all the faces seem "very random". In the digipak I wanted to incorporate some not-so-relevant, random overlays. So peaking out from the hedge on the cover is a flag of America and there's a demon overlaying the pelican crossing pole on the middle page. I think these illustrations contribute to the "fun" and "creative flow" vibe demonstrated in our video.
Our second question in the primary focus group survey was about costuming and which style was most popular with our audience. We presented five very different outfits and asked them to choose their favourite. The answer was tie between a sexy outfit which accentuated the female physic and curvaceousness, and the other was a plain normal minimalistic outfit.
We were then faced with the decision of branding and how we wanted to portray Chance The Rapper's identity. We decided we wanted our brand to appeal to the mainstream so we opted for the more casual and common style of the two (the minimalist outfit). I think the outfit was a key contribution to the video being "representative of our London society".
In our primary focus group we then did a multiple choice question of which destination our audience would feel most/least appropriate to film at. The table on the left is most and the right is least:
The most popular locations (with three votes each) were a café and amusement park. The least popular locations were a launderette and public transport. When I asked this question and gathered peoples responses I found that reactions to specific places varied a lot and whilst one location would be one participants favourite, it would be another persons worst. From asking this question we also uncovered significant connotations that people held in respect to locations. For example the launderette was votes joint first for least appropriate places to film and one of our participants, Tarin, described launderettes as grimy and outdated. However the launderette was also voted second top for most appropriate locations and another participant, Endryu, described the vintage-ness and 80's aesthetic demonstrated in launderettes as a positive. We also decided that whilst these ranks do represent what are considered cool places for our audience, they weren't picked in consideration of our video or concept. So whilst a funfair is a cool location, it wouldn't be simple or calm enough to accompany our illustrative overlays and demonstrate refinement.
In our secondary focus group task one participant said a way to improve our video could be to have shot around East London which has a "quirky urban vibe" which our video could have "benefitted from". Whilst I appreciate and agree with this idea, I don't think the use of more locations would have improved our video.
In our second focus group survey the first question asked our audience what they liked about the video and to my happiness, the audience picked up on a number of our creative decisions.
Lucas said that he enjoyed the use of "several different shots, locations, and also times of the day". We were experimental in our production and had fun playing around pre and post production which is what caused us to shoot from various angles and distances. We wanted our brand to fit in with a "Londoner's" aesthetic and also we wanted to show an ordinary person who likes to make music (not a millionaire celebrity) which is what prompted us to use a variety of London locations. We shot during the day and night time because night time seemed appropriate because the song is "All Night" however with low daylight and a desire to be 'normal' and unpretentious (prompting us to not use lighting equipment), we felt it best to additionally shoot in the daytime.
Our video was also praised for the choreographing which helped to "intensify the energy of the music" and Keira said that this energetic movement throughout helped to "enhance the visuals". This statement supports Andrew Goodwin's Six Key Feature theory in that there is a correlation between the music and the visuals. The reason why all the chorus segments are of the actress dancing to the song is because we wanted to reciprocate the grooviness and the upbeat which is demonstrated in the rhythm.
Betsy described our video as owning a "youthful feel" which I think is due to the locations, the fun overlay concept, and the casualness established by the hand-held camera and the mobile phone shot scenes. As I've already discussed outfit and locations added to the identity which we created of a young, fun, Londoner. The overlay concept was targeted at young people because we think that generally, older audiences prefer art which shows refinement or a lot of technical ability, but our overlays were just simple, vibrant, line doodles. The hand-held camera and the lower quality scenes look casual and ordinary and for me as a viewer, if I watch a music video by an established musician but its shot on a mobile phone or hand held camera, the video immediately appeals to me and seems youthful and contemporary as it looks like something any driven youth could also accomplish. Hanan added to this by writing that the iPhone segments came across so "contemporary and youthful".
