Goodwins Analysis of "Beyonce - Love on Top"

So to begin with the first point of Goodwins theory is: "Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band).

" So within this video there is a dance routine throughout so this video is very genre specific. The next point of Goodwins theory is: "There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting)." There is a vague link between these for example: 'I can see the stars all the way from here" at this shot she moved her hands to suggest stars so it is vaguely illustrative.

 The next point is "There is a relationship between music and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting)."  The music pace fits the visuals throughout as the dance routine speeds up when the song does etc. 

"The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style)." There is shots of the artist throughout with several close ups so this shows that they have used need to sell the artist. So the visual style this creates for Beyonce is that the focus is on her in this video with no narrative. 

"There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body." For this point it is present as  there is voyeuristic treatment of Beyonce throughout the video due to the fact of her outfit and her dancing throughout the video. 

The last point of Goodwins Theory is "There is often intertextual reference (to films, tv  programmes, other music videos etc)." There is no clear link to us of intertextual reference.

Mercury Music Prize Task

GhostPoet

How do their clothes, hair, accessories, shoes influence your impression of them?

In the promotional image we studied we decided his clothes were smart/casual and quite basic so therefore this gives us the impression that he’s just an average man. He always wears a hat so this gives us the impression that this is the smart element in combination with his shoes. His expressions are always very serious which reflects that his lyrics will be quite meaningful and serious.

Can you tell what genre of music they make by the image?

Initially we thought that he would fit into the reggae/soul music genre due to the style/look he portrays. However we didn’t have a strong feeling about him fitting into this category. So we think he might be apart of a hybrid genre.

What does the composition of the image tell you about the artist?

The colours are quite washed out and simple. The lightings quite natural but its only on one side. So it reflects his mood and again empathising that he’s quite a serious guy. There are no props so this shows he’s the main focus and he likes to be basic and have the focus on the music. He’s positioned in the centre of the frame, which shows us that he’s the focus. He’s standing naturally so therefore he’s just an everyday guy who doesn’t care about his image, as he’s just got a passion for his music. The location is as if he’s in a college with a chalkboard behind. The chalkboard includes writing/scribbles, which are crossed out. This gives us the impression that he’s made mistakes in his past and his lyrics will reflect this.

Analysis of Music Video against Goodwins theory

From watching the video we realised that he doesn’t have any bold genre characteristics so this shows us that he falls in and out of different genres. An example of this is he vaguely shows rap characteristics as the focus is of him and his lyrics with no dance routines. The lyrics and visuals have a strong link throughout the music video. As the visuals are quite dark/dull this reflect his lyrics of the song as they are quite strong and on about surviving in a world that has cutbacks and conditions which are tough. 

Also it gives us the impression that he’s had a tough past. The link between the music and visuals are that they are both very basic so that you focus on the lyrics. It shows the emotion of the song by the simplicity of both the visuals and the music. Their weren’t many close ups of the artist although he was always on the screen. This shows he doesn’t want to be the centre of the attention, as he isn’t trying to enhance his image.  Due to the fact he fits vaguely into the rap genre there is no voyeurism. This is because again the focus is always the lyrics. There are no signs of intertextuality as the video is very basic. 

After watching the music video we were surprised. This is because we thought it would be more upbeat and lively. And include more than just him. We also expected the lyrics to be quite short and snappy so they would be catchy, however this wasn’t present.

Biography

The artists name is Obaro Ejimiwe and he has been in the industry since 2006. He works for Brownswood Recordings UK.

Word Justification

Here is our word justification for the the artist construction task.

The location we have chosen will be by one of the trees within the Long Road site. We have chosen to use this location because it’s quite simple so therefore the attention and focus will be on the artist. The image we are trying to create is a punk/rock image. So this will include bright colours, a bold outfit, outrageous hair and a simple location so therefore the focus is on the artist. We have decided the artist will be just to the right of the frame and it will be a long shot so that the audience can see the artist clearly. The outfit will be a punk styled dress, tights and shorts. We have chose this as then it will clearly reflect the genre of punk. As we are trying to show the punk genre the artists’ hair will be quite messy and eye catching. We have chosen not to use any props as we looked at existing punk album covers and props generally aren’t used. We have also decided that in Photoshop we will turn the image to black and white with a bit of colour in the title and the artist.  The colour theme will be quite bold but not varied so they are striking yet quite dull too. We feel as if this will put the image across to the audience that our artist fits into the punk genre. Overall the image we are trying to create will be to reflect the punk genre. From looking at examples of punk bands the image is to reflect the genre not the song, so therefore we will be aware of this when putting our poster together. The image overall will be quite simple however the thing which will make it stand out will be the artist due to the artist being in colour with the background dull. We think this will work well to sell the artist, as the audience will see that being comfortable in your own style is okay. 

