Evaluation

The following slides contain a written version of our evaluation

Question 1: In what ways does your short film use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? First of all we used a narrative and a performance. Our music video is a narrative because of the storyline of the fighter and a performance when the artist is singing the lyrics to the camera although it is mainly a narrative. It is rare for a music video to be solely narrative or performance so in this aspect we kept to usual conventions of having a narrative and performance music video. I looked at ‘Just Like You ‘by Lecrae which is a narrative where the music video matches the lyrics and–– a performance too where Lecrae raps the lyrics. ‘Just like you’ talks about following someone who is a bad role model and talks about having a good role model. The music video is like a story where a young man has bad role models and gets into drug dealing. At the end of the music video this young man goes into a phone box and picks up a phone, this connects to the main artist Lecrae who has been rapping into a phone throughout the music video who talks about having a positive role model who is Jesus.We catered our music video to target a specific audience namely teenagers and R’n’B lovers. We knew that we had to make sure that the music video attracted this audience so we did various things to ensure this. Firstly we featured teenagers in our music video so the audience would find it easier to relate to them. We also used popular brands of clothing and accessories such as Adidas and Dr Dre Beats which would interest the audience and again connect to them. In addition, the song featured is an R’n’B song by Dappy who is a popular artist so the target audience would be engaged and more likely to watch and listen to our music video. One way we challenged forms and conventions of a real music video is that we wanted our music video to have a deep meaning with a positive message. We felt that many mainstream music videos have storylines that are not very edifying for the audience and feature things that are shallow such as: love, money, fighting, breaking up, and sex. Many music videos were similar in this aspect so we wanted our music video to be different and have a positive meaning that

would be beneficial for our target audience to listen. Our video did have a positive message which fortunately converged with the song and lyrics well. The message of our music video is about having no regrets. We feature a fighter who keeps training throughout and ends up victorious in the final fight and this is shown by a winner’s medal held by the fighter. The other storyline features an artist who becomes big and even though he has trouble he ends up signing a contract with a record label. You see the artist practising a lot when he was younger and also performs in the studio a great deal which shows that he is trying to get better. However so the audience could relate to the music video we made sure that the narrative was realistic. So for the fighter at one point he gives up and this can be clearly seen when he throws down his towel and storms off. For the artist you can see he does not like what he is writing when he scrunches up the paper that he wrote his lyrics on and states in the lyrics ‘I’ve been victimised by the public don’t know if I can take it’. In these scenes the audience is can see that everything did not run smoothly for the fighter and the artist but in the end, through hard work, they were successful. After everything that happened they have no regrets about their life and they do not look back on their mistakes but look forward to the future. The audience would understand this because in the chorus the lyrics include ‘no point in crying over yesterday’ and ‘cause we ain’t even seen the best of days’.We knew that the way we manipulated the use of the micro-elements, which include mise-en-scene, sound, camera and editing, would make the difference of our music video looking amateur or professional and effective. In all real music videos we realised that these micro-elements made the video effective so we wanted to do the same. Within mise-en scene we decided to try to keep to things that would be found in an R’n’B music video. From our questionnaire results we discovered that wealth/upper was the most popular theme so for our location we were in places such as parks and car parks. We also took footage of a an expensive looking car in our music video which again links to the popular theme of

wealth/upper although we did not include it in the final draft due to the length of the music video. Lighting can affect the mood of a music video so we aimed to use bright, natural lighting to leave the audience feeling content and it fits with the uplifting theme in our music video of having no regrets in life and looking forward to what the future holds. There were many costume changes like in a real media product and the clothing used included clothing commonly found in an R’n’B video which included hoodies, jeans and various brand names such as Adidas and Beats. What is more, like previously stated, the brand names would interest the target audience who are teenagers and would help them relate to the music video. Within real products there is always a variety of different camera techniques used and in our music videos we tried to make full use of them. During our research we found out that many music videos do not zoom in but cut and then took shots zoomed in because if a camera zooms in it looks sub-standard unless used for a particular effect so for this reason we aimed to not zoom in. Also shots usually last for a few seconds before a cut so again we kept to this. This enabled more shots to be taken so more could be shown in the music video. A variety of shots were used in our music video such a mid-shot to show emotion and an establishing shot. An extreme close-up was also used briefly because although many real media products do not feature them it enabled to see that the artist was writing lyrics on a piece of paper. By this extreme-close up the audience would then be able to see that the artists is scrunching up paper with his lyrics on which signifies that he is unhappy with his lyrics, without the extreme close-up the audience would not understand this. We also manipulated a variety of movements by trying different pan and tracking shots. Further, we realised that angle was important and could represent dominance and failure and is also interesting for the audience to watch so we tried a variety of camera angles. In addition, even without a large financial budget like many official music videos featuring big artists such as Lady Gaga, we did take a level of footage of that of official music videos which we were proud of. We did this by seeing how they took footage and

