Reflective Analysis Media
My brief was to create a promotion package for the release of an album; we had to include a music promo video together with a cover for its release as part of a digi-pak and a magazine advertisement for the digi-pak. I chose a song of the indie/rock genre by Scottish band called 'Glasvegas - Daddy's gone'. To do so I had to look into the indie/rock genre and research into the conventions which apply within it. I also had to research into the history of music videos and the theory's surrounding them. As the song I chose to do is called 'Daddy’s gone' and the lyrics are from the point of view of someone whose dad has walked out on them, I decided to use a child as the main character in my narrative style of music video. I then looked for three video's (which ultimately were the ones that influenced me to begin with), that had children as the main part. 'White Lies - Bigger than Us', 'Temper Trap - Love Lost' and 'Foals - Blue Blood', I analysed all three of the video's and took elements of each and put them in my video.
The target audience for my music video is people aged 16-24 and mainly male. This is because the indie/rock genre is more appealing to people of that age range due to its low-budget appeal which goes alongside the income that these people actually get a month, which is next to nothing as most will have only part-time jobs or will be still in education. In order to get exactly what my target audience expected from my music video I composed a poll via Blogger and asked demographic questions such as 'How old are you?' and 'What is your gender'. I also asked Psycho-graphic questions such as the audiences likes or dislikes. This information helped me to come to a conclusion of what style of music video I was to create - Narrative.
By looking into the indie/rock scene and the ideology surrounding it, I was able to see how I could express messages about the culture, society and beliefs in which the audience I am targeting my video at follow. In this day and age it is the norm for a family to have only one parent after one has walked out on them. The song I chose explores this issue from the point of view of a child that has been through it so in this sense I think that the majority of my audience will be able to empathise, sympathies and develop recognition, alignment and allegiance with the character of the young boy. Music videos are a medium intended to appeal directly to youth subcultures by reinforcing generic elements of musical genres. They are called pop-promos as they are used to promote a band or artist. Music Videos are postmodern texts with a main purpose to promote a star persona. David Bardwell (1989) stated that ‘any theme may appear in any genre’. These are some themes for a more youthful audience: Teen angst, rebellion, romance, sex, nostalgia, belief of no future, coming of age rituals (prom), popularity or having none, bullying, juvenile delinquency, currency of ‘cool’, hedonism (living for pleasure) and friendship. Other themes may be war, crime, poverty, capitalism and racism. ‘Genres are not fixed; they reflect society at the time and are dynamic’ (David Buckingham 1993).There are a lot of strengths of genre. Its accessibility as a concept means that it can be applied across a range of texts. Christian Metz argued that genres go through a typical cycle of changes during their lifetime. My style of music video is a narrative, however it does not conform to this as it does not have cause and effect, the audience already know what has gone on within the fictional world (verisimilitude) without the events even happening due to inferred and explicitly shown events where the audience excepts that certain things have already happened, although the lyrics of the song do help to drive the narrative. Tim O'Sullivan et al argued that all media texts tell some story of us as a culture or set of cultures (society and values). They reflect the values of the people that construct them. They also have to reflect the ideology of that culture which is mentioned previously.
The target audience for my music video is people aged 16-24 and mainly male. This is because the indie/rock genre is more appealing to people of that age range due to its low-budget appeal which goes alongside the income that these people actually get a month, which is next to nothing as most will have only part-time jobs or will be still in education. In order to get exactly what my target audience expected from my music video I composed a poll via Blogger and asked demographic questions such as 'How old are you?' and 'What is your gender'. I also asked Psycho-graphic questions such as the audiences likes or dislikes. This information helped me to come to a conclusion of what style of music video I was to create - Narrative.
