A2 Advanced Portfolio

Media Evaluation

For our A2 Media Studies I chose to do assignment brief 1 which was to create a promotion package for the release of an album, it had to include a music promo video, together with two of the following options; A website for the band, A cover for its release as part of a Digipak, magazine advertisement for the Digipak. We could do this in alone or as part of a group. I decided to work with a partner, Andrew Crooks. We chose to do a music video for a song by the Rap/Hip-Hop artist Nelly, the song is called Na Nana Na and is a stereotypical rap song about money, cars and women. We chose to do this song because not many people know of it because it is an old song and is not aimed at a mainstream audience. During my research I looked at a range of genres from rap to rock to analyse (I analysed music videos by Akon, Busta Rhymes, Linkin Park, Jay Z and Paramore) and noticed that they all have a similar shot pattern, which is timed with the beat of the music. This then gave us an idea of how many shots we may need, and when we had an estimate, we began to film. The analysed videos used for research can be found on my media blog at: http://advancedmediat.blogspot.com/2010_10_01_archive.html. At first we had planned to completely challenge the stereotypes of the Hip-Hop genre but then we thought it would be better to challenge as well as use the stereotypes because it would show the genre from two different perspectives. The original idea consisted of only one main character/protagonist who is a ten year old Caucasian boy, William, by just having him in our video we are opposing the stereotype that all rappers and Hip-Hop artist are black. Our original idea was to have William dressed as a stereotypical Black American but we decided against this idea and had him dress smart in order to break the baggy clothing stereotypes. We then had the idea to have two main protagonists/characters and changed our storyline. So we used the ‘Child Gangster’ narrative (explained on my blog) but with an older character as well because the song we had chosen included some explicit lyrics and we did not want William to imitate such words. Our chosen song already has a video to it and the original does not seem to have a storyline through it. So, after looking at other music videos I saw that music videos rarely have a narrative structure and we decided not to use one. Instead we had no narrative and decided to create audience expectation and then try to oppose what they may have expected to see. During filming we tried to use the forms and conventions, which consist of cuts in time with the beat, of real media texts to create voyeuristic pleasure. For this we had lots of close up shots and medium close ups of the artists. Other conventions include oversized clothing and baseball caps, we used these because it supports the genre of our chosen song and clearly shows the audience that the genre we chose was Hip-Hop. The most dominant shot we used was the medium close up because it shows body language as well as facial expressions. As well as the medium shots we used a lot of close ups because it allows the audience to get into the same mood that the artist is portraying. We also used a range of long shots to establish the scenario show the audience the locations of our video. Through the use of our chosen locations we were able to challenge conventions of the rap genre by not being in the stereotypical ‘ghetto’ location, instead we chose to film outside of a college and on a park with lots of trees and bright green grass. In order to complete our A2 media portfolio we had to use a wide variety of modern media technologies, in order to reach full potential in creating our video and the two ancillary texts and to develop our blogs. Since it was not possible for all of our coursework to be done using computers, we did not only use these forms of technology. We also used video cameras and still cameras in order to record our video and to take pictures for our ancillary texts. The most used new media technology was probably the internet and Web 2.0 the internet was used for everything that we did because it all had to be posted onto our blogs, the internet was also used to do our research because it allowed access to www.wikipedia.com. I used Wikipedia to find some of the conventions of the rap genre and it also helped to analyse the lyrics in the video for Linkin Park Ft. Busta Rhymes. Web 2.0 made the research a lot easier. With the use of websites such as YouTube, MySpace and Blogger we were able to look at other student’s work and see how ours was in comparison to theirs, Web 2.0 allowed us to give and receive feedback during our project. Websites such as Google, Wikipedia and Bing were also useful for research purposes because through the use of Web 2.0 internet users are able to give their opinions on music videos and we can use the opinions for our video. The advantages of Web 2.0 are that it allowed us to upload our own finished project as well as look at other students’ it also allowed us to gain feedback off internet users from all around the globe. These advantages strongly influenced the outcome of our product because we were able to see other fan made videos and use them to see how we could improve ours. After the research stages, we began to plan both our music video and