Thursday, 11 February 2010
Animatic Storyboard
Final Music Video (Shattered Glass - Britney Spears)
Thursday, 10 December 2009
Evaluation of Media Products
The music video which we had created had used several of the typical conventions of professional music videos used in the music industry, as well as following common, similar themes and narratives typically used in the genre of music we decided to make our music video for.
Whilst planning and researching we thought that if we used both a combination of narrative and performance within the music video it would help break up the story, which would make it more structured and easy to follow as well as making the video more interesting to watch.
During the performance parts of the song (which was mainly the chorus parts), we had decided that it would work well to have the female character in the video lip synch the words to the chorus, this had worked particularly well as the actress which we used had a particular look about her which helped fit the criteria of the female character which we were trying to portray in our video (a young, glamorous girl), the technique of lip synching is a common technique used in professional media products.
We had also used the enigma technique, in which certain information is withheld from the audience as the story progresses, this led to the audience wanting to watch more of the video to gain an understanding of why the female character was stalking the male character. The use of an enigma is a very common technique used with narratives in music videos, this helps hook the audience and sometimes create suspense and tension.
How effective is the combination of ancillary texts and the main product?
The combination of the ancillary texts and the main product are effective and work very well together, managing to create clear links between each other.
The use of dark colours in the female characters costume and the setting in which she is singing in help create a dark mood with the song, reflecting on the effect that the artist of the song is trying to convey to her audience.

For the inside covers of the DigiPak that we had created we had used still images taken from frames in our music video to try and make an obvious link between the video and the DigiPak. The image of the male and the female character together having a picnic is an obvious link between the DigiPak and the music video.
The front cover and the magazine advertisement both use an image of glass shattering as their background, which helps establish a visual image of the lyrics of the song. The use of the theme of “Shattered Glass” within the song is not taken literally meaning the physical act of shattering glass but more of a deeper meaning, in which the man breaks up with the woman suddenly and abruptly shattering their relationship like glass. The woman stalking him can be taken as tiny shards of glass cutting him slowly, making him feel guilty to the point where he breaks down and is forced to pick up the pieces. The image of the shattered glass however is related to the name of the song and helps creates a visual link between the song name and ancillary tasks.
In order to create a feel of variety and to avoid repetition in our ancillary tasks we thought it would be best if we took extra photos of the female character. So with this idea we carried out a photo shoot in similar locations with a dark, cold feel to them, which could be used on our ancillary tasks, which would also help create a link between the music video and the DigiPak and Magazine Advertisement.
How has audience feedback helped you in evaluating your media product?
The use of audience feedback was useful in the fact that it helped us evaluate our music video with both positive and negative feedback, which helped us understand what we could have done better if we were to make the video again.
Whilst editing our video we were slightly worried about the narrative of the music video which we used and whether or not it would be easy for the audience to follow but we also argued that the breaking down of the video by the performance would make it easier for the audience to follow. The audience feedback which we had received upon the viewing of the video did in fact show that the narrative and performance had worked well together.
It was also suggested by some of members of the audience that if we were to improve it we should have had the female character performing more as it worked well due to her fitting the criteria of the character very well.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation of the product?
Throughout the duration of creating this product we used a wide range of media technologies in producing it:
Research and Planning
For the research and the planning of the coursework we had used:
- The internet: This helped us research professional, industry standard music videos used by mainstream artists, as well as helping us research the artist of the song we had chosen along with similar artists.
- iMovie: Although a piece of basic editing software, it had helped us greatly in editing our animatic storyboard, which helped us with the timing of the video greatly.
Construction
For the construction stage of the coursework, we used a wide range of digital technology in helping us construct our product, the technology we used were:
- Digital Camcorder: This was used in filming the actual footage needed for the music video.
- iMovie: This was used to edit the footage which we had filmed and put it together
We had also used technology in order to communicate with each other, some of the technology we used was mobile phones and social networking sites such as Facebook in order to organise dates and locations to film.
For the ancillary texts we used different technology we had available to us, these include:
- Adobe Photoshop CS3: This helped design our images which we had taken for the DigiPak and Magazine advertisement.
- Digital Photo Camera: This was used to take the photos used for the ancillary tasks.
- iMovie: This was used to extract the still images from the music video.
Evaluation
In order for us to evaluate our product we created a blog on www.blogger.com On the internet, this helped us evaluate the parts of the video production and the processes we underwent throughout making it as we made it and allowed us to keep a type of diary of events. We also used iMovie to edit the audience feedback that we received from our classmates.
