The Final Blog

"The music business is a cruel and shallow trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men lie like dogs. There is also a negative side"- Hunter S. Thompson

This quote is easily understood; from the process of creating my pop video and researching the music industry, it is obvious that it is a cut throat industry and pop music is not as easy to produce as it looks. The process of creating a pop video was a long and tough process that required huge amounts of hours and creativity. The music industry has to deal with this every day and not only have to produce a video but promote it as well as the song and the band. The music industry is under much strain from illegal downloads and technological change; therefore the pressure to produce great music for all to enjoy is more than ever.

There were problems in the development of the pop video. The most obvious one was that we changed our idea completely just before we were due to shoot the video. This was due to the fact that actors said they were available to perform but at the last moment dropped out, leaving us no choice but to change the idea. This meant that the planning for the video was very limited so we had to come up with a simple yet effective idea that would work on screen and to the audio. I think we performed well under pressure and coped with the set back of changing the concept. Our idea involved items we already owned, so therefore we did not need to source a set and props. However, it still in my opinion look just as effective as our first idea would have. Another problem was that we were a group of two which meant that we were under more pressure than the other groups that were of 3 and 4 to produce the video and the other products. This meant that more of a strain was placed on us when we had to change the concept. However, I think we coped with this well, by keeping organised and having good communication with one another.

If we were to re-do this; I would make sure that the band looked obvious that they were twins. The most important thing we got from audience feedback is that they would not have been aware that the sisters were related if they did not know them before. We wanted the idea of the twins to come out in the video as their relationship was what formed the band and their values. Also, the band’s name is ‘Double Dream’ and this does not make sense unless the audience feel they are ‘seeing double’.

Overall, I do feel the video was a success as the focus group enjoyed it and I feel that it came out better than we had hoped. The most effective part of the video in my opinion was the colours and the LFX used. I feel this really brought the video to life and created the ethereal feel we wanted for the video.

Directors Commentary

I wrote the director’s commentary and it was recorded in the editing suite’s recording studio. The purpose of a director’s commentary is to help the audience understand what we were trying to create and the process behind this. We mainly discussed the editing style, shot types and the mise-en-scene of the video. We referred to Keith Negus’s theory of the conventions of a pop video and related these back to our video discussing whether we subverted or imitated them in the video.

We described how we subverted one of Negus’s conventions of having many fast paced shots; as some lasted up to eight seconds to emphasise the heavenly and calm element of the video. We also discussed the mise-en-scene of the pop video, especially the colours and the different clothing the girls wear. The green, pink and blue colours in the projections onto the white sheets represented the girly and ethereal quality the video and the band had. We also examined the clothing the band wore in the video. For example, in some shots the girls wore girly white dresses, to represent their youth and peacefulness and in others they wore cosmic style fashionable garments to represent the creativity and uniqueness of the group.

Blog Task Three: What I learned from audience feedback

To assess audience feedback we took data from various sources- youtube, a focus group, our peers and our family. I attempted to use open questions throughout especially in the focus group. I realised this was a small scale trial of our pop video and ancillary products.

Our target audience for the pop video 'La la la' was Jictar A,B,C and possibly D,E. We were targeting females generally as the band is two girls and females would relate to them as the video is 'girly' and 'heavenly'. The age of the target audience would be 9-16 to look up to the band as role models but also 16-25 that would relate to the band and enjoy the music. The band would be based in London, England so the target audience would be firstly predominantly there. However, I would hope that the band became 'stars' therefore reaching a global audience in time. The female fan's aspirations would be to have an enjoyable youthful life without stresses and strains of a family life. She would be educated, attending school in the first age bracket and thinking to the future possibly going through university and taking life as it comes.

As of 15th of January we have had 430 hits from youtube, three comments- all positive and three 'likes'. 'michealthecure' said "love this song", HurtwoodHouseMedia commented saying "the video goes so well with the song loved the last slow motion bit. The colures look really beautiful! Thought the use of free hand shots was really effective love it!" and 'Mamizia2' said "La La La-ARCHIVE me encanto esta ".
This is extremely positive because it shows how much websites like youtube help upcoming performers to be known not just in their area but internationally.

