My Representation

This represents me because my name Stephanie means 'Crown'.

Music Video Evaluation Q4

I used Google to find information on our chosen genre, Soft Rock. Through Google, i found several useful sites such as, Wikipedia and Yahoo Answers. From both these sites i was given a definition of what Soft Rock is and artists who are within that genre. I also found Google Images helpful as i was to find pictures of the artists i was not familiar with. 

I then went on to use Youtube to get a better understanding of Soft Rock music and to find out the conventions of Soft Rock. I watched several artists including Pink, Avril Lavigne, Good Charlotte and Maroon 5. From these i was able to come to the understanding that the conventions of Soft Rock vary and there isn't a certain theme followed. Finding this helped us to then decide on ideas for our music video. 

I used Survey Monkey to create a survey for my target audience about what they expected to see in a Soft Rock video. I used Facebook and Twitter to get my target audience to complete my survey. Finding out what they expected to see helped us to know what kept them interested in a Soft Rock video. However, we decided not to take everything they expected to see on board but to bring something new as it will make it more interesting if it is unexpected. 

I used Premier Pro to edit our music video by cutting out footage we didn't need or adding special effects or video transitions. An example of this is our black and white scene. I used Photoshop to make my digipak and magazine advertisement. This helped both our projects look skilled by the use of it's tools.

Music Video Evaluation Q2

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

There are different aspects of our music video we included in our digipak and magazine advertisement to make them all reflect on each other. having done our research on digipaks and magazine advertisements in the soft rock genre, we found that they all vary and there isn't a certain straight forward convention that if followed. However, at times what is on the front cover of the digipak is normally the same on the magazine advertisement.This then gave us a choice in how we wanted our digipak and magazine advertisement to be and what aspects we wanted to use for them all to reflect on each other.

 

Music Video Evaluation Q1

Through our research on the conventions of a soft rock music video we found out that instead of there being a simple straighforward convention of what should be in a soft rock video, there is more of a variety of conventions you would expect to see. For example, you could have aspects of rock conventions such as an isolated place and aspects of pop conventions such bright clothing and colours. A music video example of this is: Pink - Funhouse. However, we also found out that the conventions followed could be based on the meaning of the song or the beat of the song. For example, In Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend music video, her song is about wanting to be someone's girlfriend who already has a girlfriend and therefore would expect the video to be dull and dark, however, the beat of the song is fun, fast and uptempo and so her music video reflects on the beat. However, In her When You're Gone music video, since the song is a depressing one which reflects on someone leaving, the video reflects this as it is very dull, dark and sad. Thus, having gotten this information from our research we understood the conventions of a soft rock video in the music industry.

Futhermore, we then decided to do more research on the conventions of a soft rock video. We wanted to see what our target audience thought were the conventions of a soft rock music video and what they would expect to see. We did this by making a questionnaire on surveymonkey.com and sending it out to our audience to then complete. This helped us understand what our audience expected to see in our video and therefore, we had the choice of either following these conventions or going against it. We decided to go with the conventions as well as challenge these conventions.

Frame 1.
Frame 1 is an example of how we conformed but also challenged the conventions of a soft rock video. The information we found out from our research showed us that normally soft rock songs about depressing stories with slow beats are normally dark and dull with dark costumes. Also our audience said they expected our video to be located in an isolated place or abandoned streets and dark and wild costumes. However, even though we took this on board by having the location in an isolated place and having dark and wild costumes, we also challenged these conventions. We challenged these conventions by having a colourful background instead of making out background dark and dull. By doing this, we thought that our audience will be more interested as it challenges what they would normally expect to see and gives them something different to watch.

Frame 2.
Frame 2 is an example of how we conformed to the conventions of a soft rock video. Our research showed us that in a soft rock music video they normally have an instrument or instruments. We decided to follow this convention as we believe it was an important aspect in a soft rock video as it reflects on the rock side of our video whilst the colourful background reflects on the pop side. An example of this can be seen here: Avril Lavigne - Innocence

Frame 3.
Frame 3 is an example of how we used a technique of mirror reflection. This was used to capture our main character in a different way as it helped the audience feel as if they are in the shoes of our main character and is looking at the reflection in the mirror feeling what she is feeling. It makes it more up-close and personal. It does not conform or challenge the conventions of a soft rock, however, it's intentions behind it is what conforms to the conventions.

Frame 4.
Frame 4 is another example of a technique we used where the intentions behind it conforms to the conventions of a soft rock video. We used the technique of black and white for our audience to understand that it is a flash back. This makes our audience see the different emotions our main character was going through in the past compared to the present.

Frame 5. 
Frame 5 is an example of how we conformed. In this scene our main character kicks the seat back and in many soft rock video this occurs or either a guitar being smashed. An example of things being kicked or thrown about can be seen in Pink - Funhouse music video. The use of this may reflect on the 'cheesy' side of soft rock video but it can also reflects on emotions as when a person is angry things are normally kicked and thrown about.

Frame 6.
Frame 6 is also an idea we added in which it's intentions conform to our genre. The use of showing the letter was to help our audience understand and see how our main character came to leave the person she loved. This makes our audience feel involved in the music video as they get to see every little detail.

Frame 7.
Frame 7 is an example of how we conformed to the conventions of our chosen genre through our main characters clothing. Soft rock music videos normally consist of the main character wearing clothing which reflects on the whole 'rock' scene and thus, the clothing our main character wears reflects on this. An example can be seen here: Rihanna - Rockstar 101

Frame 8.
Frame 8 is also another example of how the intentions behind it conforms to the conventions of a sock rock video, however, the technique itself is one that challenges it. The use of having half our main characters' face was to reflect on the lyrics being sang at the specific moment. These lyrics are; 'always incomplete' and thus, having half her face showed that she was in complete. This does not normally happen in many soft rock videos and so it brings something new to it.

Frame 9.
Frame 9 is an example of how we conformed to the conventions. The use of candles is an aspect you would expect to see in a soft rock video and thus, by having the colourful background which reflects on 'pop' we wanted to put in something that reflected on 'rock' hence the candles and by doing this helped our audience understand that it is a soft rock video. An example of this can be seen here: The Pretty Reckless - Just Tonight