La Fin

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. (Winston Churchill)

I think this quote summarises the progress I have made this year. However as Churchill says it is not the end “but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning” shows that I have still a lot to learn about the filmmaking process and industry. The problems I faced, the struggles I had made me realize that even if you plan everything our and leave no gap, check everything twice so it will work on the actual shoot day, it will never go as you expected. However this is what differences a good director from a bad director. I found that I was able to cope with these spontaneous changes and quickly think of a new idea. Spontaneity in this case heightened the level of creativity. I was able to try new things out. The use of digital cameras in my production was therefore really helpful.

My Blog explores the production process and I let you be the judge of whether it is good or bad. But I learned a lot during this time. If I think about things I would have done differently the first thing that comes to my mind would be a different song and maybe a more narrative based video. But I am very glad that I explored this part of pop-videos which is not mainstream and more for a niche audience.

I have learned how to use different conventions and how to imitate and subvert them. This give the audience a more pleasurable experience an enables them to get into the world of the media text.

I am really proud of my progress I hope that it becomes obvious through my blog that I enjoyed this part of my Media Studies A-Level.

Directors Commentary

A directors commentary gives background and insights to different scenes of the media text. In our directors commentary we as a group prepared a sheet of bullet points of what we were trying to achieve, how we did it and whether it worked or not. It was really important for us that it would come across naturally (which it was). We looked at our pop-video while commenting on it which made it easier for us to be able to talk about specific examples.

