By Imani Pratt

Candidate n.o 7142

Centre n.o 12534
• PART 1 PART 2 PART 3 PART 4
PART 5

• PART 1 PART 2 PART 3

• PART 1 PART 2 PART 3

• PART 1 PART 2 PART 3

PART 4 PART 5 PART 6
• One convention of Pop videos which I included in my own was the tendency to use bright or
bold colours in the Mise-en-Scene. For example, red is used persistently throughout the music
video where the character is; in the bedroom, at the café and on the stairs. The colour red is
very bold and eye catching, hence it works to draw the audience in and at the same time give
off a sense of liveliness in the atmosphere. The colour red is also a symbolic code which
connotes the main theme of the song: love, and attaches a romantic atmosphere to the mood
of the song. The use of this convention can be identified in singer Rihanna’s ‘Whose that
chick?’, the use of bright and bold colours are appealing to look at and present her as being
someone fun, lively and /or simply tune with her younger target audience.

Usually a convention of POP and even RNB videos is that the video has a narrative where the lyrics link directly to what is
happening in the song. This is definitely evident in my music video where the structure of the video has a beginning, middle
and end in its format (a Todorovian structure).Usually the beginning is where the narrative has equilibrium (a balanced
situation and event) for example, the beginning starts of with the main character in a classroom doing her work. This is a
usual setting for the protagonist and hence presents equilibrium. At the bridge part of the song where Kemi’s part is, the
pace of the song and visuals slow down as slow-motion is used, in addition to this the main protagonist is no longer
present. This is an evident change creating a sense of disequilibrium in the narrative. At the end of the song it crosscuts
back to the classroom and cuts back to the clock ticking as it was at the start, highlighting that things have returned back to
normal and that she is no longer in her daydream/reflective state but back to reality.
In terms of the lyrics linking directly to the song there are a number of occasions where this is demonstrated in various
scenes. For example, the lyrics “seems love just skipped over me” is illustrated clearly when a flashback of a couple hugging
each other on a bridge is scene abruptly for a few seconds. This is done in a longshot to create the illusion that the main
character was watching them from a distance and hence it was intentionally meant to create a sense if isolation and being
left out of the couple’s affair. Another example is when the lyrics “some call it day and night but that’s never been my
routine” are sung. At this point there is a brief time-lapse of a tree blowing in the daylight which fades into a traffic lapse of
cars during the night time.
• Teenage Scenarios: This is a common convention of traditional pop
videos. My music video does include this because all of my cast
members are all within the same teenage age range (17 – 18) and
they are mostly females which means it targets the audience that the
song is probably trying to reach out to. The main teenage scenario
within the music video includes a teenage female waiting to find
somebody of the opposite sex to love in her life; the teenager who is
named Rose embarks on a number of scenarios which remind her of
her desire to accomplish this wish. For instance, in the café scene, it
only takes her friend to go somewhere quickly for her to witness the
couple sitting parallel to her and how much she would love to be in
the girl’s position. In another scene, the character Rose is on a social
networking website and it only takes a few statuses with reference to
being in a relationship to remind her again that she is still waiting for
love. I felt this was necessary because this enabled me to once again
allow my target audience to relate to her situation through the use of
common locations where they may have felt the same way as the
main character.
• Constant scene changes to hold the viewer’s attention: This is definitely one convention thing that is seen in my music
video. I made sure to use plenty of cutaway shots to ensure the audience would not get bored. I tried to vary the type of
cutaways used. For example, most times the cutaways would be the sequences of the main singer singing on the bed
which would transition into the scenes of the narrative, whilst other cutaways included time-lapses. The time-lapses I
used included raw traffic, the sun setting and the clouds drifting shortly before the music video is about to end. One
thing I feel may not be effective is the pace at which these cutaways are carried out. My concern is that the cuts between
each of the scenes are too quick for the audience to digest what is actually going on.

• Fade Transitions: A lot of the editing transitions used in traditional POP/RNB music videos seem to be fade transitions. I
saw this in Beyoncé's ‘If I Were a Boy’ and Mariah Carey’s ‘We Belong Together’ (the two videos I analysed) and decided to
use it as it seemed appropriate to the type of song it is, e.g. it is about relationships also and I also felt it carried the
narrative in the song visually in a smooth way.
• I decided not to use any shots that tilt upwards in the filming process
because watching previous music POP/RNB music videos such as JoJo’s
‘Get Out’, I realized that the effect created was that the artist appeared
to be powerful, dominant and in control of her situation despite her
upset. Yet, for me, I knew I wanted my character to be seen as the exact
opposite, naïve, innocent and pretty much not in control of her
situation – finding love and controlling time. I did feel this worked in
exploring the concept but my concern is the lack of times in which it
was used during the whole video; even getting feedback from the
character herself and my teacher, they did say they would have liked to
see more of this type of shot where the character is looking up at the
camera, this is probably because it addresses the audience in quite a
personal way as they are made to look in to the characters eyes and
mouth as they are singing the words, this creates quite a deep
connection to not just the message the song is showing but also the
emotions associated with the message, i.e., hope.