We also conducted a focus group to enable us to gather more research and opinions of the pop video. A focus group is much more effective than a questionnaire, which is a written document to be filled in by viewers. This is because a focus group allowed people to voice their opinions which are easier and less time consuming than a questionnaire. Asking open questions allows the group to add to them creating more of a discussion about the video rather than one worded opinions.

We conducted a lively discussion with an intelligent focus group made up of 12 AS level students, 8 of which were female and 4 were male and all aged 17. 4 A2 students were also included in the focus group, 2 were boys and 2 were girls, all aged 18. We first brought the group in and seated them; we tried to make them feel comfortable by having a relaxed and friendly presence. This is so they would not feel pressured during the video, meaning they would feel relaxed about voicing their opinion on the video. We then showed them the pop promo we had created on youtube on the projector screen. This is so they had a fresh idea of what the video tried to communicate and if they liked it or not. We asked them straight away to have a vote on who liked the video and who did not by raising hands. Two A2's raised their hands and one AS did to state they did not like it, which meant 18% of the total focus group disliked the video. I felt this was an achievement as girls were our main target audience under the age of 18 and they all enjoyed it.

We then asked them the set of 10 open questions we had prepared before hand one at a time, these were:

1) Did you like the video?
2) What was the most enjoyable part of the video?
3) What message did you get from the video?
4) Do you think the video compliments the song well?
5) In what was would you agree that this video reminds you of a fairytale?
6) In what way could the video be improved?
7) Do you feel that the choice of colours went well with the video?
8) Did you feel there were different types of shots or could this be improved?
9) What are your thoughts about the band from this video?
10) Does the video / band remind you of another band/star?


I also showed the video to peers and family members. This is also a helpful tool as you get an opinion from the general public. The focus group was formed of a media class; therefore they have some knowledge of film and media. However, family members may not so are therefore viewing the video just for entertainment purposes. However, this may be biased as a parent is not likely to voice their true opinion of the video if they did not like it. I showed the video to my mother and grandmother at the same time, they seemed to genuinely enjoy the video as they expressed how much they enjoyed it but also backed this up with reasons for it. My mother, a 41 year old dark haired business woman stated "I could picture this on the television as a real music video above the others from your school". I also showed it to my peer group and it was obvious that the females enjoyed it far more than the males. Annie, an 18 year old aspiring artist stated the pop promo was "like entering a dream world...it reminded my of an MGMT video". This was a great success as I had voiced at the start of the pop promo process that I wanted to create a video inspired by the band 'MGMT'.

We tried to include the theory of Blumler and Katz on 'uses and gratifications' to assess our audience response. Blumler and Katz state that audience respond to media text in four different ways:

1) The audience identifying with the characters on the screen
We were trying in our pop video for the audience to identify with the ethereal, heavenly, dreamy twin girls in the band. It worked well as out of the eight females in the group; 7 identified with the characters and were aware of their dream like presence. Mimi a 17 year old blonde said "I get a heavenly quality from the girls".

2) Diversion
82% of the focus group believed the video was entertaining. Blumler and Katz say that a media text must occupy the viewer for more than 70% of the time to be diverting. The six males agreed they lacked powers of concentration to last for 70% but it was still entertaining and therefore diverting. 8 out of 9 of the girls in the focus group stated they were occupied for 100% of the time. Although, Storm Clark-Webster an artistic 18 year old said that the video did get "Slightly repetitive during by end".

3) Personal Relationships
All the members of the focus group believed they could sense of a sisterly relationship coming from the band. Although, 15 out of the 16 members of the group would not have known that they were twins from the video if they did not know before. Heather a drama student said "you could tell they had a good relationship from the close up shots but cause they did not look the same I couldn’t tell they were twins"

Stuart Hall’s encoding and decoding theory relates to the audience feedback we gained from the focus groups and other sources. The theory is based on the producer creating a preferred meaning within a media text to try and send to the audience. In our pop video the message that we were trying to convey to our audience was that the girls on the screen were twin sisters that promoted youth, peacefulness and creativity. This was through the use of the heavenly mise-en-scene in the video; for example, the fairy lights and the projections of changing patterns of green, blue and pink. It was also portrayed through the band’s performance, as they were shots relaxing on a sofa and weaving through heavenly sheets. Furthermore, it was represented through the lyrics in the song, for example, “make yourself free, make yourself grow”.

