Introduction
My project was to produce a music video that would be suitable for TV viewing and the targeted audience. I did this with group members Beth Owen and Daniel Sutton. Particular contributions i made in the group were participating in the research aspect, helping organise the filming and the filming its self, editing the film and ancillary tasks. We used the idea of demographic profiling to attract the main target audience for our music video of people aged around 16-25 as they are the main consumers of music. our products would appeal to the younger generation as especially today there is a high demand on music due to new technology such as ipods and iphones and the increase in online downloading. This age group is also mainly made up of student won spend lots of money on music. These are a few inspirational videos we used to get ideas and create a plan of action for our genre and intentions.
From researching videos like these we could see that the use of fast paced editing, quick moving shots with a range of angles especially works well with a band performance.
Conventions of music videos
Question 1 Genre
As you can see from this pie chart our genre has nearly a 1/4 of a targetted audience as their favourite genre. However because we focused more on pop punk than rock it would reach a more mainstream audience. Typical conventions we used in our video relating to the pop punk genre were fast paced editing fitting in with the soundtrack, a band performance including shot of all members mainly the lead singer and also close up of instruments. These elements can been seen in this video by the clash.
These images show the typical angles and shots used in a pop punk music video which we were influenced by and used in our video.
These pictures show typical shots such as a close up of a the band member playing the guitar, close up of the lead singer as he is the main face of the band, a long shot of the band playing together, and close ups of the other band members. The use of these typical shots help create the bands image. To make our video a little different we used the desaturate tool in parts of the editing as in most rock/punk music videos we only see colours which are typically black and red. We also made it very fast paced to fit in with the track. I think our video editing choices would prove successful as it conforms to many music videos with the angles and shots used. The fast paced editing also makes it very dynamic as proven with our questionnaire feedback as students said its "authentic and flows", "upbeat and enjoyable", and a "fun pop punk video".
Question 2 Branding and brand image
As in every genre of the music industry the particular artist of band needs a brand image which their target audience can relate to and meet the main target which is to sell. From researching many similar pop punk/rock bands such as Green Day and Blink-182 the same brand image of rebellious young people came across. Therefore seeing as we have used an existing pop punk band this image was already created with their fun rebellious behavior to their clothes. We also used this idea of brand image through to our location for the music video which was very messy and full of graffiti linking to their rebelious behaviour.
This rebellious and fun behavior was also portrayed in the video as the band look like they are having a good time which makes every audience member asked feel "happy" and upbeat. When making and designing our magazine page and album cover we looked at a range of examples which used both the bands image and designed images, however they were all heavily edited and colourful to again portray the element of fun across.
Analysis of ancillary tasks
As you can see we decided to design an image for our album cover linking to our research. The use of the gorilla is a connotation of rebelliousness and also humor with the sun glasses. The bright colours we chose to use also make it very appealing to a pop punk audience.Our brand image has again been used in the designing of the inside and back of our album cover to make it more authentic. This has been created using similar bright colours throughout with also the use of desaturate, while the photos represent each band member and are portrayed as quite humorous.
As you can see all our products work well in showing the brand image which we wanted to represent to attract the target audience of young adults. The finished products use the typical generic conventions researched for a pop punk band and would therefore be suitable for today's music industry and sell to their target audience. Seeing that the music from our band is pop punk it is more commercial therefore labels which may produce our music video could be for one of the biggest music companies Sony BMG epic records as they have many groups from rock genres including AC/DC, The Gossip, Franz Ferdinand which have a rock/punk sound.
Question 3 Audience Feedback
Seeing this particular result from the video we could see that the video was mainly a success with the highest rating from most people an 8. This shows that if we were to release this music video it would appeal to our targeted audience.
100% of the audience asked thought that the song fitted with the music video. This was one of our aims from researching conventions of music videos and particulary the pop punk genre as they are normally up beat and fun to watch and listen to.
11 out of 12 people said they would watch the music video again. whith reasons being that the video was "upbeat and enjoyable", "fun" and "feel good song".
On average most of the people asked thought our cd and advertisements worked well with the music video showing that our brand image throughout had been a success.
This shows our use of branding throughout the products worked extremely well. comments we recieved were:
"Shows the style of the band"
" Bright, in your face like the music"
"Reflects the fun music"
"Gives a rebellious feel"Peoples reasons for it not to create the punk image were:
"Not what i expected, different"
"doesn't seem relevant, too happy/light hearted"
overall from the feedback i think the album cover was effective in creating a punk image.
This shows that the music videos fits with the normal conventions as the aim is to want your audience to watch it again and 11 out of the 12 people asked would.
Main reason for audience members not wanting to buy the song were because its not their type of music.
This is our audience testing filmed, showing their initial feelings and giving us feedback on our products.
From producing this music video and ancillary tasks I have gained and enhanced lots of creative media skills. From learning how to use blogger again I have found the research part much easier this year as this format is not totally new to me. The use of blogger is also good to put research on as you can interactively use many different types of media by uploading videos, pictures, charts, music, and scanned work. This was a great advantage to bring all our ideas and inspiration together. I also found that having dealt with the cameras before with previous filming this was also better as we could focus more on shots and angle ideas. However when it came to editing our film in final cut express it was more challenging as i had to learn about this new programme which was more advanced from the programme imovie we used last year. At times it was very difficult as we wanted to do alot of fast cuts and editing throughout the video which was very time consuming and at times it was hard to separate them all. One of the hardest parts about making the music video was the authentic look of the lip sync and music which i feel ours worked very well. This proved difficult when the mac's ran slowly and crashed alot. This was particularly hard for us because we had a lot of small edited shots to make it jumpy which we then emphasised with the speed tool. The use of the timeline on final cut express was a great advantage as we could see when the soundtrack ended knowing how much editing space needed to be filled. Therefore on the whole, final cut express was a big advantage as it helped us create a profession looking music video and we had alot of editing ideas which we could use including the desaturate tool and speed .
When it came to making the album cover and advertisement i could already use photoshop so this made it quicker to edit the album cover and advertisement. Photoshop was again a great advantage for our group as we could experiment using bright colours creating our brand image. we also used our theme of colour and desaturate though these products. We used many different websites when researching music video in particular Youtube where we linked up the videos to our blog. We also used google to find similar artist websites and images of album covers and magazine posters.
Conclusion
Overall i believe that our music video and ancilary tasks have been a real success as proven with our audience feedback. I think that all three products create a brand image of rebelliousness and fun which is a convention of branding in the pop punk genre. The happy fun attitude portrayed in the video and throughout the photos on the album cover and advertisement also emphasise this brand image we wanted to get across. The bright bold colours which covey joy and fun also relate to this brand image as does the gorilla which shows the humour of the band. The branding created in these three products would help sell the album as I feel after seeing all the products they would find it easier to relate to the band and young audiences would like their rebellious style. I believe that I made an equal and positive contribution to the group as a whole through the planning and creating of the products and I have learnt alot of skills from using final cut express to working well as a team and creating what I feel are three great products suitable for our target audience which i think could sell in the music industry today.
