eval 4

The way in which I used digital technology when researching, planning, creating and evaluating are as follows. In use for research I used sites such as youtube and the music video application on the playstation 3 to look at professional music videos. in terms of planning i made an animatic and put it up on the internet using imovie to turn the plan into the animatic. In creating the video what wasn't digital about it? I used the camera for filming (obviously). I used imovie to create it and uploaded it to youtube. the evaluating was a matter of just comparing my work to professional pieces that already existed.

Key Skills

through the course of two years on the media course I developed a number of key skills that not only apply to media studies but many other things in life. The first thing that I gained was confidence. When I first began work in media before I got onto working n the thriller I was a rather withdrawn person who held his tongue and played everything he did safe, but since doing the course I have become more of an outward character with the ability to put forth ideas to groups of people big and small. I no longer always play things safe but attempt new things, taking risks and attempting to be different. It may not have worked the first year when creating the thriller opening but I used that as a learning experience to grow and flourish as one may be able to see when comparing it to the music video project.

On the note of increased confidence my attitude towards teamwork has also changed as I no longer try to hide myself or fade into the background when working in a group but rather I attempt to help out in as many ways as I can as I offer suggestions to complete tasks and try to put forward my own ideas while always considering and respecting respecting everyone else's ideas.

My planning for future events has improved as before I set out to do a piece of work such as filming I try my hardest to get every detail I want down instead of just making everything up as I went along. This by no means is the to say I am rigid in my approach to work but I am now also able to improvise on the spot pretty well in many kinds of situations whether they are to my advantage or not.

As said before my researching ability has improved vastly as one can see from my blog though in admittance not all of my research is on my blog, though I think that's a blessing for anyone reading through this blog as there would be hundreds if not thousands of posts here on just research.

Lastly my ability with the digital technology used in creating each project has improved greatly and I am quite comfortable using things such as imovie to edit video footage and create videos to using other programs such as photoshop to create advertisements etc.

The Inspiration

The way that I came up with using sexuality as the main theme of the music video project was just a few things by chance that I came across in a short amount of time between each other as well as the fact I wanted to do something individual and something that is rather meaningful to myself. One of the first things that I found in terms of a music video using what can only be described as homosexuality (or something close to it) is the music video called YATTA! by the band Happa-Tai that I stumbled across after recognising the song from the Nico Nico Douga - Kumikyoku. I honestly don't know how to explain it so I'll just post it here.

I am in no way responsible if your eyes just pulled their selves out of their sockets.

The second thing that inspired me was an anime series that my (gay) friend in America sent me the link to on the internet called loveless which in the anime community is known as a 'shonen ai' (quick Japanese lesson for you people. Shonen means boy usually of the teenage variety and the word ai means affection in some way or another). In the anime community this term generally splits people down the middle, for girls and not straight guys it's generally something that will peak your interest. For heterosexual males on the other hands it means 'RUN, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!' But I digress as I watched the series through to the end, and although I was thoroughly disappoint with the ending it did inspire me to create my music video.

Before you say anything, yes they are both guys even if they don't look it in this picture.

Narrative

The narrative of the music video takes place in the past and is roughly taking place over a time period in the past and is roughly taking place over a time period in flash backs. the flash backs are from the future form of the protagonist though there is no definitive space of time where this takes place as it is more used as a tool to have lip-synchronizing in a plot device to move along the plot.

The first half of the music video where the protagonist meets the boy in the leather jacket is linear as it goes from where he meets him and shows as they gradually get closer (a tool used to represent this was where each time the two were sitting at a different coloured bench the protagonist would gradually be moved closer to the other person he's talking to (not many people noticed this)). There is no definite concept of linearity in the second portion where is just lip-synchronization. The enigma of the music video's narrative is the protagonist coming to terms with his sexuality and that he is bisexual or gay.

There are a few narrative theories when it comes to text of the media; Proppe, Barthes, Todorov and Levi-Strauss. Each of these men had key points which makes a narrative of any form what it is.

Propp theorised that there was eight different kinds of characters in all that appeared in any narrative and they were; the villain, the hero, the donor, the helper, the princess, her father, the dispatcher and the false hero. When one applies this theory to the music project they can see how few characters are used from this theory. In this text the protagonist can be seen as the hero but also he can be seen as the princess while the girl at the beginning is perhaps the villain while the second male character could be seen as the helper.

princess protagonist who is a guy?

Todorov argued all narratives begin with an equilibrium. This is distributed by a problem 'enigma', the problem is then solved through a series of events and a new equilibrium is created. The application of this is also not so easy to apply to my music video as there aren't really any defined equilibrium unless one considers the beginning that the protagonist is alone, the enigma being is the other male and the new equilibrium is that the protagonist is alone again.

This film is rated MB (mature babies)

Coming to a theatre near you never!!!

Barthe suggested narrative works with five different codes which make the reader try and make sense of it. In particular codes of enigmas where small problems come up and make one think 'how is character X going to get out of situation Y?' This goes slightly with my music video as the whole thing is one big problem which engages the reader of the text however it doesn't contain smaller points as to how does one get from A to B (unless one were to wonder how is that boy whose lip-synchronizing going to get back down from that rugby post?

Finally Levi-Strauss said narrative relies on two opposing factions and that without conflict in some form or another there is no narrative. This applies well to my music video as there is a large conflict going on within the protagonists mind as whether he is to submit to his sexual desires or is he to bow down to society and social norms.

Eval 3

What did we learn from our audience feedback?

Well funnily enough I must say that I feel as though I’m the only one on the planet in my age group that has actually ever bought a CD and not illegally downloaded all my music though to be fair the only reason I bought those CDs is because of the huge amount of respect I have for Bentley Jones, all other music I want would have to be imported over though my sources where I get such things are all legal of course. Moving on. Two fifths of the audience were male while the rest being female (obviously, everyone who took the survey oddly enough however was between the ages of 13-17 which shows that my music video was appreciated more by a teenage audience than I had theorised. Amazingly enough all who took the questionnaire said the music video was aimed for a teenage male audience which is surprising (to me at least) considering that in certain circles it’s the female who would prefer such media (just saying). Everyone who took the questionnaire agreed that a music video does add meaning to a song (and I found out that I can’t spell illegally when looking back). The majority said the gay undertones didn’t add anything particular to the music video while everyone agreed the music video matched the song quite well.

breif intermission

Rest of the media will be up by the end of today. Sorry for delays but obviously due to technical problems there have been restraints as to how much I can get on the blog at once.

eval 2

As well as creating a music video we were also given the arduous task of creating advertising and a digipak for the media project (Hoo-flippity-do). As one can see if they go back to my previous posts both the digipak and the magazine advertisement are of a simple design. Jake and I went for this simple look to coincide with the look of the music video. Still images were taken from footage used to create the music video which seemed to stand out most when we viewed it a number of time. Some research was done into professional digipaks and one cannot deny that there are some far simpler and far worse displays. Everything is shown in a coherent maner and not too bad to look at if I do say so myself.

eval 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (as opposed to the imaginary music video that exists on youtube that I created?)

My piece of media uses the basis of music videos I.e. the mise en scene, lighting and effects are all taken into serious consideration in conjunction with the song being used. It also has a narrative which goes from point A to B quite smoothly without any details getting too messy. One point where the music video challenges the usual conventions of the music video is the fact that it portrays homosexuality front and centre and doesn’t shy away from it. This is different from most pieces of media as in western countries it isn’t main stream at all while in Japan something like Loveless will get televised and not be something hidden from the younger ones. The music video uses basic use of effects such as cross dissolves and such which make it more professional in terms of transitions instead of just having constant jump cuts or over the top flashy special effects. The music video challenges conventions once again by not having the happy ending that so many western pieces of media seem to obligatorily have. The protagonist does not get the love interest much like in how real life things don’t always work out for the better but it’s a lesson that life goes on.

Use of Technology part 2

A second use of technology that I have done is the use of wordle.net where I put the URL to my this blog and created an image of all the words that appear on this blog.

This is where I put the URL address in.


and this is the result I got.

Kiss my Wordle

Use of Technology part 1

In my blog I have used a range of different kinds of technology. From editing the layout of the blog to putting links from youtube to show off my work as well as show different music videos and such as to research and draw some inspiration from.

The first thing to show as mentioned would be that of how I edited the layout of the blog as you can see right here (layout shown in image below may differ from current layout, all images do not belong to me and I do not claim to own them and belong to their rightful owners).

The first thing that I had to do to change the layout on the media blog was to first revert the settings of the layout to an earlier version so that I could tinker with the HTML code as shown below.

What I had to then do was go through the code till I found what part I wanted to change. As one can see in the image above is the code which controls the background image. As one can see in the first image the background is currently the Japanese band SID. To change the background images one has to go online and find an image that they like or that is appropriate, then second click and select the copy image URL, as shown in the image below.

Then paste the URL into the where the old image URL used to be and voila you have a new background. Do the same for centre background and icons though one must note to change icon images the file type must be a gif. image.

B.S.O.D.

Sorry for how grossly late this post and the ones following it are. My computer blue screened a few times and it's only now that its working. We've had to reboot it up to an earlier save point to resolve the problem but this also means that some of my media coursework has been lost. I shall make haste and post what is left on here now. I am terribly sorry to everyone for the delay.