Hall says the audience may give the media text one of three interpretatons. The audience may accept the preffered meanign with a preffered reading. They may negotiate a slightly different meaning of their own, or they may reject the preffered meaning with an oppositional reading. For 'La La La' we had a slight negotiated reading among a small amount of females in the focus group. The belived that some women could see the video of twins cavorting ins hort white reavling dresses as demeaning to the position of women. This essentially rejects the preffered meaning and gives it a different interpretation.

Another theorist that is linked to what an audience gets out of a media text is Aristotle. He believed that the goal of argumentative writing is to persuade your audience that your ideas are valid, or more valid than another's. The Greek philosopher Aristotle divided the means of persuasion 2000 years ago. He said it can be divided into three categories; Ethos, Pathos and Logos. Aristotle did not apply these to pop videos as pop videos were not created when he developed this theory but it can be used in all media texts.

Ethos (Credibility) or, ethical appeal
This means convincing by the character of the author. We tend to believed people who we respect, for example, the Prime Minister. We tried to build up this type of credibility in the band. The focus group responded by stating they enjoyed watching the band physically but also identified with them. This meant that the audience could respect and trust the band, helping to give the band a good name.

Pathos (Emotional)
This means persuading by appealing to the reader or watcher’s emotions. Texts from classical literature to contemporary advertisements are used to persuade through one’s emotions. Language choice affects the audience’s emotional response, and this can be used to enhance an argument. For example; charity advocates such as the NSPCC television advertisements. We used pathos to tap into the dreamy, ethereal emotions of the audience and 10 of the females in the focus group understood that there was emotion in the video.

Logos (Logical)
This is the Greek word for “Word” and it means persuading by the use of reasoning, speaking or writing. Giving reasoning is the heart of an argument, and it cannot be emphasised enough not only in literature but in all media texts. For example, Channel 4 news, without facts we are not persuaded by what the News reader tells us. However, this doesn’t apply to our video as it did not tap into the knowledge of the audience but was just for entertainment. We were trying to connote a underlying meaning of the freedom of youth and women but this was not the heart of the video.

Blog Task 2: A Power Point presentation to explore how effective the combination of my main product and ancillary texts is?

Stars presentation

View more presentations from hurtwoodhousemedia5.

I tackled this question by creating a powerpoint which explored how we had tried to use the theories in producing our work. These theories are:

• CARLSON AND HIS THEORY OF POP STARS BEING TELEVISED BARDS OR ELECTRONIC SHAMEN OR COMMERCIAL EXHIBITIONISTS. I decided that our artists were a micture of the three but very low level on the exhibitionist side.
• RICHARD DYER AND HIS IDEAS ABOUT STARDOM, AND HOW IT IS CREATED AND CONTINUED. We wanted to establish our act as stars and so tried to emphasise the ingrediance that Dyer suggests.
• LEVI STRAUSS AND HIS IDEA THAT A MEDIA TEXT MUST HAVE A UNIVERSAL MYTH IN THEIR SOMEWHERE TO REALLY TOUCH THE AUDIENCE. We wanted to explore ideas of gender and human relations in this area.

The creation of my magazine advert

The relevance of a magazine advert has increased sufficiently within the last decade. Due to increased levels of illegal downloads and decreases of CD purchases, artists have been forced to have extensive tour dates. Therefore, advertising these tours is essentail in order to advertise the image of the band and the tickets to a wide range of potention customers. Tickets can be very expensive for gigs and tour dates.

To show when potentional audience members could see the band play live, we included a list of tour dates. Most magazine adverts do this, therefore we imitated this convention for example, 'Shed Sheven's' tour poster. We did this so that people can see if Double Dream is playing a gig near them and therefore, would be more likely to see the band. We also added an extra elemt to show which gig's have sold out. This is not just to inform possible customers which gigs they can no longer attend but to also connote that they are popular and therefore show they are good performers.

Subliminal messaging is another reason for creating a magazine advert. This is because when an advert is placed in a magazine the reader subliminaly picks up a message from the advert about the band.

