A2 Music Video - 'Where The Wild Roses Grow' - Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue

Zoe Hillman 8128 - A2 Media Studies Coursework - Music Video from Zoe Hillman on Vimeo.

Website

This is the link to the website I have created for the artist of my music video: http://zoehillman.wix.com/nickcaveunoffical



I decided to use the colour scheme of red, white and black to create a clear link between the music video, album cover and website. 

The header of the home page is a still from the music video, which in conjunction with the audio player playing the song, is promotion for the album.

HOME PAGE

BIOGRAPHY PAGE

CONCERTS PAGE

RECORDINGS PAGE

CONTACT PAGE

Final Digipack

FRONT COVER

In the front page, I have presented the artists of the song as the main focal point. It reflects the music video in terms of colours (white, black, red) and the grey tint. By having them lying together with plain expressions, a sense of mytery but also seriousness is created. The grey tint and the black background help the morbid atmosphere match that of the music video.
The white banner at the bottom where both artists names are written, are in line with the genre of music I have used in the music video. Artists such as Mick Harvey use a banner either at the top, or bottom, or both of the album cover to contrast the image in the middle. The font used for the title of the song and the artist names are neither old fashioned or modern, adding to timeless aspect of the song, music video, and digipack.



BACK COVER



The image of the female character lying in the middle of the page surrounded by a black background, emphasises the lonliness and isolation of the character. I edited out most of the background of the image, but left some of the green leaves to add texture to the cover to make it more visually pleasing, while still keeping the dark and eerie tone that is present in the digipack and music video.
The additional copyright information at the bottom of the cover reflects the information found at the bottom of any music album, with information about the producers and distributors, where it was made and how to contact the companies, as well as a bar code.

INSIDE PAGE - TRACKS

This page would go on the left hand side, displaying the tracks available on the disc. This image shows the female character looking peaceful and beautiful, while the grey tint contrasted with the eye catching red of the rose, enhances her pale complexion. This suggests that she is ghostly but also emphasises one of the key themes of the song and the music video; her beauty. The font matches that of the front cover as it is timeless, like the feel of the video. The contrast of white on black makes it easier to read and also matches the colour scheme of the music video and the rest of the digipack. 

INSIDE PAGE - LYRICS

This page would go on the right hand side of the digipack. The lyrics of the chorus are the most important, in terms of linking the images on the digipack to the song. The 'wild rose' is captured in three out of the four images on the pages of the digipack and is therefore a recurring theme.
The image on this page contrasts the one on the facing page as this one shows the violent reality of her seemingly peaceful appearence. On the left page she seems to be asleep, although ghostly in colour. However, on this page we see a different angle of her face, revealing the blood. She is still presented as beautiful on this page, although now the red colour of the rose symbolises more than romance. It also symbolises violence while the black background symbolises death.







Evaluation Question 4 - How did you use technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Evaluation Question 3 - What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Evaluation Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Question 2 - slideshow

Evaluation Question 1b - Secondary Research

Evaluation Question 1a

Website Pratice

As I finished my digipack earlier than most people in my class, my teacher suggested that I begin to experiment with the website generator he will be teaching us to use next lesson. We are using a generator on the website called www.wix.com

It appears to be fairly simple to use. You are provided with a template for the website, which you can edit with ease.

This is a screen shot of my first attempt at changing the header of the website.

The pictures below are clearly not my own, as they are included in the template. By clicking on the images, I am given the option to change them by uploading my own images. When I start making the website properly, I will replace these images with screen shots from my music video, similar to the ones I have used on the digipack. On the right hand side there is an option to add a soundcloud of the song. To experiment I have used a soundcloud of an acoustic version of the song, although I hope to find the original version to put on the website.

The whole website will be based around the colour scheme of black, white and red, to link to the music video and digipack. I will also find somewhere on the home page to 'advertise' the new album, where I will use the cover of the digipack I have created.

Post Production Storyboard

After creating the music video, I have found that for a majority of it I managed to keep to the storyboard, although I feel that keeping to it so rigidly prevented me from being more creative when filming.

Post Production Storyboard - slideshow with music

Online Feedback

I have posted my video on YouTube, although I have found that it is blocked in the UK, preventing me receiving any feedback from a local audience.
However, it can be viewed in Australia where I have received feedback from via Twitter and YouTube:

Post Production Questions and Answers

The audience watching my video

Today I showed my music video to an audience of Year 13 students (aged 17-18) and teachers (who were my target audience). Although my video is aimed at an older audience, I wanted to show it to people my age too, to see the differences in interpretations of the video with the differences in age. This questionnaire was desgined to help me with my evaluation and some post-production audience research.

