Evaluation Post

My brief was to create a 3-5 minute music video from a specific genre of our choice, we chose Paloma Faith - Only love can hurt like this. We also had to create ancillary texts which were a digipak and a magazine advert. In my group there was me, Devon Thomas, Lucy Nottage and Sophie Elliott. My role within the group was to edit some of the video and to be the camera man, this helped me to learn more about the editing software - Final Cut Pro X and become more experienced with the programme as I edited the video. Also being in charge of the camera meant that I could experiment with a range of shots and angles in order to represent our artist in a specific way to make our music video appeal more to the target audience of 16-50 year olds. We worked very well with in our group and this was because we were all good at a different specific role during our production, for example Devon was good with Photoshop to create and edit our ancillary texts, Sophie came up with good ideas for our narrative, and me and Lucy were good with the camera and the editing which made us work well and more efficiently. I think we have made a successful music video and ancillary texts as they are conventional and appeal to our target audience strongly.

A music video has many purposes such as: to promote an artist or their song, represent the artist through a short narrative, attract a particular target audience, identify an artist or group, buy into the artist's lifestyle, show the different generic conventions of a genre, to make the audience remember the song and video, to make a song available tot a wide audience, show more about the artist, to satisfy the audience who request music videos, to build a relationship with the artist or to allow the audience to understand more about a song. Music videos are split into 3 categories: Performance; which consists of the artist being filmed whilst singing and dancing, narrative; which is when the music video tells the audience a story, concept; which sells the audience and idea or a theme.

The codes and conventions of a soul music video include:

-Slow paced editing
-Love/relationship narrative
-Mise-en-scene costumes: men in suits, woman in dress
-Mise-en-scene setting: dark alleys and bedrooms
-Mise-en-scene: Low key lighting
-Close-ups to show artist's emotions

My music video follows these soul conventions as it includes a narrative about love and relationships, this is shown in my music video through the clips at the beginning which show my artist and her boyfriend giving a piggy back and looking in love, this is shown through the mid-shot showing them laughing together whilst my artist is on his back. This is followed by the second half of the video which shows her after breaking up with her boyfriend, I included shots of her crying and being emotional in the bath burning pictures of them to portray her sadness. This would make my target audience of 16-50 year olds sympathise for my artist and therefore allow them to build a relationship with the artist and make the video appeal to them more. I also included a conventional monotone colour scene in order to create a professional look within my music video, I used similar colour filters in Final Cut Pro X in order to make my video appeal more to my audience through the professionalism of my product. I also included slow paced editing a lot in my video to show more of my artist's emotions and also create a realistic effect as the audience will feel like they are experiencing the break up with the artist, this will make the video appeal more to them and therefore make it conventional. One part of my video which subverts typical soul conventions is the bath scene, soul music videos don't usually include provocative, flirtatious clips, but I included a naked bath scene of my artist, this was done to attract the male audience and also to show a personal side of my artist which will entice the audience more to watch my music video. 
In our music video we decided to subvert the convention of costumes by dressing the artist in bright, colourful clothing which makes her appeal more to the target audience as it is different from the other soul artists, she is wearing a bright pink fluffy coat which can be seen when she is singing to the camera in our video. The settings and locations used in my video are conventional as they include personal locations such as a bedroom and bathroom, this makes the audience get an insight into the personal life of the artist and therefore feel more enticed to the video and more of the artist's music, therefore creating a loyal fan base. Also the lighting in my video changes during the narrative, when my artist is with her boyfriend and happy, she is shown mostly in bright natural lighting. But when thy break up she is shown in the bath in the dark to portray her sad, lonely emotions which makes my video appeal more to the target audience of 16-50 year olds. I used alot of close ups throughout my video in order to portray my artist's emotions, for example a close up is used when she is crying and drinking, this makes the audience aware of how she is feeling and therefore makes them sympathise for her, making them build a relationship with the artist and making them a more loyal fan base.