EvaluationBy James Barnes

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

There are many forms and conventions that are always used in music videos, this being the media I am basing my work on. Certain aspects and techniques are consistently used throughout all different music videos, some of these being listed now. Lip syncing is almost always used in a music video and it is when the singer or singers mime the words of the song or matches their lip movement with voice, so it looks like they are singing, this is the most popular technique in the music video industry. Because of this it was vital that I used Lip syncing in my production, I focused on good lines and times in the song where to insert lip syncing and overall I feel the timing of my lip sync is good and it adds a fantastic feel to my video.

Choreographed dance and also band shots are again two forms and conventions which are used in real media products, these were not used in my production though, due to the fact my video was based on a solo artist and dancing wouldn't had suited the mood of the song I chose. Another technique which I chose not to use in my music video was change of costume, because in my video everything is happening on the same day, so to be realistic my character had to keep the same costume throughout the whole video. The changing of costume suggests a change of time, and my video is all in one day, where you would stay in one state of clothing usually, I tried to reflect this in my production.

Placed left is a screenshot of lip sync in my production, whereas on the right is a screenshot of lip sync from a professional video by Michael Buble.

Mise en scene is something which I really studied and focused on in depth, because I feel the Mise en scene of your video will have a massive impact on the watching audience. In my video I had about three different mise en scenes which were my house, The Bourne Park and Wareside. I knew it was vital I had to change my Mise en scenes to ensure that my audience didn't get bored or lose interest in my video. The mise en scene also helped with the emotion and feel of my video as well, it suggested that my character was escaping and getting lost, which relates with the title of my music video, Lost by Michael Buble.

My bedroom

The Bourne Park

Wareside

My storyline is one of the aspects which I started off struggling with, I wanted to have a consistent story throughout my video, so I experimented with the placements of my shots until I was happy with the order and the impact on the audience, I found out the audiences response by asking for feedback from my fellow peers in my class, all the feedback I received was very helpful. I knew my video was going to be based on a single male who is finding it hard to live without his female lover who had left him, and my aim was to create the male as a cute and likeable character who the audience could easily relate to. Because this was my story I also decided to add iconography of love songs for example you usually see the colour red, along with hearts and flowers. For my production I aimed to go for a less obvious and slightly different way of showing romance compared to the stereotypical way of love hearts and flowers. In my video I created a love letter exchange between the main character and his lover as well as a burning candle which also suggests romance and love.

Throughout the process of planning, filming and editing my production my skills have improved massively and I feel personally I have developed my skills to a higher quality than I have before. I used the forms and conventions of a music video production in my own way. I used slow motion to emphasise emotion or to add tension to a shot, for example when I am opening the letter at the end of the video. I also speeded some of my video up to suggest an uneasy atmosphere, impatience, excitement and anticipation. This is along with the feel of time passing by at a speed, showing my main character doesn't stop thinking about his lover, all the time.

While editing my production I also used reverse shots but very experimentally to see what effect it could have on my video. The main use of reverse shots was on the shot of the candle where I made the candle go from being blown out, to lighting itself back up, this is a symbol of determination and passion signifying that my character is determined and strong for the female whom he loves.

I also experimented with shots such as sideways shots, and also shots including playing cards and a jenga tower, which were interesting and gave me two good shots which I used in my final production.

I tried to be original with my shots, there were no live performances so my production ended up being open ended.

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

Throughout this music video production process we have had to create our own ancillary tasks which would appeal to our specialist audiences based on the genre and style of our video. During the production process I have learnt that the purpose of the ancillary tasks is to help to sell the main product, this being the music video. The advantage of a digipack to buying customers is that it is a very personal item, which usually contains thank you notes and writings from the artists themselves, which fans would enjoy and feel like they are getting an insight into the singers lives and how they act everyday, behind closed doors. The fact that a digipack is a physical item, being a pack, I feel this is an advantage when looking to sell because the buyers will get a thrill of getting a whole pack rather than just a CD in a sheet, instead they get a professional case full of information about the artist and songs.

For my digipack I decided to challenge the usual conventions and forms by making my digipack a portrait ratio rather than the usual traditional landscape setting. Th e picture on the front of my digipack is of me, looking disappointed and alone, again this is appealing to the audience, by making my character a likeable one.