BLOG TASK THREE: AUDIENCE. WHAT I LEARNT FROM MY AUDIENCE FEEDBACK

We collected a variety of feedback and productive criticism for our Pop-Video. Our group sample was very broad because we used a focus group in order to gain not quantitive data as well as qualitative data and the video base “YouTube” where people are free and a can share their opinion. Our Pop-Video is targeted at females between 16-25. They would have strong beliefs in the female sex and feel independent. I argue that the reason for this is the topic of the song, which is: a girl being cheated on but is still able to lead a normal and happy life because she is happy with herself. This is a theme that is especially relevant in females from 16 to 25 therefore they are much more likely to be interested in it. Another criteria is that our target audience would include the groups A, B, C from the Jictar Model. Our Pop-Video portraits that message in a very intellectual and artistic way. We let her perform in a surreal world where we have no feeling of time and space but however the main twist in the end is that she is only watching herself in this world which leaves the audience with the question what is real and what is fake or in terms of the message of the song what is right and what is wrong. This open ending leaves space for possible interpretation which can only be made if one is willing to watch the Pop-Video as a Media Text which tries to convey a message/meaning and not only to represent a “star image” (Richard Dyer) We uploaded our video onto YouTube where we wanted to share it in order to get feedback from a variety of different people. However it was blocked by EMI after 8 days and did not get any criticism. We had 241 views in these 8 days which would be about 30 views a day. Therefore we had to gain feedback through a focus group. A focus is a form of qualitative research. The participants are asked specific questions about their opinions and impression the media text gave them. A focus group can lead to a group discussion which is very valuable for gaining qualitative data. This would not be possible by just using a questionnaire. We first started off with a questionnaire after we showed them the video. Our key point were, whether they enjoyed it, If the understood the message and if yes if the agree, how it might be improved, etc. We were looking for opened questions mainly so we could get more out of them. By using a discussion after that we can ensure that they were being serious and concentrated which is also another advantage of using a focus group. The possibility that they are lying is also less likely because it can be directly questioned through the discussion leader in this case us as a group. Questionnaire 1. What did you think of it? 2. What Message did you get? 3. How is the artist portrayed? 4. Can you connect with the artist? 5. If you can connect with the artist, why? 6. What sort of journey does the character shown in the video go through? 7. What do you think of the performance? 8. Does the video have serious message? 9. Does the video entertain you, if it does why? 10. If the message would be that the artist tries to make herself happy in order to get over the break up with her boyfriend how strongly would you agree? (1 being not at all 10 being very strongly) 11. What would you improve? *questions which are underlined are open questions. This is the questionnaire we gave our focus group but before analysing some of the answers I shall explain the make up of the group. We had a group of 14 people aged between 16 and 17 consisting out of 9 girls and 5 boys. One of the girls answered on question 2: “I really liked that you made it clear for me what the main message of the song was even if I don’t speak French. For me the message is that she tries to keep herself entertained however still confused at the same time”. This was a perfect model answer for our Pop-Video. However there were some answers that came from a different point of view. (Same question) “I didn’t get it, but it was good to watch.” We found that 7 out of the 9 girls got our preferred meaning and 1 out of the 5 boys did not. This reinforces our idea of our target audience which can identify with the meaning more then people that are not included (Males). I mentioned the concept of preferred meaning above. This belongs to Stuart Halls Theory which argues that groups should be used not individuals as social context was considered important. The model offers 3 positions for an audience. Dominant reading is where the audience accepts the viewpoint of the producers (in this case us) it is also known as preferred meaning). Our preferred meaning was that girls are independent and have the ability to make themselves happy even if the environmental factors put them down. In our focus group 8 people out of 14 accepted this preferred meaning, 4 negotiated (partly agreed) e.g. She makes herself happy however does not know what to do because of the randomness of her actions, and 2 disagreed (oppositional meaning) by saying she is objectified through close-ups and the focus is on her dancing performance rather then her journey. Another Theorist is Blumler and Katz. They argue that 4 needs have to be fulfilled by a media text. We tried to use the theory of Blumler & Katz on "uses and gratifications" to asses our audience response. B & K say that audience respond in for ways. The question was did ours respond to our pop video in this way. 1) Diversion which is a form of escape or emotional release from everyday pressures. All our focus group members agreed that the pop video was highly entertaining. Blumler & Katz say that a media text has to occupy the viewer for 70% of the time to be diverting. The 9 girls agreed that they lacked powers of concentration to last for 70% but that it was still diverting. The males were occupied for 100%. Sally, a highly intelligent 17 year old from Crawley commented "I could watch that over and over" 2) Personal Identity is the ability to compare one's life with the characters and situations within programs, and hence explore personal problems and perspectives. We were trying in our Pop-Video to get the viewer to identify with the young, independent, rebellious, edgy female artist. It worked in the main. 9 of the 9 girls were able to identify with our artist however none of the 5 males was which was what we expected. Laura a critical and outgoing 17 year old girl said "I can identify with her and the journey she is going through and that the pop-video puts over a valuable message for women that have trouble with being independent." We also got a lot of comments from public showings 10 out of 15 were favorable one of them was Harry from Wales "Great characters, great shots, great video." 3) Personal Relationships is a companionship via TV personalities and characters, and sociability through discussion about TV with other people. WE tried to establish a relationship by using close-ups. Vivacious and volatile, 17 year old, Cassandra epitomized the views of all the focus group when she said "You can identify and from a relationship with both characters on screen". All of the 14 of our focus group agreed but males 5 males identified as expected generally with the male character. We received comments such as "The relationship brings the song alive!" The Feedback was very helpful for our personal interest. It showed us that we were successful in satisfying the needs of an audience and it revealed our mistakes and gave us possibilities in order to improve. The main goal of argumentative writing is to persuade your the audience that our ideas are valid, or more valid than someone else's. Which we hopefully did. The greek philosopher Aristotle dived the means of persuasion, appeals, into three categories - Ethos, Pathos and Logos. Our Pop-Video operates on two of these three bases. Ethos (Credibility), or ethical appeal, means convincing by the character of the author. In our Pop-Video we establish the character by using a variety of shot types especially close-ups in order to create a intimate relationship with the audience. The other stage is Pathos (Emotional) which means persuading by appealing to the reader's or watcher's emotions. Aristotle's theory applies here perfectly well especially for our target audience (mentioned above). They can identify with the emotional journey of our artist which is reinforced by the surreal world she is in. Logos (Logical) (Greek word for "word") means persuading by the use of reasoning or speaking / writing. It partly applies to our Pop-Video. The lyrics of the song describe the artist feeling very well however they are french so therefore the main audience of the pop-video was not able to understand the lyrical meanings fully. If our main audience would have been french Logos would be another reinforcing part which would have made the message of the Pop-Video even clearer. We tried to work in a clear message in to the Pop-Video which could be enjoyed and decoded by everybody. This does not necessarily mean that everyone has to agree with it which leaves space for further discussions.

BLOG TASK TWO: A POWER POINT PRESENTATION TO EXPLORE HOW EFFECTIVE THE COMBINATION OF MY MAIN PRODUCT AND THE ANCILLARY TEXTS ARE?