In regard to our advert and digipak Hanan said she linked the colours as they're "minimalistic". I think the plain whiteness of the overlays allowed us to incorporate the same intense standard of illustrations, however it didn't come off as too much. This was our aim and I would say it came off well as Keira described the overall picture as "simple to the eye but it's actually not too simple and quite detailed".
Another thing about our digipak and advert is we wanted to reinforce the brand and identity. We wanted to communicate the ordinary London youth vibe we had shown in our music video so we were considering shooting either at a high street, on public transport, or at a road crossing. We chose a road crossing because we liked the simplicity of this location and as Sharna said its "representative of our London society". We drew overlays on the portrait photo of the girls face which contributed to her identity as a black girl. We drew baby hairs, makeup, and a cross neckless which contributed to Sharna's statement that this picture "tells a story and is representative". Baby hairs, makeup and a cross neckless are culturally symbollic.
Questions four, five, and six asked our audience what improvements they thing could be made in each of our productions. I think a lot of the feedback we got was potential things we could try out but things we purposely avoided in our final production. For example one participant said an improvement would be to trial "different costumes" however we only wanted two very basic outfits as we didn't want the focus of our audience to be on what she's wearing.
Keira said that we "could have experimented with upside down spinning frames" and used some "zoom in and out" frames, and Hanan contributed to this by saying "maybe add a filter". However I my opinion, if we did more experimentation with our transitions and filters and made those more extravagant there'd be a clash with the overlays and it would be too much.
Sharna encouraged us to use more locations of East London which as I explained earlier I think although this might have been interesting in our video it wouldn't have improved the video as we already incorporated many locations.
The seventh question asked our audience what image the artist gave out and all of the participants more or less described youthfulness and upbeat-ness which I think was expressed with the dancing, outfit, camera work, locations, and vibrant overlays. What was interesting was the further connotations people received from the artist. Hanan described the artists image as very tumblr driven, and like an art student. "Super youthful, super modern and contemporary", which I think was established by the concept illustrative overlays. Betsy described the mood spectated in the artist as "channeling thoughts of life in general" which is interesting... I can't see this connotation but there isn't a right or wrong answer and I like how there's a mixture of interpretations. Abdi's answer reflected the interpretation I also see in our productions. He said "the artists seems like a person lost in time, enjoying life and what's thrown at them". I think one scene which particularly emphasises this is the ending scene where the actress is smiling and dancing in the tube even though people are around her and are simply walking or standing, blank faced, normally, and boringly. This connotes to being "lost in time" and "enjoying life".
Developing a connection and understand our audiences preferences which we achieved in our primary focus group has held a compelling role in the choice making pre and post production and personally, I attribute most of the successes of our video to that practice. So if I was to redo this project or something similar which targeted an audience I'd definetly use a focus group and collect their opinions.
Saturday, 21 April 2018
Evaluation 1/4: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My starting basis for my advanced portfolio was to refer to other popular music videos and theories. One of the first theories which I learnt about was Laura Mulvey’s male gaze theory. The theory is based on how audiences often watch through the gaze of a heterosexual man, and the role of a women is simplified to sexual and this is achieved with voyeuristic camera angles and movements and skimpy clothing. In my opinion this theory is relevant but music videos which blatantly degrade a woman to purely a sexual object are less common in 2018 than in previous years, and so in my video I chose to combat Laura Mulvey’s male gaze theory. The aim was to represent the character as an average, contemporary youth from London and so appose to sexual or girly clothes we dressed her in mainstream and baggy clothes. Her hair and makeup was natural and she didn’t exacerbate sexuality.
