Evaluation

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

Our main product is a music video for a song called "I'll never let you go". Before starting our music video, we looked at music videos that were already out. By doing this we were able to see what is expected of a music video. We were able to the see the popular conventions of a music video and so it helped us to consider the narrative of our video. Our music video follows the form of a lot of popular video in the way that we show the artist playing an instrument and miming to the music. We found that was a popular way of presenting songs in music videos. Our lighting was a problem for us at out location. We did two separate shoots in the theatre and on the first shot, we had stage lights up shinning on the artist and on the second shoot, we had no access to the stage lighting so our lighting was very bright on one section and one was dull. We thought this was a big problem so we thought we would try putting it in black and white to see how it looked and we preferred it and thought it looked better. There were a few music videos out there that we analyzed that were in black and white so we knew it was a good choice. The types of shots used were determined by analyzing music videos. We looked at establishing shots and the master shots. A lot of music videos had big location shots with people in famous places, so we wanted to use London as our location because it was iconic and it will help people to connect to the video. We liked the idea of filming in London because it was different and wasn't just in this area. We didn't have a strict costume in our video. The actors wore everyday clothes and kept it casual. The main artist wore different outfits in the different locations, London and at the theatre. This showed that it was at separate times and while shooting in London, the actors wore the same outfit, connoting that it is the same day out. We used the artist in both narratives because the song is like he is singing about his life, so it involved him. During out research we found out that in a lot of music videos, the artist does live performance, miming to the song and is in a narrative side to the story, so we took inspiration from this research. It follows the genre because of the way it has typical images associated with it. It has images of the artist playing and miming the song and it has a parallel storyline/narrative along side it. 


Our first subsidiary task, the CD digi-pak, is quite similar to existing products because of its style, layout, design and images.  The Layout of the CD is what stands out the most, as it is very typical of CDs of that genre. The picture is to the right of the case and the writing fills in the space to the left. The picture of the artist has him looking away, which is different from a lot of CD cases because there is usually a picture with eye contact to connote power and dominance, but the picture we chose has him looking away, connoting modesty and shyness. We edited the picture to change the colours a bit to more of a brown and autumn hue. The colours worked because they are not to dull but they add something to the picture and are similar to CD covers from artists of the same genre in the industry. The writing colour matches the picture colour because we pulled a colour from the actual image so that we knew it all worked together and tied in well. We found that a lot of CD covers all tie in with colour of the pictures and with their text, so it all works together well. The font was taken from Dafont.com and it works because it’s not too boring and it’s interesting to look at. The writing is big so it takes up most of the blank space. It is easy to read and stands out so it would be easy for people to find the product. The text is all the same throughout the digi-pack and the colour of it stays the same so we thought it links it all together well. The picture of the artist takes up most of the picture so it stands out and it is similar to CD covers that we researched. The inside of the CD follows conventions of existing media products because of how it has a note from the artist. A lot of CD cases include a thank you note from the musicians so we thought it would work. We kept the background cover the same colour so it links in and we added a picture of amps in the bottom left hand corner so it wasn’t too plain. The writing was tilted and had shadow effects put on it to make it stand out more. The actual CD itself is a little different from other CDs. We found a lot of Cd that already exist have a picture of the artist, or and image of some kind that links to the album on it. We decided to add the track listings to it, but instead of just listing it, we wanted to make it aesthetically pleasing, so we added it in a spiral shape around the disk. Once we added the writing, we thought it was too plain and struggled finding something to add but we found a shape of a star that added something more to it so we applied it to the white patches on the disk. Again we kept the background of the square the same colour as the front and inside left to maintain the same theme. The disk challenges the normal conventions of a disk because of how it doesn’t have a picture or and image on it which other CDs typically do.  The background of the digi-pack is a little different from existing products because of how it doesn’t have the track listings numbered. The songs are just listed in the center of the page. The font and the colour of the text are all the same as throughout the digi-pack which shows how it is all connected. We thought the background was a little plain without any thing but the track listings so we messed around with gradient and shapes to find something interesting but something that linked with the rest of the CD. We added squares but made their opacity lighter so they were fainter and kept them the same colour as the rest of the pack. This challenges regular products because on the back, there is typically an image of the artist, but we decided we liked the shapes, so we made it different.

