EVALUATION: QUESTION ONE

Q1. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

Earlier in the year we researched a number of different theorists including Carol Vernallis and Andrew Goodwin. At the very beginning, once we listened to the song, we realised that we would take Goodwin's theory of disjuncture and use this as a base to form our own ideas on instead of using illustration; which could get a little repetitive. Additionally, our video also sticks to the ideas and conventions that Vernallis presents. For example, we used discontinuous editing all the way through our video. This enhanced our audiences viewing as it focuses their view on our artist. Furthermore, we used obvious edits to draw attention to our artist as she sang into the camera engaging with the audience. We also used slow motion many times in our music video. This was done at certain points throughout to emphasise a specific shot; For example, at the very end we wanted to emphasise the bird release and through using slow motion it was effective.

Throughout the research process of our video, we found that looking at others music videos helped spark inspiration for our own. Such as: Lykke Li's video Get Some:

This music video was a huge influence into the many stylistic ideas of our video. We loved the quick paced cuts and the idea of writing down words on a page and speeding up the motion to convey a gothic/depressed tone. In doing this, we created a heavily edited piece that portrayed the mood of the song quite well.  We used both ideas accordingly into our own piece which proved to be a success in the end product.

Our song is considered unconventional as the genre of the piece is said to be Dubstep rather than a mainstream Pop song. We added in a gothic touch to our video as the song seemed quite depressing and would appeal to a certain type of teenage audience (emos, goths etc..) 

Here are a few likenesses from Lykke Li's video and our own:

Gnarls Barkley's 'Crazy' was another video that sparked inspiration into our own. Although the genres of the songs are very different the aspect of silhouettes, shadows and the use of black and can be compared to our video. We created this using a light to reflect Valeza's face on the wall whilst lip-syncing. We then brightened the contrast during editing to give the video a sense of mystery. In doing so, I think we re-created this aspect really well. Furthermore, it proved to be an effective part of our video, as we used mini clips of this throughout.

Looking at my Digipak, I've tried to stick to a simplistic structure by looking at artists of today and how their albums have been crafted. The simplistic approach to an album evidently seems to be the conventional way these days. Therefore, the front of my digipak can be compared to Adele's debut album 19. I loved Adele's debut album as she had her face half in light of a shadow and half out but her fans could still recognise her distinctly. Therefore I took this idea and incorporated it into my own by using only half of Lila's face in the picture:

The differences between the two are that of three: The colour scheme, the pose and the artists genre. I think the main link is the extreme close up position of the face. In using this picture type, the artist looks flattering which will draw an audience to her image on the shelves of HMV or online. Also, with the help of using a black and white edit to enhance her face draws attention to the album. Furthermore, the black and white use within my digipak makes it easier for my audience to recognise our artist, as we used this in our music video.

My advertisement is sticking to conventions by playing with the text and having an eye capturing picture to sell and promote! I took inspiration from Rihanna's Loud album poster as it had the simplicity factors that I wanted: 

I loved the distinctive colour that her poster portrays as it reflects the albums name 'Loud' 

instantaneously. This gave me the idea to incorporate this into my own piece. The obvious differences are colour and the poses that each artists are in. However, I've followed her text positioning as its simple yet effective as the target audience can clearly see what her company are trying to promote. In following these conventions I've created a believable and sellable product to my target audience. 

Evaluation- Question 4

t4. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

Videos I took of people's reactions to my music video after cinema screening:

I also have some screenshots of the feedback from the rough-cut of my music video that I put up on facebook, including constructive criticism and praise for the video

Some of the feedback my group got about our video was that the shots were sometimes a little repetitive, and I agree with that; we had to sometimes use shots up to three times. If we had the chance to re-shoot the video, I would make sure we recorded enough usable footage as we made the mistake of only shooting each scene once and these scenes were sometimes unusable due to problems with sound or not matching up to the music.