By looking into the indie/rock scene and the ideology surrounding it, I was able to see how I could express messages about the culture, society and beliefs in which the audience I am targeting my video at follow. In this day and age it is the norm for a family to have only one parent after one has walked out on them. The song I chose explores this issue from the point of view of a child that has been through it so in this sense I think that the majority of my audience will be able to empathise, sympathies and develop recognition, alignment and allegiance with the character of the young boy. Music videos are a medium intended to appeal directly to youth subcultures by reinforcing generic elements of musical genres. They are called pop-promos as they are used to promote a band or artist. Music Videos are postmodern texts with a main purpose to promote a star persona. David Bardwell (1989) stated that ‘any theme may appear in any genre’. These are some themes for a more youthful audience: Teen angst, rebellion, romance, sex, nostalgia, belief of no future, coming of age rituals (prom), popularity or having none, bullying, juvenile delinquency, currency of ‘cool’, hedonism (living for pleasure) and friendship. Other themes may be war, crime, poverty, capitalism and racism. ‘Genres are not fixed; they reflect society at the time and are dynamic’ (David Buckingham 1993).There are a lot of strengths of genre. Its accessibility as a concept means that it can be applied across a range of texts. Christian Metz argued that genres go through a typical cycle of changes during their lifetime. My style of music video is a narrative, however it does not conform to this as it does not have cause and effect, the audience already know what has gone on within the fictional world (verisimilitude) without the events even happening due to inferred and explicitly shown events where the audience excepts that certain things have already happened, although the lyrics of the song do help to drive the narrative. Tim O'Sullivan et al argued that all media texts tell some story of us as a culture or set of cultures (society and values). They reflect the values of the people that construct them. They also have to reflect the ideology of that culture which is mentioned previously.
In order to put all my work together and show the development of my video I created a Blog on 'www.blogger.com', where you are able to write, post image and videos. This helped me a lot and was useful when showing people what I had done as you are able to access it with ease. I also used a online site called 'Go Animate' (www.GoAnimate.com) where you are able to construct your own animations using characters they have already prepared. All you have to do is type in what you want the characters to say. It was very useful when I was not able to word things, as it is easier to construct things as a conversation. It is also more enjoyable to watch opposed to reading.
In order to conform to the indie genre aspect of low-budget productions, I decided to use a scene where there is a group of young male youths playing football outside a row of shops on a council estate. It looks run-down and due to the colour draining used on the editing suite it drives the narrative when the lyrics 'All I wanted was a kick about in that park, for you to race me home when it was nearly getting dark' are said over the scene because none of these boys are playing with their fathers, also the main character is not present and as it is taken from a high-angle it looks like a point-of-view shot of him watching them from his window, upset. 
My ancillary texts, poster and CD cover all look low-budget. The poster looks as if it has been thrown together in a few minutes as the font is made to look hand-drawn (purposefully), I got the font of a website called 'DaFont.com' where I print screened the font and put it onto Adobe Photoshop where I edited my ancillary texts. The album cover is very simple as it is just an image of the artist Jack McDonahugh and his band The Friday Night Avalanche. The back of the album is the top of the image of the font cover, however I edited it and now it looks like it has been painted, continuing the lowbudget 'handmade' theme. Along with the text as well that looks hand written, however it looks like a child has written it, and reinforcing the music video to the song by the band 'Daddy's gone'. The images that I took for my ancillary texts where taken on a field nearby a college. It wasn't anything fancy; it was just a green playing field and a few trees. The images I had taken of the artists in the 'stages of evolution' where influenced by the album cover by Take That - Progress, however I didn't use them because they didn't look very good. The image I did chose to use was not one that I would have used, however, after giving out a questionnaire to people who fit into my target audience criteria, the majority said that image. The males that I asked said they preferred the black and white images, but I decided to go against that because even though the album would feature quite dark lyrics I want it to contradict that with the bright colours of the images.
The poster I created only features Jack McDonahugh as he is the front man of the whole 'Band' (Jack McDonahugh and The Friday Night Avalanche). Again the font is made to look as if someone has drawn it themselves. I used a black and white theme for this advert as it reflects the opposing themes of happiness and sadness within the album. I also think it would suprise the audience when they expect to see a black and white album cover and they see colour, subverting audience expectations, which happens a lot within the indie genre as artists are allowed more artistic freedom. The image features Jack who is wearing a plain white shirt and and a hat, keeping it plain and simple in continuity with the theme.
When asking the audience about my music video and ancillary texts this is what they said:
When asking the audience about my music video and ancillary texts this is what they said:
Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!
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