Blog Task 2

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Levi Strauss and his application to my Pop-Video has caused me some challanges. In the Power Point I have addressed how we used the ideas of Dyer and Carlsson to sell our singer and brand, to create synegy between our Pop-Video and Digi-Pack and Magazine Advert. But Levi Strauss was more of a problem.

Since finishing the Power Point I have come to the conclusion that our Pop-Video is concerned with the Universal Myth of;

-Gender and the position and identity of women within society. This is a key Myth according to Levi Strauss. Our Pop-Video adresses this by creating a woman who is independant and happy with her own identity, and even resists the attentions of a male figure.

-What is reality? The video answers this by saying that life can be dream-like, ethereal and surreal.

And so we try and create the answer to 2 Universal Myth so that we touch the audience, their emotions and interlect in substancial ways.

The Creating of My Magazine Advert

A Magazine advert has to be carefully thought of. It is very important to sell the artist as good as possible. We decided to use the same picture for the magazine advert that we used for our front cover for our digipak which is a closeup of our artist. We want to sell her face. We want that it becomes an icon everybodt should see that picture and know what she stands for. However the picture alone did not create this impact so we added a few effects to it such as pulling the colour out of it this alone did still not work so we decided to add the so called “Sin City Effect” which is highlighting just one certain point in the frame by putting it into colour. We decided to do that to her eyes and eyelashes. Eyes are the mirror to the soul. Her eyes and eyelashes shine in bright colours such as yellow and green therefore she looks wild, dangerous, exotic. These were exactly the attributes that we wanted to give her. We had some very good feedback where people compared her to a lioness. This was very good because we wanted to make her look animalistic and dangerous in order to create the maximum impact. The tour dates are just below her mouth in a bright coulour so it is very obivious!

The Creation of My Digipak-Cover

“Marie” would be described as eccentric, mysterious, wild, exotic and dangerous. This was what we were trying to put over through the use of our pop-video, CD-Cover and Magazin advert. Kuleshov claims that 70% a meaning is conveyed visually therefore it is highly important that people associated these adjectives mentioned above with the pictures that are on the CD-cover.

So we decided to use a close-up of our artists face as a front cover. We did this because we wanted to make this picture her “Icon”. Whenever people see that picture the will think of “Marie”. Because the picture itself was not able to create such an impact on the viewer we decided to add some effects. First we took all the colour out of the picture which made it black and white. We thought this effect alone would be still too weak so we added the so called “Sin City Effect” where just a certain chracteristc in the frame is in colour this is done to put the focus on something and higten the impact on the audience. We put her eyes and eyelashes into colour. Eyes are called the “mirror of the soul” so therefore it could be argued as we couloured her eyes and eyelashes in wild colours such as green and yellow that her soul is wild, exotic (attributes mentioned above). We got some positive feedback and got told that it makes her look like a lioness. This is perfect for our start image as we want to make her look animalistic, wild and dangerous. This describes what we were doing in terms of semiology, denotation and connotation. However we also give clues about what the whole song is abound by putting everything into black and white which normally stands for sadness but there is light in her eyes which makes her happy. This is the same message we are aiming for in our pop video (Taking her pain away) we give the audience clues about what the main song is going to be about. This reinforces the idea of polysemic. The name of the album is the fruit defenue which means the forbidden fruit. This title represents her playfullness and her individuality.

Our back cover is simple and easy. It is just black with the titles in white on it. We wanted to focus on the art and on the actual context of the album. We chose black because it is a cpmplete contrast to the rest of the album and makes the audience aware of "Maries" unpredictability.

The inside cover is her cooperative act who is standing on a bike we thought that picture would be perfect to write down a thank notes to all the people who put an effort into this music video. He is placed on the first hotspot which shows that he is the main focus in this picture. The reason why we put him on a bike to reinforce the randomness his cheeky smile suggest a youthful playfulness.

The other cover is a compilation out of 9 picture which show Marie and Lukas together performing we did that so we could show a view preview of the pop video. By putting 9 pictures on a page the viewer get overloaded with information and it is a good opportunity to establish the brand even more.

BLOG TASK ONE: IN WHAT WAYS DO YOUR MEDIA PRODUCTS USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS

Two things are key for this. The first is to use plasir, the expected conventions, and juissance, the unexpected, according to Barthes. The second is that you subvert to provide the unexpected, and imitate to provide the expected. Using the main conventions of Pop-Videos as Negus explains and as I list them below.

