Evaluation.

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

Like Goodwin said, music video's often have 6 elements: Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics. This means that if you are watching an RnB video, there is

most likely going to be a dance sequence, or if you are watching a thrash metal video, there is most likely going to be images of death and skulls etc, symbols that represent their genres.

There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals. This means that if the song is singing about a flower (for example) their will be a picture or a shot of a flower.

There is a relationship between music and visual. This means that when a song gets to an intence part of the music, such as if in a rock song their is a guitar solo, we won't see an image of somebody ballet dancing- it has to go with the feel of the song music at that point!

The artist develop a motif that recur in other music videos. This means that artists develop a motif that people then associate with them. For example: Michael Jacksons glove, Amy Winehouse's hair/eye make up, the Roling Stone's mouth, Jedwards hair etc...

The notion of looking. This means the way people are seen in music videos, for example women are seen as objects, men are seen as cheats or scum bags and teenagers are portraid as bad people. Its all how they are represented in music videos.

There is often intertexual reference. This means that there are refrences to films in some videos, for example, the Lady Gaga and Beyonce song 'Telephone' makes reference to Velma and Louise. Their inspiration came from watching these films.

…The idea behind my music video was that it was meant to be a narrative/abstract piece, which told a story. I wanted to create a performance piece which didn’t completely make sense, almost like a ‘Lady Gaga’ performance. I wanted the video to have a background story- Pandora’s Box and the 7 deadly sins- but consisted of a lot of quick shots and a feel of ultimate panic throughout the video.

My music video, though, has completely challenged this theory. My video does not go with the lyric, there were no motif’s etc…I did this on purpose to create a unique music video. I looked at the most memorable music video, which where generally ‘abstract’, strange video and decided that this would be the best idea to attract my qudience.

A-ha also created a music video which had nothing to do with the song or its lyrics. ‘Take on me’ is a music video which has stood the test of time and has gone down in history as one of the first abstract style music video. The video is really effective- with the main singer (Morten Harket) turning from cartoon to real life. I wanted to create an abstract video to this effect.

Like Lady Gaga’s music video’s the song and song lyrics, had nothing to do with the music video. I wanted create this in my music video because it was different to normal music video’s. I thought that my video would be different to others, which would be good because the unique music video’s are the ones in which people remember. For example…

Lady Gaga’s song ‘Telephone’ had nothing to do with the music video. Gaga’s music video is a continuation of the video for "Paparazzi", which is shot as a short film. Her music video refers to the films:

• Kill Bill

• Pulp Fiction

•Thelma & Louise.

This is nothing to do with the song lyrics, but due to it being a massive hit, I thought this would be the best route to go down due to it appearing to be what my audience want.

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

This is the front cover to my Digi pack. As you can see, the girl on the front is the same girl as the one that appears in my music video. I wanted to do this so that my audience can associate the actors in my music video to the one on the front of my Digi pack, there for it will make my music video memorable.

I wanted to have a black background, with just the image of the girl and the writing because it creates and eary effect, similar to the one I tried to create in my music video.

I chose this style of writing because it has an old fashioned, scary look to it…just like my music video! This looks effective, because if I had pink bubble writing on my front cover, it would look stupid and have nothing to do with the theme of my video or advert!

This is the back of my Digi pack. Keeping in with the theme of the music video and the front of my Digi pack I have used the same girl, the same black background and the same font.

I have done this, once again, so people can associate the girl I have used, with my music video. This image is a bit spooky looking, due to her looking almost ghost-like. I wanted to create this effect on because I did so on the front, if I had put a pink background with a girl that doesn’t feature in my video it would have been confusing and not gone with the over all theme of my Digi pack and music video.

As you can see by the images below, a lot of it was shot in black and white, also it has a spooky look to it, and as you can see, it doesn’t have a happy ending. I tried to create this look on my Digi pack.

This is the inside of my Digi pack. The left side is the DVD of my music video and the right is my CD. I have stuck with the idea of the black background and the spooky font of writing. I chose to make my CD’s white because a lot of my music video was shot in black and white (as you can see by the images below), so it fits in with the theme of my music video, and the rest of my Digi pack.

