DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY

When making my final video I am going to be using loads of different technologies.

First of all the most obvious one I am going to use is BLOGGER. I will use blogger to record all the progress I make, and it will be an easy, accessible resource that I will be able to look at to be able to reflect and review the work I have already done.

Obviously I will need to edit my clips together when I have recorded them. I will be using FINAL CUT PRO to do this. I haven't really used this technology before as I have been using iMovie, a software that our Apple computers comes equip with. However Final Cut Pro is a much more advanced editing software and will allow my video do have a better, more professional edge. 

Although there are several different video cameras I have access to I will probably be doing most of my videoing on PANASONIC HDC- as it is the most compact and transportable of the cameras. However I do know that this camera isn't the most professional and the clips I get on it will be of a very poor quality. This is just something I'm going to have to deal with as we don't have the facilities or money to afford better cameras. 

Obviously I have been and will continue to do a lot of my research on the internet. The browser I have been using to do this is SAFARI. This is a browser that is usually supplied by APPLE and I think is a good quick easy to use browser. IT easy to use a clear. I will be using GOOGLE when getting nearly all of the information about directors and artists that I need and will. Google gives me the information I need easily and doesn't tend to lead me astray with unhelpful pieces of information. Another source that is owned by google YOUTUBE Youtube is a vast videoing source where there are millions and millions of videos anyone can upload. Here I can see previous students work, work by different directors and by different artists. 

As I go on I'm sure I will find myself using loads of different technologies but these are just the few I feel are most important right now. 

RESEARCH METHODS

When doing any kind of research you need to determine what type of research is most relevant to what you want to find out. There are four main types of research methods:

PRIMARY RESEARCH
This is the process of gathering information directly form individuals who have the data you are looking for. Primary research doesn't look at published information and will look at sources such as different types of people related to what you are researching. However primary research isn't always reliable as you are basing your results on what people are saying, and in some cases people could lie or misunderstand the question giving you incorrect information.

SECONDARY RESEARCH
Secondary research (also known as desk research) is when you collect and summarise existing research rather that collecting new data (like in primary research). This method is usually used when you can't find the information you are looking for or it doesn't exist. This information is usually collected from websites or information books about the subject you are looking at. This method can be good as it is time affective and is very cheap to carry out. However, because you aren't carrying out the experiments/questionnaires it could be less specific to what you are trying to find out and only give you a general, brief idea. Or tell you the wrong thing all together.

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
Qualitative research is generally done by interviews or focus groups. This is because qualitative data has a lot of information in it and isn't just a number or score. It gives you a much more in depth and informative answer to the question you are asking. However this researching technique can take a lot of time to look over and it is very difficult to generalise hundreds of different answers. It can also be very expensive to carry out.

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
Quantitative research is the most time affective and cost affective researching technique. It is usually collected by sending out a vast or small amount of questionnaires with several questions on it. The answers will be in the form of "select a number" or they give you options; strongly agree, agree, neither agree or disagree, disagree or strongly agree. This makes this kind of data really easy to analyse and allows you to give a precise measurement. However because it is a questionnaire it makes it easy for people to lie about the answer, or just guess if they don't understand what they are being asked.

WHAT RESEARCH WILL I USE?
For my research I'm probably going to a big mixture of techniques. At some point I will send out a questionnaire asking about set and what type of video my audience want to see, but up until then and after then I will directly be talking to my audience and trying to gain as much information from them as I can to try and please them. I have also been using secondary research a lot up until now, so will try and use a variety of more researching techniques from now on.

CONVENTIONS

COUNTRY MUSIC:
Country music has been around since the 1920's where it originated in the USA. The term country music gained popularity in the 1940s but prior to this was called hillbilly music, and nowadays the term country music is used to describe many genre and sub-genres of music. In 2009 country music was the most listened to rush hour radio genre during evening commutes to word and the second most popular in the morning.
Like all music genres, country music has merged and collaborated with other genres such as pop and indie music to create more sub-genres of the music. The most popular sub-genre of country music I would say is country pop music which has artists like Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood in it, however these artists to stick to their country roots. This sub-genres is the one my music video will take.
Country pop (or soft pop) emerged in the 1970s.

• Tend to have a strong narrative aspect
• Set in very stereotypical areas such as rural areas
• Mise-en-scen tends to be just in modern day or in a previous time, for example victorian
• The artist usually features within the video

Although if you google the artist I want to do, Carrie Underwood, it will say she is of a country genres, I disagree to an extent. I feel more that she is of a pop music genre with an influence of country, especially in the song that I want to do. Therefore when looking at my target audience I will be focusing more on a pop culture demographic who are also a fan of pop country music. 