We first looked at various other pop/videos, in order to fully understand the media conventions which are used to establish an artist. We looked at videos by Spike Jonze (Drunk Girls – LCD Soundsystem) and Joseph Kahn (Love the Way You Lie – Eminem feat. Rihanna). From this we saw a number of conventions. Negus lists these on;

The explicit and unashamed promotion of the artist’s “image” (aesthetic/generic/ideological) as a specific product with a brand identity, ready for mass consumption
The featuring of the artist (almost without exception)
A wide and extensive use of shot types, camera angles and movement
Repetition of reoccuring thematic elements and generically specific iconography (one key element often being dominant and providing the skeletal structure for the promo)
A possible narrative structure
A possible performance element
The flexibility to disregard Realism!
Shots cut tightly to the beat of the track
Use of special effects (lighting, annimation, CGIs, in-camera effects)
A carefully constructed Mise en Scene appropriate to the content and tone of the track
High impact instantly! (Don’t forget that competition for airplay on the main music channel outlets is intense)

I wanted to play around with these conventions in order to make our pop/video visually interesting. We decided to imitate some of the in order to give them plaisir (Barthes) from the expected and to subvert some of the convention in order to give them juissance which gives the viewer something new, unexpected in terms of Barthes.

Our Pop-video had two major aims, to convey the meaning of the song and to establish a brand (the singer). The song is about the here (Marie) entertaining herself, making herself happy because something (love) has caused her pain. So therefore we decided that she would watch herself perform in a cinema. We created the illusion that she is in a room with herself by choosing a frontal straight on camera angle. This would reinforce the fact that she is trying to keep herself happy which is also the meaning of the song. The other part was that we had to sell the brand/the image of the artist. We decided to make her look exotic, mysterious, quirky, playful and dangerous at the same time. Because the fact that she is French and also speaks French in her own songs we had to consider that she would not be as appropriate for a mass audience as for example an English speaking singer such as “Rihanna”. So we made her look quite artistic which is also conveyed in our pop-video.

In order to make her appear different we decided first of all to film the whole popvideo quite static (without any tracking or crane shots) however this would be juxtaposed by fast and confusing cuts later in editing. We specifically made her look different in one shot where we let her crawl along the X-axis from right to left. This shows that she does not go along with the corwd. Our eyes are used to see things that go from left to right (due to reading etc.) when we see someone going from right to left it is associated with being unfamiliar, unkown, mysterious. This is what we are trying to achieve here in order to reinforce her mysterious quality.

Another example would be framing we ignore the rule of thirds in this shot and put her not in the first or second hotspot we put her in the middle of the frame which highlights her importance. However by breaking this rule here weirdness is reinforced again and the audience starts to realize that she is different to all the other generic stars out there. We copied these techniques from the famous director Spike Jonez who plays with these conventions as much as we do.

We also chose to break continuity editing in order to establish an artificial or even a surreal world. Our pop video is very much held in the syle of surrealism we do not have any form of reality and play with the viewer’s eye and mind. Suddenly people appear disappear. She wears a black dress in one shot in the next shot a brightly colored feather dress. We want to distance the audience by setting it in a place far from reality to make them think about the actual meaning and the brand “Marie”.

However we did not subvert all of the 13 conventions because an audience does not only need juissance it also needs plaisir something familia something they are used to be confronted with. We did that by cutting very tightly to the beat. This also enabled us to give the pop-video a certain flow which made it much easier to watch.
We also imitated the conventions of “The featuring of the artist”. We did that by giving her 95% on screen. She is always present! We also included various close-ups of her lips, body, etc. to make her appeal to a male audience.


The Digi pack is highly important in order to sell the brand. It is essential that the potential consumer can see the main characteristics of the artist just by looking at the digipak. It has to be visually interesting and attract people. Our digipak has a closeup of her face as a front cover. It is in black and white apart from her eyes and eye lashes which are in bright colour. This makes her look much more interesting and gives her an artificial look which reinforces the fact that she is not like the mass.

The magazine advert has the same picture as the digipak as we are using that picture as an icon for her tour, etc. We do this because we want to make her face recognizable. By putting tour dates and locations on it in a very obvious font people know what they are looking for. Putting a web site on the bottom offers further help and booking opportunities. This helps us to make her more popular.

BLOG TASK FOUR: A DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY ON HOW I USED NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION, RESEARCH AND PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES.