Finally, my video advert also fits in with the all round theme of my music video and Digi pack. As you can see, the same girl appears in my Digi pack, advert and music video. As I have said before, my audience will associate this girl with my music video, which is good because it means my music video will be memorable. My CD’s also fit in with my theme, as you can see, the colour and the font match that of the advert and the Digi pack colour- this is what I was aiming for.

As you can see, when I put all my products together, they all have the same theme running through them. They all have the same colour theme- black and white- they all use the same girl and they are all a bit spooky looking. This is what I wanted to create- so people associate my Digi pack and advert to my music video.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

To get some audience feedback, we set up a viewing night in which we showed an audience of 36 people our music video’s. We gave them a questionnaire to fill out and let us know what they thought of our performance…

The questions…

What rating would you give the video? Here, 8 people gave a score of 10/10, 12 people gave 9/10, 13 people gave 8/10 and 2 people gave 7/10. I was happy with this because the score didn’t go below 7 which shows the majority of people enjoyed my video. This showed all my hard work payed off.

What do you think the videos them/over all idea was? Most of the words used by people were s followed:

•Pandoras Box

• corrupt innocents.

•Sins.

•Fear

•Death

•Life changing. Story telling.

•Evil

• always stay together.

•Gothic horror.

•7 deadly sins.

•Dramatic feel.

I am pleased with these comments because this is the idea I was aiming to create. I am glad this came across in my piece.

What rating would you give the students camera work?

Here, 19 people graded my camera work as 5/5 and 16 people said it was 4/5. I am really pleased with this because this means my camera work was good. Camera work is one of the main aspects to my video I really wanted to get right. I used low angle, zooms and high angles to try make my video look as effective as possible- this shows that I succeeded.

What rating would you give the students editing skills?

My feedback for this was that as follows: 19 people said my editing was 5/5, 14 gave it a 4/5 and 2 gave it a 3/5. With this being one of the most important and time consuming parts to my work I wanted my editing to look really effective. I believe that my editing deserved a 4/5 or 5/5 due to my cuts being in time with the music and the short edits looking really effective. I don’t, however, think I deserved a 3/5. Personally, I was not expecting to get such a low mark, but I have to consider that not everyone enjoys short, sharp cuts and quick moving editing and I understand that this type of editing is not everyone's cup of tea- I took this into consideration when reading my feedback.

What grading would you give the control of costumes?

Here, 19 people gave my costume control a 5/5, 11 people gave me 4/5 and 5 gave me a 3/5. I agree with all these marks. For some people, it may have appeared that my ‘children’ charactors where only wearing white tops and black trousers, but I was aiming for the innocent look here, so if I dressed my chaactors up much more they wouldn’t have looked like children. I understand that if people didn’t get the idea of keeping the children looking innocent, it may have appeared that I didn’t put much thought into my costumes, but it was the opposite. I took these comments n board.

What rating would you give the use of props?For my use of props, 10 people gave it a 5/5, 18 gave it 4/5 and 7 gave it 3/5. I can understand that people gave me this feedback, due to me not having many props in my video. The only prop used was the ‘Pandora’s box’ and it was used in context, so I can understand why people gave me lower marks than usual. I have no comment as such to these marks, just that they are what I expected.

What rating would you give the use of lighting?

Here, there was a mixture of feelings. 13 people said 5/5, 17 people said 4/5, 3 people said 3/5 and 2 people said 2/5. I have taken these marks in to consideration, with the knowledge that I could not control the lighting for my music video. With the whole of my video set outside, I often used the sunlight to my advantage, creating silhouettes of my characters etc. But due to not being able to control the sun, I believe this is why people scored me 2/5. I understand why people gave me this mark, due to me not doing my video inside and not being able to switch off the lights for example.

Is the style of video clear to you as an audience?

