Thursday, 5 May 2016

Evaluation Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (MUSIC VIDEO)




We didn't include titles in our piece as it was only a feature indicative of a high budget production similar to a film - an example of this would be Taylor Swift - Bad Blood. However, the average dream-pop music video would not contain any titles which is why we decided to follow the codes and conventions and follow.

The setting is also inspired off the original work - Phildel - The Wolf. We believed that a forest setting would make sense in a dream pop video due to the fact that it presented the most mystery out of all of the locations possible. There is also a large amount of foliage surrounding the area we live making it easy to film at allowing us to improve or edit more frequently if needed be.

For costume, we needed something that looked almost dystopian yet still familiar, which is why we decided on our own clothes. The alternative was a fantasy clothing/costume style, however, we didn't believe that this suited the lyrics of the song. We wore very washed out colours with nothing too vibrant so the mood came across as quite depressed and sad without using a black and white filter in order to not copy the original text. The protagonist is wearing a grey top similar to that of a grey wolf, we have done this so it is obvious that he is the primary character. The secondary character is wearing inconspicuous clothing to not make him stand out which is why he is wearing a black jumper with a hood.
Our frames were rather distanced from the original product as our shots are much more faster than the original video. This allowed us to add additional effects and transitions such as motion blurs and fast forwards which, yet again, is a code/convention for the genre.
The narrative of the music video is purposefully disjointed as are all music videos in the dream pop genre. This makes it so the lyrics and the music video relate and are in beat but there is a hidden meaning to the song as well as a hidden narrative. In our video, the narrative is representative of the song. A wolf trying to catch its prey, yet, the wolf being the victim in a way.
Our characters are based of general pop-culture references. Our main character shows a strong protagonist similar to that of the hunger games, whilst our secondary character wears clothing to make him unnoticeable. We based it off a common medieval thief that you would see in a television show similar to Game of Thrones.

We made a point to ensure that the music would flow with the visuals: making it far faster paced during climaxes within the music. This ensures that the video is not disjointed to the music itself rather than the lyrics which can be seen as symbolic in nature on their own. Considering the context of the writer and the relation to the original music video by Phildel (Decca Records) we felt it be best if we engaged with the rhythm rather than words. To this effect, the video had an aspect of fluidity rather than what could be awkward cuts and visuals relating to specific phrases. ​

Final Video

Final Video - A2 Media Studies - Phildel (The Disappearance of The Girl)


 

Website

Webiste







Final Digipak

Our Digipak



Close-up of panels with writing:

Front Cover:
 Back Cover:

Lyrics:


Spine:




Digipak in Photoshop

Photoshop used for creating end product:



For the digipak, I painted a wolf using watercolours and scanned it into the computer. After that I manipulated the image using photo editing software. 

Wednesday, 4 May 2016

Digipak Template

This is the digipak template I am going to use. I will edit this using Photoshop.

Picture

'Cry Baby' Music Video Analysis

'Cry Baby' Music Video Anlaysis



Screenshots of the beginning
of video to establish story.

Picture of Melanie as Cry Baby.
Melanie Martinez is the singer, lyricist and director of the 'Cry Baby' music video. She portrays the main character: Cry Baby (keeping within the idea of a 'star image' in music videos). The colour scheme of the video uses pastel tones to convey the childish visuals of the video. Furthermore, keeping a consistent theme across Melanie's videos, a narrative arch is prominent throughout the video. Much like the 'Soap/Training Wheels' double feature, an initial story which does not have the song playing in the background is played to create a story. In the 'Cry Baby' video, this establishes the birth of the character Cry Baby and foreshadows her dysfunctional upbringing.  




Scene where Cry Baby is attacked by her toys.
It is possible that the toys could represent the
people who have bullied her and made her cry.

Scenes such as when Cry Baby spells 'FUCK' with the alphabet blocks or when she holds a real brain/heart to coincide with the lyrics: 'You seem to replace your brain with your heart' add a maturere/disturbing feel to the music video to contrast with the baby aesthetics (showing consistency in Melanie's ceative star image). The


The following video in the story arch is Dollhouse which is why Cry Baby's tears flood the metaphorical dollhouse in the final scene.


By using a realistic brain and a realistic heart adds an element of gore
to the music video.


'FUCK' written with alphabet blocks.




Cry Baby's tears flood her house.