Artist Construction Task

 Here is the task we did at the very beginning before creating our video. To learn the basic conventions needed etc.

Video Commentary

Creation of our commentary

Today we put our commentary all in order. So next lesson we will be editing it to a great standard.

Deadlines

The deadlines which are approaching are the following:

Editing commentary - on blog by Wednesday 14th December

Improve our individual evaluations - finialised by Monday 12th December

Blog Work - Finalised by Thursday 15th December

Directors Commentary

Today we filmed our commentary it was successful and we got a variety of clips, shots and footage in general to accompany voice overs and screen shots of our video.

For the next two lessons after today we shall be editing our footage and putting together our final directors commentary

Commentary script

Question 3 - What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

For our pitch feedback we were told that our haunted concept worked well as we had planned to show that the girl is dead but still show memories of the couple from when she was alive.  We were also told that we had a wide variety of possible footage to add into our video of the couple together, the guy mourning the loss of his girlfriend and lip syncing shots of the artist, which we had demomstrated in our storyboard. We were then told to research how we will show that some shots are in the past and some in the present so the music video doest become too confusing.
When we recieved our rough cut feedback, we were told that we had fitted the goowins points in well as we had added a lot of strong links between the lyrics and visuals for example when the song lyrics say "The steps on the stairs arent really there" we did a shot of stairs. We were told that to improve we should exaggerate the black and white effect when showing the memories of the couple to emphasize the difference of the past and present.
When we recieved our final cut feedback we were told that our editing was effective and created a strong ghostly feel although some people felt that some of our shots were too long even though we had purposely done this to show the emotion of the artist in relation to the lyrics. We were also told that our props, costumes and lighting were effective, all showing a ghostly but romantic feel.
We also recieved feedback for our magazine and digipak. We had a screenshot of a tree from our video on our covers and were told to add a picture of the couple on the front but fade the girl into the background slightly to give the haunted feel. We were also given the idea of adding the artist into the background but having very faded to give a "where's wally effect" .

Media Product evaluation

1) Our media product features many forms and conventions of real media products after researching other artists and previous students media products alomg with inspiration from goodwins points. Goodwins points was a key base when creating our music video. We focused mainly on the relationship between lyrics and visuals as the storyline of our music being about a guy who has lost his girlfriend thinking about past memories, matches the lyrics to our song. We also focused on the demands on the record label by showing close-ups of the artist and regular shots of the arist lip syncing. We also did this throughout the whole media product by using a "haunted" and "ghostly" theme within the video, magazine advert and digipak with the use of a black and white effect and blurring images. When researching artists media products I noticed there is always a theme used in their digipaks and magazine adverts taken from their videos, so this was an inspiariton for us.

2) I think the combination of our main product and ancillary texts is rather effective as they all work together as a promotional package with the use of a "haunting" theme used within the whole product, enabling the audience to recognise the theme and link it to the song. The theme witin our media product was used to create a concept of  "haunting", we decided as a group to do this as it matches the lyrics, title and meaning of the song. However, we then carried this on within our magazine adver and digipak to allow people to understand the genre and concept of the song and also to attract the right audience to the song through the advert and digipak. A very sensitive and depressed image is created of the artist as it is a strong link with the mood and meaning of the song and can also help the audience relate to the storyline of the video.

3) We recieved feedback on our roughcut from a teacher who suggested we added a lot more dissolves between cuts and to exaggerate the black and white effect when showing memries of the couple. We were told the whole idea of cutting from memories to then showing the depressed guy alone was effective and the suggestions we were given to increase the effectiveness of this idea definitelt worked well. This was shown when we recieved our final cut feedback as we were told by our peers that our editing was effective as it was clear and effective but also gave a ghostly feel which was what we wanted to portray. We were also told that the use of props, costumes and lighting were effective, all jelping to create a ghostly but romantic feel. Our feeback on goodwins points was all rather positive as well. We were told the strimg link between our lyrics and visuals was good as the song has a strong meaning. However, the artist could have shown more emotion like the couple.

4) We used a lot of new media tehnologies within the whole process of our media product. Throughout the  planning process blogger was a big help with keeping all our ideas together in one place and also with keeping all of our research together of other artists and previous students to help with our own inspiration. Final cut was then used to ut together our music video and to add effects which enabled us to put all our ideas into one project and create our video. We used the HD cameras to film the scenes in our videos, these allowed us to have a wide range of shots of our artist, actors and to also get good quality shots, for example the sun set towards the end of video. The internet was a huge help in our research of artists and also to help with gathering information on the real artist to our song, rihanna. Finally we used a lot of photoshop within the making of our media product which became useful when putting together our digipak and magazine advert as it allowed us to create our images to fit into our "haunted" theme.

Question 3 Script points

3)

PITCH FEEDBACK

+ haunted concept will work well
+ will have variety of possible footage
+ research how will show the past and present

ROUGH CUT FEEDBACK
+ we fitted the goodwins points well
+ lyrics and visuals were illustrated
+ music and visuals were illustrated
+ shots of the artist fit the genre
+ ghost effect = notions of looking

FINAL CUT FEEDBACK

+ fitted goodwins points well
+ music and visuals didnt match but cuts were in time with the music
+ lyrics and visuals matched well
+ editing was all fine but long cuts - which we did on purpose to show the emotion and lyrics
+ props were good and a variety
+ romantic locations were good

Our final products

Creation of our magazine advert

After creating our digipak and the haunted theme working we decided to carry on with this in our magazine advert.

So we used our second tree/natural shot for the background and made that black and white, and then played around with the hue/saturation, as well as the brightness and contrast. When we had completed this we then layered it with the second image of the couple and made that black and white. We then changed the opacity so it looked haunted/spooky, we also used the filter 'linear dodge add' to make it more visible and haunted of the couple.

To make it a bit more different from the digipak we layered these with 'parchment' texture layer which makes it more unique so therefore it will capture the attention of our audiences as well as making the couple more visible.

So in both our digipak and magazine advert there is an image of either the artist or the couple which has been faded in by the opacity which means you have to look closely to see like a magic eye.

Magazine Advert Layout

We used the same technique with our magazine advert in the sense that we included all the information we needed first before adding the image.

Digipak Layout

Before editing and adding our image as the background we decided to put everything we needed to include in the digipak within this document so we don't forget anything. So we have a screen shot below to show the basic layout and information we will include.

Our Final Video

Our Final Video

Analysis of other students digipaks

After researching the digipaks of other students, i have found out a lot of key details which are all good ideas for us to add to our own digipak. One thing i noticed is that most of the past students used themes from their music video within their digipak for example having the same character featuring on the digipak with the same outfit, at the same place and with the same emotions and expressions. They also follow themes of props by focusing the cover of the digipak with a picture of a main prop that features in the music video or even just a picture of the place where the music video was filmed.
Another important aspect to add to our digipak is information such as the release date, ratings, the price, quotes from magazines or celebrities, the name of the artist, song anfd album and images.

Feedback from teachers

After speaking to Amar and Andrea we had some really useful advice which we will definitely use.

 For example using cross dissolves throughout to soften the scenes together as at the moment they are quite harsh, especially due to the colour change.

Also Amar said that we should make the colour difference even more extreme. As well as this he said that we should use the photos more with overlaying it on other scenes.

Also to maybe use transitions which blur the edges more to reflect it more as a memory.

 He said it was a very good storyline with alot of emotion which is great.

Also he said maybe have the sunset at the beginning and very slowly at the end to add to the emotion.

We don't need anymore footage unless we want to re film the artist from different angles to make it not so long in one angle view.

The memory bit with the photos and the memories overall we could use the grain/texture tool over the top to emphasise the memory aspect.

Analysis of old student magazine adverts

  

The good points that i noticed about this groups magazine advert is that it clearly states where it can be bought (All music retail stores) and when it is available to purchase (December 1st 2010). The first thing i noticed however is the bright pink hands, mainly because of the choice of colour which i feel is an important aspect of a magazine cover to ensure it grabs potential buyers attention. The price of the album, the age certificate and showing that its also available on i tunes is also good extra information which i feel is important aspect to add to a magazine advert. It also includes quotes from famous people such as Fearne Cotton and Jo Whiley which is a good addition to the advert as not only does it give an opinion on the artists music to influence consumers but it also is an opinion from people who are important within the music industry,  as they are famous radio dj's.

There aren't many bad aspects within this magazine advert to point out but one thing i did notice was that the only part of the advert that stands out is the bright pink hands in the centre. The name of the band and album, which is the most important part, is underneath in a plain black font. I think the font or the colour of this could be changed so people's attention is also drawn to the names of the artists so that they are then associated with the pink hand prints.