MY IDEA:

Since my last blog my idea has developed rapidly.  I know have narrowed it down to two songs that I want to use but haven't fully decided what one to use.

The first is If You Ever Come Back - The Script.

One reason I really want to use this song is because it really fits with the narrative I want to use and I picture how the music video would play out. Also I think the video lends itself to the fact that it gives me a narrative to play with and so I can sue that and mix it with the performance that I will have to record. Also since the beginning of this project I have always leaned to using a song with a male artist, which this song has. Another reason that I want to do this song is because I am part of the demographic this song is aimed at and a fan of the band so therefore I know what the consumer will expect from the music video.

The other song I want to use is Blown Away - Carrie Underwood.

I've only recently heard this song but as soon as I heard it I thought it would work really well with the idea of switching from a narrative to a performance video. The song has a lot of depth to it so there is a lot do use for the narrative aspect of what I want to do. However Carrie Underwood is a country singer and so doesn't follow the same conventions I have been focusing on due to the fact I thought I would be doing a pop genre video. Also this means that I don't know much about the demographic she is aimed at and so don't know what they will be expecting to see. 

SPECIFIC IDEAS

NARRATIVE IDEA 

For my music video I will most probably be doing a song form a pop genre. Therefore my narrative will more likely than not be based around love story; falling in and/or out of love. I also want to incorporate a performance aspect to my narrative music video. One reason for this is because the majority of music videos from the pop genre usually merge the performance and narrative concept in their videos so I want to continue this convention of this genre. Also I am going to this because I think it not only engages the consumer and makes them feel part of the video when the artist is performing to the camera, but also because the narrative aspect will give the audience something to relate and connect with. They will be able to relate the video to their own lives, and it turn again feel part of the video and have a more personal connection. 

REPRESENTATIONS

GENDER: Gender will probably be the most important representation I focus on in my music video. I aim to show how the different genders will deal with heartbreak and falling love (although I know I cant show that in a 3-4 minute music video). Dependent on whether I choose a song with a female or male artist, the singer of the song will be the main female or male in the narrative. The female in the music video, unlike the conventional american pop music video/artist wont be traditionally extremely attractive. However I will be using someone that is pretty. I want to do this so that it is still sexually appealing to men so that they do have something to focus their attention on, and females still have someone to aspire to be like. Although I don't want her to be overly attractive so the audience can think "she's just like me" and have a more personal relationship within the music video. 

The male in the video will probably follow the same outline as the female. He will be attractive but not overly for example have enormous muscles and be really tanned. Although he will still be attractive so that, similarly for the female, women are still attracted to him and have "eye candy". The average man will still have someone to aspire to be like but will also be able to relate.

I don't want either character to appear weaker or superior to the other because, although I am not afraid of controversy and wouldn't mind changing up the conventions, this is one that I am going to stick too. 

AGE: The age of the two protagonists will probably be late teens early twenties so that the audience will be more likely to be able to relate, and make it more realistic. 

DEFINING MY AUDIENCE:
The general audience for a pop music video are generically young teen girls. However I feel my music video will not only be aimed at the conventional audience but some older girls too, due to the fact that I won't be using a song by for example One Direction or Carly Rae Jepsen. The majority will probably be girls because pop songs have a higher fan based which is female anyway and I will be trying to appeal to the conventional audience of pop music.
I would like to think my audience will like the idea I am planning on doing because it follows the same conventions as a classic pop music video. Also because I am part of the audience and I think my idea will go hand in hand with other videos from this genre.

DECONSTRUCTION OF A KEY TEXT FROM MY SUB GENRE:

Kelly Clarkson - My Life Would Suck Without You

I have discussed this video in a previous post on my blog but I really think it relates and is similar to the 
video I want to create. 

MISC EN SCENE
The LIGHTING in the video plays a enormous part. Looking closely you can see that when the video is more of a narrative and telling the story of the boy and girl falling in and out of love, it has the very naturalistic lighting with no special effects. However when the performance aspect comes through through the video it has a lot more CHIAROSCURO LIGHTING which gives the video a much more dramatic, staged feeling. Juxtaposing the natural effect the narrative parts give off. 
BODY SHAPE AND LANGUAGE usually plays a big part in music videos that focus on female gaze. However this video just has natural body shape and pretty PG language not saying or showing anything you wouldn't want your children to see. In the narrative part of the music video again, all the props used are naturalistic, not expensive or classic hollywood things but very average everyday objects. However on the performance part of the video there are almost no props used other that the musical instruments and equipment. This is to determines how unnatural this scene is and completely separates it from the narrative story. This theme then runs through hair and make up, costume and facial features and expressions, colour and location. 


EDITING
Watching this music video allowed me to see a lot more editing techniques that I hadn't noticed before. There is an EYELINE MATCH right near the beginning of the video when the camera zooms in on the keys. This doesn't really have a big impact or significance to the movie but it does have a direct correspondence to what the song is about. It also has a lot of GRAPHIC MATCHES. Again these are used at the beginning of the video, first when she is on the swing and changes to the actress acting the younger version of the artist and then when the small boy and girl are sat on the bench and it changes to them on the sofa. This has either been done to show how long they've known each other and have always had this relationship because they will always loved each other. Or how repetitive love is and everyone feels the same way no matter what age they are.
CROSS CUTTING is used throughout this music video between the performance and the narrative of the video. This is done to show that although they are very different in what they are showing, they relate and are about the same thing. It keeps them linked as well, so neither seems out of place or unimportant. 
Towards the start of the video when they begin the jokey fighting and throughout when they are arguing, it uses JUMP CUTS. For example it shows them just bickering and then it switches, within the same scene, to when she is chucking his clothes out the video, or when she puts the keys down the toilet. Its like it goes from something not that crazy or dramatic to something really over the top and extreme. 
Due to the fact that this is a music video and unless the music video is one continuous take with loads of things involved, which some concept videos do, they often tend to have really short shots. This is called a SHORT TAKE. Although some films include this to speed up pace, I think the main reason music videos use them is similar to this; to maintain and show the pace/beat of the song. The hole point of a music video is to show off and make the song more popular and memorable. By making even the shot length link to the song, it makes it all about the song even more so. 


SOUND
The only sound this music video contains is the music from the song it is promoting. It does include LIP SYNCING. This means that the filming of the artist and the music that has been put over it has been synchronised to make it appear the artist is singing live in the video. However they were most probably miming to a song that was playing in the background of filming. This effect is done in a huge majority of music videos. It determines a piece of filming as a music video instead of a short film and is probably the most common convention of a music video. 
Although this music video doesn't include any DIALOGUE you can hear it does show people speaking in more than one incident, although it has been muted. 
It contains a lot of SYNCHRONOUS SOUND as well. Although at many points the music is reflected, if loosely at times, it is related in some way or another. 
One big issue we face when deconstructing the use of sound of music videos is the debate on what is DIEGETIC SOUND and what is NON-DIEGETIC SOUND. Is the music which has been put on over the top but also has parts in the video where the talent is miming along to it diegetic or not? IT has been added after, but surely when they were filming and it looks like the artist could here the music and would have to to mime along to it?

LAURA MULVEY AND THE MALE GAZE

“the gaze is male whenever it directs itself at, and takes pleasure in, women, where women function as erotic objects” Laura Mulvey.

Laura Mulvey defined the "Male Gaze" in 1975. She states that when watching a film, audiences have to view characters from the perspective a straight male. Key characteristics that the Male Gaze theory focuses on is some editing and shots that are used when a female is on the screen. The camera lingers on the curves of female bodies and event which occur to women are presented largely in the context of a man's reaction to these events. These features relegate women to appearing just as an object. The female viewer then has to identify and experience the narrative through the male. 

Some theorists have also noted that sexualizing the female body, even when sexiness has nothing to do with the product, is still used and apparently works in advertising. 

I personally don't agree with this theory from what I know about it. I think it makes out that the women who are being filmed in a sexual way don't know they are being used as an object, which I believe they do. I think they will have been told to act in a provocative way, maybe a little, maybe a lot. But either way, by telling them to act in this way it will enhance the sexualness of the clip. 

I also believe that this isn't just done on woman, and it is equally affecting the male in any movie. I just so happens that a lot of the examples used to look at this theory will be clips where just the female is being objectified. 

I think a perfect example that the "Male Gaze" is just as much apparent in videos which have target audiences that are primarily woman is when Zac Efron in 17 Again, or in Twilight where the main female characters isnt conventionally pretty/attractive but al the males in it are ripping off their tops ever 2 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTb_2RdoR0s

Overall I believe that one; women know when they are being objectified its not just the camera work that does it, and two; men are just as much looked as a sexual object as women are. I believe at the time this theory was written it was probably pretty on point, but it has become very dated.