Our video was a concept video based around the illustrative overlays and we used the overlays to reference a bunch of theorists. One of the theories we implicated was Levi Strauss’ binary opposition theory. Binary opposites are two concepts which theoretically appose. Some examples of binary opposition in our video is the scene shot inside a café as Chance The Rapper raps “everybody outside”, or the overlays of opposing icons like the happy face followed by the sad face. We also referenced Barthes’ narrative codes with our semes (semantic codes) and signifiers (symbolic codes) such as the illustration of the joint puffing up as Chance raps “so now you wanna chill” or the cocktail glasses accompanying the chorus of “all night, I’ve been drinking all night”. Another theory which we used in our music video was Andrew Goodwin’s six key feature theory which states in key feature two and three that the music video demonstrates a link to the lyrics and to the music. We showed this link between the music and the lyrics with some clips having a literal denotation of what was being rapped, such as the clip of the actress jogging as Chance raps “now she jog in the street”, and we showed the link between the visuals and the music with movement of the actress jogging. Our actress was dancing and jumping about as this suited the tempo and beat of the song.
In the planning stage I found that it’s quite common for music videos to use a range of close up and mid shots. I have attributed this to the fact that both of these shot types are acceptable for narrative, concept, and performance based music videos. Mid shots are a good staple in my opinion as they allow the spectator to view the location and mise-en-scène with ease. I also think they are significant because as Andrew Goodwin explains in his six key feature theory, the audience enjoys close ups and this enables the artist to create a motif or brand across their work.
Another convention of music videos is lip-synching which I incorporated for some scenes.
Filters and transitions are occasionally used. In our music video the transitions from each clip to each is immediate, apart from the ending which fades to white. We chose to fade it to white as this was quite a vibrant and positive ending and the whole vibe denoted in our video was positivity and joy. Our transitions were on the whole rapid because we wanted the quickness to assimilate with the funky groove, which slower transitions would not have done. In our digital package and CD advertisement the photo was edited with high saturation as we wanted to reciprocate the vibrance and vividness our music video achieved, and with the white doodles this was an effect way of doing so.
When we were looking into conventional music video representations and split them into race I developed a theory which we aimed to combat. When analysing the music videos of some equally mainstream artists such as Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Beyoncé and Katy Perry we found that female musicians of colour generally have to provide an extravagant performance or a deep narrative or an amazing narrative in order to attract an audience. Whereas we found white women generally can just use their face (and european features) to attract an audience. Beyoncé’s most recent album “Lemonade” was a visual album and was released alongside a sixty-five minute film and so provided a lot of entertainment in combination with the music which attracted fans. If you compare this to Taylor Swift’s music video for “I Knew You Were Trouble” (IKYWT), the 6 minute video which attributed 400 million youtube views begins with approximately 2 minutes of a mixture of close ups of Taylor Swift. This is pretty boring but as Taylor Swift demonstrates features of the global beauty standard I think the audience don’t mind watching a bunch of closeups. I think if there was 2 minute close-up of say a black artist with a wide nose and baby hairs and big lips, people would click off because to the mainstream those features are not considered beautiful and it’s not entertaining. A paradigm for this contradiction is Rihanna’s music video for “California King Bed” which attained nearly half of the views on youtube that Taylor Swift’s IKYWT video attained. The concept of the video is Rihanna’s face and whilst to me and her fans she is considered beautiful, when this video was released in 2011 (a year pre IKYWT), she wasn’t regarded as the pinnacle of beauty due to her wide nose and large lips and melanin skin, and so this video doesn't have as large a viewership as IKYWT. A final example is Katy Perry who typically released concept based videos where the concept is her in a quirky scenery, and so her videos generally focus on her face. Her face is entertaining as her makeup is cool but also she always has straight sleek hair, large beady eyes, a small cute nose, a medium sized mouth, light skin, light eyes, and so on. Our video combats this generalisation as the concept is simple and the footage concentrates on our actress, appose to a vivid narrative or performance.