However, in using this shot, it can be argued that I was actually

developing pre-existing conventions in terms of representation of
women. For instance, Laura Mulvey’s ‘Male Gaze’ theory would argue
that the use of the down tilted camera angle portrays the female as
being subordinate to men in the way that the audience are made to
look down on the female as she sings, as opposed to just being naïve
and innocent. Therefore, use of this camera angle could have continued
preconceptions about females and their status and role in society (in a
feminist’s view) ; the technical code suggests that women will never be
as powerful as men. Consequently, challenging specific conventions has
actually lead me to inevitably develop other conventions in the process.
 • The use of creative backdrops was not evident in my music video despite it’s
Creative Backdrops give
personality to the artist
and excitement to the
video!
• Performance based: my main product was not performance based like many of the
Taken from Avril Lavigne’s
‘Girlfriend’
conventional use in many POP videos. This was quite a shame as I was very excited about
making use of my purchased green Chroma key fabric and clothes rails. I also bought a CD
which included over 500 artistic backdrops that I could have used in my video once I used
Chroma key to key the green out in the editing process. My main problem why this did
not happen was due to lighting problems. The lights I had available were just not bright
enough to eliminate shadows completely, even when the subject stood a few more
centimetres away from the fabric. In addition to this, I could not find a backdrop that
looked natural against the main subject and my original intention was to have the
character laying down on some coloured sheets. I decided to scrap the whole idea of the
green screen if it could not deliver good quality footage. However, despite not using
creative backdrops I stuck to more relatable and ordinary backdrop which was the
bedroom. This saved me a lot more trouble; furthermore, the fact that I spent less time
on impressing the audience with ‘green screen’ effects actually worked out much more in
my favour. The bedroom, didn’t need much tweaking and it already highlighted the key
themes of love and romance with it’s coincidentally dominant presence of the colour red.
In addition to this, if I did use creative backdrops it may not have suited the mood of the
song which is quite a slow-tempo pop song as opposed to beaty and fast.
mainstream pop music videos are. Instead I decided to opt for a narrative based
structure to the video where the lyrics are illustrated in a much more literal and symbolic
way.
 The main concepts of my the song in my music
video relate to ‘love’ – finding love and ‘time’,
waiting for love. I therefore thought it would be
most beneficial to choose images from my video
that communicated these messages the best. My
original intention was to include a cut out of the
love heart shown at the beginning of the bedroom
scene to capture the idea of ‘love’ in the digipak but
I soon changed my mind as I feel it did not look
quite as effective as another image I had taken
would have. On the next slides I will explain my
decisions of how I combined both the main product
and ancillary tasks and how effective I think the final
outcome is.

Please hover over the black square to view

the video. I apologize if you are having
difficulties viewing the video properly or at
all. You can alternatively go to my blog to
view it here.
The digipak I designed includes a screenshot from the video of the main character Rose laying on the bed on the
front cover. For the back cover the red duvet pattern is continued to carry on the red colour scheme. Whilst the left
inside cover and background for the CD are covered in white snow with simple symbols: the love heart and the rose.
The photo of the heart in the snow and the roses around the edges of the two panels were not originally seen in the
music video but I decided to use them because I felt they were successful in portraying symbolic imagery more than
any of the other screenshots I could have used from the music video.
The main intention of me having the photo of the heart in the snow was to highlight the concept of searching for
something that hasn’t yet been found; the heart is bold and striking to look at which makes it effective in drawing the
audience’s gaze to it, but it’s full image is also hidden slightly so I do think it effectively highlights how love (romantic)
for Rose could be anywhere but it has not yet been found as it is hidden away. The snow gives of a sense of
innocent beauty with it’s dominant colour white. Hopefully, this highlights ideas about purity and innocence and
attaches it to the image of the artist. The fact that snow is frozen implies that the heart (symbolic of ‘love’) is
something being preserved for later. Interestingly, snow can also be a symbol of hope and wish fulfilment so it does
to an extent effectively communicate both the emotions of the singer and the whole concept of ‘waiting’ for ‘love’ in
the song.
The image of the rose which appears on the back cover and the inside left is fairly simple. I chose the rose because it
is a widely known symbol which most people would associate with love.
 The promotional poster includes what I decided were the
two most important images in the digipak. – the front
cover image of the artist and the image for the CD. Both
the dominant colours present: red and white give a
distinct contrast and thus help to draw the audience in.

The use of black text was used to ensure it stood out against
the bright white background. Hence, on analysis, I think that
voyeurism is illustrated through use of colour in my media
products as opposed to costume. In some ways this may be a
disadvantage to the final product because it does not show the
persona and give the artist on the cover their own unique
attitude and style in the way that a well thought out costume
might. On the other hand, the use of a striking or otherwise
vivid costume on the character would probably have distracted
the target audience from the main message of the song.

I made typography for the name of the group ‘MYXX’ using the
‘rage italic’ font. I made it red with a black shadow so that it
stood out against the red duvet behind it. My main aim was to
make it look quite feminine as the love song is stereotypically
aimed at females. I think the text does portray a sense of
femininity as well as sophistication.
• There are various things I’ve learnt from my audience feedback. The rough cuts I showed
to my friends and family before the completion of my final music video has given me a
broader insight in to what I can do to improve on my basic technological skills.

VIDEO

One of the best pieces of feedback I received was from a friend who advised me to scrap the
original filming of Rose walking across the bridge in the intro. At first I was pretty reluctant
because I felt uncomfortable having not prepared for this change in plan. But I decided to
relocate that filming scene to the field. The use of space was much better when I relocated,
allowing me to experiment with other camera movements apart from simple zooms. For the
end result was a horizontal pan to the left which allowed the frame to follow the character as
she walked towards the gate, I also used a close up shot which zoomed out into a mid shot as
the shot was now vertical. It is evident that this decision making had allowed me to try out a
variety of shots and angles which I might not have considered if I had not changed the filming
location. I would argue that this particular feedback has taught me to not be afraid to
experiment with different locations other than the ones planned as this can lead to better
footage and more variety which viewers may find more interesting.

A lot of my friends at school had commented on the length of the classroom scene in the intro
being too long and when my teacher also commented on it I knew it had to be dealt with. This
was a pretty easy problem to solve once I decided which parts in the sequences should be
discarded/shortened, but having said that I cannot underestimate this very vital piece of
feedback. Shortening the clip to about 30 seconds rather than about 2 minutes made a large
difference to the whole scene in general. It is then that I realized just how important it is for
the intro of a music video to be short and snappy! This is probably because long introductions
can leave the audience quite restless and divert their attention, pretty much the opposite of
what I wanted.
Many people, particularly even members of my own cast highlighted the issue of too much camera movement in the earlier
stages of my filming. For instance, I’m not sure why but I took quite a liking to the zooming in and out functions of the camera and
I had the tendency to go overboard with it; at one point in filming I actually jeopardized a good sequence, I.e. where Kemi (the
other member of the ‘Myxx’ duo) was walking from different directions on the street. The problem was not obvious to me at first,
I thought to myself maybe zooming in and out was not necessary but once I knew it was an obvious problem I definitely decided
I’d better re-film for the sake of maintaining the quality of the scene. One friend said “the zooming in and out Is a bit
distracting….” while another said “it’s kind of annoying to watch.” The feedback has taught me that sometimes less is more when
it comes to filming. Having too much camera movement can impact on both the stability and the emotional response you get
from an audience; therefore, unless I want the audience to feel ‘disorientated, confused or tense it is wise for me to have not
used too much.

EDITING

This had to be one of the hardest stages of the editing process. Getting the lip-syncing to match the audio track was not easy at
all and I had several times where I happened to miss matching up a crucial line or verse being sung by seconds. I had asked
people to listen to a particular part on the timeline I was trying to sync which helped me to identify these key moments properly.
My most frustrating lip-syncing problem was the 2nd verse where the lines “I heard that it’s incredible ,the ultimate right” is sung.
After countless tries of reducing the speed, fiddling with the duration and then cutting bits of the short sequence out, I
continued to get negative feedback, “it’s still not synced”, “It’s like the same words are not being sung..”, I came to the conclusion
that it was not a problem I could fix by these editing technique but one that needed to be resolved in another way. This is
because the poor ability to sync the sequence was caused by the mouth was moving at the time . This suggests that the manner
in which the words of the lyrics are being sung are just as important as the ability to recall the all the lyrics. In the end I had to
correct this problem by cutting out the scene and elongating the previous one to fill the gap, but I learned that being in the role of
a director means I have to have a very sharp eye for detail. It has encouraged me to be a lot more sharper when directing to
ensure mistakes like this cannot be made again.
To see the ancillary
tasks in large click this
link

