Post 11: Conclusion Post

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Welcome to my blog! All of my evidence for Research and Planning is under a label called AL Research and Planning.

Thank you very much and I hope you enjoy!

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Post 10: My Production Review

I was given feedback on my music video, website, and social media in order to allow me to improve my work. This allowed me to reflect and take action on my work in order to create a project to the best of my ability which satisfied the demands of the brief fully. 

Music Video Feedback

Review 1: Ms. Blackborow (Media Teacher)

WWW: My work had lots of nice shots, with good framing, carefully selected mise-en-scene and dynamic locations. This meant it looked visually striking and cinematic. The narrative was clear and effectively amplified the lyrics of the song.

EBI: I needed to re-edit the audio bed in order to make the song start and end more naturally within the three minutes required duration. I also needed to change my editing slightly to cut down the number of running shots, giving me time to add a montage at the end. My work needed titles at the beginning of the song and something at the end of the song to direct people to my website and various other platforms. Finally, I needed to look at adding some editing techniques such as choppy strobe intercutting to help build a sense of surrealism and create a more dynamic and music video appropriate edit.

Website and Social Media Feedback

Post 9: My Website and Social Media Pages

Research

I researched this to find the codes and conventions of websites belonging to Pop Music artists. I then looked at specific case studies to get examples of how these websites are specially crafted to appeal to the target audience, engage them and convince them to buy into the artist and the brand.

I was heavily influenced and inspired by Selena Gomez's, Khalid's, Taylor swift's and Ariana Grande's websites.

I then researched Khalid, in particular, to analyse his use of website and social media to create a converged and synergised online presence. This helped me to show how website and social media can be used to reinforce and craft a star persona, and how social media platforms can be used to increase traffic to the website to promote tour ticket sales and music and merchandise sales in order to ensure the artist is an asset to the record label, creating a large profit.

This research was useful to me as it showed me what I need to include when creating my own website in order to make a conventional website of a pop artist. It also helped me by showing me potential layouts and styles of website, allowing me to develop ideas about my own website concerning style, layout and what pages and features I want to include. The in-depth analysis gave me specific examples of what I can do and what features I could add to adhere to convention and create a unique and authentic yet conventionally pop website.

Planning

Ideas, Plans and References for Extra Audio-Visual Material

Behind The Scenes Video

My first idea for extra audio-visual content is to create a behind the scenes video of different studio and locations and outtakes. This will be put to the same music as the main music video, giving the audience extra and exclusive content to see what set is like behind the camera. This gives a feel of exclusivity and close proximity to the star, allowing the audience to engage with the star.

One of my main inspirations for this video will be the behind the scenes video for Ariana Grande's song 'Boyfriend' ft Social House. 

Elements from this video that I would like to take are:

- The camcorder style of filming behind the scenes

- Videos of the star acting and not acting so we see the "real them".

- fun clips of the artist and actors getting along

- shots between takes

- shots of the process of directing and filming, discussing the shots, the monitor etc.

Vanity Fair Interview

Secondly, I would like to create an interview for fashion magazine Vanity Fair, which also has a large video presence on it's website and on YouTube. This video interview will allow fans to get to know the persona in more detail and will help to make the Livvy Lawson brand identity more well-known. It is also intertextual with existing media as Vanity Fair is an existing and well established brand. This will create a type of familiarity for the audience and make the interview seem respectable and reputable.

One of my main inspirations for this video is the Vanity Fair Interview with Billie Eilish 1 year apart.

Elements from this video that I would like to take are:

- An acoustic and instrumental version of the promoted song accompanying the video

- the soft lighting

-setting in a studio with a white background, simple

- questions that inquire into the artist and their rise to fame, not just their song and packaged persona

Radio 1 show clips and promotion

I would also like to create 4 10 second adverts to promote an appearance on the breakfast show on BBCR1. This will establish the artist as a British musician, as the BBC is a very quintessentially British brand. It will also show that the artist is trying to appeal to a young, mainstream demographic as the target audience for the BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show is a mass-market and diverse 15-29 year old demographic.

Brand collaboration and sponsorship

I want to also have a brand sponsorship and partnership with my star persona. This would help to promote the aspirational and fashionable lifestyle conventional of a pop musician. This will help to also show my star identity as I can link it to my charity UNICEF, through creating a sustainable and ethical fashion line that adheres to the messages and demands that UNICEF places on brands and fashion labels to give workers good rights, wages and to stop child labour. 

My advertising campaign for this partnership is heavily influenced by the Missguided print campaigns featuring stars such as Sofia Richie :

My advertising campaign is also heavily influenced by the recent Molly Mae X Pretty Little Thing video promotion:

I also want to create a competition with my partnered brand to allow for fan participation, giving them the chance to become prosumers by uploading their own pictures. This will help to create a sense of community as my fans can share images under a shared hashtag.

Plans, Ideas and references for my website structure

My Flat Plan

This is my flat plan of my main page, showing my ideas towards how I want my website to look and which sections should be where.

I have chosen to create a scrolling website, inspired by Khalid. This means there are different sections on my website as you scroll down, all the content isn't just on linked separate pages. This is conventional for pop artist websites, with many adopting this style of website.

My linked page will be News, featuring my audio-visual content and my various social media streams. I also want to have a community section on my linked page to create a community and fanbase for my fans to interact and write their own comments, influenced by the community section in Selena Gomez's website. This will increase engagement and interactivity, allowing fans to interact with the brand, making it more accessible.

Colour scheme

My colour scheme is based off of my album cover shown here:

My colour scheme based on this album is denim blue, with accent colours of a burnt orange from the sunglasses. White and black will also feature heavily as tones in my text, buttons and backgrounds. My text will be in the font Arial, the same as my album cover.

I will have some strips to encourage the audience to follow or visit the store, an idea inspired by the merch and follow strips on Khalid's website. The background of these strips will be distinctly from the other backgrounds in order to break up the content and give the website a uniform feel throughout to pull it together. The background for these strips will be the denim from the album cover, helping to synergise everything together to present a uniform brand identity.

Social Media Plans

I aim to create social media accounts for Twitter and Instagram which are fully converged to my website and across platforms. They will be synergised, much like Khalid's through having the same bio, profile picture, and posting the same photos on both platforms to present a unified brand identity. 

I will also post updates and various images and text to make my artist seem accessible to fans, helping to create a loyal fanbase.

Conclusion

My planning was useful to me as it allowed me to prepare and arrange my ideas for my website and social media pages. This allowed me to think in-depth about what I wanted my website structure to be, the colour scheme, fonts, and what audio-visual content I want to create for my website in order for it to be successful and appeal to my target audience. When making my music video, I can refer to this planning to ensure I create a synergised, converged, and engaging website that appeals to my target audience. They will be able to interact with my brand, hopefully buying into it and buying tickets and merchandise.

My sources for this post are:

- Selena Gomez website

- Taylor Swift website

- Khalid website

- Google Images

- Twitter

- Facebook

- Instagram

-YouTube

- Pretty Little Thing

- Missguided

Post 8: My Music Video

RESEARCH

I researched some existing music videos, analysing both the performance and narrative to find conventions within the pop music video genre. I did this in order to ensure my own music video adhered to conventions of its genre to communicate and anchor meanings about the artist's star identity, values, attitudes and beliefs, and create a synergised and unified brand identity. This also allowed me to look at effective aspects of different music videos, helping to inspire my own video with a visual stimulus of an existing music video as inspiration.

Analysis of Ariana Grande ft Social House "Boyfriend"

This music video uses conventional techniques such as beauty shots and Close-Ups on the artists and main characters. It also adheres to convention by intercutting performance and narrative together and using jump cuts to create action to engage the audience and to create disjuncture. The video is set in a large mansion, with lots of vibrant and rich colours such as Gold, Teal and Purple. This helps to present a luxurious and aspirational lifestyle of wealth often seen in music videos. The camera shots are varied, with a mixture of Long-Shots for action, Mid-Shots for conversation and Close-Ups on the stars themselves. There is lots of camera movement to trace the artists and to make sure the video has movement and doesn't look too static. The lighting and grading is soft with a lot of white light to create a dreamy and airy look. This helps the video to look stylised and visually impressive.  This music video effectively brings the lyrics together with video to create a more literal interpretation. This portrays the grey area around exclusivity when in the beginning stages of a new relationship, portraying ideas of jealousy, manipulations, passion and gameplaying. The video represents different races and genders and presents a heterosexual relationship. 

For my own video, I want to incorporate the following aspects;

- Charging, running at and fighting aspect.

- Use of action shots and camera movement to provide excitement 

- Challenging the portrayal of women as crazy through over-exaggerating and mocking

- The visual portrayal of jealousy onscreen 

- Using femininity as a weapon (CU beauty shots, flattering lighting, seduction to create jealousy)

- The portrayal of a strong female central character

Analysis of Ariana Grande "Thank you, Next"

This music video uses conventional techniques such as lots of bright colours in the mise-en-scene; a technique often used to create an atmosphere in pop videos. It also adheres to convention by incorporating pop culture and intertextuality through remaking key scenes from the 90s chick flick 'Mean Girls'. The setting is an American Highschool, Bedroom and Nail Salon all seen in Mean Girls. This helps to appeal to the 90s kids through nostalgia and to a younger audience by using a familiar and recognisable setting. It also uses Easter Eggs throughout in the "burn book" to allow fans to discover more about the artist and feel part of an exclusive community. It uses a variation of shots for variety, using Close-Ups when a new character or famous star is introduced. As well as starring Ariana Grande herself, the music video also has a star-studded cast with the likes of Elizabeth Gillies and Kris Jenner. The lighting is soft and successfully helps to create beauty shots and a very sleek and glossy look. The video shows many different genders, sexualities and races - not presenting many relationships on-screen but illuding to off-screen relationships.

For my own video, I want to incorporate the following aspects;

- Intertextual references

- 90's intertextual

- Mise-en-scene

Analysis of Taylor Swift "Look What You Made Me Do"

This music video uses conventional techniques such as a luxury and desirable lifestyle through the use of expensive costume and props; lots of focus on the star and their values and beliefs; a mixture of performance and narrative footage intercut and the use of a range of locations with varied action. The video directly challenges rumours and gossip surrounding the star, as done in Thank You Next, letting Swift's true voice be heard and giving a political message as well as an entertaining one. There are also Easter Eggs and intertextual references to past music videos, songs and events in Taylor Swift's life. This makes the music video very distinctly about her and gives Taylor's more invested fans some content to think about, creating an element of exclusivity. Part of this artist development and intertextual use of herself through the ages to show her changing and growth is through the use of multiple selves and mocking. She does this by creating caricatures of her past selves to show how she has matured as an artist, thus revealing her new true self. This allows the music video and lyrics to synergise to show the ideology and values of the star persona, showing people what she is like as a person and therefore allowing them to buy into the brand.

For my own video, I would want to incorporate the following aspects;

- The portrayal of the true self, multiple selves

- A strong female lead

- The reputation and portrayal of a crazy woman

- Images of wealth and money

- Hair and makeup

- Balancing dark and light / Good and bad

- The synergy of star persona and values and ideology

Analysis of Jonas Brothers "Sucker"

This video uses conventions of showing a clear star persona and brand identity. It also adheres to convention through the use of a star-studded cast; both narrative and performance which is intercut; and displaying an aspirational and luxurious lifestyle seen through extravagant costume, luxurious mise-en-scene and location. The cinematography and art direction within this music video makes it all come together, giving it a very particular and stylised look. The use of bold colours and elaborate costumes also engages prospective audiences and helps to create an exciting and aspirational lifestyle that will appeal to the masses. The performance bed of the music video is filmed in the same location as the narrative, with the same characters appearing in both. This blurs the line between performance and narrative, a less conventional trait of the music video which is refreshing and creates variety and memorable performance.

For my own video, I would like to incorporate the following aspects;

- The portrayal of riches and success

- Cinematography and art direction

- Costume and makeup

- Blurred line between performance and narrative

- The portrayal of the "spoilt princess" diva female character

Analysis of Bruno Mars "That's What I Like"

This music video is entirely performance-based, making it uncommon but not entirely unconventional. This simplistic performance style in a blank studio allows the audience to really focus on the song and the lyrics, providing them with a very literal interpretation of the song. It also allows them to get close to the artist without the glitz and glamour of a large scale music video. This creates a sense of intimacy and closeness to the star; creating audience engagement and selling the star, as well as the song. The use of certain gestures and movements are effectively used in combination with the lyrics to anchor meanings and create a preferred interpretation. However, as this style of video is very simple, there are very few varied representations of race, gender, ideologies and relationships other than the ones illuded in the song off-screen in the lyrics and movement.

For my own performance bed, I would like to incorporate the following aspects;

- Movement to highlight interpretations and fix/anchor meaning

- Studio camera framing setups

- Star persona through performance

From this research, I learned of certain conventions of music videos such as intercut narrative and performance footage, the presentation of an aspirational and luxurious lifestyle, intertextuality with modern trends and popular culture and cross-referencing with other types of media such as films, celebrity culture, tabloids and rumours. I also looked at certain elements of music videos I would use as inspiration and incorporate into my own video; such as the presentation of the scorned or crazy woman; elaborate costume and varied locations; the use of the multiple self and doubling; and the presentation of a strong and complex female lead. I will use all of this knowledge while creating my music video to create a dynamic and complex video that adheres to conventions of the pop genre, while still presenting my artists' views and beliefs by challenging conventional perceptions of women in the media and offering multiple interpretations of women in the media.

PLANNING

My pre-production allowed me to really focus on the production aspect of my music video, allowing me to plan meticulously to ensure my initial ideas and interpretation of the song was done justice in presenting my artist in a suitable manner. This planning made it easier to produce my video as there was a clear structure for my production, ensuring I filmed all the footage necessary and really thought about how I wanted every single shot to be interpreted in order to communicate the message and meaning effectively.

Inferred lyrics 

I annotated my lyrics with different possible interpretations to see which themes of the song that I want to amplify and represent in my video.

Inspiration and initial mindmap

I created a mindmap of all my initial ideas to see what aspects I could use in combination to create a suitable narrative. I used my research on existing music videos to help influence this and pulled out some prospective intertextual references to create a direction for my music video.

Initial narrative ideas

I wrote down my initial ideas and stages of the music video to ensure there was a distinct disruption and equilibrium and to ensure that the basic frame of my narrative contained a plot development. This skeleton structure of my video allowed me to pad it out with different intertextual references from different existing music videos and contexts of different eras.

Directors Treatment and Mood Board 

I created a director's treatment to visually show my plot in more detail than my initial idea. This allowed me to begin to pull together ideas for framing, colour schemes, mise-en-scene, costume and makeup. It allowed me to explore the message of my video and express my ideology and beliefs as an artist into my work. It also allowed me to present and explore my ideas for intertextuality. This helped to influence the art direction and visual codes - such as costume, makeup, mise-en-scene, props and location - necessary to interpret and denote my references.

  Basic Chronological Timeline

I made a basic timeline of my video to ensure that the action will fit into the three-minute brief and this helped me to create a Storyboard and Shoot Board with a shot list that will fit into the designated time.

Storyboard


I created a storyboard to draft prospective and rough ideas for camera angles and movement. This helped to guide me on how to dress my sets, where camera placement will be and what equipment I will need to get this type of shot.

Location Recces

I did a recce of all my prospective locations to find which ones are most suitable for my filming and the shots I need. It also helped me to create a plan for the type of framing, movement (if applicable), equipment and camera placement I will use.

Brunswick Estate (Bloomsbury)

Brunswick Estate (Bloomsbury)

Brunswick Estate (Bloomsbury)

Southbank

Costume Montage

My costume montage allowed me to visually plan my costume, giving me plenty of time to source the required items to keep it in line with my creative vision and colour scheme.

Prop list with visual references

I made a prop list to visually show my vision for the aesthetic of my sets. This helped me to effectively and quickly source the props I needed that were in line with my ideas, in advance - meaning I didn't have to compromise my ideas for convenience.

Location Permissions

The location permissions meant I had secured the areas I needed, for the time necessary, before the day of shooting.

Risk Assessment

The risk assessment allowed me to think of any dangers while shooting and how to overcome and prevent them. This ensured that the cast and crew were not at any risk and were looked after throughout my filming.

Shoot Boards for my filming weekends

My Shoot Board allowed me to mock up the shots I wanted. This ensured I had the necessary cast, crew, equipment, costume, and props for each shot. This not only saved time and allowed me to stick to my shooting schedule, but also ensured I didn't forget any shots and that I had good coverage of all of my narrative.

Shoot Board for Saturday 21st September

Shoot Board for 5th and 6th October

My pre-production allowed me to really focus on the detail of my music video to ensure I was fully ready to film. It also flagged up any issues so they could be solves early on in the process to avoid wasting time. The planning made sure I had considered location, costume, art direction, look and feel, camera angles and movement, and the necessary cast and crew. This allowed me to film with very few problems and be fully prepared.