From the feedback I learned that we should have taken our time shooting the footage; maybe done it over a few days rather than trying to fit all filming into one day as we ended up having to go out and re-shoot scenes again anyway such as the lipsinging scene. Also, after feedback and what I've learned myself from watching the video over and over, I now think we should have been more conscious of things such as costume; maybe putting in a few changes here and there so that it wasn't so predictable.

However, saying that, I wouldn't want to change the final product much as I believe it looked really effective in the end, and I still believe it suits the genre of music as well as appealing to the target audience for this genre through the use of colour scheme and special effects during editing.


 My teacher gave me some feedback on my ancillary products; he liked the photography and colour scheme but some parts of my use of text such as the stars weren't as professional looking so I would have changed that if I did it again.

Here is some feedback from classmates about my ancillary products; it helped me to find out whether or not my target audience (teens/young adults) would find my digipak and advert well put together. They had mainly good feedback which was good since they are the types of people my product is aimed at.

During our trip to the cinema we took a video of the initial reaction of the audience to our music video; here it is.

 

Here is a prezzi about my experience at the cinema viewing.

documentary of my trip to the cinema on Prezi

Evaluation- Question 3

3. HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES?

As part of filming the scenes for our music video, we got the chance to work with brand new state of the art video cameras; we had used these in the previous year, but since that was quite a while ago, we had to re-learn how to use the memory cards, batteries, how to record/zoom/view the clips etc. Although I didn't do mush of the filming as I was the person on screen most of the time, I still had to learn how to use these devices; the battery in particular gave us trouble as we had to work quickly so that we didn't waste much battery and could get as many usable shots as possible

















Another form of technology which was used throughout the entire research, planning, filming, editing, and evaluation stages was blogger this enabled me to use technology and websites to make the different stages of production of my final work more interesting by using websites such as photobucket, wordles, and videos of me editing, rather than just simple pictures and writing. Blogger enabled me to record my progress as I went along so that I could map out exactly what I was doing at each stage; whether I was behind or not, I also found it helpful to see other groups and classes' blogs and see how far they had gotten. I was also able to note down any ideas that came to me so that i could come back to them later to use in my work.

I used the internet widely for research and distribution of my products for feedback; search engines such as Google I found very useful for research for my video and ancillary products, I also used Youtube for any videos I could find as inspiration or which were similar to my genre of music. I found Facebook to be a useful site to gain feedback from a typical teenage audience for my music video; this was successful as the feedback given from our rough-cut was taken into consideration and helped to improve our final piece. Finally, I used the internet to educate myself on how artists of a similar style presented themselves and their music; e.g. Ellie Goulding's official website.

I used photoshop to produce and edit my ancillary products. It was difficult to get used to using this program as i have never used it before, but it enabled me to effectively lay the pictures and text down where i needed them on the CD-cover template to make it look like a real, professional digipak.

I used the program Final Cut Pro to edit my music video; we decided to use a variety of special effects to improve the quality of the shots and make it more relevant to the style of music. For example, we desaturated the picture to make it black and white, changed the contrast and brightness to bring out the features of the artist and the background, and also a 'Bad Film' effect which made the shots flicker and blur. These effects all enabled the video to look more interesting and reflects the confused-ness of the song and lyrics.

I aslo used my phone throughout the production and planning process mainly; while I was outside of lesson if i saw something that I thought would be interesting to put up on the blog or that had inspired me I took a picture so that I could upload it later, in a similar way, I used the camera on my phone to take videos of people's reactions to our music video at the cinema screening, which I can now upload. I also used my phone as a memo-pad if I had any ideas relating to the work, I would write it down so that i could post it up later, that way I wouldn't forget any random ideas or inspiration that came to me. Since I also have internet on my phone, I would sometimes check blogger while I was out so that I could remember what I'd written, or to check if I had already posted something. By using my phone I could keep up to date with all my media work even while not in lesson.

Since I have a mac at home, I was familiar with the i-photo program; by using this I could change the effects on the pictures I wanted to use on my ancillary products so that they match the style of the video, I found it much easier using this program to edit my photos as it's a layout and technique I am used to from using it at home, I found it useful to edit the photos on i-photo first, then import them into photoshop.



