Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze Theory

Laura Mulvey used the term 'male gaze' through her theory in 1975. Through this, she believe's that women are seen as sexual objects through the use of camera shots and angles. This is majorly seen in music video's through the use of explicit clothing, and using women as 'prizes' rather than people. Rappers commonly use women in the same sense as a 'car', like something they've bought or using to brag about. The screenshot to the right is from Young Money's song 'Bedrock', which is predominately about a man 'pleasing' a woman. This is a prime example, as women are used in the video as objects that don't wear much clothing. Girl band's also use male gaze to attract their audience. 'Stooshe' use a lack of clothing in their music video to perhaps attract a male audience. This conforms to Mulvey's theory, as the shot types are used to focus on the women's sense of clothing as promiscuity (screen shot top left).

EVALUATION QUESTION ONE- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

THE USE OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS

As our genre is a pop-alternative, we used similar conventions to real media texts. Our opening portrays a sense of voyeurism with the vintage television which is continued throughout our music video. Voyeurism is seen throughout many music videos in our genre, which is why we used this throughout our video. Usher uses a television to open his music video (seen to the right) and Cher Lloyd opens her music video with an MP3 introducing her song 'swagger jagger'.



We have two female artists in our product. We wanted to challenge the male gaze, so our female protagonsts are not objectified or portrayed in a sexual way. We have conformed to Laura Mulvey's 1975 Theory in which she challenges the sexualisation of women. 

Mulvey's theory is that because filmmakers are predominately male, the presence of women in film is often solely for the purposes of display (rather than for narrative purposes).
We did not want to use our music videos as a means of objectifying women to attract a male audience. Although we used a range of close up and extreme close up shots, we used these shot types to convey humour.

We created a band which had a unique style to most girl bands. Whilst we wanted to represent independent female artists, such as Lily Allen and Azalia Banks (pictured left and below), our style choices and also our use of location relates to youth rather than glamour. As girl bands aren't generally seen in this genre, we found that the girl bands that are, use style to enhance their image like the artists Allen and Banks.


Both of these artists use themes of youth culture. Throughout the majority of real media products in our genre, a brick wall is seen and usually a sunny day representing youth and life. Similarly, we used locations of brick walls and roads with a continuous colour theme. We also had a continuous theme of vintage clips, mainly abstract shots of random objects such as sun glasses and retro trainers in a slow strobe setting.


When designing products for our ancillary tasks (digipak and magazine advert), we used an image of our artist on both. Through doing this, we advertise our artist with a large fun image that is immediately recognisable to our audience. I also created a magazine advert that draws on key images from our digipak so there's a continued theme. I chose to use London buses to represent our 'Britishness'. London buses are instantly recognisable as icons of urban setting. This means our audience can also relate to our artist; similarly, Lily Allen uses her first digipak to show a quirky urban setting of London, with the black cab. The use of this relates the artist to their background and theme, which their audience can immediately relate to.



As most artists in real media texts use a big image of the artist to attract their audience, we used the same idea which covered the whole advert. Rihanna's magazine advert is a similar example, and on the advert is her digipak itself. Lily Allen also has the use of funky sneakers in her album cover, which relates to her close up shot of sneakers in her video for 'LDN' (picture right and above). We also used the idea of funky trainers, although we used it in an abstract, vintage feel in our Music Video. Cher Lloyd also uses this, which could show how young women are seen as 'funky' in the music industry. Lily Allen also uses a lot of red in her video for 'LDN', which relates to our ancillary tasks. Allen could be using these colours to connote to passion as her lyrics show her love for London, although it could also be reflecting the colours of red buses which suits the london theme. I also used the red theme in my ancillary tasks, connoting our artist was a London themed brand, which would also be quirky and youthful.

After our research and planning into real media texts in our genre, we found that quite a lot of the videos use relation to the lyrics for a visual (in accordance with Andrew Goodwin's music video theory which states that music videos have a strong correlation to their lyrics). One of our song lyrics is "Chase ya' boyfriend let's 'ave him". We wanted to use a split screen chase from two point of views (as in the print screen left).
We wanted to represent that we're not the average girl group. We watched Beyonce's "If I Were A Boy" video (black and white image to right) and liked the parallel editing she uses to mislead the audience into thinking that the girl is in control (yet by the end of the video, the girl submits and we see that the male character is empowered afterall. We decided to challenge what is usually seen in music videos - our female artists will have power throughout the video.

