Our aim was to create a music video along with a digi-pack cover and magazine advert (ancillary

tasks). We chose the song “We No Speak Americano” by Yolanda Be Cool & DCUP

because it was a popular song at the time we started this coursework and it was a song we

liked.

The genre is Pop, which has many different generic conventions that the video can adhere to; for example, there is usually some dancing which cuts in between a main plot.

This can be seen in a video such as “Oops… I Did It Again” by Britney Spears. There is an astronaut on a mission to Mars, with cut-away shots of Spears dancing with back-up dancers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CduA0TULnow

[1:20-1:30]

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics.

2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals. The lyrics are represented with images.(either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).

3. There is a relationship between music and visuals. The tone and atmosphere of the visual reflects that of the music.(either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).

4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style).

5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, mirrors, stages, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

6. There are often intertextual reference (to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc).

The relationship between the lyrics of the song and the visuals of our video is partly illustrative because the fact that they are obviously tourists is related to the song title of “We No Speak Americano”, which evokes feelings of people who are unaware of the place they are in.

However, it does not share that many of these characteristics because there are only a couple of seconds of dancing and the rest is them playing about around the landmarks of Windsor.

Other characteristics typical of the Pop genre are:- The pacing of the song fits the editing; - The dress code reflects most of the song; - Many symbolic codes for the feeling, e.g. in our video

when the two characters are playing in Bachelors Acre (they are too old but they don’t care).

Some motifs that appear in our music video are happiness, holidays, fun, and Great Britain.

Happiness and fun are shown by the characters’ happy-go-lucky attitudes and their resistance to bad things such as falling over by the Crooked House or getting chased out of the Fudge Kitchen.

Great Britain is signified by Windsor Castle. The establishing shot we used containing the castle sets the mood for the whole video, whilst also showing the location of the video.

In addition, our video is concept based and loosely narrative based because it does not have a conventional linear narrative like many other music videos.

It is not performance based because there are no shots of anyone singing along to the music.

The concept is fairly simple – two teenage boys on holiday who are sightseeing in Windsor.

Goodwin’s theory that music videos frequently reference the notion of looking and contain voyeuristic treatment of females are not shown in our music video. This is because we feel like it is irrelevant to the kind of video we wanted to produce.

The relationship between the music and visuals is amplifying, i.e. the music is cut to the beat. There aren’t that many lyrics that they actors can sing so it may not be considered amplifying in that respect.

I believe that the combination of our main product and ancillary tasks is quite effective. The use of postcards as a central motif denotes holiday, and in turn connotes fun, excitement and new things. This is shown in the music video by an actual postcard with “We No Speak Americano” on it, referencing the song.

For the digi-pack/CD cover we used photoshop to layer images over each other which can either be interpreted as a photo album or postcards. On the other hand, we chose to use only one picture of Windsor Castle on the back cover because usually the back cover of a CD is more simplistic than the front or inside panels.

Another recurring image that appears is the Union flag. Since the location was Windsor, the Castle is the most obvious choice to film around. The establishing shot I previously mentioned zooms into a giant flag. This is further seen when the two teenagers come out of a souvenir shop waving flags and are seen with them for the rest of the video, which adds to the idea of holiday and possibly immaturity with the way they are waving them around.

The magazine advert slightly differed from the CD cover because we thought that it would be too much if we did it the same. However, there were still some similarities such as multiple pictures. We used one of our favourite pictures that we took a screen shot of as the main focus. This picture contains both of the characters outside the castle which immediately tells the audience that the location is somewhere important. The framing of the shot includes the City Sightseeing bus which indicates it is a popular tourist destination; and a flag which shows the country they are in.

The characters’ facial expressions signifies to the audience that they are in trouble, yet the way their arms are held up suggest it may be comical.

Furthermore, the use of bright colours appeal to a younger audience. Our target audience that we identified were teenagers and possibly young adults. There were no specific psychographic variables that we accounted for in the research and planning because we thought it would appeal to a wide range of different people of a certain age.

The audience we surveyed prefer pop music videos with a concept. We could have researched into this further by asking questions such as whether the concept should be weird, funny or serious.

In addition, we asked people what type of pop video they liked. They said that they preferred a comedy video to a horror or romance. This fitted into the concept we had thought of when we decided we wanted to choose “We No Speak Americano” (Yolanda Be Cool & DCUP) as the music.

When we asked them what kind of characters they’d like to see, most said “Ravers”; however, we did not use this type in our video as we felt it would be inappropriate to use them in the context that we had planned for the video. (The most common answer was animals, however, we could not film them because we are not trained professionals).

The gender of the target audience would largely be female, which is why we interviewed more females than males (although the difference is not that great, because we did not want biased results).

Here are a couple of interviews that we made when asking these questions:

Ash Lana .mov

The media technologies we used were:

This was used as the medium in which we could display all of our work that we carried out for our A2 course.

We used a combination of Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, YouTube, SlideShare and Paint to create different ways in which we could show our work to make it more interesting.

Previously, we used iMovie to edit the opening sequence of a film for AS. For A2 we used Final Cut Pro as our skills developed and we got more comfortable using the technology.

Furthermore, we used more editing tools such as changing the speed, using split screens, and layering clips on top of each other to create a more interesting text. For example, when there is a low angle shot of Rob on the swing, we put tilted versions of the same shot on a delay which is another postcard/digi-pack reference.

The speed was changed to be faster because we thought it would add comedic value to the piece in a kind of Benny Hill style, except it was not as extreme. E.g. when they are running away from the Fudge Kitchen worker who is chasing them with a broom.

Another editing technique we used was rotating the camera in post-production to the beat, as seen in the dancing clip. When the characters are dancing in the Bachelors Acre fountains, we cut the clip into smaller clips so we could rotate certain parts in different ways (90/180/270 degrees) to make it more entertaining and to disorientate the audience a bit which is what the characters are feeling when in the park.

We used a filter called sepia to create an old fashioned mood. The idea came from the original video for We No Speak Americano.

The old fashioned-ness idea also came from watching old silent film shorts such as Laurel and Hardy or Charlie Chaplin. Their style of visual comedy is what we aimed to achieve since we could not use dialogue. This was shown, for example, when Danny fell over trying to read the Crooked House sign. To further emphasize the comedy in that part, we tilted the camera.

We had not used Photoshop previously so at first it was fairly challenging to use. However, we got used to it quickly and used many different techniques to make our digi-pack and magazine advert.

The idea we decided on was to place pictures on top of each other like postcards or a photo album. This inspiration partly came from a video by the pop/rock band Paramore – Hallelujah.

Moreover, we used different techniques such as changing the brightness and contrast level to make the CD more colourful because we wanted to make it bright to denote feelings of happiness so theoretically people would see it and want to buy it.

For the magazine advert we chose to have a black background to help the pictures stand out, and not use as many pictures so it doesn’t overwhelm the viewer. The white writing was used to contrast against the black background. This simplicity draws more attention to the actual photos.

I have learned a lot about the different technology that can be used to create a music video and ancillary tasks. From the beginning of AS to now, I am now capable of using a variety of different software and hardware to create interesting and entertaining films.