When we looked at digipaks online there were two opposing conventions. There are some including “The Perfect” which are very direct and their primary function seems to be to sell the album. Through their editing and colour schemes (which are consistent with their music video and album) a whole vibe and aesthetic is indicated but in comparison to their albums prior to this, it didn’t deepen their branding or solidify a motifs. When I looked at “Lemonade” which is highly editorial I found that the imagery of Beyoncé’s braided hair and the scenes of a group of black women resonated with themes explored in her previous albums, and so this digipak linked to her branding and furthered the audience’s understanding of who she is as an artist. Our digipak drew inspiration from both of these conventions. In terms of editing we were consistent with the concept in our music video and advert poster and therefore the aesthetic we strived for was very clearly shown and a portion of the audience were attracted simply through the aesthetic and vibe. The continuity throughout all of our productions promotes the selling of the album because it says to the spectator, “If you like the digipak you’re likely to enjoy the music video”. Then, if you look at the imagery behind the overlays demonstrated in the digipak we’ve made subtle choices which link to our artists brand. The actress is shown in basic average clothes, she’s portrayed at a road crossing and outside an estate which is again quite normal and basic, especially to our target audience who are BC1C2, she is mixed race which is quite an ordinary ethnic background in 2018 England. If we proceeded with this production and designed another album proceeding this, the brand and identity of Chance The Rapper would probably be in affiliation to the target audiences social background, the coloured ethnicity, and the basicness and ordinariness of the locations. Her identity would be a mixed race typical Londoner and this would be demonstrated by the scenery and her skin colour.
However it doesn't link to any of their previous albums and the audience's understanding of who they are as artists.
In mainstream society an influence seen throughout our video is fourth-wave feminism which celebrates beauty within diversity but also concentrates on the assets of women excluding beauty and questioning gender roles, e.g: why are girls taught that the pinnacle of success is marriage and a family but boys are taught success equals job? Our video aspired to fourth-wave feminism through our representation of the character (her clothing which was in combat to the male gaze theory), the footage which simply showed her dancing around and being pretty (even though as I discussed this isn’t ordinary for women of colour), the fact that we made a female character to fulfil a male artist.
Our influences in terms of media texts we looked at was very broad. We decided we wanted to use a handheld camera and produce sort of shaky clips instead of polished shots with the use of a tripod. My partner suggested this as she enjoyed the shots in the television show ”Insecure" which were shot on a handheld camera. I agreed with her as I think a handheld camera helped to construct the realness and ordinariness of the video which we strived for.
For our digipak we considered using borders to surround our images and this was inspired by several magazines such as the National Geographic and Paper magazine.
One of our shooting sessions was shot on an iPhone camera. We looked at a range of music videos including Beyoncé’s “7/11” and Kanye West’s music video for “Only One” and we found that the ordinariness of the video and the minor pixelation is appealing to the audience as it makes the artist seem like a regular person, not like they are superior to the spectator which is refreshing and nice. We’ve observed in media such as Kylie Jenner’s video “To Our Daughter” that a mixture of low quality and high quality clips are quite effective in maintaining professionalism and polishedness that some spectators enjoy, whilst also reflecting this normality that some spectators enjoy.
Examples of Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory in media texts. Katy Perry's music video for "California Gurls" (left) and Shakira's music video for "She Wolf" (right)
Clothing in our music video
Our video was a concept video based around the illustrative overlays and we used the overlays to reference a bunch of theorists. One of the theories we implicated was Levi Strauss’ binary opposition theory. Binary opposites are two concepts which theoretically appose. Some examples of binary opposition in our video is the scene shot inside a café as Chance The Rapper raps “everybody outside”, or the overlays of opposing icons like the happy face followed by the sad face. We also referenced Barthes’ narrative codes with our semes (semantic codes) and signifiers (symbolic codes) such as the illustration of the joint puffing up as Chance raps “so now you wanna chill” or the cocktail glasses accompanying the chorus of “all night, I’ve been drinking all night”. Another theory which we used in our music video was Andrew Goodwin’s six key feature theory which states in key feature two and three that the music video demonstrates a link to the lyrics and to the music. We showed this link between the music and the lyrics with some clips having a literal denotation of what was being rapped, such as the clip of the actress jogging as Chance raps “now she jog in the street”, and we showed the link between the visuals and the music with movement of the actress jogging. Our actress was dancing and jumping about as this suited the tempo and beat of the song.