Similar to our chase shot, Lily Allen's video for 'LDN' uses a chase at the beginning of her video with 3 boys and a policeman. The use of this shows a sense of switch up of authority, because the policeman who should be in control is shown as slow and weak. Similarly, we used the man not having the authority and being the 'weaker' one through the split screen. We used a close up snorri shot of the male's face, allowing his emotions that could be perceived as 'scared, to be the main focus of the shot. although both chases were used for humour.

EVALUATION QUESTION TWO; How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

We wanted the music video to promote our artist as a british band and have relation to youth culture. In addition to this, we used our ancillary tasks to also promote our band in this way. We used the image of a London bus in both the digipak and magazine advert to give our artist an association with Britain. To the left is a magazine advert for our artist. 
After my research in to magazine adverts, I found that it was common for artists in our genre to have a 

The shot to the right is an opening shot from our music video. This shot is similar to our magazine advert, as an opaque editing technique was used in both. The relation of the classic mini (to the right) and the bus (image above) both connote to Britain. For our magazine advert, a large image of the artist was chose so our audience know exactly what's being promoted. Similarly, a choice of birds was put in the shot to the right to connote to freedom and youth, so both Britain and youth culture was seen in our opening shot.






Throughout our music video, a blue editing technique was used on each shot. This was used so that the whole video has a blue feel, relating to sky and freedom. When creating the magazine advert, I created 3 drafts (images to the left), with the red colour scheme in mind. I used a red colour scheme so the red and blue colour schemes of the magazine advert and the music video related to the British flag colours (of red and blue). 

Above is the digipak for our artist. Again, a red theme is seen; this allows the audience to relate our artist's digipak with the magazine advert, and the same images of the bus and artist so there's a link for our audience to notice. 

We created the band name 'Bacci + Filter' from the song itself. The song uses the lyrics, "Lighter and rizla, Bacci and filter"; This line is quite a catchy line in the song, and through previous research, we found that smoking was used in music video's for an edgy feel to attract their target audience. We used the shot of a cigarette being burnt out, and also the shot of a lighter and used cigarettes. 

Our artist was purposefully not smoking so we didn't bring a negative image of youth or create smoking to be portrayed as 'cool. 

EVALUATION QUESTION THREE: How did you use media technologies in the research, construction and evaluation stages of your production?

Construction
The construction of our music video throughout A2 excelled our use of media technologies and improved our skills from AS. We used a Panasonic HD camera to film all of our shots and archiving. We chose to use this over the HD flip as it was at a higher quality. It also had a reversable lens so we could use a snorricam and view it whilst filming as we had a particularly small group, which led to us usually not having someone to film us. Our camera allowed us to have fast panning shots, in which was helpful for our spinning snorri-shots. Most of our shots were handheld, although our medium/full body shots were taken on a tripod, which was filmed on a couple of locations by our camera woman Lucy.

As we did not use any performance elements (i.e on stage, recording studio), all of our shots were majoritily filmed on the streets, which conformed to our genre. Through filming on the streets, we used natural lighting rather than artificial lighting. We had to plan on filming at the correct time of the day which improved our research and planning skills.

After our production, we began our post-production by exporting all of our footage on to iMovie. At AS, we used iMovie for our entire video, so our skills were being used at an advanced level to use quick editing for our music video. Final Cut Pro was installed on to our macs at AS level, although the use of quick sharp editing, and the editing techniques provided were not need for our Film Opening. Throughout the A2 year, we had a short lesson on final cut pro. Millie and I took it upon ourselves to teach ourselves how to use Final Cut at a more advanced level. We viewed youtube tutorial's on how to use final cut and adapted it to our genre. Here's one in which we used

We used Final Cut Pro to do vintage shots, which used a few editing techniques (strobe, vignette..). Originally, we used vignette and ..... although we didn't like the outlook after it was exported back in to iMovie, so used a varied amount of editing techniques until we found one we liked, which was the strobe setting. The strobe setting allowed the vintage look, as it flickered like the tv's in the past.










After our overall editing was done, we found we were unsatisfied with our colour scheme in comparison, so

we changed our overall look. The picture on the right shows the editing technique that we did to every shot on iMovie, we did this to create a continued colour scheme which gave a vintage feel.

Research and Planning
After our group meetings, we both decided we would put the song on our iPod's and Smartphone's so we would have in constantly to gain ideas. When we gained any idea's we would use our smartphone's to contact each other so that we wouldn't forget the idea. Here's a short conversation Millie and I had on a social networking site to plan our meeting for a shot idea.

My first few blogs show our research and planning on genre's and artist's in our genre. From this I looked in to other artist's digipaks and magazine adverts from our genre, to research and plan for our ancillary tasks, which was all done through google as it was an easy way to search and explore other artists.










 For our ancillary tasks, I found youtube tutorial's in how to use photoshop and then made my Digipak and Magazine Advert in this software. I found that Paint didn't have the essential tools to create ancillary tasks to the highest quality, which led.

We used Twitter to communicate with other artists, and to see how they appealed to their audience. All of this enabled us to have a wider knowledge of our music video.

Evaluation

Both Millie and I use a majority of social networking sites, so as a team we created our own twitter account and used our facebook's to share the video to a suitable audience. This was very handy during our audience feedback and evaluation stages as we were able to broadcast our video to multiple audience's through different platforms.

We used iMovie to edit our audience feedback, then youtube to broadcast it. (picture to the left)
We also again used our HD camera's
to film for our audience
 feedback, then again, used iMovie to edit it. (picture to the right)
I also learnt a brand new media technique through the use of a Prezzi. I'd never previously used prezzi before, but I found it effective for my audience feedback and it looks very professional.
Overall I found that media technologies was a huge help through my research, evaluation and construction. Through using media technologies such as cameras, internets, magazines etc, I was able to put together my A2 project in a detailed, professional way.

EVALUATION QUESTION FOUR: What have you learned from your audience feedback

Evaluation on Prezi

Archive

Here's what we got up to throughout our project, we had lots and lots more footage for outtakes but thought we'd keep it short and sweet. Looking back, really really enjoyed filming for our music video as our shots were so quirky, although the spinning snorri-shots really did make me feel dizzy!

Lip-syncing practice

Here's a short clip that Ms Foster made us record to make us see how good we'd be at lip-syncing. It was nothing serious but it's something that made us laugh.

This video was made during year 12 as a laugh. We got a little bit too excited for A2's music video's, so myself and half of Mac 2 thought we'd make the most out of some free time and do this video. It's really not serious, and it's also very ugly, but a great example of what not to do.

Audience Feedback

Analysis of music video

CONVENTIONS FROM REAL MEDIA TEXTS

POST PRODUCTION

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY

FINAL OF BACCI + FILTER

Here's our final video. After the amount of time we've spent editing this video I think it's fair to say the song will have to come off of my iPod. I like the final outcome, although now watching it and comparing it with real media texts there are probably a few things I would change about it but i'm happy with our final product.

MAGAZINE ADVERT

From my past 3 magazine adverts, I have done some audience feedback through manually showing the majority of people at my sixth form and found that this is my chosen magazine advert out of the three:

DIGIPAKS

When editing these magazine adverts, I kept to a similar theme of the red colour and white fonts. I wanted to try and use an animated magazine advert to conform to a few other artists in our genre, although after asking 25 people in my sixth form, 72% of them liked the first one as they thought it looked most realistic for a magazine advert.

Magazine Advertisement Research

To prepare myself to create an effective magazine advert for our brand 'Bacci+Filter', I have found different magazine adverts from artists in our genre of 'pop/alternative'. I found that the majority of these adverts have the artists face on them, which obviously lets the audience know specifically what they're buying, although it seems to be typical for this genre.
 RIHANNA- Loud

Rihanna's advert uses a very feminine approach. Her hair and the colour scheme match, which obviously initially attracts the audience in to it. Rihanna's music is all quite different, some of her songs are quite pop whereas some are quite hip hop, which is why she comes under the genre of 'alternative'. Rihanna usually uses herself as a sexual image to attract her audience, and although she hasn't done this here she does bare some skin although it seems to de-sexualise her. She covers the whole advert because she's quite a success as an artist, so her audience will want to see her if they want to buy her album. I think I will look in to using a picture of ourself, although as we're a band we're unable to zoom in on our faces as Rihanna has done. She's used an opaque big 'A', i'm not too sure why this is, but for some reason it does look effective as the white fonts all go quite well together. Similar to Rihanna's album, I've used a red theme in my digipak to reflect a 'london bus' theme which connotes to youth subculture and hometowns, whereas Rihanna has used a light pink to compliment her image and portray her as quite feminine.
                       CHIDDY BANG- Truth