During the production of my ancillary products, I wanted to find the best fonts to use for my text, so I used a program called Fontcase, which had a wide variety of fonts to choose from which were then imported directly into photoshop ready to use on my product.

We also used screenshots of our artist as well as pictures from google to make an animatic for our video during planning and research, this gave us a general idea of what types of shots we wanted to use and where they would go. We presented this as part of a pitch to the class and used final cut pro to make the animatic.

Heres a video of me talking about the types of technology I used during the process.

Evaluation- Question 2

2. HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT (VIDEO) AND ANCILLARY TEXTS (DIGIPAK AND ADVERTISEMENT)?

I made sure to have clear links between my video and ancillary products; a clear example of this is the fact that I used the same person/artist for both the video and the ancillary products. I used the same brightness/contrast as well as the black and white theme in the pictures on my digipak&advert as I did while editing my video. This was in order to bring out the features of the artist more clearly, as well as giving the dream-like gothic feel to both the video and the ancillary products. I also replicated the shot type used in the video; a close up of the artist, which I also used on the digipak.

A theme which runs through both the video and which I have incorporated also into the ancillary products is the symbolism of nature and animals; the bird shots are a constant reminder of freedom (or lack of it) throughout the video, there are also a few shots taken in the woods/forest-like places as well as the raindrops in the water. In order to make a link with the ancillary work, most of the shots were taken in the same woods as some of the scenes of the video.

Another key aspect which I linked the products with was the concept of the artist always looking down, or away from the camera; in the video, apart from a few times while lipsinging the artist is constantly looking away from the camera/audience, this created an understanding between the audience and artist about the emotions of the song and lyrics, so i thought it was important to translate this into the digipak. In all the shots of the digipak the artist is either looking down or away from camera. For the advert however, I decided that eye contact was important as it would be more likely to grab the audience's attention as well as establish the artist, so the audience can get to know her face; seeing as she is a new artist.

I thought it was important to advertise the artist by showing her face as much as possible, so that the audience would be able to recognise her, as well as to recognise the video as being linked to the ancillary products; this would ensure maximum profits with the album and songs as the artist is properly promoted so the audience know what they are getting for their money. As shown above, I have made sure that the artist's face is instantly recognisable in all the products through simple things such as the colour scheme and style of the photos/video clips used.

I think my final ancillary texts are very successful as they are not too complicated for the audience; I have tried to make them straight to the point and easy to read so that the audience would not lose interest. I have designed my ancillary products so that the target audience for my music video will be attracted to them in the same way; there is no bright garish colours to detract attention from the pictures and text, the writing itself is not bubbly or round; its quite pointy and old-fashioned, which gives it a ethereal quality which will attract the target audience of this genre of music rather than a pop/rock style of music for example.


Include:
- video of myself addressing the question
- screen casting demonstrating how i've used elements of real digipaks in my production work.

Evaluation- Question 1

1. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

The genre of our music video 'Fallen' can be interpreted as quite unique, this is because the main overriding style is dubstep due to the heavy bass tune and beats in the melody, however, the use of violins in the background of the melody as well as the soulful sound of the artist's voice and the lyrics themselves which are about love and heartbreak- not usual lyrics for dubstep tunes- make the song seem more like a slow love song; it even can be described as of a slightly pop/contemporary genre. Due to the many genres the song portrays, it in itself challenges the forms and conventions of normal media products, the video we created goes alongside this as many aspects of our video challenge as well as develop the usual conventions of dubstep videos, such as the mixture of slow motion and fast motion scenes in the video, as well as the dancers which are not usually seen in dubstep music videos. We also used the conventions of a few current music videos as inspiration for our own, to make it look as authentic as possible.

