The Last Hurrah

My media product is a pop video to complement the song “Lets Get Outta Here”, originally by the band Madina Lake. When creating any media product, a director must decide what the meaning of the product is. This meaning is then put over by the form and content of the media product, in this case the 5 technical areas of media language, these five technical areas are; camera, editing, sound, special effects and Mise-en-scène. My pop video itself contained 2 meanings, one about the song itself and the other about the band that it featured. The meaning of the song was that society is twisted and wrong, and that the band wanted to escape from it. The meaning for the band was that they are young, rebellious and anti-authoritarian. Media language was vital in creating these two meanings.

Throughout our pop video, many different aspects of camerawork were used. We heavily featured the singer in close-ups of his face, an example being the close-up of him just after the band have begun to play. Close-ups help to establish a degree of intimacy with whoever is featured in them. Close-ups also allow us to see details such as the facial expression of a person. This helped us to reinforce the meaning of the song, as the angry, twisted facial expressions of our singer matched the aggressive meaning of the song. A master shot is a shot that you revert back to in a media product as a “safe” shot. Our master shot in our video was a wide shot of the whole band performing. This shot helped to create the idea that the band are a strong unit and stick together. Camera angle also affects how an audience views an artist – those who are shot flat-on appear boring while an artist shot at an angle seems to be more 3D and interesting. During several shots we filmed our band from an extreme angle – almost filming them from the side. This added to the meaning of the band, as they appeared not to care about the audience on the other side of the camera, effectively ignoring it.

Editing is another important part of shaping how the meaning of a media product gets to the audience. We used two types of editing in out video – continuity and discontinuity editing. Continuity editing is where you edit a sequence together so that it appears like an actual, flowing string of events. The example of this would be our performance element, in which little changed yet it continued to make sense as the video progressed. Discontinuity editing is almost the exact opposite, where a sequence is edited so that things are in a jumbled-up order, nothing is constant and it can become confusing for the audience. We used this type of editing in our narrative element, where it would jump from location to location, sometimes revisiting previously featured places, but with things moved around. This helped to bolster the meaning of the song, that the world is a confusing, strange place. The only transitions that we used in our video were cuts. We cut to the beat at a fast pace, as the song itself was fast. We also used a blue screen when making our video. This helped us to create a situation that it would not have been possible to recreate in real life. The crime scene photos that we added to the blue screen in editing contributed to violent message of the song. We also superimposed several images on the screen during the performance parts of our video. This helped us to cement the meaning of the band as a group, but also as individuals, as the shots consisted of a wide shot, but also close-ups of each separate member.

From audience feedback, we now know which technical areas worked from an audiences perspective and which did not. Many people said that our editing was far too repetitive and showed the same places more than once in a strange order. This however is the nature of discontinuity editing, but was clearly not understood by our audience.

An Audio Commentary of our Pop Video

Here is an audio commentary to accompany our Pop Video. In it, the other members of my group and I discuss different technical aspects of the video and why we made certain creative choices, to connate meaning.

Task 4 - A director’s commentary on how I used new media technologies in the creation of my Media Product

New media technologies are pieces of technology that make the modern production of media products significantly easier than it was in the past. A large part of this has been the introduction of mainstream digital programming, which has allowed us to make digital versions of popular and useful analogue products. During the production of our latest media product, a pop promo video, we made extensive use of new media technologies during all stages of production including: research and development, planning, shoot day, post production and distribution and evaluation.

During research and development, we got ourselves into groups (ours consisting of 3 people) and began to plan our pop video. We made extensive use of the internet to research existing bands and pop videos, using YouTube and various music websites such as NME and Ultimate Guitar.

The front page of NME.com

During the creation of our band and pop video idea, we used our schools intranet system to look at a list of pictures of students, enabling us to pick out those that most fitted the “image” of our band. We also used school email accounts to help circulate and pass on information that we gathered together in the planning stage. Another system that we used for storing information was our schools SharePoint software, which allowed each member of the group to upload our download files in a communal folder. This meant we could each get on with a specific aspect of the task, then upload to SharePoint it and allow others to download it and make revisions. After making the idea concrete, and selecting members for our band, we decided to camera test them. The purpose of a camera test is to make sure that a person looks good on camera and will “look the part” in the finished product. We used a Sony PD170 digital video camera for our camera tests, due to its portability and its ease of use. While we were constructing our set in preparation for our shoot day, we took pictures using a digital still camera in order to keep track of what we were doing for later on in production.

A still from one of our camera tests.

Our shoot day would have been an almost impossible task in the days of analogue filming, but was helped along through significant use of new media technologies. A central part of our idea was the split screen, and so decided to use 4 cameras to shoot on the day. These cameras were 3 Sony PD170’s and 1 JVC1500E.

A picture from our shoot day showing our 4 camera rig in action.

If we were using traditional analogue technology, each camera would have needed several operators and would not have been able to shoot for several hours at a time as we did, as the cameras would have overheated and the film inside may have melted. Luckily, using these new cameras we could operate all 4 with only 2 members of dedicated camera crew for extended periods of time without stopping. In a normal film, shots are usually about 7-20 seconds in length. In a pop video however, they are much shorter, usually averaging at about 4 seconds. When shooting, a production crew will usually work out the “shot ratio” – the number of shots you need to shot compared to the number you will actually use in the final product. Due to the fast nature of our video we decided to use quicker shots and therefore needed more footage. We worked out our ratio to be about 10:1, and shot over 600 shots on the 4 cameras during the course of the day. These high ratios are possible only due to the ease of use of modern camera technology, as the cameras we used were light and portable, so we could set up for each shot very quickly and start shooting almost straight after setting up the tripod. Another piece of new media technology we used on our shoot day was a blue screen, enabling us to add digital effects during the post-production process.

Using a plasma screen TV as a live monitor during our shoot day to ensure proper shot composition - another example of using New Media Technologies in the production of our Product.

After we shot all the film we needed on the shoot day, we moved on to post-production, which we began minutes after we finished shooting. On the cameras we used, the tapes could be digitised onto the computers we used for editing with ease, and we began this process soon after shooting. This would have been inconceivable using old technology, where the film would have had to have been sent off to a lab to be developed, and then sent back to the filmmakers for editing. We then set to work on editing the actual video, using Final Cut Pro to piece all the footage together into a rough timeline.

The editing screen in Final Cut Pro

We then transferred our footage into Adobe After Effects, and used this to stitch the footage into the 3 piece shot in the background of the video. We also used After Effects to add the moving close up of various members of the band and the effects on the blue screen footage that we shot. In order to keep to the strict deadline we had set ourselves, we used mobile phones and email to keep in constant contact and arrange when we were next going to edit our product. After completing our video, we uploaded it to the popular video sharing YouTube, in order to gather feedback from the wider viewing community. We also created a magazine advert and 4 page CD Digipak using photos we had taken on our digital stills camera during the shoot day and editing them on Adobe Photoshop. The Digipak that we made was all in black and white and featured the 4 members of the band prominently. The use of black and white with shadows gave the band a dark, menacing image.

The front cover of our CD Digipak

We also used new media technologies to record and produce an audio commentary to accompany our video, which you can watch below:

The whole process of creating our product relied heavily on new media technologies, as I have documented. To say that we would not have been able to create our product without new media technology however is untrue. Filmmakers have been using analogue technology for over half a century and many incredible and timeless pieces of cinema have been made using analogue systems. However, the analogue method of producing video is very slow and consumes huge amount of resources. In today’s financial climate, the market for pop videos is rapidly dwindling, and therefore it is very important to make pop videos fast and cheap to make. New media technologies allow us to speed up the whole process of creating a pop video, and allow a very small team of relative amateurs to create something incredible that would have taken a huge team of industry professional’s months to do on older technology.