The creation of my Digipak

When a new song comes out, the artist has to sell the song and their brand. They do this in three ways which work together. The first is the pop promo, which can be used on TV and in shopping malls to market the song. The digipak is to reach potential buyers in shops. The magazine advert is to persuade people to go and watch the gigs, which are the places where groups make the money in the digital age.

A digipak is a digital version of the inlays of a CD. It is used to look attractive to customers and therefore sell more CD's. This is every more important as CD sales are decreasing dramatically due to illegal downloads.

A digipak contains a front cover; this is to be eye catching and usually includes a picture of the artist on it, especially if it is their first CD. This is to promote and sell the image of the artist to a wide audience and therefore create more revenue from CD sales.

To create the digipak we used a photograph that had been taken of them on the day. We then created pink glowing whispers and placed them around the picture, to frame it but also to give the picture a girly, ethereal image which is what we want the artists to portray also. The key conventions of a CD cover is that it should contain; an image of the band, the band name and the name of the album. We imitated this but also added an extra element of a 'five star rating' given by a music music magazine. We did this because they are a new band release their demo album so therefore this may convince a customer to purchase the album if they had never heard of the band as professionals have deemed it '5 star' album.

We also created the middle sleeves of the digipack. The conventions of this is a possible image of the band, lyrics to the song or information on the band. We did not want to make the digipack appear overcrowded with information so we only imitated the convention of lyrics to the song. We used a photograph that was taken on the shoot day of the girls lying on a sofa. The girls were shot far apart so we split this up to make it two sides of the middle of the digipak. The lighting was dark in the photograph so white lettering was used for the lyrics to make them stand out.

Task number one: In what ways do your media products use, develop or challange forms and conventions of real media products?

The first stage of the production of my music video was the research and development stage. One element that is key is the major conventions of a music video. Keith Negus, a popular music theorist identified the thirteen major conventions, these are:

• the explicit and unashamed promotion of the artist’s image


• featuring the artist


• a wide and extensive use of shot types


• camera angles and movement


• repetition of reoccurring thematic elements


• narrative


• performance element


• the flexibility to disregard realism


• shots cut tightly to the beat of the track


• use of special effects


• mise-en-scene appropriate to the content


• tone of the track and finally high impact instantly

We looked at the original video for 'La La La' by The Bird and the Bee. The original features the band but a narrative element of two children playing with toy bricks. We wanted the video to be about youth in the same way as the original is; however we did not want a narrative element but just wanted to feature the band. This is because I feel a narrative element would distract from the band as it is a promotional video for their first ever song and we wanted all the audience’s attention on them. Also, we do want the video to be about youth, but not children, more teenagers growing up to be youthful, free adults.

The origional video of 'La La La' by 'The Bird and The Bee:

We researched popular music videos on ‘Youtube’ and we decided that we wanted to have the same look as an MGMT video. MGMT are known for producing not only creative videos but videos that have a quality in them where the audience are not fully aware what is going on, the audience are left to answer questions about the video.

The video we wished to produce was to the song 'La La La' by The Bird and the Bee. The song is about freedom and youth, "Make yourself free, make yourself grow." Therefore, we wanted our video to be about two teenage girls full of youth and freedom. We wanted to imitate and subvert the convention of a featuring of the artist as we decided we did not want any one else in the video. However, we wanted to subvert the convention of a narrative and performance element as we wanted to just have an interesting and unique performance video.

The image and brand of the band we were trying to convey was two twin girls enjoy youthful life together as close, girly and happy teenage girls. We wanted to create the idea of coming back from a meeting with a boyfriend; showing the excitement and anticipation one may feel as a teenager. We did not want the girls to look promiscuous but youthful. Therefore, they wore white dresses in some shots to connote their youth and innocence and cosmic style t-shirts and fashionable velvet bottoms in other shots, to show their creative stylish side.

Most pop videos use movement to give an idea of intimacy with the artist for the audience. Since our aim was to create an ethereal world, we used movements such as tracking and crane shots that gently followed the artists as the weave their way through the set. Colours were white, blue, pink and green, all gentle colures again. We used circles and ovals as shapes in the mise-en-scene to stress the dream like quality and how unthreatening it all was. Are edits also imitated Negus's conventions, cutting to the beat which was gentle in itself and so emphasised the dream like work we were creating.