  Chiddy Bang is an artist similar to our brand. Their music is quite alternative, and they're a duo similar to 'Bacci + Filter'. When travelling underground I saw their advert for their new album 'breakfast' which was really eyecatching. Unfortunately, i didn't manage to take a snap of it although I did find their previous album cover which was this one. Their use of animation is really effective and suits their genre, as their target audience would be attracted to the different colours and simple text. They two boys seem to be less important than the text, which perhaps entails that not many people are buying for the artist but rather for the music, which is different to Rihanna's album. I really like the eye-catching animated font, the conventions suit our genre and brand, although the colour scheme does not suit
our brand.
                                                                   
                                                                                                        LANA DEL REY- Born To Die 

Lana Del Rey's advertisement uses just the same picture as her Album cover. It's a plain blue background and the white font is quite simple which actually juxtaposes her choice of music video's. She's become quite a big part of the media as she's quite controversial which allows her to be quite plan as the majority of people who will see her face on a bus will know who she is. Her choice of outfit suits the colour scheme of fonts, and the way the picture has been taken makes her seem quite high up as if she's in the sky. Usually artists in this genre use bright colour and animations around a picture of themself, although Lana Del Rey has seemed to break away from this convention and gone a plain colour scheme focusing although still headlining a photo of herself to attract her audience.

Out of the 3 adverts the Chiddy Bang advert applies most to our brand. All of these artists are from the same genre, although they use their artist to attract an audience. Our brand is two young girls, and Rihanna has used male gaze to attract her audience as she appears quite sexy and feminine, whereas Lana Del Rey contradicts to her music video's to appear quite simple and plain, where she's actually not. 

For our next shot idea we plan on having something similar to this 4music idea. The quirkiness suits our genre with slow motion shots of random things. We're following an enigmatic theme of random things and this suits quite well. We plan to shoot this monday or tuesday and plan to edit it in to our music video. We also plan to lip sync whilst doing this which is why I posted  the OTIS video which I have posted before.



Here's a practice of this with lip syncing. We filmed ourself lip syncing on youtube to the speed of x1.5 and then reduced it to 67% on iMovie. It's slightly out of sync but I'm sure in our editing it will be at a perfection as it will be little snippets rather than 1 minute 10 seconds.

Draft

Here's our very rough first 30 seconds of our music video. Only 4/5 weeks to go to finish editing but we're focusing on the beginning as it's what will interest and engage our audience. I don't think it flows the way it could yet, although I do like that our ideas are working.
We're liking the use of fonts, and hoping to keep this as a theme continued throughout. We're hoping to change the colouring of all of our shots so it keeps a vintage theme. We like the split screen at the beginning as it looks mirrored, although we're not sure if Millie's hair change will be an issue for the continuity. The chances are that we won't be able to get back up to our location to re-film this shot, so we will most probably keep it.

Editing

Feeling positive with 5 weeks to go now. Almost finished our filming with and progressing with our editing. Today we added font's to in our editing to bring a quirkiness to the video.

Although this video is at a complete different genre to our music video, the use of lights, colour and fonts is a similar concept to the quirkiness. It's speedy editing and in time the beat which is what we were going for too. Differently to this we used pale blue, pale pink and white. We're going to stick to this theme as it seems to bring an innocent feel to our video.

Final Cut Pro

Today we had final cut pro tutorial's with a lady named Angela. We learnt quite a bit and i'd say I'm partially confident using this programme for editing now. I was playing about with the opacity tool and managed to use it for incorporating for our opening shot in our music video

Really liking this video. The use of stop animation and shapes is really interesting. I wouldn't expect it for the song and the video is simply just the shapes being coloured in but its really different which makes it stand out. Lip-synching is still going on, and the colours are all quite pastel colours whilst on the man, although the woman has green colours perhaps interpreting the woman bring brightness in to his life?
We're thinking of using stop animation in our video as it's quite common in our genre and effective.

Audience feedback

As below, I posted a questionnaire that I said I would use for audience feedback. It enables our brand to know exactly what the target audience want. I sent a Facebook message to boys/girls from the ages of 16/19 which are the main target audience. I used Facebook as social networking is a free popular website for the ages of our target audience.