Task 3 - What I learnt from my audience feedback

After completing the production of our pop video and ancillary texts, we collected audience feedback from a variety of sources, including a focus group and data from YouTube, which are the two types of audience feedback I will concentrate when trying to answer this question. Our target audience was 16-25 year old males and females from JICTAR groups C, D and E. Stereotypically, groups C, D and E are less educated and from a poorer socio-economic background, but these social categories are big spenders on pop music and related merchandise. C are people who are skilled but not academically educated, such as plumbers and electricians. D are families and people who labour and E are the unemployed.After completion, our pop video was uploaded onto the popular video-sharing website YouTube. YouTube is often used by members of our target audience, either for casual browsing or when actively searching for something to watch. Using YouTube Insight (a piece of demographic software on the website), we were able to find out what kind of people were watching our video, and where they were viewing it from. From these results, we were clearly able to see that our video was attracting the type of target audience that it was pitched at – almost all of the people that viewed it were under the age 30. However, due to a copyright issue the soundtrack of our pop video was removed by the record company whose music we used.

This meant that we had no comments on our YouTube video. Therefore we decided to use a focus group to gain the kind of comments we would have got off YouTube, but in more detail.



Our focus group was comprised of an opportunity sample of nine 16-19 year olds, 5 females and 4 males. We sat them down in a room and let them watch our pop video through. Afterwards, they were asked a number of questions which were discussed in an informal group chat, and noted down. The questions follow below:

1) Did you enjoy the video? Why/Why not?
2) What do you think the message of the video is?
3) How do you think the band is represented?
4) Is there a typical band image?
5) Is the video effective?6) How effective if the opening shot?
7) What did you think of the performance element?
8) And the narrative?
9) How effective was the use of the blue screen?
10) If you could change anything about the video, what would it be?

I decided to use a focus group rather than a questionnaire for two reasons. First, with a focus group you can keep people to the subject, make sure they take it seriously and ask additional questions. With a questionnaire, people may not pay that much attention and will only answer the questions asked, limiting the amount the data that you can collect. Secondly, a focus group gives you more “life and feel" for audience reactions to a pop video like ours.Before discussing the answers we got to our focus group questions, it is appropriate to talk about some media theorists who have been influential in the area of audience. Stuart Hall said that media texts are sub- and consciously “encoded” by people when consuming media. Media is subconsciously encoded with the values and beliefs of those that produce it, usually in western society meaning white, middle class men. But as we know, audiences are not composed of entirely white, middle class men and so many interpret or “decode” the media text in different ways. This process can have one of three possible outcomes: The preferring meaning (where the audience member wholly accepts the meaning that the media producer is trying to get across), the oppositional meaning (where the audience member rejects all of the meaning that the media producer is trying to get across) or the negotiated meaning (where the audience member accepts some of the preferred meaning, but not all of it).



The preferred overall meaning of our video was that society is a corrupt, violent place. A member of our focus group said, in response to question 2 that:

“I think it might be something to do with corruption or madness. The message is something to do with the faults of the world”

This is a negotiated meaning of what we were trying to get across, as they understood that general message of the world being at fault but did not totally understand the intricacies of what were trying to say. In previous work, I have talked about the band star image, which the video tries to show. The star image of our band is that they are aggressive, anti-authoritarian and generally rebellious. Almost everyone in our focus group picked this up form the video, as demonstrated brilliantly by the following quote:

“The performers are rebellious against society and very in your face, maybe even a bit aggressive, while their performance shows sheer rebellion”

We tried to use the blue screen to realistically construct old crimes scenes without the logistical nightmare of trying to construct one using materials and build it ourselves. The idea of this was to construct an “alternate reality” for the narrative element which was believable and interesting. We were given positive feedback on this by several members of the group:

“It worked well with your concept and it looks pretty believable that the singer is actually at the scene of the crime”

However, as was expected, not everything the group said was positive. It is important to have constructive criticism, so you can evaluate your own product and know what to do better next time around. Many people commented on our choice of lead singer:

“I would have liked to have seen more shots of the band collectively. I also think the bassist’s looks would be more effective for a lead singer”

We spent a lot of time looking for a singer and decided on the boy that we found as we thought his looks were most suitable. However, it is clear that our target audience thought that the bassist would have fitted the image of singer better. In fact, the bassist proved to be a very popular member of the group:

“I’d like to have seen more of the bassist as he has a good way of moving and seems very energetic”




Blumler & Katz also have a major theory about how media texts affect or are read by their audience. As with Stuart Hall, Blumler & Katz write about television news. But I think that the theory can be as usefully applied to other media texts including pop videos. They created a model that claimed that audiences are active consumers of media – they chose and consume different products to satisfy certain needs and gratifications – which they aptly called “the uses and gratifications model”. They said that there were several different uses and gratifications including: Diversion – using media to escape everyday life, Personal Relationships – feeling a sense of attachment with figures in the media, and discussing them with our peer group, Personal Identity – comparing your own life with that of a media character, and applying their experiences and situation to your own life and Surveillance – using the media for information about what is going on in the world. The two concepts that would be most relevant to audiences from our pop video would be diversion and personal relationships. Clearly our pop video is entertaining through its performance and narrative. While we give the audience four characters of their own age, who have star quality of youthfulness and rebelliousness in Dyer’s terms, which is an element that the audience would want as a matter of personal identity. The group are also clearly concerned with serious matters and again our pop video puts that over for an audience which is also concerned with social issues etc. Many people watch music videos on the internet when bored, or just for fun. Arguably the most useful aspect of music videos from the point of view of a record company is that it will attract interest in an artist, and bring in more fans. The Personal Relationships aspect of the model also helps to add to an artists star image, as I have discussed in previous work.

Stuart Hall also has a theory about social mapping. This revolves around the idea that all of us have individual parcels if you like of interests and concerns. For my target audience this might be love, romance, rebelliousness, youthfulness, being anti-authoritarian and just being a bit “wild”. We took account of this theory in our production by trying to appeal to these elements in peoples social maps. Largely it worked as when I asked my focus group an additional question about this and explained social mapping to them, 8 of the 9 agreed we had triggered interest from their individual social maps. Grace, an energetic 18 year old girl summarised their reaction when she said:

“Rebelliousness, youthfulness, the serious issue of crime and I think corruption, which I hate, were all in the video – along with a great performance from the band – so I think it hit my social map really well”.

Task 2 - Richard Dyer and our Artist's "Star Image"

Blog Essay 2

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Task 1 - In what way do your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Pop videos, like any form of media product in the world have certain conventions that immediately signify to the viewer that they are viewing a pop video. These conventions are; The explicit and unashamed promotion of the artist’s brand or “star image”, the heavy featuring of the artist (almost without exception), a wide and extensive use of shot types, camera angles and movement, repetition of reoccurring thematic elements and generically specific iconography (with one element sometimes forming the whole structure of the video), a possible narrative structure, a possible performance element, the flexibility to disregard Realism, shots cut tightly to the beat of the track, the use of special effects (including the use of computers), a carefully constructed Mise en Scene appropriate to the content and tone of the track and instant high impact.


Two of these conventions which are used by many pop videos either on their own or together are a performance element, featuring either the singer or the band or a narrative structure, following some kind of story. Within these two elements, another convention is the flexibility to disregard realism, for instance having the band playing their performance element on the wing of an aircraft. Other conventions include cutting the shots to the beat of the track, the use of special effects or CGI and an extensive amount of shot types, camera angles and camera movement.


On the front cover of our CD Digipak (above), the whole band is featured. The colour scheme of the picture used is black and white, which gives the whole scene a dark, brooding mood. The mood is how we want to portray our band – younger, brooding men with an air of mysteriousness about them. We have used the rules of x and y axis to position our lead singer the closest to the camera. X & Y is a film making rule that says if a person is on the left, they are good and if they are on the right, they are bad. This is a convention of album covers, as it shows the singer to be the “front man” and most important member of the band. The whole band are positioned as a group, aside from the bassist, who we positioned slightly to the right of the other members. This was because when someone is put to the right of the frame, they are represented as slightly “edgy” and dangerous. He is also showing an example of diagetic gaze – looking within the frame, which gives an air of mystery, while the rest of the band are looking directly at the camera – non-diagetic gazes. Usually on an album cover, the whole band will all have a diagetic or non diagetic gaze. In giving one member of the band a different gaze to the rest, we are breaking a convention. An example of all the members of a band displaying diagetic gazes can be seen on the cover of the Artic Monkey’s album “Humbug” (see below).





The back cover of our Digipack (see above) kept with the same colour scheme as the front cover and also featured all the band members. We used the same lettering on the back cover as we did on the front, to keep continuity. The lettering that we picked is bold, capitalised and brash, which is the image we would like our band to have – they are loud and uncompromising. We have also put all the names of the songs on the album in the top left corner, which, according to the rule of thirds is where we first start viewing a picture. This means that as soon as turning over the Digipack to view the back cover, they would see all the song titles, with the leading single, “Let’s Get Outta Here” – which we produced our pop video for – at the top of the list. One again, the singer is singled out from the rest of the band by him being propped up on the wall while the rest of the band are sprawled on the floor. This cements in people’s minds that the singer is the most important member of the band. However, this is breaking a convention of album covers featuring bands, as most musicians try to present themselves as equals, despite connotations to the contrary (e.g. The bassist is the quietest/most boring/least important band member). Other album covers that prominently feature the singer over other members of the band include Blondie’s “Autoamerican”.




The above shot is from the opening 19 seconds of our video. On the left hand side of the screen, taking up a significant portion of the frame is the face of our singer. This uses the rule of thirds. The rules dictates that the viewer looks from the left, one thid of the way down the scrren., over to the right. Our shot has the face of the singer on the first “hotspot” which is a key convention we are following. Being the first member of the band to be shown on screen also establishes him as the most important member of the band, and therefore the one the audience will observe most closely. The background of the video is set we constructed. This set is a grimy street scene, which fits in with the slightly dangerous image the band is trying to portray. This uses a convention of pop videos, where the set enhances or shows the audience what the group is like.



In this shot, we can see that the bassist has been placed on the right of the frame. This is because when people are put on the right of the frame they are seen as dangerous or edgy. This is the brand we are trying to create for our group, but especially the bass player. This frame also demonstrates the wide variety of shot types that we used during this filming of our pop video. We have the close up of the bassists face, the wide shot of the band and a mid shot of the drummer on the right hand side of the frame. During the course of our shoot, we shot at least 60 different shots for the entirety of the song, and used almost all of them in our pop video.



In the shot above, we can see both the fretboard of the guitar and bass. This creates an interesting shape for viewers to watch. Showing guitarists of bassists fretboards as they play there instruments is also a convention of pop video making that we stuck to. However, the main purpose of this shot was to lead the viewer’s eye. Your eye naturally follows up the fretboard, leading left to right until you reach the playing hand of the guitarist near the top. When you reach here, the video cuts to the singer standing in one of the crime scene photos, with his face exactly where your eye was a few milliseconds previously. This is a convention used in many pop videos, and is useful way of getting your audience to look at what you want them to look at, not whatever takes their fancy.



In the above shot, the singer is using direct address to talk directly to the audience. This gives him a sense of power as he is not trying to hide the fact his is delivering a serious hard-hitting message straight to a group of people. This shot also very nicely illustrates the split screen feature, which is a large part of video idea and a recurring thematic element, another convention of pop videos. This shot also nicely shows the performance element of our video, which featured all 4 members of the band playing their various instruments. This is a common convention of a pop video which we decided to use, due to the instrument-heavy sound of our chosen track.



This frame shows the narrative part of our storyline, which centered around our lead singer walking through crime scene photos by the famous photographer Weegee. This is a convention of pop videos that we kept to, in order to create a dynamic and interesting product. This frame also shows two other conventions of pop videos. It uses special effects, as we shot this whole sequence of narrative events on a blue screen, and then edited it together in post-production. Another convention shown by this shot is a disregard for realism, as there is no possible way that the singer of our band could have traveled back in time to the 1930s.

Our Pop Video - The Final Cut

And here, for your viewing pleasure is the end production of all our hard work.

I give you, Let's Get Outta Here: