Kirsty's Evaluation

The piece I created is a music video for the song Heartless by the band The Fray. This challenges some conventions of the music video genre, one of which is that the main character is male. This is in itself is often seen in music videos; however, those songs that portray heartbreak are typically from a female perspective. My video shows a male moping around his room and reacting in a stereotypically female manner. This opposition is shown in the Taylor Swift video You Belong With Me (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuNIsY6JdUw) which shows heartache from a female point of view. Although this video does not represent heartbreak, it is a good comparison because it shows similar emotion and proves that my video challenges this convention.

Not all aspects of my video challenge convention. I decided to use continuity editing in the beginning scene of my video. This is typical of music videos that tell a story. This exemplified in the video Stylo by Gorillaz (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9vAOzYz-Qs). On the other hand, this is not used for the entire film. During the flashback scenes, I chose to use cross fade transitions to move from one shot to another. I made this decision because the shots do not follow a typical sequence, for example, they do not appear in chronological order. This is because they are specific memories that do not need any further information and the background knowledge is already given in the initial scenes and the lyrics of the song. The use of transitions in music videos is a typical feature, an example of this is the song Quiet Times by Dido (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDQkrhTrQKg)

A further feature of my video is the use of green-screen. This is commonly used within the music video genre, however, where I used it ap pears to be unique. Many videos use green-screen as the main background, with shapes and colours super imposed behind the artist. An extreme example of this is Rhianna’s video Rude Boy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e82VE8UtW8A). In this video bright colours and backgrounds have been used in the style of many 1980’s/1990’s videos. In my video I have used green-screen in photo frames, in which the images move, portraying more than simply a photograph. This has worked well in setting a mood and showing more background information than a traditional photo would. It also acts as a good way of moving the action from the bedroom scene to the flashback and memories.

To further exaggerate the transition between present day and the past, I have used muted colourings in the present day and brighter colours in the flashbacks. Using colour to show this difference is a typical convention in film, however, it is usually used in opposition. For example, the past tends to be in muted colours and the present in full colour. I chose to use it in the way previously stated to represent the depression and mind state of the male character, it shows that the past was a happier time.

I chose to do the magazine advert and digi-pak for my ancillary tasks. I feel that the advert successfully targets the same audience as the band does in its colourings and layout. The image also exemplifies the music video I have created. Similarly the digi-pak emulates the video in its construction. The image on the front cover clearly represents the male’s heartbreak and the scribbles show his emotions. Furthermore, the hand-written, doodle-style of the image shows the age of the characters and also the target audience. Doodles are typically associated with school and college, the characters are about 18 or 19 years old and so are within these boundaries. This age range is also the younger limit of the target audience for both the band and the video. This makes the cover successful. In addition, the inner pages include images of the broken couple, furthering the theme of love and heartbreak. It also links the video into the digi-pak on a literal level.

I also made a bold decision to put a blurb-style summary of the video in the digi-pak. This decision was made to encourage people to buy the physical CD as apposed to downloading it. Digi-paks have to have a sense of being unique and include such details as an incentive to buy this CD above the others on the shelf. Overall, I feel the digi-pak is successful in representing the style of music and the video.

Once completed, I showed my video to other people in my class. I shoes this group as they would watch the video with a critical eye and spot technical issues a non-specialist audience would not. Furthermore, they are of the age and social status I aimed to target and so if they liked it, so would the public. Most of the feedback was positive, with comments including how they liked the technical issues such as the green-screen and colourings. They also appreciated the characters and acting, they related to both characters, especially the male. This was most pleasing as this was my main aim when creating my film. Furthermore, many comments were on the subtleness of the mise-en-scene how it is successful in creating the semiotics of emotion and location.

However, some constructive criticism was given on the limited locations and how they would have liked to see more varied flashback scenes such as restaurant scenes. Looking back I feel this would have been a good idea, I also feel that a shot of the couple in the room shown at the beginning of the video would have solidified the reality of the memories. Overall, the feedback was mainly positive making the video successful in its purpose.

Many technologies were used in the research, creation and evaluation of my piece. Some are obvious for example the use of the internet to find research on the band and music video theory. I also used the internet and specifically YouTube to watch and analyse existing music videos. This also helped me to study The Fray’s usual style of video. Additionally, I used digital cameras to record the footage and the software Final Cut Express to edit the video. Within Final Cut I used its functions to delete the specific green colour of the card in the photo frames and changed the size and angle of the footage, which I then moved to position in the gap created when deleting the green colour.

I have also made use of links, screen shots and images in this evaluation, only made possible by the blog format. A blog also makes it easier for teachers to mark the work and means it is accessible to other groups in the class.

In conclusion, I am very pleased with the piece however; I feel there are some minor points which could have been improved. I could have spent more time working on the ancillary tasks and making them more audience focussed.