Planning - Justification for my narrative structure.

I have almost finished the narrative side of my rough cut, and showed it to my teacher, who said the narrative was a little 'samey'. I think this is a fair point, and will try to put in a few more experimental shots / a climax to the narrative (as outlined in todrov's theory). However, my inspiration for the narrative came from 'Love The Way You Lie' (Eminem and Rihanna) and Rihanna's 'We Found Love', both of which have narrative structure similar to mine in the way it repeats to show the monotony and predicatbility of the relationship.

Ancillary Task Production - Audience Feedback

Page from the booklet containing
my thoughts for the inside
and back covers, with audience
opinions and comments for
improvement and editing.

A typical page from the booklet, with
the most popular image (top) and audience
comments for editing and improvement.

The front cover of my booklet

I made my original photography for my digi-pack into a 7 page 'mini-booklet' of photos, and over the past week, have been asking members of my target audience for feedback, and their own personal preferences. This exersize has allowed me to create something that my key demographic want, and something that will sell. Above are some sample images from my booklet.

Theory Research - The Representation of Gender in You Me At Six videos. (Stay With Me).

Stay with Me was You Me At Six's fourth official single, directed by Frank Borin and shot in California. In terms of narrative and musical genre, it is the closest song to Finder's Keepers, both of which feature narrative and performance elements, and were released as acoustic tracks later on. Also similar to Finder's Keepers, both songs were written by the band's lead singer and are about relationships breaking down; making it an obvious choice to have my target demographic look at.

We first thought that the video was going to use some of Propp's character types, with regard to the 'villain' and the 'damsel in distress' character as shown through one of the opening shots. By having the boy in the car in silhouette and behind the girls, nearly out of the frame, it gave a 'stalker' impression. The girls in the focus group also noted how the focus of the camera is pulled to the car to emphasize that it's there, giving power and dominance to the male character. The boys commented on the feminine way in which the female was presented; long hair and a pale pink strap top, connoting innocence. Both genders agreed that it was an interesting opening as it left the audience memebers wondering as opposed to spelling the story out straight away; something which I must consider whilst composing and finishing off my opening sequence.

My focus group were then quite suprised by how the video progressed. The male protagonist appeared to be burying an old photograph, which gave us some background context to the situation, something both genders of my focus group liked. By placing him centre frame the boys commented on how he had power and was the one effectively getting rid of the relationship, but the girls argued that, with the context provided by the use of mise en scene, he appeared to be more defenceless and hurt than previously thought.

As the two stills on the left show, girls were presented as innocent and youthful throughout, which contrasted with the presentation of the boy, who was forcefully burying the photo of his past, the two girls seem to be much more nostaligic, the mise en scene of the teddy bear from childhood; connoting memories she perhaps can't let go of, and the framing of the close up, the laying down shows weakness perhaps, or how emotion takes over females much more than in men. Both genders said how this was nearly always the case in both film and music videos of this genre, and said that they would quite like it to be the other way round for a change. However the girls did say that the male protagonist in the video wasn't coming across as heartless, he had clear emotion, which they found to be an endearing trait.

We decided that the representation was a lot less controverisal than that of 'Save It For The Bedroom', however we all agreed that perhaps a 'role reversal' in the respect of the damsel in distress character would be interesting and welcomed in most cases. I personally also learnt that the narrative structure of You Me At Six's videos tends to be fairly simplistic, and not massively adventurous, something I must remember to adhere to in my editing process.

Theory Research - The Representation of Gender in You Me At Six's Videos (Save It For The Bedroom).

Released in 2008 (in the same album as 'finders keepers'), 'Save it for the bedroom' was You Me At Six's first single to bring them fame. The genre is a mixture of narrative and performance; the narrative being a parodoxical, vertical intertextual reference to popula talk and help shows such as Jeremy Kyle or Jerry Springer.

In order to gain my target audience's thoughts to ensure I met them within my own piece, I called together a small 'focus group' of four people; two boys and two girls in my year; selected because they all listen to alternative and acoustic music, and are familiar with the band already. To aid me in the selction process, I looked at YouTube's audience demographic figures for You Me At SAix's 'Finders Keppers', and made sure my focus group met the criteria in terms of age and gender. I am going to show them all three of my chosen videos as well as my own piece to really see whether it meets their needs.

Upon first viewing of the video, all of us noticed that all of the protagonists were male, even the 'females'.
Although at first we found this funny, one of the girls admitted she found it slightly unfair that women were not representing themselves, hence representing them as weaker in some form. After discussing this further, we thought that the paradigms creating the representation of women; the gender of the actors, the mise-en-scene in terms of costume and location, and how they were always the complaining characters, never the 'problem' created connotations of women always nagging at the men in their lives; a fairly stereotypical represention. It also showed them to be negative and it encouraged us to laugh at, not with, them. Even though the cross dressing element was amusing, both genders agreed that it wouldn't be appropriate for my video as the tone and subject matter is slightly more serious than this one, and it could cause offence within my demographic. One thing we all agreed on though, was that (like Propp's Character Theory States), the women are always presented as the 'damsels in distress', and we thought that it'd be best to adhere to this theory, as it makes the audience feel slightly more empathic toward her. However, the boys in my focus group thought that it'd be better if I made the man more 'the damsel in distress', as it would add interest and be a bit more diverse. To meet their needs I have taken footage of both characters in distress, and both fighting with eachother - putting forward a more un-biased view regarding the stages of teenage relationships.

We thought the representation of men was cleverly thought out. The band had taken stereotypical aspects of a man's life and created a parody of them. For example, the cultural myth of a dog being man's best friend was dragged out to extremes with the storyline 'my husband's having an affair with our dog', and, even though men were obviously being mocked, the boy's found this funny. By over-exagurrating the problems associated with men, it creates a polysemic effect: either women are too fussy, or men don't listen enough and end up at the extreme.

Overall, we decided that the representation was over-exagurated, but true to stereotypes of the genders. My focus group liked the idea of having the characters in sadness, as it makes them easy to relate to, but the parody wasn't suitable for my own work due to the tone of my song and it's lyrics.

Editing - Syncing Clips

Today I begun editing my rough cut. After importing all my files (including music) to Final Cut, I then had to decide which clips to use for the opening shot, as my original idea turned out not to work well enough. I decided to have my performer as the establishing shot, followed by a clip of the protagonists arguing to establish the characters and their relationship to the audience, this clip was a little dark so I changed the highlight levels to make it slightly lighter, and I slowed the clip down to 60% to make it seem more dramatic (and fit with the beat better). I managed to sync the footage fairly well, it's not perfect, but I think it's best to first do a rough cut and then finish it off once all the clips are in place.

Editing - Flashback Clips

Whilst waiting for my performance clips to convert to the correct file type for final cut, I decided to put my flashback style clips into sepia, this makes them look like a memory as opposed to reality. I did this by using the colour correction element in FinalCut.

Ancillary Task - Digipack Shoot & Audience Research

In order to completely satisfy my audience needs with regard to my ancillary tasks, I took some photo's for potential cover designs and pages this morning due to the lighting outside. Since then, I have been asking members of my target audience which images they prefer in order to ensure my CD pack meets their needs. Like most indie albums, I have gone for an unorthadox front image, of my model dressed in a floaty dress near to the light, which made her look like a sihouette. Here are the images, which I will continue to show to my target demographic to obtain a strong, clear result. All of the images are unedited and without titles as this is only the preliminary stage of the creation process :

Front Cover Designs:

 

 

I think the light in these photos adds a sense of the 'other-worldly', and after some contrast editing and cropping so the model is the focal point I think they will be eye-catching on as muysic store shelf.

 

Inside Cover (with lyrics over the top)

Both these images will be edited to have the song lyrics over the top, and possibly with just the colour of the pointe shoes left to add interest. I chose ballet shoes as they're interesting visually and abstract, as well as alluding to the idea of a fairytale. The other inside image will probably be a key, to represent finders keepers. 

Back Cover (to be edited with tracklist over the top)

 

I like these images for the back cover as they all contain my model, but she's not the focal point of the image, there is space either side of her to write a tracklist, which is an obvious convention.