32 people said Yes, the style of video was clear, 3 people said No. I completely agree with these answers, to some people the style wont have been clear- it just depends on the person. I am really happy with the amount of people that said yes- I have learned that different people interpret things in different ways.

Does the style of music match the style of the video?

Here, 33 people said Yes, the music did match the style of video and 2 said No, it didn’t. I am glad to see people thought the music matched the style- this is what I was aiming for. It is good to see that some people didn’t, although it was a negative comment, it is good to see what peoples opinions are.

What rating would you give the video for it being realistic and looking professional?

14 people here said 5/5 and 21 said 4/5. I can see that the majority or people thought it wasn’t very realistic…which isn’t a bad thing because the idea to my video was it to be a bit strange. I think that if everyone thought it was really realistic, I wouldn’t have created the effect I wanted to create for my music video.

Which 3 words would you describe the video? Here are some words that people used: EffectiveDramaticCleverFantasticBrilliantGothicStory tellingCreepyIntense DarkVery interestingSkilledEmotionalEerie. Well presented.PanicUniqueExciting Effective MesmerisingMysteriousCompelling Moving Fast pase. Threatening. HauntingGripping Energetic‘watch out hammer house’.

All these words are positive words, which is good because this means that I must have impressed that audience with my piece, words such as ‘gothic’ and ‘dark’ are good because this is the effect I was trying to create. If people had used words like ‘happy’ and ‘pink’ I would know I would have failed to create the effect I wanted.

Over all, I have learned that people (mostly saw what I wanted them to see). I wanted to create a piece which was a bit odd and slightly creepy…in my feedback it shows that this has come across. I can see that some people didn’t understand that my piece wasn’t meant to be your average music video, but for those who did they appeared to have enjoyed it, judging by their feedback.

I can see that my video appealed to a lot of people, but not all. This is like most music video's in the charts nowadays- not everyone has the same taste!

Conclusion…

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and

research, planning and evaluation stages?

Blogger…The main media technology that I used was blogger. I used blogger to write down everything I was doing each step of the way. I began by explaining what I was going to do in my project then went on to blog about the research I did into other music videos and then went on to explain what I was going to do in my music video. I blogged everything that happened during my music video filming, for example when it had been snowing, I blogged that it wasn’t an appropriate time to be filming outside!

Blogger made a big impact on the way I worked throughout the course because it made it much easier. I had the ability to access my work at home without sending things backwards and forwards via email- this made my life much easier. Also, when I finished a piece of work, I could just upload it to blogger and know it was safe. It was easy for me to look at work I did at the start of the year because it was all there in front of me.

MUZU….Not everyone is familiar with the sight ‘MUZU’ but this sight helped me a lot with the research into other artists video’s. MUZU is a sight which allows you to watch music video’s, this came in handy because I did a lot of research on ‘Lady Gaga’ video's. MUZU enabled me to get some inspiration for my music video and helped me along with coming up with a theme for my Music video. It also allowed me to realise that I didn’t want to do a performance piece. When watching the music video’s, the ones I enjoyed the most were the abstract and the narrative video’s.

Wordle… This is my wordle for my Digi pack. I asked people what they thought of my Digi pack and this is what they said. I then typed them in on the website ‘Wordle’ and created this image. I enjoyed using wordle because it was a better way of displaying research that was different to just writing them on my blog. By using wordle, it makes it an easy way to view what people have said. I would definitely use wordle again!

Filming…The main piece of media that was new to me was working with the camera whilst filming. Filming was almost completely new to me, the only filming experience I had was creating a short video to ‘addicted to love’ with the rest of my group. This helped, but when it came to filming by myself it took a while to get used to everything.

The first job was to get used to moving the camera and creating a smooth shot. This was difficult because there was a lot of running in my video, there for a lot of fast camera shots. I had to learn to follow my actors with the camera without making the shot look un professional.

The second hurdle was to try master the zoom button. I had to learn not to press the zoom to hard so it didnt create a jumpy shot, and also learn how to not zoom in so fast. Like the shots below, I had to zoom in slowly to create a nice smooth shot- or it would have looked messy!