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

I believe my music video conventionally fits in with the indie genre. I have used very basic editing techniques and very basic shots to create the indie look. To begin with, like Arctic Monkeys’ video Teddy Picker, they have an intro of roughly about 40 seconds where they set up and practice their song, Teddy Picker, I have pulled this out of their video and adapted and recreated it within my video by having a few short clips at the beginning of the video to create a personal style to the video. I think this effect also gives an insight to the audience what the band are like. These few shots shows the friendship the band have and also their passion for their music and their band as they practice. [SHOW OPENING, LEAVE RUNNING UNTIL END OF NEXT PARAGRAPH TO SHOW BLACK AND WHITE BIT]

In music videos such as Foster the People – Pumped up Kicks they partially use black and white to convey aspects of their personality, I like this effect and I used this in my music video, to give a personal edge and character to the video.

Like other media productions of the indie music genre I have made sure that in the majority of my shots I have included the instruments the band are playing, this occurs in Biffy Clyro – Mountains, The Sunshine Underground – Put You In Your Place [SHOW CLIPS OF BOTH MUSIC VIDS] and many other music videos for indie bands.

Andrew Goodwins theory of Star Image I have not applied, to an extent, in my music video as I don’t believe it occurs to the genre in which I have chose. I haven’t gave my band big jewellery and expensive designer clothes to perform in, yet, I have focussed a lot of the camera around the main vocalist and the lead guitarist which is included in Goodwin’s theory. We can see this is relevant in many other indie music videos such as Coldplay – Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall it is blatant that Chris Martin is the main man of the band as he is heavily focussed upon in the majority of Coldplay’s music videos. [SHOW FEW CLIPS OF CHRIS MARTIN IN MUSIC VIDEOS]

In many music videos recently there has been many ‘homemade video’ type shots where a steadicam, or tripod has not been used, I have used this throughout my music video to give the effect of the whole video being documentary or biographical of the band. [SHOW SHAKY CLIP OF BOYS MESSING AROUND]

In my music video I have also tried to use various shots conveying each of the band members, giving an insight to their personality etcetera. I have also done this by using different lighting and different angles throughout the music video giving the music video a bit of edge and character. This is a typical convention of indie genre music and I have continued and developed these varied shots in to

my music video, these can also be seen on my blog under ‘still shots’. [SHOW STILL SHOT IMAGES]

With my digipak I have challenged other forms and conventions of real media products as the majority of ‘indie’ album covers do not include shots of the band. A lot of albums much more arty and feature a lot of abstract art as the cover, this is apparent with artists such as Grizzly Bear, Coldplay, Local Natives and many more. [SHOW SHOTS OF ALBUM ARTWORKS] With my digipak cover I have featured a shot of the band, there aren’t looking at the camera and are all focussing upon their instruments, I like this because it shows the passion the band have for their music. The colours I have used are very subtle and I have used a film grain effect to give an edgy old school look to it, a common effect throughout photo shoots with indie bands.

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

With my main product in comparison to other media texts there are several similarities. One of which is noticeably the colour scheme. I have kept the colours very simple throughout the music video and with my ancillary texts. With Palace’s actual recent EP we can see they have used the white font which I have similarly used in my digipak for Palace, the letter spacing has also been used as it is used with all of Palace’s work. The colours we can see are very bland and the picture is very blurred, I have taken this into account and I have used an image which I took of Palace and have used this as the back cover of my digipak.

Similar green tones have been used along with the white font. I have also continued the white font on to the front cover of my digipak and poster, along with very simple images. A lot of the time we see that inide bands do not often use their faces on the front of their digipak covers and normally use abstract artwork such as Grizzly Bear – Horn of Plenty and The Antlers – In The Attic Of The Universe.

However I have challenged this idea and used an image of the band on the front cover to show the band in action. I think it works well as we can see all band members and they aren’t looking at the camera and it gives off a casual feel. I think this casual feel is important when dealing with the indie genre and this image does it justice. We can also see that with Grizzly Bear that white font is an occurring colour to use with indie albums, I think the white adds simplicity to the

arty backgrounds. We can also see that the backgrounds are the most important when it comes to the digipak as it shows creativity. The writing is the least important as we see with various covers, I had took this into account and placed my cover name and band in small and white font in the top left hand corner.

The way my

performers are dressed throughout my music video are similar to the ways typical indie bands dress. We can see here with the music video Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the people we can see that Mark Foster is dressed with a simple white t shirt on, and the image above that show the full band dressed very casually. In the typical indie music video the stars are not dressed head to toe in big jewellery like R&B music videos and artists such as Kanye West and Nicki Minaj.

We can see with several indie artists such as Foster the People, Arctic Monkeys and Cage the Elephant that their clothing is not one of the most important aspects to their music videos and draw little attention to their costume.

After looking at my video you can see that there a similarities with the colour scheme and the subtle colours throughout which are then repeated with my poster and digipak as I have used the same font with both.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

The feedback that I have received thus far has all been positive. Out of a possible 70 marks for my ancillary task and music video I received 65 from a fellow student under Anciliary task feedback http://hannahliddleg324.blogspot.com/2012/01/ancillary-task-student-feedback.html. I think this is crucial that it is from another student, as my target audience was of a young age between 15 & 25. The Feedback I received from this student was very fair but I also don’t think it was specific enough in what I should be doing to improve my work.

Some feeback I have received is on my youtube channel on the music videohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fz6MyowxSE&feature=g-upl&context=G2a62948AUAAAAAAAAAA and others have been given in lesson. I have received feedback such as ‘Everything in sync, guitar syncing very impressive, looked like a music video you’d see on TV, good job!’ and ‘Guitars well synced, however some slightly repetitive shots’. The feedback from my tutor was ‘A refreshing change from the generic glossy pop videos of MTV. Reminiscent of the beginnings of the ‘pop’ videos in the 60’s. A brave move’, while others mentioned that ‘some clips go on too long’ and ‘there is some randomly placed clips.’ I have taken everyone’s feedback in to account and I have learned to try be a bit more diverse with what I am shooting and to also use a tripod at times as the shaky shots can be too much as one person has commented ‘a lot of very shaky shots’. I have also took in to account that some of the shots are too long for the video with the

quick pace of the music and maybe as a future reference have the shots shorter. With inspirations such as Bombay Bicycle Clubs music video for Shuffle with the different shots of their everyday life included in with their music I tried to portray this within my video by showing several shots of this. I have had feedback on this effect ‘good video! i like all the different scenes you’ve put together as one videobeckyyyboyd21’ and ‘Good video. I like all the different shotsshaunaluckett’.

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

With the research, planning and evaluation stages of my media project I used meida technologies such as Prezi, Final Cut, Slideshare, Blogger, Youtube, Photoshop and more.

When creating my blog for this media project I used blogger. By using this website it has allowed me to use various other media technologies to present my work. Blogger allows me to also upload photos from my computer to add to my project and also allows me to embed videos and other external links to my work from other sites.

At AS I was still very unfamiliar with Final Cut and other editing software, as even though we did filming and editing in AS I was not given the role to edit our footage. Due to working alone from November I have been able to develop my editing skills quite well on Final Cut with the creation of my music video piece.

I am also very aware of websites such as Slideshare which has abled me to present my works such as my shooting schedule, the Palace story board and my video evaluation, along side my risk assessment, call sheet, and audience profile and research and advertisement analysis. Google Documents which has helped me with audience research as I created a questionnaire to be filled out and shows results on Google Docs. Prezi, Wordle, and Youtube that have all helped me develop my music video with the writing side of it. With having a Youtube account I have been able to upload videos and share them on to my blog such as our original storyboard for Local Natives that I put with music and made into a video. Having a Youtube account has also helped me upload my rough cuts and allow them to be put on to my blog and has also abled me, along side final cut, with the evaluation stages of my project.

My Photoshop skills were also very minimal at AS and during the course of A2 they have greatly improved, I think this is shown with my digipak and my poster, promoting the song and the band. Photoshop also helped me capture images and edit them appropriately of the band, while we were recording and this has helped me develop skills from AS and bring me to a better understanding of the Photoshop software now at A2.

I believe these skills that I developed at A2 have expanded and further developed at AS allowing me to be more creative with the way I present my work.