Thursday, 3 December 2009
Audience Feedback
DigiPak and Magazine Ad
DigiPak Trials
- The cuts in the image were supposed to represent the theme of Shattered Glass, however the outcome of the image created a Halloween effect, which we thought didn't go well with the overall representation of the message we were trying to convey to our audience.
- We felt that the image didn't blend in very well with the background.
- The empty space by the side was good as it provided space for the song listings
- The front cover looks to plain and basic.
- The image was not a good representation for the DigiPak.
- We felt however if we got rid of the writing this would be good to use as one of the inside covers.
- The colours didn't work at all
- We believed that the photo quality of the image was not good enough. As we took a still from the video, as opposed with the other images where we used an actual digital camera.
- There is a lot of black empty space making the cover look really plain
- The use of the borders manages to make the image look more interesting
- The use of still images from the video manages to create a link between the video and the DigiPak.
Album Cover and Digipak Photoshoot
We did this slideshow to show that we haven’t just taken one picture and used it for the Digipak and album cover, it shows that we have taken a variety of shots in different sceneries so that we could select the best shots for our promotional products. To create the slideshow we used iMovie HD and loaded the pictures onto it and arranged them accordingly.
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
Possible Images for the Magazine Ad and DigiPak
Plan for Magazine Advertisement and DigiPak
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
Settings
Shattered Glass Lyrics (By Britney Spears)
Or is a nightmare keeping you up instead?
Poor baby, are you feeling guilty for what you did?
If you think you're hurting, you ain't seen nothing yet
Was it really worth it?
Was she everything that you were looking for to feel like a man?
I hope you know that you can't come back
'Cause all we have is broken like shattered glass
You're gonna see me in your dreams tonight
My face is gonna haunt you all the time
I promise that you gon' want me back
When your life falls apart like shattered glass
Glass, glass, glass
Are you having trouble focusing throughout the day?
Do you find yourself still calling my name?
Do you wish you could rewind time and take it back?
I bet you realized that she ain't half the woman I am
Was it really worth it?
Was she everything that you were looking for to feel like a man?
I hope you know that you can't come back
'Cause all we have is broken like shattered glass
You're gonna see me in your dreams tonight
My face is gonna haunt you all the time
I promise that you gon' want me back
When your life falls apart like shattered glass
Glass, glass, glass, glass, l-l-like glass, glass, glass
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
Filming - Day 3
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Filming - Day Two
Wednesday, 7 October 2009
Filming - Day One
Friday, 11 September 2009
Why We Chose Shattered Glass
Also what was imagined was for the audience to be slightly scared of her, when in reality, she is the one that the audience should sympathise with, but in the end, when they find out that he ended the relationship suddenly and this idea can be read metaphorically and relate itself to the lyrics, in which the audience can interpret the man and woman's relationship shattering like glass, the opinion of the audience will completely sways from one to the other. The story was intended not to be predictable, it has to be thought provoking and interesting, and this twist in the character will hopefully make it more appealing.
Also what we got from the song that there is a spooky feeling about it, a haunting feeling. Therefore to apply the idea of the main character being haunted by his past, fitted into the style of the song. It is also quite upbeat, so we decided to at some parts have quick editing and her lip syncing the song.
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
Research of Artist - Britney Spears
In early 2008 she was hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after she "appeared to be under the influence of an unknown substance",though blood tests tested negative for any illicit substances. She was held for psychiatric evaluation for two days. On January 31, a court placed Spears under temporary co-conservatorship of her father James Spears and attorney Andrew Wallete, giving them complete control of her assets. It is also speculated that the reason for Britney's problems is due to her being bipolar,therefore making her hard to control.
After a long absence Britney returned at the VMA's 2008 and also pre-recording skits/adverts with Russell Brand and Jonah Hill, in promotion for the awards. One of the adverts involved Russell Brand and Britney sitting on a sofa in front of an
elephant talking about the award show, the elephant in the room was meant to represent Britney's 2007 performance. This shows her willingness to not pretend it never happen, but instead of seeing it negatively, putting a comic spin on it. This was marked as one of Britney's comebacks, due to it being her first public appearance since the disaster of 2007 VMA's, although she still hadn't performed on a stage since.Britney also appeared at the European Music Awards 2008,picking up two awards, one for 'Album of the year' and one for 'Act of the year', adding to her ever growing award collection and also inhancing her new image.
