Describe the ways in which your production work was informed by research into real media texts and how your ability to use such research for production development over time

For our portfolio, my media studies group of four girls collectively known as punchbag productions created a music video. We made the decision to use “Seasons Reverse” by Skip Moses, a relatively unknown singer-songwriter though it was proving to be very difficult to find out any information on the artist and consequently, sourcing suitable media texts was problematic as we didn’t know much about the style of the artist. We were successful in contacting his record label- Small Town America and got permission to use his song but got no further information. 

Punchbag productions made a change of plans and chose a more common song called “Collide” by Howie Day.  It has been featured in many popular TV episodes including Ghost Whisperer, Scrubs, ER, Bones, One True Hill, Smallville, Lost and Grey’s Anatomy. Watching these episodes has helped indicate the meaning of the song- to imply the adversity involved between to people in a relationship, which is what we used for our theme. 

Our group liked the storyline of Taylor Swift’s song ‘Mine’ with the memories and the fight and decided it would relate well to the music. Some clips of our video are comparable and we were concerned that it would appear to be a superficial storyboard and look very narrative; we wanted to add some fascinating cuts to make it more attention-grabbing. OkGo, a band widely known for its genius videos provided us with inspiration to use stop motion. 

Ross Copperman, like Howie Day is famous for his sweeping melodies and spacious choruses with a touching voice which bestows an intimacy that makes his songs feel similar to the listener. From his website and album covers we identified what theme we could use to present Howie and appeal to a similar audience. His album covers look original, lacking any technical effects just like his music suggesting its purity. 

I consider James Blunt to be a similar artist who we took inspiration from. His album cover “All the Lost Souls” includes a centre shot of Blunt with an acoustic guitar propped up beside him, this highlights the fact that he personally wrote the song and played the instruments himself, hence making his music seem more authentic and genuine.

When researching singer-songwriters, I came across Lily Allen; her music, videos, album covers and website were different to the theme we were attempting to create for Howie. The use of bright colours, extravagant clothing and technical effects are vibrant and flamboyant, in comparison to the style of Howie Day which is more realistic and modest.  

We attempted to achieve the same themes as James blunt and Ross Copperman in our photo-shoot by having a 18-year old boy –our Howie Day, sit in a make-shift studio playing the guitar and writing songs. Both of these artists express a relaxed atmosphere and we attempted to do the same for our album cover. The setting for our photo-shoot was a red brick wall which was surrounded by fairy lights and gave a soft glow making it visually attractive as it added a sense of warmth. I realised that lighting can have a great impact on the outlook of the production when I watched the video speed of sound by Coldplay.

The speakers stacked up along with the tangled up cables implies a relaxed studio-like feel in a home atmosphere. There were also photos pinned up on the wall behind Howie, an idea that we took from James Blunt and John Mayer album covers. 

Our Howie Day matched the verisimilitude of the song as well as all the similar artists we investigated, a casual look with a checked shirt, jeans and converse.

Overall, I believe our research on all media texts had a great impact on our entire portfolio, some singer-songwriters highlighted what themes weren’t appropriate and others offered a lot of guidance and suggestions which helped us to develop an accurate representation of the song. The TV episodes also proposed a suitable storyboard. 

Our core source for all our research was on the internet; using Wikipedia to delve into the artists’ background, Last.fm for similar artists, blogs for reviews, and the official websites of the other artists and of course YouTube which provided us with visual ideas as well as instruction on things such as the wire frame with the four screens.

Without researching anything, our work would of taken a lot more time and we may of ended up with an inappropriate video.