A reference to Andrew Goodwin's third of six key features, the illustrations bounce around the actress as she bounces and dances to the music.
Signifiers which link to Barthes' narrative code as well as Andrew Goodwin's second key feature that there is a link between the visuals and the lyrics. Chance raps "You just wanna talk about politics, Chicago shit and rocket ships" so the overlays are the flag of the US and Chicago as well as icons symbolic of space.
Reference to the binary opposition theory, Chance raps "everybody outside" but the clip shows the actress inside in the warmth and comfort.
In the planning stage I found that it’s quite common for music videos to use a range of close up and mid shots. I have attributed this to the fact that both of these shot types are acceptable for narrative, concept, and performance based music videos. Mid shots are a good staple in my opinion as they allow the spectator to view the location and mise-en-scène with ease. I also think they are significant because as Andrew Goodwin explains in his six key feature theory, the audience enjoys close ups and this enables the artist to create a motif or brand across their work.
Another convention of music videos is lip-synching which I incorporated for some scenes.
An example of a popular music video which uses a range of distance based shots and lip-synching.
Filters and transitions are occasionally used. In our music video the transitions from each clip to each is immediate, apart from the ending which fades to white. We chose to fade it to white as this was quite a vibrant and positive ending and the whole vibe denoted in our video was positivity and joy. Our transitions were on the whole rapid because we wanted the quickness to assimilate with the funky groove, which slower transitions would not have done. In our digital package and CD advertisement the photo was edited with high saturation as we wanted to reciprocate the vibrance and vividness our music video achieved, and with the white doodles this was an effect way of doing so.
Non-edited versus edited posters for our digital package.
When we were looking into conventional music video representations and split them into race I developed a theory which we aimed to combat. When analysing the music videos of some equally mainstream artists such as Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Beyoncé and Katy Perry we found that female musicians of colour generally have to provide an extravagant performance or a deep narrative or an amazing narrative in order to attract an audience. Whereas we found white women generally can just use their face (and european features) to attract an audience. Beyoncé’s most recent album “Lemonade” was a visual album and was released alongside a sixty-five minute film and so provided a lot of entertainment in combination with the music which attracted fans. If you compare this to Taylor Swift’s music video for “I Knew You Were Trouble” (IKYWT), the 6 minute video which attributed 400 million youtube views begins with approximately 2 minutes of a mixture of close ups of Taylor Swift. This is pretty boring but as Taylor Swift demonstrates features of the global beauty standard I think the audience don’t mind watching a bunch of closeups. I think if there was 2 minute close-up of say a black artist with a wide nose and baby hairs and big lips, people would click off because to the mainstream those features are not considered beautiful and it’s not entertaining. A paradigm for this contradiction is Rihanna’s music video for “California King Bed” which attained nearly half of the views on youtube that Taylor Swift’s IKYWT video attained. The concept of the video is Rihanna’s face and whilst to me and her fans she is considered beautiful, when this video was released in 2011 (a year pre IKYWT), she wasn’t regarded as the pinnacle of beauty due to her wide nose and large lips and melanin skin, and so this video doesn't have as large a viewership as IKYWT. A final example is Katy Perry who typically released concept based videos where the concept is her in a quirky scenery, and so her videos generally focus on her face. Her face is entertaining as her makeup is cool but also she always has straight sleek hair, large beady eyes, a small cute nose, a medium sized mouth, light skin, light eyes, and so on. Our video combats this generalisation as the concept is simple and the footage concentrates on our actress, appose to a vivid narrative or performance.
"Lemonade" album trailer compromising of all of Beyoncé's extravagant music videos, as an example of how much effort goes into entertaining and alluring the audience. Versus...
Thumbnails from a mixture of Katy Perry's music videos, which brings in a large audience as Katy Perry is conventionally beautiful.
Comparison of Rihanna's music video for "California King Bed" and Taylor Swift's "I Knew You Were Trouble" which are fundamentally similar in that the concept is their faces, however Taylor Swift appeals to european beauty standard which Rihanna does not, which contributes to the reasons why Rihanna's music video is less popular.
When we looked at digipaks online there were two opposing conventions. There are some including “The Perfect” which are very direct and their primary function seems to be to sell the album. Through their editing and colour schemes (which are consistent with their music video and album) a whole vibe and aesthetic is indicated but in comparison to their albums prior to this, it didn’t deepen their branding or solidify a motifs. When I looked at “Lemonade” which is highly editorial I found that the imagery of Beyoncé’s braided hair and the scenes of a group of black women resonated with themes explored in her previous albums, and so this digipak linked to her branding and furthered the audience’s understanding of who she is as an artist. Our digipak drew inspiration from both of these conventions. In terms of editing we were consistent with the concept in our music video and advert poster and therefore the aesthetic we strived for was very clearly shown and a portion of the audience were attracted simply through the aesthetic and vibe. The continuity throughout all of our productions promotes the selling of the album because it says to the spectator, “If you like the digipak you’re likely to enjoy the music video”. Then, if you look at the imagery behind the overlays demonstrated in the digipak we’ve made subtle choices which link to our artists brand. The actress is shown in basic average clothes, she’s portrayed at a road crossing and outside an estate which is again quite normal and basic, especially to our target audience who are BC1C2, she is mixed race which is quite an ordinary ethnic background in 2018 England. If we proceeded with this production and designed another album proceeding this, the brand and identity of Chance The Rapper would probably be in affiliation to the target audiences social background, the coloured ethnicity, and the basicness and ordinariness of the locations. Her identity would be a mixed race typical Londoner and this would be demonstrated by the scenery and her skin colour.
Red Velvet's music video and album packaging which showed continuity of the concept throughout.
Some similar Beyoncé videos across 16 years, resonating the same concept of girl power and imprinting this ethos into her identity as an artist.
In mainstream society an influence seen throughout our video is fourth-wave feminism which celebrates beauty within diversity but also concentrates on the assets of women excluding beauty and questioning gender roles, e.g: why are girls taught that the pinnacle of success is marriage and a family but boys are taught success equals job? Our video aspired to fourth-wave feminism through our representation of the character (her clothing which was in combat to the male gaze theory), the footage which simply showed her dancing around and being pretty (even though as I discussed this isn’t ordinary for women of colour), the fact that we made a female character to fulfil a male artist.
Our influences in terms of media texts we looked at was very broad. We decided we wanted to use a handheld camera and produce sort of shaky clips instead of polished shots with the use of a tripod. My partner suggested this as she enjoyed the shots in the television show ”Insecure" which were shot on a handheld camera. I agreed with her as I think a handheld camera helped to construct the realness and ordinariness of the video which we strived for.
The trailer for the show "Insecure" which prompted our use of a handheld camera
For our digipak we considered using borders to surround our images and this was inspired by several magazines such as the National Geographic and Paper magazine.
Print media influence on our digipak
One of our shooting sessions was shot on an iPhone camera. We looked at a range of music videos including Beyoncé’s “7/11” and Kanye West’s music video for “Only One” and we found that the ordinariness of the video and the minor pixelation is appealing to the audience as it makes the artist seem like a regular person, not like they are superior to the spectator which is refreshing and nice. We’ve observed in media such as Kylie Jenner’s video “To Our Daughter” that a mixture of low quality and high quality clips are quite effective in maintaining professionalism and polishedness that some spectators enjoy, whilst also reflecting this normality that some spectators enjoy.
Kylie Jenner's "To Our Daughter" video which used a combination of low quality and high quality footage
Friday, 20 April 2018
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