ancillary texts. We started the planning stage by drawing up various drafts for our Adverts and Digipak outlines. Although and the first stages, the majority of our planning was scribbled down in rough on paper, new media technologies played a major role in the quality of our media texts.We used programs such as Microsoft Paint and Microsoft Publisher to create numerous IT drafts, representing our proposed themes and layouts for both our album advertisement and Digi-pak cover.We then used these drafts as a guide line for creating our actual piece, a similar technique we used in designing our music video. For our first ancillary text, the Digi-pak we took some pictures using a Canon camera to go on front. The pictures represent wealth as well as struggle because of the rap genre and how it started, but, we later thought to screenshot some parts of our video and use it as pictures on the Digi-pak, but we decided against this due to the fast paced acting of the models and the still pictures kept blurringpaste it here. In doing this we found out that people who had seen our video instantly knew that the Digi-pak template was for our video. The screenshot idea made our main project link in with our ancillary texts and made the combination of the two very effective. We also had the idea to pastiche an album cover which had two faces, as halves, put together as one. The idea was inspired form Christina Aguilera’s album ‘Bionic’. We did not use this idea because the album we decided to release was for a solo artist and the song only had the second artist featuring on the track. In order to take the pictures we had booked a still/photo Canon camera from the media department. Both, me and Andrew know how to use these cameras as we had used them for our AS Media Projects so we were already familiar with the digital technology. This gave us a head start because we had not forgotten how to use the technology and did not have to be shown again. Then for our second ancillary text, the advertisement poster, pictures were taken of the model in front of a fence with ivy growing from it. We chose that certain location because it represents the ghetto (because the fence is dirty) and hope of new life in the ghetto because there is fresh plants growing over the fence. This is a really good sign with greenery to show new life. ‘Life is as good as new in the ghetto in which the rap artists were raised.’ During the process of editing our video, using Premier Pro CS 4, we had noticed the we had attracted other student’s attention to our video. We showed some of the students the video, still incomplete, and give them questionnaires to fill out. The response was generally positive and the only thing which kept coming up as a negative was the location in which we had shot one verse. We resolved this problem by shooting again in another location and the sample audience said they like the new location more. The main positive feedback we had received was the used of William as one of the two main stars. The sample audience said they enjoyed his performance and that he looked as if he was enjoying the filming process. The questionnaire samples provided us with the information we needed to improve our video significantly. John Hamlin said: “The video has A* potential.” while Sam Anderson stated that: “I don’t like the location you chose for the first verse.” We took the feedback and filmed in a different location and began to edit the video. The editing mainly consisted of cutting the shots to shorten the and to sync the lips of the models with the lyrics of the songs. Also, during editing, we noticed that we had mistakenly left a tripod in one of the shots. We decided against shooting this shot again because this media project is a learning process which should hopefully help us pick out the mistakes we made and allow us to alter them in the future. Our video was shot in many locations. The main two locations being at Wyke college and Beresford Park. We chose to film outside of Wyke college because it shows that one of the main characters is a college student who likes to sing and rap. Beresford was the second location because of the greenery and the trees which represent innocence and cleanliness. While filming we had the logo for the college visible within the Mise-En-Scene for the first verse. We chose to film on Endike Lane as well because it is where William lives, though this did not have a major impact on the video, the costume that William was wearing did because it was his School uniform and it showed that he had just got home from school. We used a range of costumes from a school uniform to formal wear to smart shirts and jeans. The different costumes represent different things because they range form innocent school uniforms, to show the age of the models, to baggy clothing which is an iconic feature of the Rap/ Hip hop genre. The costumes made a real difference in our video as it gave the video a proper narrative with a storyline. For the chorus we needed some extras in our video and when we mentioned this to a group of friends, they instantly agreed to taking part in our video. The location we used for the chorus was a dark garage door so the characters stood out. Two of the more enthusiastic extras were used more often because they were not camera shy and full of energy and willing to help for our project.