Evaluation

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

My partner and I initially chose rock music from Escape the Fate as we both listened to the band and other bands from he same genre. This was helpful because we already had a deep insight on the music the band make. My research including my Star image analysis, Video analysis and artist summary helped me understand the main elements that make a rock music video the way it is. I analysed Numb by Linkin Park and watched I'm not Okay by My Chemical Romance as a secondary video. Both videos were narrative and performance based allowing one or more members from the performance to intervene within the narrative. In Linkin Park the band tell a story using first person as if they are in the protagonists shoes. In Im not Okay by My Chemical Romance, the performers (band) are the protagonists within the narrative also. However, I thought it would be more accurate if we used a female protagonist with the lead singer intervening within the narrative as the song is about Make-up (typically used by females). The song I chose is Make-up by Escape the Fate. I believed that having narrator intervention would be useful as the lyrics use the pronouns 'you' and 'we' whilst talking directly to the protagonist. Unlike, other videos that stick to the rigid border between performance and narrative, we challenged the typical convention by merging the two creating greater meaning to the music video. We put focus on the singer from the band as the vocalist is the most convincing and interacting member of a band who sings the lyrics. This meant there was more emotion attached to the video and having the vocalist within the video emphasized upon this as he played the role of a witness and spectator rather than a distant narrator. Although we challenged a convention as certain rock videos do not consist of narrator intervention, we also stuck to some conventions. For example, we used live performance within our video to remain with the traditional rock music video concept making the audience aware that the genre is rock. The benefit of the conventions and challenging a convention helped the audience familiarize themselves with the protagonist and the lead singer who could also been seen as a secondary protagonist. As rock music is generally aimed at teenagers as they tend to rebel at those stages, our music video was based on high school bullying- a popular problem amongst teenagers. The video encourages viewers to open their eyes to the consequences of bullying encouraging them to avoid it. We felt the lyrics suited the theme of bullying mentioning typical teenage things such as a girls 'dress', 'make-up' etc. Within the Linkin Park video -Numb I saw that the protagonist was also lonely and was undergoing a different indirect form of bullying where she felt pressure to fit in and belonged no where. We decided to take this theme a step further making the bullying direct to have a greater empathetical impact upon the audience. Furthermore, we used typical conventions reinforcing the idea of a rock band by keeping all the performers as males. The four piece band typically consists of lead guitarist, bassist, drummer and lead singer.We focused on aspects of the mise-en-scene so the video reflects its genre. This included the mise-en-scene such as the black outfits, rebellious hairstyles, band t-shirts, boots, converses, wrist bands and the particular use of instruments that make it a particular genre (For example electric guitars). Other aspects such as the lighting, shot type, angle type and lyrics contributed to the genre of the music. For example, the bright spotlight allowed the performance to seem more polished and professional making the band look like rock stars. The performance mainly consisted of long shots to distance the band from the audience allowing them to appear as distant idols/rockstars in a typical band. The fact that we used more shots consisting of the whole band reinforced the idea of them being a band that work together and make music contributing to the genre. Lastly, we also challenged the typical beginning to end structure of a music video as our video was cyclical building suspense at the beginning and ending the video via the same method.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I believe that the combination of my main product and ancillary texts is very effective for many reasons. My ancillary texts' design helped promote and advertise my music video. The album name was also the song title Makeup. Therefore, For my main cover I used the image of the protagonist. The protagonist is looking away from the camera and the shot is taken from a high angle making the character appear as vulnerable. The fact that the character looks down suggests that they're being intimidated or bullied. This tied in with the theme of our video on bullying immediately being very effective. The use of runny mascara also helped create an impression of the protagonist being bullied reflecting the music video. Also the black blotches of blood in the background represent the themes of bleeding and suicide at the beginning and end of the video. I believe the hand gesture on the front cover is very effective as it attempts to push people away but ironically attracts more people and encourages them to watch and find out more about the protagonist. I have also, placed the name of the song and artist on the protagonists hand as it is the most eye catching and largest feature of the album cover, allowing me to advertise and promote the video. Also, the protagonists hand is a form of interaction with the audience as she placed it right before the camera, as if she is aware of the audience. This creates a sense of realism amongst the audience making the music video seem convincing. For the back cover of the CD I have used an image of the lead singer. This perfectly matches the music video as the audience are more familiar with him than the rest of the band. Because the story, is personal based on the lead singers first hand experiences I thought it would be best to put the lead singer on the back cover. The lead singer stares right at the camera sitting in a careless manner, reinforcing the image of rock portrayed within the video. The chair he sits on, appears to be royal suggesting that he is a rock star- matching his image within the performance scenes. Within this image, Vinny's facial expressions also portray attitude creating a sense of rebelliousness, which is also visible within the performance scenes of the video via the Mise-en-scene. I edited the image of the lead singer (Vinny) to make it look as if he is glowing giving him a rock star look. (I did this via Adobe Photoshop). Moreover, the inner page of my Digipak is mainly of an image without other additional details. This is so the audience are able to focus clearly on the image. The image is of the protagonist leaning against a cracked mirror, appearing different from her reflection. This links in with the theme of image orientation within the video as the reflection represents someone she aspires to be- flawless. The cracked mirror represents the harshness of reality portrayed in the video and reminding both us and the protagonist about the unreal image one desires to have. The use of the mirror for my Digipak was effective because the protagonist is often seen in front of a mirror within the video and this linked with the video. I also used a line from the lyrics 'Found that you are lost again' as it is part of the chorus and is therefore often repeated. I believe the line had significance as the video is based on not belonging anywhere. Lastly, I decided to leave the CD compartment + CD more simple looking with animation blood rather than an image. The CD directly represents Emo subculture with the use of blood. This links in with my video due to the suicidal theme. If i could improve my Digipak I would add text on my CD so even if it was without the case, the target market would be aware of the contents within it.

Additionally, my magazine advert was also, something that combined well with my music video. This was because the protagonist was visible on the advert with sad facial expressions reinforcing the video's negative themes. The black and white hues of my magazine advert allows my target market to believe that the protagonist is from the past and may no longer exist. The fact that the protagonist is standing under a tunnel with light at the side metaphorically suggests that theres a light in the tunnel. However, withing the video, from the beginning we are aware that the ending will be negative. My magazine advert encourages the audience to feel that theres hope for the protagonist, so they are encouraged to watch the video. Through out my ancillary texts the font style I used from www.dafont.com remained consistent. This helped my ancillary texts flow. The images of my ancillary texts helped my video link in with them very well.

Evaluation continued

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Feedback for First draft

Firstly, for our first draft my partner made a survey via survey monkey asking members of the target market about their opinions. (See survey after first draft of video).One of the most important comments someone made was on the initial bathroom scene where the protagonist writes on the bathroom mirror with lipstick. Many members of the audience were unaware of what she was writing and needed us to clearly show it. We made this improvement by slowing the scene down. Another important comment was on the locker scene...'the locker scene looks a bit dodgey so fix it up'. After receiving these comments my partner and I revisited our video and made changes if we felt they were necessary. The locker scene was a combination of two clips with a seconds pause in between. We changed this by cutting out 0.8 seconds of that clip.

Feedback for Final draft

1.) Feedback via Video

I asked an unsigned American Hip hop musician that makes You tube commentaries to give his opinion on our music video. I am aware that his views on our final piece differed to the views of other commentators. This may be because he did not fill the criteria of our target audience as he is 30 years old and a Hip hop musician. I did not acknowledge the commentators video as he did not fit the criteria of my Target Market and his response for my final draft was an anomalous result.