Our second subsidiary task, the poster to advertise the CD, is quite different from a lot of posters for existing products. Our poster, instead of just having one picture of the artist, it has a faded picture of a guitar, which links in with genre. The guitar if very faint but it is still clearly visible. It fills in the space and makes it more interesting to look at. It also makes it clear to people looking at it that it is advertising a CD of a certain genre. The picture is of half of his face, which is different because usually, like CD covers, the artist has eye contact with the camera. The picture we chose has only half his face and there is no eye contact with the audience. This challenges codes and conventions because there were no existing posters that we researched that had only half a face; they were all directly looking out. The text that we used on the poster is again, linked with the CD. It is the same font and we thought that it would be a good idea to keep it all connected. The colour of the font is a different colour because the picture and hue of the poster is different. We added the picture of the CD front on the poster, which is typical of a lot of posters. We thought this was a good idea because then people know what to look for when looking for the CD. This follows codes and conventions of posters that already exist because it’s quite common for posters to have the image of the CD on it.  For the information, we added “The Debut Album” which is extra information and it is quite common to see that written on music posters, as it is information for the public. It is tilted so it is interesting to look at and doesn’t make it so boring. This follows conventions of an existing product because they are made to look interesting and eye catching. The layout is similar to existing products because of how there is a big picture of the artist and how the name and title of the song is in big letters. The colours used are lots of browns, which is the same as the CD digi-pack.

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

Our subsidiary tasks are quite closely linked together. We thought it would be important to keep them similar so that you can tell that they are together. There are a lot of features on the ancillary texts that share similarities like font, pictures, colour themes and typography. The main differences are between the ancillary texts and the music video. We tried to keep some similarities between them, and the main one would be the lighting in the video, keeping it desaturated, like the poster and CD. The costumes the same for the poster and the CD and although the pictures look similar, they are different. The same outfit is worn in the music video during the live recording and this links all the three in together. The main different would be between the video and the ancillary texts. The live recordings are in black and white and their rest of the parts are all in colour. The target audience for our music video and for our ancillary texts is the same, mostly teenagers and young adults. We tried to keep our video relevant to that age range by using young actors and by picking the song. The way the poster and the CD are presented is mainly for young people, by the colours used and the way the actual CD and back cover are designed. One text helps you understand the other because the poster and CD are very similar so you know they belong with each other and the same artist/song. We kept the name of the album as the name of the song because it shows that they go together. We tried to keep our ancillary texts similar to each other and keep similar themes like colour and text. We thought it would make sense to keep them related to each other because them the audience would be able to see their link and see how they are connected. We tried to keep the costume the same in the ancillary task photos and the live footage of the videos as it shows they are associated. They all have common themes and all try to convey the same genre and style of music. The main difference between the ancillary texts and the music video is mainly the colour. In the music video, it contrasts between black and white to desaturated colour, where as the ancillary texts mainly focus on browns and purples.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Our target audience for the music video would be people in their teens/early twenties and we tried to target them by using notable locations. We thought by using London, as a filming location then it would appeal to young people because it’s a famous place and so they would feel a connection with it. We also tried to connect with them because of how our video had young people in, with a story of them falling in love, which would appeal to the young audience.
We received quite a few positive comments about our video, but there were a few things that we could have improved. One thing we could have improved would be to add more of a narrative to the storyline and to have used more of a variety of the shots. We could have used a few more different locations to shoot in to add more a variety. We struggled with lighting on the live recording parts so we had do some editing to make it look similar, so if we could have change anything, it would be to have had the same lighting on both recording of the live set so the lighting would have been kept the same and wouldn’t have been a problem. 

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

The type of hardware that we used was mainly camera. We used video cameras to record the footage. The cameras were complicated to use at first as there was a lot to understand but once we practiced with it a few times it was easy to understand. We recoded everything on a video camera and used a normal camera to take the photos, which was easy to understand and work.

The software I spent most of the time on was either Photoshop, or final cut. Final cut was used to edit the footage and put the video together, which was a little overwhelming to begin with because we hadn’t used it before but after a few days of playing around with it, it was easier to use. Photoshop was used to edit our photos and to put together the digi pak and poster. 

Blogger helped us in presenting our work because we could display it and see what our partner and we had done. It was clearly laid out so we knew what we needed to do and what we hadn’t already done.  Blogger helped our peers to view our work and to offer advise and give feedback on our work on how to improve. Blogger, to stat with was difficult to understand and it was difficult to use but after using it for a few hours, it became quite understandable and a good way of presenting work.