Final thoughts

To what extent did media language contribute to and help you evaluate one of your media productions ?
For my piece we put forward a message of curiosity, mystery and desperation. We achieved these feelings by using the five elements of media language listed as follows, Camera (shot, angle, movement and position and lighting, Editing, Sound, Mise-en-scene and special effects. My production was a pop video of the song Sweet Disposition by an artist called The Temper Trap. The meaning of the song is about dreams and holding on to whatever you have. The Band we portrayed through costume and looks we casted a band to give a feel of rebellion, innocence, vulnerability ect. This also applies to the lead singer as he portrayed the message well and was a photogenic character.
Media language was vital in creating my preferred meaning in the following ways. Types of shot, we took a series of different shots in order to create atmospheric feelings and emotion between the audience and the characters and performers. Close ups and extreme close ups were used to create a sense of intimacy wither between the narrative characters with the band and both performance and narrative elements with the audience, for example, Chloe the girl who acts in the narrative is very photogenic and we took close ups of her face investigating the light bulbs in order to create a bond with the audience (especially male). Another example would be the shots of the light bulbs and wide shots of Chloe in the woods along with the band, these wide shots I feel create a mysterious atmospheric feel, the shots that follow the rule of thirds bond the band together and throughout the filming process we tried to get as much variation as possible in order to then edit the shots according to other elements of film-making (leading the eye for example). A close up of the lead sing that is the first shot of any member of narrative or performance was used as our master shot, this is the shot that we returned to in order to break up any action and provided a safety net but this was also a good shot to immediately link the character to the audience. The tracking shots towards the end of the production with the blinders created a good atmosphere following the build up to the chorus and allow the audience to follow smoothly unpredictable action, these shots are key as they play an important role in the narrative as they allow the audience to feel the emotions and understand the portrayed feeling of the girl not being noticed by the band, theses shots also gel the narrative with the performance element. At the same point in the song we wanted to allow the audience to see the general action of the product for this we used mid-shots so we could create closeness without intimacy. With regard to angle, we shot both the our band and our narrative character from high and low angles to emphasize size of the band when they are in the box and when she is looking inside, and also helplessness on the final shot of the piece for dramatic effect. We also shot a POV or point of view shot so that the viewer could see that the character had noticed the box in the woods.
In editing we used continuity editing and cut to the beat of the music which follows the main convention of film-making with music videos. Long takes were used intensely in our product, during the editing stage we lingered on certain shots and pieces of action so that the audience could relate and take in what was going on in the shot.
In the Mise-en-scene our studio layout was designed in order to create a dark atmosphere and replicate the inside of the box, the woods location was also chosen and lit with redheads so that the performance and narrative would differentiate from each other but be strongly linked at the same time. The costume we decided on for the narrative character was picked to create a feeling of her in a dream world, the bands costume was chosen to link them with each other and have a plain feel as to not support any expectations that the audience can put to so that a wider audience could relate to them.
We tried to keep the lighting as dark as possible so that the blinders, light bulbs and redheads could create a feeling of energy, vulnerability and not only allow the light bulbs to be seen clearly but also to keep the epic finish with the blinders as atmospheric as possible. In the special effects we used after effects to make the light bulbs light up in the studio as we were unable to get electricity to them on the day of filming, we also used a blue screen to project the woods still which was the back and sides of the box in the performance element.
Overall I can conclude that media language was fundamental in the production of our pop-video.