during the pre-production stages of making our music video we used a wide range of different technologies, most of which are found on the apple mac.
Tasks such as audience profiling and market research were performed using secondary sources found on youtube e.g. Where the genera is listened to predominantly or what social class the listeners are. The reason we used youtube to compile our data is because it is comprehensive and accurate whilst also offering a wide range of sources to use.
Some primary research was conducted but our sources were limited as the genera is not widely listened to in our area. However what we did find out allowed us us to chose colours and create a steriotypical view of our audience. We did this because we wanted to make our product seem different and bold.
During the period in which we were chosing our final song we had out artists working on frootyloops studio a lot because we wanted as many different ideas as possible and as frooty loops is relatively simple to use we had no problem getting plenty of musical ideas. The only problem we had with frooty loops is converting the file types in to files that are compatible with final cut express.
Blogging became a huge part of the whole experience. As I had never blogged before it was a new and interesting way of jotting down ideas or explaining theorys. this is because blogging is very easy and adding things like pictures and videos is also simple and works very effectively at putting across a point.
During construction of our music video we used final cut express (fcx) which is a very good, simple whilst still able to cater for experts. as i had very little knowledge of fcx it was a shock that within half an hour of fiddling i had a good idea of how t properly use the program which was great because we were behind schedual. Although I was only using the basic procedures the final product was what we wanted and I believe it looks good.
In what ways does your media product use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media product uses develops and challenges many different conventions that psy-trance beholds. Psy-trance has a usual convention of psychodelic influences and trippy motifes, the music itself is based around a four to the floor beat with the use of different baselines and synth sounds to give a psychodelic feel. This is portrayed in its music videos as well. The convention of most psytrance videos is based around madness, e.g. infected mushroom becoming insane.
Our group have decided to use this convention and use the motife of madness and insanity. We achieved this by using a song from our artist which involves a running sound, this is menacing and torments the mind as you listen which is only made stronger by using shots of someone running away and effects such as distort.
The lyrics of our song also help in making the video more menacing. They are spoken instead of being sung which is a typical convention of psytrance music which we have also used. the reason we have used this lyrical style is because it gives a great effect, and splits us apart from conventional music which is predominantly sung which is not the effect we want.
Another typical feature of psytrance videos is the use of psychodelic colours and trippy pictures, we have decided not to use this in our video because it is to simple. Although giving a great effect we want to offer something different to our audience as we want to be different to conventional psytrance labels. As we are losing out on one convention we have decided that instead of using loads of weird colours we have used an array of different and interesting effects to make the video almost seem supernatural which is acctualy a reacoring convention in some trance videos. e.g. infected mushroom becoming insane.
One video i took a lot of influence from was chase and status, end credits. Although the genera is not psytrance the label is underground dance music which we are part of. The videos basic narrative is a guy who has just died reliving parts of his life in which he ruined his chances at everything good. Our group took this idea and changed it slightly, instead of some one die'ing, we used some one killing some one and going through what happend, this turned out to become our narrative which we changed slightly as we went along but it gave us a basis to work around. In the end our narrative came out as "some one going mad and chasing them selves and eventually killing them selves though madness." We believed this narrative brought on typical conventions whilst also using new ideas from the underground scene.
Our group is trying to bring a new look for psytrance in what i call "the pendulum effect" This is when a predominantly underground group suddenly becomes very popular though turning into a "indi band" rather than just being a dj. Many groups recently have done this, including pendulum, chase and status and simon bassline smith and they have all seen a huge increase in fans, this is because they have noticed how many new audiences they can bring in by becoming an indi band, this brings in scene kids, emo kids, rockers, ravers, and the typical rig rats whilst also keeping there old audiences who enjoy there oridgional music. Although i have found myself disliking all these artists because of the pendulum effect which is one downside to converting to an indi backing.
Overall our video has used developed and challenged many conventions of psytrance. We have tried to use the pendulum effect to become more appealing to more people and we have held to the madness motife that is a usual convention in many psytrance videos. this has opened our video to many different audiences whilst also keeping to our oridgional fans which is the desired effect.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The course work project consists of two parts. The main product which is the music video, and the digi pack which consists of the posters, front cover, back cover and inside cover. All these parts come together and without each other they mean nothing.
The video its self is effective and gives a clear message whilst showing a good motife of psytrance but the video does need the album covers to make sence. The covers all show the character in the videos in his different states, sane, insane and running from himself.
Our ancillary texts all challenge conventions of typical albums, we use our artist in the shots which is unusual as most album covers made by psytrance use digitaly enhanced fractial geometry. We believe in using shot of our artist instead of not we will be advertising to new audiences in what i call the pendulum effect, which is where underground scene music advertises to more scene kids instead of just the oridgional fans.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
After showing our video to groups of year 10's and 11's we aquired a lot of possitive and negative feedback. After showing them the video we asked them questions such as, did you enjoy the video? do you understand the narrative plot? and if there were any changes they would have made. We recieved mixed opinions and were pleased overall.
One of the main possitive points made was hat the use of different camera shots and visual effects was extensive and effective, they were apparently bord by the song, but kept interested by the different shots and effects, and general interests in the narative.
This links to the point that the song was apparently boring and uninteresting although we didnt realy have the most extensive list of audience members mainly made up of kids that do not appreciate good psytrance, this means that or results were negatively biassed.
Overall we learnt that we should have looked into our genera choice with more care. The song we used was to experimentle for new listeners and we should have used a more upbeat song that would appeal to a larger market. Although greater care should have been taken in chosing our audience to test upon.
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