For my A2 Media post modern narrative of the Cinderella story for my final product. Instead of being told through Cinderella's point of view, the narrative is told through the prince's eyes. Most R'n'B music videos involving male singers were about a man chasing a girl. I developed the narrative of a chase by making it into a parody. The music video follows some of the traditional conventions of an R'n'B video because it is based on the singer chasing this sexy woman that he sees from a resturant window.
In the essay "Visual Pleasue and Narrative Cinema", Laura Muvley introduced the concept of The Male Gaze as a feature of power asymmetry. The concept has been strongly influential on feminist film theory and media studies.In film, the male gaze occurs when the audience is put into the perspective of a heterosexual man. A scene may linger on the curves of a woman's body, for instance. Mulvey argues that in mainstream cinema, the male gaze typically takes precedence over the female gaze. My music video is based on the male gaze, In feminist theory, the male gaze expresses an asymmetric (unequal) power relationship, between viewer and viewed, gazer and gazed, i.e. man imposes his unwanted (objectifying) gaze upon woman. I created a comic styled music video which mocked the Cinderella story, the male artist is sent o a quest by his friends to get Cinderella's phone number in order to get a free Happy Meal from McDonalds from his friends. Most R'n'B video's about love and affection for the opposite sex. However in my media product, the love and attraction is for food. This is where the parody comes in, I remembered studying a postmodern music video called 'No Chicken' In this video we find two singers singing about chicken that has finished in Chicken Cottage.
For my album cover I wanted to make it a little bit different from the music video by using animation. I wanted a cartoon themed album cover and booklet because it linked to Disney's cinderella story. But most of the r'n'b album covers were not animated and were based on the male gaze where sexy women were on the front or the singers were half naked or dressed in stylish clothing doing sexy poses. So I decided to focus on male album covers seeing as my artist was male. I looked at Usher's 'Here I stand' album cover and I saw that it was very plain and boring. I also felt that this was the case with Lynden David Halls 'Medicine for my pain' album. Here we see him sitting down and just gazing into the camera. Just like Usher his album had a sense of sex appeal. However, because my music video is post-modern I wanted to make a post modern album cover that rejected all of the normal conventions of a typical r'n'b cover. I then did some research on r'n'b front covers by going onto 'Google' this was where I came across Kanye West's album cover for 'Graduation' he uses animation to create an unusual yet tasteful album cover using vibrant colours unlike the two above. I then looked at Mika's first album cover to get more ideas on animated album covers.
My tasks were all affective as a combination because each task promotes each other. My main task helps to advertise the artist and creates entertainment for the audience. The CD booklet helps to promote the artist and his work and the poster helps to promote the ancillary task 1 and the artist. I re-drafted the beginning of my music video. I added parts to the beginning, I added 4 blank screens and attached font to them. I using the sliding effect for this so each clips slid into the other. The first slide said 'Colombia records presents...' this made my music video look more realistic. I had seen this being done in many music videos that I had seen whilst watching tv at home. Most music video's introduce the artist and the record label. In all my products I used the record label trade marks to show that they were all linked.
For my album cover I wanted to make it a little bit different from the music video by using animation. I wanted a cartoon themed album cover and booklet because it linked to Disney's cinderella story. But most of the r'n'b album covers were not animated and were based on the male gaze where sexy women were on the front or the singers were half naked or dressed in stylish clothing doing sexy poses. So I decided to focus on male album covers seeing as my artist was male. I looked at Usher's 'Here I stand' album cover and I saw that it was very plain and boring. I also felt that this was the case with Lynden David Halls 'Medicine for my pain' album. Here we see him sitting down and just gazing into the camera. Just like Usher his album had a sense of sex appeal. However, because my music video is post-modern I wanted to make a post modern album cover that rejected all of the normal conventions of a typical r'n'b cover. I then did some research on r'n'b front covers by going onto 'Google' this was where I came across Kanye West's album cover for 'Graduation' he uses animation to create an unusual yet tasteful album cover using vibrant colours unlike the two above. I then looked at Mika's first album cover to get more ideas on animated album covers.
I used a Canon video camera and tripod, I used a Canon DC19 camcorder instead because I had watched ThomasVinterberg's 'Festen' (1998). Vinterberg created a 'Dogme 95 manifesto' which were rules to create filmmaking based on the traditional values of story, acting and theme, and excluding the use of elaborate special effects or technology. 'Festen' was filmed entirely with a hand held camera it had no special effects and it looked very cheap and low budgeted. But despite all of that the movie was a success and I decided that I wanted to follow parts of Vinterberg's manifesto and use a hand held camera to film my whole video.
My music video followed Thomas Vinterberg’s Dogme 95 manifesto. The constant use on hand held camera is used because I did not want to use a tripod when filming. Vinterberg’s ‘Festen’ was made in 1998. The hand held camera emphasised the realism so I used this so that my audience could relate to it more. By uploading my footage onto Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5, by using this I was able to select clips buy using the in put and out put tool and put it into my time line. My music video is a paradoxical product because it mocks the fairytale institution. In fairy tales the princes are set on quests and they always succeed. Whereas in my music video the prince is set up for a failed quest.
Here is a clip from Thomas Vinterberg's 'Festen'.
Below are my finished Digi-packs:
CD BACK COVER:
POSTER:
For my ancillary products and my final tasks, I used the same fonts for example all three products were written in the same style. The track listings on the back cover and the artists name, the itroduction of the artist
in the main task were done in the same font to show the link. The fairy tale narrative links to the animated album and poster because the are all based on a cartoon. I wanted to keep the story like theme going.
My target audience was young people male and female between the ages of 18-25. They would be a crowd that prefer R'n'B especially, the would be the crowd that prefers to buy albums rather than down load the music from the internet. They would prefer a music video that consisted of love, comedy and drama instead of a music video that contained violence. My target audience would be a crowd of people who liked buying posters. For an album cover they preferred one that had animated pictures and had a variety of pictures and colours. My target audience usually watched their music videos on tv rather than watching them on the internet. Lastly they preferred posters that showed the artist posing which promotes their album and that is very colourful. My final products represented them because it was youthful and attractive. The scenery th I had scenery that chosen reflected them because it was in he middle of croydon. Young adults of that age are into r'nb and sensual music. My target auhe events that had taken place audience could relate to the events that had taken place because they had all been in the same situation before. For boys, they had failed to get the attention of a girl and for the girls they had been persued by a young man before. My ancillary tasks were modern and it reflected the personalities of my target audience. My target audience were happy with my final products because it offered them a change in terms of narrative. My main task wasnt about a happy ending, it was about the protagonist losing. It presented the audience with a music video that wasn't about sex and drugs but it was about love.
Below is what my final version of what my music video looked like:
