My media product (video) uses a variation of conventions; these include costume, editing, location, cast, visuals, mise-en-scene, and cinematography. The main convention I followed was the style of video, I chose to do a performance style video, in which the artist represents herself (represented by my sister in my case) and performs the song that the video is promoting. Performance videos are arguably the most popular style video. The cast I required consisted of one female. Due to society in the modern media world and as Laura Mulvey (film theorist) suggests “Women are objective by the camera lens and whatever gender the spectator/audience, they are positioned to accept the masculine point of view”, this is backed up by John Berger’s, who has been labelled “one of the most influential intellectuals of our time”, quote “men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.” These two theories that apply to my generation more than any other strongly encouraged me to cast an attractive young female for the role to visually appeal to my target audience. This led me to cast Chloe Pir, who is generically attractive, photogenic, young, confident and coincidentally my younger sister. Although she is attractive, portraying voyeuristic qualities was not my aim, which generally challenges conventions of today. I deliberately avoided this because I wanted the character to have a vulnerable air about her as to reflect the meaning of the song’s lyrics; she also has doe like eyes which makes this successfully achievable. The costume I chose to use, due to not having a budget, was from my own wardrobe. Seeing as though the target audience were people that were the same style/age/genre as myself/peers I deemed this suitable. The clothes the artist wears should be complimentary and if needs be set the mood. I dressed Chloe in 3 different outfits, each of which was thought out thoroughly. The first outfit was a plain black vest as I wanted focus to be on the face, the second a long sleeved high neck white lace top, this was especially effective as the white lace could be reminiscent of a wedding dress/representing virgin like and pure qualities, supporting the vulnerable feel. The white also contrasted with the dark background she was placed against, the final outfit was a Victorian style tea dress which boded well with the tea party mise-en-scene which was slightly inspired by Alice in Wonderland. The dress tied at the neck with a bow, this was again to avoid exposure leading to voyeurism. If money wasn’t an issue I would have styled Chloe in Kirsty Doyle’s “The Cecelia Dress” £390 and Black Victorian tailored dress by the late Alexander McQueen £1,085. The location followed basic conventions as I used a white wall in my house, which was passable but ideally I would have liked to film in a large studio white walls and floor, this was also inaccessible. The location I created, representing a night sky and stars was made using a velvet blanket on the floor with strings of white fairy lights, again, ideally I would have liked to use numerous amounts of lights in a dark studio, with mirrored walls. The other location was at my dining table representing an Alice in wonderland style tea party, with considerable amount of thought on the mise-en-scene using lots of tea cups and pots, also white lilies scattered on the table, tying in with the “pure” ideology created. The mise-en-scene I used was used to emphasise an lifestyle to aspire to and represent the artist in a way to satisfy the target audience and promote my artist well. My editing was a major part of my video, I used Adobe Premier Pro to adjust a lot of the contrast and colour to set the mood and create atmosphere. Other features of my editing that follow basic conventions are faced paced straight cuts, fading in and out, fading to black, overlapping, having the shots fit with the tempo of the music. Timing is an essential asset of music videos, I took this on board and made Chloe’s blinking in time with the sound of the heart beat at 2.32 and 2.35, although this is a minor detail and is likely to go unnoticed by the majority of people that watch it, I feel attention to detail is valuable. Initially I was going to use a tripod to film my video, but due to the movement within the performance I felt it would be best to film it free hand to capture maximum movement. Aldo hand holding the camera gave a more personal feel to the whole video as I felt hat If I had used a tripod the overall effect could be quite stiff and cold. Ideally I would have liked to use a floating camera to follow Chloe's momvements.
I feel that the combination of my main product and ancillary texts are effective as the relate to each other strongly as I decided to use stills from my video to use for the background of the CD cover and posters. The stills were from shots that reoccur creating a motif feel. I feel that the product covers represent the artist well and appeal to my target audience (14-26 year old indie types) thoroughly.
I conducted my audience research in the form of interviewing, this gave me that chance to collect qualitative data, which is more detailed than quantitative data (consisting of numbers) and goes into much more detail, specific opinions and feelings can be recorded. Although my feedback was of quality, the sample was not representative as I used an opportunity sample of people within college ranging from the ages 16-19 years, this is not a strong representative sample meaning the results may not be as valid as they could be. The questions I asked included “did you enjoy the video?”, “what would you improve?”, “what was your favourite part of my video?”. 90% of my sample did enjoy my video, points to improve included better lighting and better camera work and the favourite parts varied greatly as everyone liked a different part. I am pleased with this feedback as the majority of the audience enjoyed the video therefore I have fulfilled my aim in regards to appealing to my target audience.
I used a variation of media technologies throughout the production of my portfolio, learning how to use some of them throughout the production of the task. These include software such as Windows 7, Adobe Premier Pro, Matrox editing tools and Photoshop CS3, hardware such as miniDV and . I used other forms of media technologies such as youtube.com and blogger.com, both of which are examples of web 2.0.
I used Adobe Premier Pro to edit my video using tools such as the Fountain Pen Tool, Colour Corrections, Speed Duration/ Reversing speed and cutting. I used photoshop to create and edit both my ancillary texts, using colour and light adjustments. I used youtube to gain ideas and inspiration by watching other videos.