It also reached number one in the UK and the USA, where she had previously not had a number one since her debut single, 'Hit me baby one more time'. Even though commercial success and outstanding record sales, Britney still was yet to perform live since the VMA's 2007. Therefore in promotion for her album/single, Britney performed at the Bambi awards in Germany, this was highly antisipated due to it being nearly two years without her performing at all. It was a success her performance, although she did lip sync, her image was a lot better and performance was more together than at the VMA's 07. One gossip site (www.perezhilton.com) picked up on the amount of walking in the performance, and how it was easy to flashback to the VMA's 07. The song was performed on November 29 at Star Academy and the following day on The X Factor (Picture below with Simon Cowell after performance). This performance was watched by over 13 million UK citizens, making it the most viewed episode in the show’s history. On December 15 and December 16, 2008, she performed it in Japan at Hey! Hey! Hey! Music Champ and NTV Best Artist 2008. All the performances were slightly changed in terms of staging, costumes and choreography.
On the 2nd December 2008, was the release date of her highly antisipated album 'Circus' and performed 'Womanizer' and 'Circus' on 'Good Morning America' (as shown on the video below), it was also Britney's 27th Birthday. Although still lip syncing, Britney's energetic performance drew millions of viewers and positive reviews.
'Circus' went to number one on the US album charts, which was her 5th album to reach this feat.Also Spears announced that she would be going on a World Tour again, this was a shock to the media, due to it being so soon after her breakdown, and her last tour being cut short in 2005 due to a knee injury.
The next single was a fans favourite and was chosen on a poll on www.britneyspears.com but although it's popularity, it caused a lot of controversy for Spears due to it's explicit lyrics. If U Seek Amy was banned from a lot of radio stations due to when said fast, it spells out F-U-C-K me, therefore was complained about, even reaching CNN news, where it was critised for it's non parental rating. Therefore Spears decided to go back into the studio and record a radio edit version, where she would say 'If U See Amy'. This angered Britney's fans, who mostly believed it to be ridiculous especially when there are songs such as 'Sex On The Beach' are allowed on most radio stations.
This brought Spears a lot of media attention, and after this Spear's released 'Radar', a single that was also on her 'Blackout' album. The music video was highly antisipated, and filmed over two days in between Spears North American and European legs of her tour. In the video Spears is watching a polo match and falls in love with the loser of the game, instead of going for the stereotypical option of the winner. Throughout the video Spears promotes Candies, wearing only their clothes, and in the end the music video appeared to just look like an advert. There was no creativity in it, just shots of Spears modelling in her clothes, which in the end came off looking tacky and thoughtless.
Spears 'Circus World Tour' was seen as her 'comeback' as it marked her first tour in 4 years, and was a incredible show. With Support from the likes of the Pussycat Dolls, Ciara, Sliimy, Ciara, Cascada, Kristina DeBarge, Jordin Spark, etc. Also with the Big Apple Circus performing just before Spears performs onstage and also within her set, adding to the promotional image of it being a Circus/Freakshow. Britney got good reviews for her tour, but drew negative critism's for lip-syncing the whole concert apart from 'Everytime' which she sung sitting down. It was only on the 5th September Spears added 'You Oughta Know' by Alanis Morissette, which she sung live and was also dancing. This is seen as a major acheivement for Spears, as this shows her confidence is building as a performing artist.
Spears also picked up best pop video at MTV VMA's 09, and again has recording an advert with Russell Brand, which see's him reading her mind.
The song we decided to use for our media video is Shattered Glass, which is off of the 'Circus' album, and is speculated to be the next single released, due to it already reaching number 93 in the billboard hot 100, even though not being released yet. Shattered Glass was not included in the setlist for the 'Circus World Tour', but would probably be added to the Australian dates of the tour if it was released as a single. A Dr Luke produced song, has haunting beats, with a strong sense of anger as heard in the lyrics and Spears voice.
Future Projects
Britney comfirmed herself via Twitter that "She was in the studio with Max (Martin)" which shows a lot of promise due to the long history of hits crafted between the two, for example:
- Hit Me Baby One More Time
- Oops! I did it again
- Stronger
- If U Seek Amy
- (You Drive Me) Crazy
- Lucky
- Overprotected
- Im Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman
Also In November 2009, Britney is set to release a 'singles' collection (boxset, as shown below), which is all of her previous singles, with one new songs (called 3). Unlike most compilations, they are all going to remixed, extended, familar, but different, therefore making it a must have for fans. There is also to be a DVD within it, which will have all of Britney's previous music videos, and special features.




.jpg)
.jpg)




.jpg)