For the digipak and promotional poster I was inspired by my friend to use a different
screenshot of the artist on the front cover. I considered doing this and decided to make a
second version of the digipak with the new image. I then asked my four closest friends
via Facebook which images they liked better. The majority of responses I got told me that
the second image looked better as her facial expression looked more ‘inviting’ than in
the other photo. Comparing the two pictures now I can see this is evident but for some
reason I think the composition of the first photo is much better than that of the second
one. Nonetheless I did change it as ultimately it is my target audience that I’m trying to
appeal to through this task and not myself.
The change in the photo unfortunately brought with it other problems I encountered. For
instance, the image of her on the bed had to cut out from the bed background so I could
use it on the other bed background in order to make it continuous with the back cover,
but whilst this looked okay in the digipak panel, on the poster, apparently it made it look
like the character was ‘floating’ rather than actually being on the bed. With that
feedback I decided to use the little knowledge I had gained using Photoshop to correct it,
and I used the ‘Blending Options’ toolbar in the Layers section to give the cut out a
subtle shadow. This made the two photos appear more natural in the way that it gave
the impression that she was applying pressure to the red duvet and was actually on the
bed.
I was happy with some of the other comments I had received from my friend. She had
commented that the digipak looked very ‘romantic’, and I was pleased, knowing that was
my original intention. Click here to see the feedback in more detail
LEGRIA FS306
CANON CAMERA LEGRIA
FS306
CANON
CAMERA

ADOBE
PHOTOSHOP CS5
ADOBE
PREMIERE PRO
CS5

TRIPOD – U8000 SLIK

The digital camera was the main and most crucial new media item I used in the
construction of the music video. Without it, there would have been no filming. I
found it quite easy mastering the camera’s basic functions such as switching it on,
using playback, recording and taking photos. During the filming process, I was
exploring the ‘main menu’ on the camera and I came across the ‘Markers’ option
which displayed a grid outline over the camera screen. This was very helpful to me
because it allowed me to be more conscientious about the space in a frame and
how to use it effectively to ensure I was following ‘rule of thirds’ properly. My only
criticism was that I did not discover it earlier!
The tripod aided me in the filming process, helping me to carry out a range of
shots, i.e. tilt shots and panning, as well as ensuring the stability in the footage.

Adobe Photoshop CS5

was used in the graphic
designing element of the coursework, where I designed the digipak and the
promotional poster.
The Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 software was used to edit the raw footage. The editing
software was a key element in the final construction of the music video because
without it I would not have been able to the split-screen effect or a time-lapse.
 GOOGLE.COM

VIMEO.COM
WINDOWS
MOVIE MAKER
MICROSOFT
EXCEL 2010

YOUTUBE.COM

BLOGGER.COM

MICROSOFT
WORD 2010
Windows Movie Maker. A basic video editing software that comes with every
computer. I used it to do the basic rough cuts of the editing to help give me ideas of
how I wanted to edit each scene. It prepared me by helping me to plan for the real
editing process.

Microsoft Word was used to Blogger was the main blogging

illustrate my analytical work. website I used to create my blog
For example, the CD covers and and blog posts about the whole
the music videos. process from start to finish!
Microsoft Excel was used to
draw up the mini bar charts Google was used to research further
when analysing the data from in to desired areas, such as time-
my target audience surveys. lapses. Stop-motion and codes and
conventions.
My favourite video sharing websites: YouTube and Vimeo helped me to
research thoroughly the genre of my music video (i.e. POP/RNB) and
also gave me tutorials on how to use the editing software to the
maximum potential as well as ideas for various filming techniques.
 FACBOOK.COM

TWITTER.COM
MSN HOTMAIL
I used Facebook at various stages when I gained feedback to evaluate
the result of my media products. For the promotional poster and
digipak I used the social networking website to compose a message to
my friends so they could aid me in the creative decision making
process and help me decide which digipak and promotional poster
version I should use. Other examples of how I used Facebook can be
seen on the blog by clicking this link.
At one point I did use Twitter to draw in ideas for aspects of my music
video. Although not all of the advice ended up being followed, it still
allowed me to make decisions about how I wanted the final outcome
of a particular aspect in the music video to be, based on what there
was to offer.
I used Msn Hotmail to upload and e-mail to my friends the edited
rough cuts of my music video. The process was not always quick, often
it took long because the movie files were large in size and took a lot of
memory from the storage of the website, but I did still manage to get
very helpful evaluative feedback from my peers.