trying to replicate it. For editing a program called Final Cut Express on the Apple Mac. Official music videos have smooth flowing transitions so we incorporated into our music video which we tried to make seamless transitions like mainstream products. So for footage which was longer than a few seconds or bad quality footage we cut out. To make this easier we coloured our footage different colours accordingly: green for footage that did not need editing at all, yellow that needed a small bit of editing, orange that needed a good deal of editing, purple that needed almost complete editing and red for footage that we would not be able to use for various reasons such as quality. This enabled us to edit quicker and more efficiently making the whole process easier. We also used editing to make effects or make the music video more interesting to watch. When the footage of the younger version of the artist was shown a black and white effect was used to signify to the audience that it is an event that happened in the past. We aimed not to use too many effects as many music videos have the minimal amount that looks effective but also not clearly obvious that it is an effect so when we were editing we did not add any effects that seemed to obvious. Another piece of editing we did was to have a few seconds where the fighter is in the gym using different equipment and the screen is split into three. This is also linked to the music which adds to the effectiveness and is known as parallel sound where the visual aspect coincided with the audio contribution which is a typical convention is official music videos.Throughout the recording we played the actual soundtrack so lip-synching would be easier to put into time when editing. For the final music video we did delete this background track and add a high quality track to give the audience a better experience. We kept to mainly non-diegetic sound as this was a convention that we saw in real media products. Only the boxer hitting the pad was diegetic and this was added for effect. One problem we encountered with this was that by altering the track we thought we would be in trouble of copy write infringement

of the original soundtrack, however we realised that we sent a letter so this would not happen and as a result we were free to add whatever sound we wanted to although in the end we kept our decision of keeping the sound mainly to the actual background song. These are the ways our music video used, developed and challenged forms and conventions of a real media product

Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and its ancillary texts?

At the planning stage, we immediately started thinking about how we could relate the ancillary texts to the main product of a music video. After brainstorming a few ideas, we started analysing the lyrics of the song choice and soon realised the true meaning of the song, which was to tell everyone that no matter what had happened in the past bad or good, it eventually turned out successful as it got him where he is now. After realising this, we began thinking of what I could use to symbolize the storyline and finally came to idea of an angel. A majority of people associate angels to faith, courage & perseverance which to me summed up what the music artist had inside of him and the reason why he is where he is now. After many hours I created several designs of photos of myself representing the artist with angel wings and a halo which to myself, the team & fellow colleagues looked really good, but after all the compliments, I noticed I had missed out the most important part which was to relate it to the main task and after some consideration with the team I decided not to use the angel idea. As of this decision, I was back to stage 1 and had no other ideas for the ancillary texts so to assist myself, I carried out some brief research on real media products with a similar genre as shown in the construction which gave me an overall idea for what I needed and some key aspects of making it effective. I started wondering if a simple but effective approach would work as I had already attempted the complex option of the angel but turned out unsuccessful. From this thought, I looked at all the photos to see if there was any pose or position that was used in the music video for the relation between the two but found none. When I eventually found some photos, I was unsure of how to edit the photos as I couldn’t see anything in the music video that I could make the ancillary texts relate to so I started with the basic editing.

The first relation I made between the ancillary texts and the music video was the font of text. I wanted a stylish but simple font, which would combine with the style and layout of the ancillary texts so after searching through many fonts, I came across ‘NEOU’ which was the perfect font. Another relation that involves the text was the text colour as in both the music video and the ancillary texts a vibrant orange was used which also shows a link between the two. After looking at samples of real media products, I noticed how some are simple and boring, some are simple and effective and a majority of the CD covers and multifaceted and complex so I decided to go for the simple but effective fashion. This approach can be very difficult because if not done correctly, it can quickly lead to the simple and boring approach and immediately puts the target audience off the product. From the real media products, a majority of the simple but effective samples included close up pictures with a black and white effect but black mainly being the background. I attempted the same effect but wanted the background to be much lighter as dark black backgrounds can be associated with badness and evil but white is usually linked to honesty and happiness. To conclude, it is clear in saying that the combination of the main product and ancillary texts combine together in order to converge, as they seem to complement each other instead of being jumbled together. This is due to the result of continuing our house style throughout that seems to be generic, yet still, each promotion has something new to offer that draws in the target audience. For example, the CD cover has the artists face in half whilst the poster has a large back view of the artist. All of which come together as one to make our products effective and professional.

Here is our DVD cover and promotional magazine poster advertisement.

Question 3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

First of all we questioned our target audience as well as our peers so we could get an insight into any potential problems of the music video and to see if the audience enjoyed it. From all the people we asked we were given some constructive criticism which although we were not pleased with at first it turned out to be useful as we identified what we needed to change to make our music video even better. The main problem we discovered from the feedback was that there was footage that was fuzzy and bad quality. Fortunately we were able to change this. We also realised that the audience enjoyed watching the music and some even said that it was an inspiration for young people of today. In addition, the majority said that they would recommend it to friends so we realised that we achieved our goal of targeting and engaging the audience. You can see for yourself underneath some of the actual audience feedback we received.

To get this information we asked our target audience 5 questions:

1. Who do you think the target audience is?2. Do you feel that we have manipulated the use of micro elements?3. What do you like about the music video?4. What do you think we can improve and how?5. Would you listen to our music video and recommend it to friends?

The results varied although there were many similarities for question 4 and 3. We recorded some of the responses as you have already seen.

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

I used the Apple Mac book in order to construct our music video for our main task, which had two pieces of software to choose from, one of which was final cut express and the other being iMovie. This concluded in opting towards using final cut as this programme has and has much more to offer in view of editing, as it has more transitions, effects, and overall audio filters that can guarantee a successful music video which we would be happy with, alongside previous years of experience for the use of the software by technical staff, which if we encountered an issue, it could be dealt with sufficiently.When using this piece of technology, I knew that we had to focus upon the flow of the music video as it is essential that the visual aspects coincide with the smooth audio contribution. In order to do this, I looked at the varied transitions and where they will be best suited; in the end I concluded that the variety of professional transitions would be better.

I knew this from research looking at successful music videos today as the use of camera angles, movement and composition result in a very smooth flow of visual scenes that is outstanding to the point where we don’t realize that there is a transition, however certain music videos based upon their suited code and convention for their fitted genre, it is required. We effectively wanted this technique for our music video, via using zooms and subtle camera movements. In the end, we deemed ourselves successful, nevertheless, we were aware of the fact that we needed transitions in certain areas of the overall music video, so we reflected over the effects on final cut. Eventually, we found that these effects accompanied our use of filming and decided to add in extra forms of transitions by using the filming. What we had done was select a small amount of a clip, (the eye of the artist) which we had enhanced by adding a cross dissolve, that created a transition with the small clip that we had placed between two separate films, that concluded in a really effective solution to create a flow throughout the scenes. There are certain elements that we have struggled with concerning lighting as we cannot afford to gain professional equipment, although, we have managed to tackle this by using a stretch of foil that we shone light upon alongside using natural lighting outdoors, creating a vast amount of light. We used these methods during our venture outside and have managed to sustain good lighting whilst manifesting the upbeat no regret theme.

Even though we were inexperienced when it came to final cut, we decided to use social networking sites to aid us during our learning curve. By resorting to these new media technologies, we gained a sense of professionalism, as without it we wouldn’t have been able to create the old footage effect as well as other elements within our music video. Yet still, the fact that we had the AS experience allowed us to develop the skills that we knew by creating a music magazine advertisement and a cd cover on In design and Photoshop which allowed us to convey some of the effects that we had learnt previously. The fact that we weren’t able to have the advanced technologies that producers use today just elaborates upon the lengths that we went to ensure that we could present a successful music video. We are happy to say that we attempted to use the technologies that we were given to the best of our ability, taken into account that we never used this programmed before. We then focused upon the material that we recorded and how we could improve what we had presently got, by looking upon YouTube at real music videos, we were given inspiration to do better, not to imitate but face new outcomes that resorted in our music video that we have made. We then decided to use other technologies that allowed us to research and understand how we can create an individual stance upon present genres, allowing us to develop new and constructive outcomes of what is already present in today’s music industry.

We knew that we wanted to take our previous knowledge and advance with it to create something different, despite our lack of experience, for this reason we did trials and made mistakes regarding which camera to use in view of quality, on the other hand, this gave us knowledge as to what we could make better in the future and what media technologies are better and more reliable. We then proceeded with this, allowing our lessons to take effect, in relation to which angles are better for composition, whilst using a variety that would make use of the narrative that we had displayed. However, if we had the ability to change the way in which we approached this task, i feel that we would have done more trials in the beginning to make sure that each scene within our music video had really good quality. In addition to this, I feel that we could have worked with animation to gain an insight to how it works and see whether it would complemented our work as we did dispute this, because we initially wanted the music video to have a more serious outlook. If we were given more time to access this, we could have evaluated this and see if it would create a better music video on a whole. Although, when looking over this experience, we have all gained a considerable amount of knowledge in terms of technology and media, as we took on challenges with the lack of experience with certain software but we rose above it and created what many have said, a professional music video.

The End