New Media Technology (NMT) is a term, based on binary code, used to describe all forms of electronic communication that have appeared or will appear since the original mainly text and static picture forms of online communication. Introducing things such as, 3D, CGI, Digital Technology and streaming video count as NMT. NMT is has been especially used by independent filmmakers. NMT is cheap and fast and helps independent filmmakers to complete the five stages of production. We used NMT extensively in our project which made it a lot more dynamic. Introducing digital cameras has made things more accessibly for filmmakers that do not have a big budge however even hollywood starts to use digital film. Cameras such as "RED" are used by famous directors such as David Fincher or Peter Jackson. These films are even distributed digitally which save a lot of costs, this also applies to our project.

Digital Technology underpins every stage of Maltby's four stages of production, these are: Research and development, Pre-Production, Shoot, Post-Production and Distribution. The first stage was "Research and Development".
We tried to find out the background of our artist and researched the lyrics and previous works of the singer. We did that by using the internet which also falls under NMT, using google replaced looking it up in an encyclopedia or buying a book about or artist. It saved us a lot of time. Also using youtube to watch the existing pop video of the song and listing to the song made the whole process a lot faster. We also profited form the interactive quality the internet offers. Data is not only sent to us it is exchanged by certain sources. When we researched the artist similar results were offered to us through this we were able to research the artist and her were in greater detail.

The next stage was "Planning" which also involved NMT. Where planning on shooting on location so we went to several location and took pictures with digital cameras. Through this we were able to look at the different location later on a computer. However we decided not to shoot on location because we thought that the location would not portrayal our artist in the way we wanted him to be. Here we used again NMT which made the working process a lot faster. We did not have to go to a specialist shop in order to get the picture from the film we just converted them from the camera onto a hard-drive. We also used a program that helped us to create a storyboard. We did not have to draw it (however we still did), we all did it digitally on the computer (Camera movement shot size etc). We also used NMT to complete the call sheet. We copied lyrics from the internet and a map for our studio location so everybody knew where the shoot would take place, we did that by using Goolge Maps.

The next stage was the "Shoot". Here we used Digital cameras (Sony Z1) which made the working process a lot easier and faster for us. Digital cameras capture motion pictures digitally. This means that the pictures are not shot on a film that runs through the camera they are saved onto a hard-drive. This makes it a lot cheaper. Instead of buying a film role where 10 minutes cost about 2500 pounds the data is just stored and can be deleted at anytime. This enabled us to shot in a ration of 2:1 we shot 118 shots and used about 59 of them. Ratio is the amount of shots that are shot and the amounts of shot that are actually used in the final cut. We did not have any limitation through that and this enabled us to be more creative.

Digital Cinematography is a lot easier to light as well. Which makes the working process more dynamic and faster by being able to move the camera independently, not considering light changes etc. They are also very small and compact which makes them easier and faster to move. We also used green screen in our pop-video. This is a technique for composing two images or frames together. The colour (in our case green) is removed from the image and replaced by another. This is also an element of NMT.
The next step was "Post Prodcutuion" . It saris with our equipment. We where watching purr footage on big Apple Cinema screens that are equipped with the highest standard of technology. They encode information through the Binary Code which enables the to be really flat. 15 years ago TV or computer screens were huge . There reason for this was because they were analogue. The digital picture we have to day is better quality, faster and cost less. This change has also improved our edition opportunities. Instead of linear editing we can edit nonlinear. We were able to make changes even after we finished the rough cut this would have been a major time waste with the the old editing equipment where editing for a pop-video would have taken 12 weeks but nowadays it takes much less (4 weeks). Through the use of digital editing we were able to see our changes directly which ace us the ability to be more selective. We also colour gradate pop.video by using final cut pro. Colour grading matches the overall colour and reinforces the continuity of the video. As mentioned above we use green screen. We had to key the green out, we did that by using after effects which is also a product of NMT.

The last step was "Distribution". Instead of printing our footage now on a film we burned it on a blank DVD and then uploaded it onto YouTube where everyone can access our work for free. YouTube enabled us to share our video with the world for free and is a probably the best way to make people aware of a new product in a cheap way. Another advantage is that NMT enables us to duplicate the video very easily and cheap.

All in all New Media Technology makes things faster an cheaper and more accessible for low budged productions. Nowadays everyone can be a director, editor etc because our technology enables that on a high standard for a relatively low price.