We also followed the rule of thirds with most of our shots. Again allowing the audience to enjoy the images gently and not be threatened in any way. The images were easy on the eye as the eye is used to the rule of thirds.

As Khuleshov says 70% of the meaning of a film comes through the visuals not the sounds and our pop video tried to follow this route. Even though the purpose of a pop promo is to sell the song, the visuals are more important as this is what attracts the customer into buying the song.

Another crucial element is that we had to communicate the genre of the song, not just through the audio but also through the visual. The theorist Barthes states that; to understand genre audiences should take two things from a media text, 'jouissance' and 'plaisir'. Plaisir is the pleasure through the expected and jouissance is pleasure through the unexpected. We stood by Barthes' theory during the creation of the pop promo. We imitated some of Negus's conventions to give the audience plaisir. For example; we featured the artist. This is important because as it is the band's first song the audience needs to be aware of who the band is and possibly relate to them. We also subverted some conventions to give the audience jouissance. For example; we subverted the convention of having a narrative element as we only used performance, this is because we wanted the full attention to be on the band.

When creating the pop video, we had to think carefully about how the video and song fit together and would therefore come across to the audience. The song is about letting go of the constraints of life and being free especially in youth. Therefore, we wanted our video to portray this too. The video tried to bring over an ethereal message of girls promoting youth, freedom and heavenly girly feelings. This fits the image of the band well, as they are two young attractive girls that are creative and have an open mind to freedom and having fun.

This still shows the basic idea of the video. We used the idea of being 'girly', youth and freedom to create the mise-en-scene of feminine items such as flowers, fairy lights and cushions. We then explored this idea and came up with the feeling after a girl has found happiness, either in her love life or in her social life. We decided that we would use bed sheets in different ways to symbolise this, eg hanging them up and the girls exploring through the sheets, or using them like a tent with the girls inside this like a hide out a girl may create as a child. We did this to explore youth but to show that they are not children and are growing up but not forgetting their child like qualities.

We also explored this idea using a wide variety of camera shots, and angles, that we imitated from Negus’s conventions. However, we subverted this slightly by only using close-ups and mid shots. This was to show the intimacy between the two girls to show their friendship as well as sisterly love.

We explored this idea of intimacy further by disregarding one of Negus’s conventions of short fast shots cut to the beat. We did imitate the convention of cutting to the beat for a professional finish; however we subverted the convention of just fast paced short shots. A fair amount of shots lasted for up to eight seconds, especially at the beginning of the song when there is no singing and is just dream like chimes. This is to increase the intimacy of the video and the friendship between the girls as the camera tracked free hand close up lingering on the girls. This was also to increase the heavenly, free and relaxed feel to the video.

Another of Negus’s conventions is for there to be a repetition of reoccurring thematic elements. We imitated this convention as we repeated the shot of the two girls on the sofa regularly throughout the video. This is because we felt this was the strongest shot as it we felt is explored the idea of intimacy and ethereal femininity furthest out of all the shots from the shoot day. We started with the two girls on the sofa and weaved around the sofa with a hand held camera, using tracking but stayed on one shot, that lasted eight seconds. We then repeated this throughout the video; this was to ensure that the audience knew that this was the most prominent image we wanted to portray of the band.

Task number four- A director's commentary on how I used new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages

New media technologies refer to digital media that I used extensively in all areas of production. The use of digital media is any electronic systems to create the pop video. Digital and analogue are two ways of storing and transferring information. The analogue system is outdated, as it needs a lot of space. Analogue had to be large and was slow, low quality and expensive. However, digital uses a binary code system of repetitions of 0 and 1’s. The Internet, cameras and sound all use this binary code. The cable is a size of hair and it is high quality and cheaper than the analogue system. Digital media has four advantages over analogue. Proliferation; meaning there are many channels to choose from, for example on Sky which is digital compared to previously television only allowing the main four channels. Quality; including picture quality, sound quality and the option to view in high definition. Interactivity: which is the ability to be interactive in media such as television. Whereby viewers can play games, vote and choose camera angles from the television console. Convergence: which is when different media text can converge (come together) to produce one. For example, newspapers and the Internet use convergence, which means newspapers, can now be read online.

I used new media technologies in all stages of production from: research and development, planning, construction (shoot), post production, distribution and evaluation.

I used new media technologies in the research and development stage. Research was conducted via the Internet. I researched the key conventions of pop videos and watched examples of pop videos on ‘youtube’. We researched possible shoot locations on ‘Google’ and ‘Google maps’. We used the website ‘eBay’ to bid for props such as feathers. We used the Internet because it is a fast and reliable source of information. The Internet can be used to find anything possible for the shoot in seconds, allowing the process of research and develop to be fairly fast. The Internet, in particular ‘you tube’ helped contribute to the form of my pop video. The research on videos such as MGMT’s ‘Flash Delirium’ and Smashing Pumpkin’s ‘Tonight, tonight’, helped instigate the ethereal, dream like quality I wanted in my pop video.

New media technologies were also present in the planning stages. We used a digital camera to take photographs of locations and the television studio. This helped us decide that the television studio would be the most appropriate location for the video as we could create endless possibilities of a dream world, however in a location we would be restricted. We used the Internet to research amateur theatre groups that would allow us to use members in the video. We then contacted these drama groups using e-mail that allowed us to have easy, free and accessible back and fourth conversation with the owners and members of these drama societies in the area. Digital media technology also allowed us to film the storyboards. This helped us see what the product would look like by playing the storyboards back in animation; which helped us understand what worked on screen and what didn’t. We also camera tested the cast members; which allowed us to see if they looked good on screen and if they worked well together, which they did perfectly. We also used the computer to construct a call sheet. A call sheet is a document with all the relevant information for the cast and crew including; lyrics to the song, the contact numbers for the crew and locations.

New media technology was incredibly helpful during the construction of the music video. We used the digital Song Z1 camera during the music video shoot. As the camera was digitally advanced, lighting was not too necessary. This meant that we could use close-up for intimate shots. This was very helpful as this was the overall intimate, ethereal ‘look’ I wanted to achieve for the video. This camera is also lighter and smaller, thus making it easier to construct free hand tracking shots and a shot on top of a crane. We also used slow-motion shots that are only possible when using a digital camera such as the Sony Z1. This camera also allowed us to have an overall better quality image. This helped us achieve the overall professional look we wanted to create for the video. The ease and quality of the camera allowed us to increase the amount of material I could shoot. Thus making the ratio for the shoot high, which meant that there was more choice with what shots I could use. We took 104 shots during the shoot day and used 26 of them in the final edit. This gave us a ratio of 4:1, which is four shots in the rushes for every one shot actually used. This is quite a high ratio and gave us more options to be creative in editing. This high ratio is only possible because digital cameras are easily lit, quickly moved and mean you can shoot alot more than previously.

During the post-production new media technologies were crucial. We used final cut pro editing software. This helped us edit the music video quickly, accurately and professionally. Final cut pro is a non-linear software, therefore allowing us to change shots that didn’t match or fit in with the overall feel of the video. Helping us to quickly get the video exactly how we wanted it. We also had the option to use Adobe after effects and green screen. However, we felt that no after effects were necessary as it would make the action on the screen too busy and this would take away from the dream like qualities we had created. We also used colour grading on final cut pro. This package colour grades every shot, thus matching the colours of shot so they grade together. This gave the video a more attractive, professional look. All of these effects are based on new media or digital technology.

New media technologies have made the process of distribution and evaluation far easier and cheaper. Digital media makes duplication of the pop video incredibly easy and cheap, by burning the video onto a cd. An even easier solution to sharing the pop video is through the Internet. The video can be emailed as an attachment anywhere in the world, to anyone for free and in seconds. The video can also be put on the artists website for promotional purposes and can be uploaded onto youtube. Comments can be placed onto youtube about the video. We did just this; by placing it on youtube we automatically gained views of the music video and comments of appreciation. These were very useful to understand what our peers thought of the video and external people. Thus helping us to gain knowledge if the video we made was successful.

Essentially new media technology is the basis for all production and distribution making it quicker, cheaper and much better in quality for the audience.