These are the questions I asked, with a summary of the answers:

1. Male or Female
    A majority were female

2. Age
    As a majority of the audience were from Year 13, they were in the age
    group '16-20'. I also invited members of my target audience in the 30+ age
    group.

3. Would you have this song on your MP3 player?
    The people who are part of my target audience all answered 'yes' to this
    question, which supports my choice to target this age group. Surprisingly,
    most of the Year 13 students also answered that they would have this song
    on their MP3 player, which suggests that this video could target a wider
    audience than I first expected.

4. What is your favourite genre of music?
    There was a large variety of taste in music from my audience, but a majority
    of them preferred pop and variations of rock such as rock/pop and
    rock/metal. As 'Where The Wild Roses Grow' could be described as soft rock
    I believe that my audience were appropriate to critique this video.

5. Summarise the story that takes place in the music video
    All members of my target audience understood the narrative and some were
    able to look deeper into the meaning of the story, suggesting that maybe
    there were issues of identity for both characters. Most of the audience from
    Year 13 were able to understand that the two characters were in love, and
    many answers to this question were 'a love story between a man and a
    woman'. Few people understood the jealousy of the male character, which
    was a reason I did not choose this age group as my target audience, as they
    were unable to see the deeper meaning of the video.

6. Why do you think the male character acted in the way he did?
    The only female from my target audience was able to look deeper into the
    motivation of the male character, which meant that she could interpret the
    video in an individual way and that she thought more about it. She created
    for herself a back story for the character which aided her interpretation.
    The two males from my target audience did not think as analytically,
    although they were able to see the most obvious interpretation that he may
    have suffered mental problems and wanted to keep her beauty to himself.
    Many member of the audience from Year 13, felt that the character may have
    had insecurities, which is typical of a teenage character not an ageless one. 
    The younger audience were interpreting the character through a teenage
    perspective of insecurities and immature relationships which is another
    reason I did not choose them as my target audience.

7. Did you find the actors convincing? Why?
    Most people found the female character more convincing that the male
    character as they felt that her emotions came across more effectively on her
    face. However, in a couple of cases, audience members felt that the actors
    were too emotionless.

8. Were you entertained by the video? Did you find yourself losing
    interest at any particular moments?
    My target audience found themselves engaged in the music video throughout,
    which means that I have been successful in entertaining them. They found
    the storyline effective in keeping them engaged, although the female
    member of my target audience found some shots, such as the rose in the
    female character's teeth noticeably 'unproffessional'.
    The Year 13 members of my audience, were all entertained by the video,
    without losing interest. They were also captivated by the narrative style,
    which kept them engaged.

9. What was your favourite moment/aspect of the video?
    My target audience all enjoyed the part where the female character 
    (when she is dead) opens her eyes and begins to sing. They also liked the
    characters singing against the white background.
    A majority of my Year 13 audience preferred the ending of the music video,
    where the male and female characters both walk away from the river bank,
    the female character dropping her rose as she walks.

10. What would you change in the video?
     My target audience picked up on some of the less proffessional aspects of
     the video, such as the casting of the male character and some of the
     locations. They felt that the locations such as the sofa that the female
     character sat on, took away from the atmosphere of the video.
     My Year 13 audience were less anylitical in their answers to this question.
     Some suggested better direction of the male actor as he was not
     emotive enough. Another suggestion was more variation of scenes.

Audience filling out questionnaire

More Digipack Experimenting

I will be using a black background for my digipack as it reflects the morbid tone of my music video. I have continued experimenting with ideas, this time using screen grabs from my music video. These are some more examples:

Re-filming

At the beginning of my video there is a short, five second clip where my actor was not singing in time with the music when filming and was therefore impossible to sync with the music. I decided that this clip was spoiling the rest of the video so I decided to refilm the clip. Luckily it was against a white background which is not too hard to find. As the actor goes to the same school as me, it was easy to meet up at lunch break and spend ten minutes refilming. This time I tried to concentrate more on my actor while he was lip syncing to ensure that the footage I got was useful. By doing so, I realised that I needed to refilm a few times to ensure that he was in time with the music and that his facial expression matched the mood of the video.
Having studied Theatre Studies for three years, I have spent a lot of time learning how to get into the mindset of a character. I used this to help my actor by asking him what emotions his character would be feeling and having him experiment with facial expressions until we found one that worked.
The next stage for me will be to capture this on the school computers and add it into the timeline on the editing software that the rest of my music video is on.

Experimenting with Digipack Ideas

Using the ideas I had for my digipack, I experimented using my own photos and others from the internet to see how how my ideas translated onto the software. Using Corel Photo-Paint 11, I edited the images, placing them on a black background which matches the colour scheme of my music video. I am aiming to portray an atmosphere of lonliness and isolation with the singular images on the cover. These are some examples (they are only experiments and not neccessarily what the final product will look like):