As for my advert I agreed to the usual forms and conventions and created a landscape advert which would appear in publications such as NME, FHM and national newspapers such as The Sun or The Star, the more simplistic newspapers. My advert makes the audiences aware that the CD is available to buy, it hopefully converts people into potential buyers. The picture is eye-catching and relates to the song title, Lost

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

Michael Buble's single cover, for the song called Home was a big inspiration to me during this process in the production, I really liked this cover because its a solo artist and the cover makes him likeable and makes you relate to him, which I want my audience to feel towards me.

My next inspiration is Jason Derulo's album, I like this because he is a solo artist and I really like the lighting behind his head, it makes him look important and a key person.

My third and final inspiration was Paolo Nutini's album, called These Streets. I really like the way the pictures are like an ink stencil and they are in different colour blocks, it is nice and positive, and very eye-catching

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Throughout this whole A2 media process as a whole audience feedback has been a massive aspect which has helped me a lot ever since the first day I started planning for my music video, Lost. I have received feedback on my plans, both of my ancillary tasks and also for my video at different stages of the process. Every time I have received feedback I have noted it down, taken it on board and made the sufficient changes that had to be done to insure there was an improvement in the level of my work I am creating for this production.

There are three examples of techniques and parts of my music video that got changed due to receiving knowledgeable feedback from my teacher and also all of my classmates. The first example of feedback was to add more cross cuts or fades to black or white, to create a pattern of cuts, which would make my video look more smooth and a lot more professional, I carried out this action and thanks to the feedback it improved the overall quality of my video. The second piece of feedback was to fill certain gaps with specific shots or techniques, again I carried this action out and thanks to my classmates again my video was of a better quality after this. The last piece of constructive feedback was instead of speeding certain shots up just reduce the length of them to keep a consistent speed and tempo throughout the video, I took this feedback on-board and watched my video several times, noted down the scenes which needed adjusting and then adjusted them by using the razor tool and reducing the shots in length.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

When I showed my video to my class and my teacher, on several occasions there were shots and cuts that sparked different opinions which started debates. The first debatable shot was of me walking down the hallway, this was repeated three times in my video, until the post was delivered through the door. I decided to speed the three shots up to show that my character was getting impatient and that with everyday that went past, he was still waiting and still was obsessed on what was going to be delivered, it was my way of showing my characters actions throughout a few days within a matter of ten or fifteen minutes. Some of my classmates liked the idea but others thought this was unrealistic and also looked quite comical at times, like an old fashioned slapstick comedy, but after all this feedback I decided to keep the shots as I still felt they worked well and there was a good meaning behind them.

When I presented my first cut I got told too many of my shots were based inside in my bedroom, this was thanks to feedback, so then I realised I had to change the location because it was clearly affecting my audiences response.

Constructive feedback obviously made me improve certain aspects of my video, but I also received positive feedback, for example, All lip sync is in time and works great so from receiving this it gave me confidence to keep adding more lip syncing throughout my video, because I knew my audience enjoyed it.

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

Throughout all stages of this project all media technologies have been used, firstly I used the internet to create my pitch presentation, by getting still images from music videos, for example Robbie Williams song Angel I watched the video and paused it and captured the action by doing a print screen, I then copied this onto my pitch presentation so my aims were clearer to my audience.

Original Internet Page

My edited version

Another programme I used on Microsoft computers is Powerpoint, this helped me share my ideas and list feedback in a quick and simple way, which was easy to read and very accessible. This was followed up by going onto the internet to carry out research on videos and music styles, this helped me mostly in making my decision on what song I wanted to complete my video on. I used a canon video camera to film all of my footage for my video, it was a very good quality camera, very portable and also you could watch playback on what you had just filmed, so if it wasn't how you wanted it, then you could just film again. For my editing I used Adobe Premire Pro which I found easy to use, so I could import my footage, cut the shots apart and also add transitions, cuts and special effects to make my video look more professional, I was very happy with the quality of this programme throughout this process. I also used Adobe Photoshop 7.0 to edit and add text to my Ancillary tasks, I had used this product before and feel it gave my work another level, and made it look very realistic and professional. Overall I am very happy with all the media technologies I used and they helped hugely to making my video such a high quality as it is now.