2.) More Feedback via Video

I asked a member of my target audience (an 18 year old girl that listens to rock) to give me feedback for my video. The main thing she pointed out was the fact that the drums were not in sync with the music. If I was to do the video again I would play the music whilst filming in order to get the drums in sync with the music

3.) You tube feedback (comments)

We also recieved some Youtube comments and all four comments were positive. This meant that after making our changes members of our target market preferred our final draft to the first.

4.) Feed back via Facebook (comments)

Social networking sites such as Facebook were very helpful when receiving comments. The person above mentions that our band shots were unenthusiastic and there were a lack of multi angular shots. Although we deliberately stuck to long shots, during the day we filmed our camera battery died so we made do with the shots we had. We did not have time to improve the performance shots as one of the lead singer was abroad. Therefore, we used editing on I movie as well as effects such as black outs and contrast changes to make the performance visually interesting. If I could film the performance scene again, I would make sure the band practiced numerous times before hand without reading lyrics off paper, and also would've booked the dance studio for a longer period of time. I would also come with a prepared emergency camera because with a low camera battery, we had to keep the camera plugged in. This meant we couldn't make use of equipment such as the dolly.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Construction: For the construction stage I used different types of technology including software and hardware. The hardware included the Camcorder, Microphone+ Amplifier, Electric guitars. For my music video I used the camcorder to film the events within the video. This was simple to use and the clips were visible whilst we were filming on the screen. We used other equipment such as the dolly, tripod and steady cam to accompany the cam corder. The tripod allowed us to use the camcorder in a steady manner, where we were able to adjust the heights of the shot including angles. The dolly allowed us to circulate round, or take shots from behinds something as it was easy to move. The steady cam allowed us to take steady shots while having the camera hand held preferably for closeup shots going around someone. We also used other devices such as the microphone and Electric guitar so the band could play the instruments whilst performing to make timing easier. (Besides the drummer). The amplifier was used to amplify the sound of both the Mic and guitars & adjust volume. For our music video we also used software such as Imovie to edit the clips and add effects. Lastly we used sites such as YouTube; to upload the video, blogger to present our video and Facebook to receive feedback for our video.

During the design process of my work (ancillary texts) I mainly used a digital camera to take images of the band and protagonist. I didn't need to use a mode on the camera as I was able to aid the hardware i used with software such as Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop enabled me to edit pictures giving them a professional look. I used tools such as cropping tools, slicing tools, cloning tools, shadowing, darkening and also used the filter tab in order to change the hues, colours or saturation of an object. This was helpful because I wouldn't have to put makeup on the model before taking the image as i could simply do it via Photoshop.

Research: During the research stage I mainly used software although I did use one hardware device. I found a scanner to be more accurate and convenient, when it came to capturing Digipak research images over a digital camera. I used software such as search engines (Google) and other websites to gain information on the artist. I also used you tube videos to watch videos that i could analyse as well as paint to print screen clips from my video. Again I used blogger to upload my research.

Planning: I used a digital camera to plan my work when it came to taking images of locations. For my story board i used a camcorder to film the clips, i movie to edit them and YouTube to post my story board. This was a brief task which enabled me to visualize my story board as if it was a video due to YouTube. It also helped me familiarize myself with the tools within I movie making it easy when it came to editing my actual video. Otherwise, i mainly used software. I used MS word to annotate and highlight the lyrics of my music video. I also used electronic mail to get permission to use the music for my video as well as for booking the dance studio. When it came to artist research I used the internet to access the artists biography from their website and screen dumps of YouTube videos for my star image analysis.

Evaluation: For my evaluation I used the internet to confirm the names of key terms for my coursework. I also wrote it out on MS word before uploading it on blogger. Overall, I feel that the internet including YouTube & Blogger have played a huge roll and have contributed greatly towards my coursework. If I could do my evaluation again, I would film so, each time id reference my coursework and certain aspects of it id be able to put the images up for show directly whilst speaking.

Final Magazine Advert

Rather than using the previous image I prefer the image above for many reasons. Firstly, the mid-shot allows my target audience to meet protagonist but doesn't allow them to familiarize themselves with the protagonist, encouraging them to purchase the CD and watch the video. Secondly the use of Black and white hues suggests the protagonist is from the past and allows the audience to consider where she may be. Additionally, I have changed the font from rigid formal font to font that is more curlier and wavier. This is because it represents the informality of the music giving it a Gothic touch. I have added logos of HMV, Target and Itunes as they are memorable and Ive also put the date on the advert so people begin purchasing it, as soon as it is released. I think the image used above, matches the theme of bullying as the protagonist isn't making eye contact with the viewers. The target market are encouraged to find out why the protagonist has negative facial expressions. Lastly, I have enlarged the title of the album and song as Escape the Fate is an established band. The advert isn't an introductory advert and is a song promoting advert. Therefore, I think the target market should already know that the song belongs to Escape the Fate by looking at the trademark font.

Final Digipak

Bottom right : Firstly, I have improved the cover of my Digipak in many ways. I believe this image is more suitable than the previous one as the protagonists hand gesture suggests she is defending herself from something. The fact that her hand is pressing against the lenses creates mild voyeurism as we feel we are watching her. I have used black and white font and blotches of fake blood stains to foreshadow that something negative may happen to her. This also reinforces the genre of the band. I have kept the importance text on the protagonists hand as if she is advertising the band and the song. The title of the song is larger than the band name because I feel the established band does not need to be very visible as fans will already be able to tell due to the style of the Digipak.

Bottom Left: I believe I have made major improvements to my first draft of the back cover. Firstly, the mid-shot image I have used allows the audience to familiarize themselves with the lead singer rather than the entire band as the lead singer has an important role within the narrative as well as the performance giving the Digipak and music a personal feel. Moreover, the lead singer is staring directly at the camera whilst rebelliously posing. This gives the us a laid back rebellious impression of the band and the lead singer seems confident, contrasting the protagonist of the video. Rather than having the track list at the bottom I prefer it to one side because it is clearer and more eye catching against a dark matte background. I have put up the Epitaph record label logo, the website of the band, as well as production and mixing details. This helps promote the producers, mixers, the label and the band itself. Lastly, I have put an Escape the Fate banner above the lead singers head to reinforce and remind the target audience of the bands name. I have used the same font through out my Digipak and for my magazine as it will be the bands trademark font and will enable the Digipak theme to flow.

Top Right: Via Photoshop, I have been able to merge an image of cracked glass with the perfect looking half of the protagonists reflection. This indicates that perfection of image is something she aspires to have but is unable to. I have edited the imperfect looking half of the image emphasizing on the smudged makeup, heavy eye bags and dry lips. This allows the audience to compare both the reflection against reality already indicating that the music video may be about the dilemma of image orientation. I also put a line from the lyrics underneath the image as it seemed to fit perfectly as a caption for the image. I prefer the improved version compared to my first draft as the image tells more of a story.

Top Left: The image above is of the CD + compartment and I have only changed the background blotches of blood from Red to grey. This separates the background from the CD and the colour red is more attractive therefore, directly draws attention to the CD unlike my first draft, which consisted of too much red, making it uneasy for the human eye to visualize.

Magazine Advert Draft

I believe the magazine advert image has been edited well. However, it does not fulfill the purpose of an advertisement for a music video. Although the image gives one a gloomy feeling, associated with certain genres within rock, rather than looking like the victim the protagonist comes across as intimidating. The colour purple suits the genre however, adds a sense of unrealism to the poster indicating that the poster may be a horror film poster (misleading).

I have mentioned where the track is available, but rather than writing out the names of each place I will directly use the logos that represent each company. This is better because logos are short symbols that are more memorable and universal, and therefore can be read by many. So, even if my target market are unable to read English they will still easily be able to access the music as they may recognize the logos. I will change the font for my magazine advert as it doesn't reflect the genre of the music it promotes well. I will also have to put a release date so, the audience can start purchasing the music as soon as it is released.