Lykke Li: 'Get Some'
This video was the main inspiration for our music video; we took many aspects from it and used in our own, such as:
-the black and white colour scheme used throughout, this conveys the emotion of the song
-the mirrored effect to create distorted patterns on screen which in our case expresses the artist's confusion at what she is feeling
-the flickering film effect which adds a sense of mystery to the video
-the mise en scene of writing/scribbling on paper with candles around it, this was an interesting scene in the Lykke Li video which we thought expressed her anger effectively, so we decided to replicate it
-close up shots of the artist's face while lip singing
-fast cuts and fast motion shots which added urgency to the video to match the song
here is a few examples of shots from Lykke Li's video that have directly influenced our own shots:

Gnarls Barkley: 'Crazy'
One aspect of this video we used as inspiration was the silhouette lip-singing parts; we re-created this using lights shined on the artist's face to create shadows on the wall of her silhouette, during editing we also changed the contrast and brightness to make it seem more cartoon-like; similar to Barkley's video. His video is also, of course, mostly in black and white which we also used in our own video. However, although the song 'Crazy' has a happier, more pop-like genre than ours, which is soulful dubstep, we made the silhouette effect match our genre by using just the simple shadow of the artist rather than the cartoon effects used in Barkley's video, which I think expresses the raw emotion of the song.

Ed Sheeran: 'A Team'

This video influenced ours in the use of black and white to portray emotions of the artist/style of song, also, the use of slow motion to express the feelings of loss, sadness and pain. Also, this style of song is the closest to our genre of the three influences; the slow rhythm and beats matches the melancholy mixture of violin strings and deep bass drums used in the melody of our song.

I think my Digipak and advert match up with the style we chose for our video; I decided to stick to the black and white colour scheme, as well as the classic, old fashioned looking photos; particularly the front cover, which compliment the simple shots used in the video. My digipak however, can be seen as a little bit unconventional as i used pictures of the artist on each side (front, back and inside cover) whereas (from the research I've done) a picture would usually only be shown on the front and inside cover, not on the back aswell, but I thought it was important to promote the artist by using as many different photographs as possible.

My advert I tried to keep as simple as possible as I didn't want to detract attention from the artist; in order to promote the artist as much as possible, since it is her debut album. I also didn't include tour dates on the advert as is usually conventional for established artists, as i thought she would not yet have a tour, since she is a new artist. Instead I made up quotes from music review magazines in order to generate interest in the new artist.

As inspiration for my Digipak goes, i decided to look at controversial bands and solo artists to see how they were projecting their brand; this one is a good example of the kind of thing i used as inspiration because it is simple and classic; only one picture (whereas i used 2, they were both simple) I particularly liked the style of writing used on the front cover and the black banner around the writing to make it stand out on the page, which i decided to replicate by using similar writing on my front cover and creating a transparent white square shape to go behind the writing on the back cover so that the writing is seen more clearly.

This picture is very similar to the one that I chose for the front cover of my digipak, with a closeup of the artist's face and the eyes looking away from camera. I used this as inspiration as I liked the effect of the artist not looking into the camera; an ironic statement as the name of the album is 'In My Eyes'. I thought this effectively expressed her emotions from the songs.

For my advert I used a simple, medium shot picture of the artist, with writing around her, similar to the style of this Rhianna advert; similarly, white writing is put on a darker/black background in order for it to stand out and be easy to read while flipping through a magazine etc.

I decided to use the typical conventions of dubstep/rock/emo music through the use of black and white colour scheme, style of writing and simple design, but i challenged some usual conventions used, such as the use of very little, if any pictures of the artist, I decided to use quite a few pictures as my main goal was to promote the new artist on the music scene.

- include videoclip of me discussing question

Planning Ancillary Products... Mock-up of Advertisement

Here is a mock-up of my advertisement it is still inspired by the 'Ellie Goulding style theme'. And the reason behind choosing the same imagery that I had on the front cover is so that I don't need to include a copy of the digipak cover on the advertisement to avoid it looking clattered or unprofessional.

Planning Ancillary Products... Mock-up of Digipak

Here is a mock-up of my digipak design. The reason that I have used Ellie Goulding in it is because it is a representation of what I want my digipak to look like. I want to make my digipak a replica of this particular cover just including images of my artist and replacing the text with 'Lilia' and renaming the album 'In my eyes'.

Here is an example of the inside panel also: