Evanescence - Bring Me To Life

The idea that i had for my music video was to convey the emotion of the song with the audience, i wanted the emotion of the song and the story of the video to be obvious to the viewer but i decided to not have the person sing the song in the video, and just had the music in the background. My reason for doing this was that i wanted the story of the song to speak for itself and not be so obvious. And i wanted the emotion to be read from the expression and not from the  actual lyrics of the song. 

The location of my video was really important, i had this idea in my head of what i wanted, the location where i shot my music video fit it perfectly. I could not have wished for a better location to fit my video. On the day of shooting the video there was so much snow falling which i did not expect, i was worried that it would ruin the shots that i had planned and would not look right in the video. However, i feel that the snow goes along with the mood of the video and the emotion and sort of sets the scene of this dull and cold story. The house which i shot my video was in The little Hermitage which is in Meopham Kent, and the house was built in a Grade II Georgian manor house dating from 'the Age of Elegance' the 18th century. The feel i got from inside was very classy and elegant, the way the house was set up and stylized fit well with the shots that i had in mind.

Digipak - Supporting Products

Magazine Advertisement - Supporting Products

Evaluation 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real Media products?

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

Josh - Hi I'm Josh and this is my music video i made to the song 'Bring Me To Life' by an American band called Evanescence.

Evanescence are based in the US, and are extremely popular among 15 to 25 year olds. Their music is mainly suited to the rock genre.

For my featured artist that i included i wanted her to fit with the style of the song. So i had her looking haunting into the camera lens at first. As the video progresses i wanted her emotions to become bigger and more uncontrollable.

This idea came from my own research into rock genre music videos. I used mainly close ups of my featured artist as i wanted the emotion on her face to be read clearly as some of them had to be made quite extreme.

The story behind my music video was taken from ideas from music videos that u had researched that i had seen, and some from my own ideas. The video itself starts off in a dream like scenario , where we follow the subject on her journey of emotions to find her lost husband.

I wanted her dream character to be like an alter ego rebellious person who takes over during sleep. And her normal self during the day, the two are separated through costume and emotions.

I decided not to have my featured artist lip singing the song, as i wanted the story of the video to come across more through the lyrics and in the video. And not just through the artist just singing the song.

The main effect i used throughout was the black and white effect, i wanted to take the color out of the video to make the video feel more dream like. From my feedback i have received this did help the story come across a lot clearer. But a few people did feel that lip singing is important in a music video, but this is not what i wanted.

Drop In Digi Pack

I decided to make my digi pack relevant to my video and the genre of my music. After researching other album covers i was inspired most by Cheryl Cole's album three words. And tried to incorporate the theme into my own style where the artist is the main focus.

I created a collage of pictures on photoshop, using four seperate images, having two of them in black and white and two of them in color. I feel my digi pack grabs the attention and sticks to the theme of my video.

Drop In Magazine Advert

For my music magazine advertisement, i decided i wanted that mainly in color. Unlike the rest of the theme of my other media products, I wanted the colours to stand out using red on a black background. Still sticking to a rock and roll theme. I feel my magazine advert and digi pack show a clear theme and relate to eachother and my video.

Overall i am pleased with how my media products have turned out. I feel i have achieved what i wanted whilst sticking to the rock genre theme. And that i have portrayed a different style of media product will sticking to the music genre theme to most videos that are out now.

Evaluation 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

From the feedback that I obtained from my blog, I was able to get an understanding into how other people saw my music video. Because the comments came from other media students, I knew the feedback would be useful to me, as they know what to look for in a media product. Whether it be the different camera angles or the mise en scene they were commenting on they knew what to look for.

 

I feel it is important to have an open mind in terms of feedback because you do need to take in the positive and negative comments in order to progress with anything. So although I obviously wanted people to write positive comments, I also was curious to fund out what other people felt I could improve on. From the comments I did get however, most of them were mainly positive.

 

A lot of people commented on my use of mise en scene, they found the story very easy to follow and understand. This was very important to me because during my planning stage, that was what I aimed to do. I wanted to create a music video that did not include lip singing, I wanted to create a story through the mise en scene and have it relate to the lyrics. So I was really pleased with those comments, as it was me who set up the video. There were so many shots that I did not use and cut out during the editing stage, because I felt that they did not go well with the story or the video. I put the whole video together how I wanted, so if people didn’t like it then it would have been down to me. The only negative comment I did get from one student was that they felt some of the shots were a bit random and did not go well with the video or the story. Seeing as this was just the opinion of one person I am going to see it as their own opinion, I understand that not everyone is going to have something positive to say. As the majority of people who have seen my video don’t share the same view as that one person.

 

The black white theme I decided to use throughout the video was intended to link with the story, lyrics and mood of the song. To me I see black and white as being a void of emotions, and taking the colour out I felt made the video seem more dream like which is how I wanted it to look. A lot of the comments again said how they loved the black and white theme and felt it works really well with the mise en scene and my story. The location that I filmed my music video was in a Georgian Manor Mansion, which was perfect for what I wanted. On the day of filming I was met with snow, which I did not know would benefit me or be a disadvantage. But now I feel the snow worked well with the black and white theme, and also went well with the sense of coldness and lack of emotion the subject was trying to portray.

 

I did get a lot of comments about my use of camera angles, I did include a lot of close ups as I wanted the focus to be on the face of my artist as the emotions at times had to be quite extravagant. I wanted people to read the emotion on her face clearly. My use of wide shots I used was following the subject on her journey and to show the setting, location and costume. A lot of people did comment on that I had a good medium of different camera angles, which is good because I wanted people to see the skills I have learnt.

 

Overall I am very happy with the comments I have been given, I feel that I am able to see how I have improved and how my skills in media have progressed based on the feedback I have been given. Having people notice and appreciate my own media product the same way I saw it, and also learning that there are ways for me to improve. And I am going to continue to improve and learn from this so that I can progress.

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

Without the technology that i have been taught how to use, I would not have been able to create my media product to the standard that I have. This includes an HD camera, an Apple Mac computer that consisted of Premiere Pro, After Effects and Photoshop. This is software that I am not able to get a hold of outside of school, and before hand I had no knowledge or skills with any of them. So without them I could not even think of how or what I would have used, as they influenced my media product and helped develop my ideas more due what was available to me.

 

Without After Effects I would not have been able to include any of the effects that I used, I would have been forced to have had a color video, there would have been no overlapping effects or any fading effects at all. So without it I would have been at a serious loss if the technology at hand were not as advanced as it was.

 

Without the social networking sites I would not have been able to have made contact with the artist I wanted, for permission to use their song in my video. I would have had to use a local band who more than likely not a lot of people would have heard of, I would have had to majorly search for an artists and a song that I did not know to fit with the story I had in mind from my planning and construction stages. To have that idea in my mind of what I wanted, I knew the song I was going to use as soon as I decided on the mise en scene. Without it my entire video would not have worked and I don’t know how my video would have turned out.

 

If I did not have the Premiere Pro software I would not have been able to construct my video in the way that I have done. I would not have been able to separate the good footage to the bad so easily, and would probably not have included certain effects that I did choose from testing them out on different frames. Not having it would have made editing very difficult, and the process would have taken a lot longer than it did, which would have taken time away from my supporting products.

 

Having access to HD Video cameras made it a lot easier to film my music video. The quality of the cameras are so advanced to what I have seen before, they make the look of the film to a high standard and the images that you capture are high-quality.

 

Being able to access social networking sites such as Facebook, My blogger and Youtube I was able to display my media product to a mass of people. This widens my target audience to anyone with access to these sites all over the world, reaching people who I would not have been able to do without these resources. To get my video noticed without technology would have meant a lot of paper work such as posters and advertisement. This also helped me with my feedback because Facebook, Youtube and Blogger allow people to post comments. Without it I would have had to personally obtain feedback which would have limited my evaluation.

 

 

Editting My Digi Pack

My Synopsis

Music Video Analysis: Justin Timberlake (Cry Me A River)

Music Video Analysis: Lady GaGa Poker Face

Experimenting with Photoshop

Photoshop Trial

Possible Album Covers

Existing Products

In order for me to create my own media product, i had to research existing products that are currently out at the moment. Here i have taken screenshots of album covers, the official websites and their Facebook page. In order to promote themselves and their media products, their websites are a reflection of their work. Using the same supporting pictures, texts, colours and fonts which all link back when recognised to their album cover. Making their work recognisable to their target audience is important and is supporting to the media product they are promoting currently.

I decided to use four of the most successful female recording artists in the industry today. 

Alexandra Burke 

Leona Lewis

Cheryl Cole

Beyonce

Other Media Advertisements

My Target Audience

My Storyboard

The video opens up with an extreme close up of the subject, and all you see is her eyes and a tear begin to roll down her cheek. Her eyes are big and have heavy eye make up which emphasises the emotion.

The next shot sees the subject lying in a bath tub with bubbles, just showing the top half of her body. On a wide shot you begin to see blood coming to the surface, and the subject holds her wounds.

The next sequence of shot is where the subject appears to be going back in time looking back at what has happens. On a wide shot you see a re wind of events. 

Here you have another wide shot of the male figure playing the drums, this gives off the idea of a real music video showing a real artist. 

This is an over the shoulder shot where the subject's back is facing the camera, as the shot progresses the camera focuses on her hand touching the picture and zooms in.

This shot is taken from indoors watching the subject outside through the window, a wide shot jsut showing the top half of her body giving the sense of a haunting and stalker like charchater.

A tight frame showing the two figures standing next to each other, showing a sense of companionship, being in love and a relationship. This scene is a look back at past events. 

Another over the shoulder shot, having the subjects back towards the camera facing the mirror. As the shot progesses the frame zooms in coser, the intention of this shot is a self awareness where the subject comes to terms with herself and her emotions. 

The extreme cloe up of the scissors is the shot which the viewer realises that the subject is attemtpting suicide. Flash backing to the beggining shots in the video we now learn why there was blood in the bath.

This over the shoulder shot sees the subject looking at herself dead in the bath, giving off the idea of a ghostly spiritual presense with effects she is seeing what we have seen.

Video closes with shot of the subjects eyes opening wide, fading in slowly you get the idea that she is waking up from a dream.

Lyrics:Evanescence – Bring me to life

Schedule of appearences, gigs and media interviews.