To view my evaluation on Prezi please click on the link below:
http://prezi.com/xaitivbmanjw/evaluation/
Q1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Evaluation on Prezi
Q1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Conventions are the technical features
in a genre that the audience can recognise in a media text and will be able to
classify what genre it is through the conventions used. Conventions can be such
things as the type of camera shots used; symbolism in the mise en scene etc. Genre
is a category of artistic composition and is characterised by similarities in
form, style, or subject matter and the use of codes & conventions.
For my production I decided to make a music video for the track ‘Not like the
Movies.’ There are three main types of
music video, these are: abstract; performance and narrative. Many music videos
today however include a mixture of these however making them hybrid videos
e.g in Foo Fighters ‘Learn to Fly’ music
video narrative and performance are both used; the narrative follows as story of pilots being spiked whilst flying
and is completely comical and there is also gig footage of them performing the
song.
I decided that for my music video I would use a combination
of performance and narrative as these are the most familiar formats for music
videos in ‘real’ media products. In the
video I used a varied selection of conventions, so that when the audience was
watching the piece they could easily identify what they are watching; some of
the conventions that you find in music videos which are used in my music video
for ‘Not like the Movies’ are: a wide range of camera angles and shots used to
emphasise the narrative and emotions of the characters e.g close ups are used to
focus on artist's mouth whilst lip syncing the lyrics, as well as to show
emotions on actors. In my music video a few close ups are used mainly to show
the lip syncing of lyrics. Lip syncing as mentioned already has been used in my
media product; this is a conventions you will always find in performance music videos.
In Beyonce’s video for 1 + 1 which was directed by Knowles herself, alongside
Lauren Briet and Ed Burke, she is constantly lip syncing
throughout the video and there are many close ups on her face to show the
emotion of love which she is trying to get across to the audience. The opening
of my music video after the film countdown is a shot of Faye lip synching to
introduce the main character straight away to the audience. Jump cuts are used too in my music video
which is another convention as it allows dramatic change from one scene to
another or in my products case jump cuts are used from performance scenes to
narrative scenes. The way I used jump cuts can be seen in a real media product
such as in Eminem’s video directed by Joseph Kahn for ‘Love the Way You
Lie’. CGI effects are also a common
convention in music videos; in my media product a few special effects were
included in the form of making the boyfriend disappear in one shot.
I did not develop or challenge any form or conventions as I
wanted to stick to a making a classic music video which I believe I did manage
to do. Although my music video is an armature production as it was not the scale
which a professional media production is made etc, I would still class it as a
‘real’ media product.
Q2) How effective is the combination of your main product
and ancillary text?
My main product and ancillary texts were used to promote one
and another as a synergy. Therefore making the combination of them very
effective as the ancillary text was created in inspiration for the music video
and a theme was used throughout the products.
The ancillary texts main role was for promotion of the
music, as they were used as a marketing campaign via the creation of a digipak
and a magazine advertisement. I had to make sure that my ancillary texts were
related and could easily be identified as being part of my promotion of my
music video. When creating the ancillary texts for the digipak I decided to use
a recurring theme throughout it of ‘teenage life’ as the main concept of my
media products. I chose this theme as it related to the title of the album
‘Teenage Dream’ of which the track for the music video comes from. Also it
related back to the music video as the video was targeted at the teenage
bracket as it felt they could relate to the narrative of young loves
heartbreak, which stereotypical most teenagers experience. To get the digipak
to stick to this recurring theme, I used images related to teenage life, such
as the stereotypical ‘partying’. I used two images of Faye who played Katy
Perry in the music video partying and also used an image of ‘the aftermath of a
party’ in the form on empty alcohol bottles and general mess as the back cover.
For the front cover I continued the theme by using an image of a silhouette of
a girl in the rain running down a street, as I thought this would represent the
freedom which teenager’s experience. Another image within the digipak was a
simple black and white image of the artist as portrayed by Faye again; this
image would later be used as the main image for the magazine advertisement. As
well, I made a design for the actual disc which is in the digipak, the design
was of red and white swirls to show the craziness of teenage life but also the
dream that teenagers live in. On the magazine advertisement as mentioned
previously was a black and white image which was used for a picture in the
digipak as the main image, it is a large image of the artist which was put
there for the audience to be able to recognise that the music video was from
this artist’s album. Also and image of the album and the name of it is shown on
the poster to promote the digipak. Under the image of the digipak is a small
extract which mentions about ‘the brand new single Not like the Movies’ being
on the album which yet again promotes the music video.
Overall I believe the combination of my main product and
ancillary texts are very effective as they all in their own way link up with
each other and can be identified as being part of a whole media production
through the use of recurring features.
Q3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?
After finally finishing the completed music video, I showed
it to a group of people the end project and got feedback off them on what they
thought of the final piece, they viewed the video a few times to allow time for
them to makes notes on it and pick up of things they may not have noticed from
watching the music video just once.
The majority of feedback was positive, which I am happy to
say, although with any piece of work it did receive negative criticism. One of
the main points they said was, they liked that it contained both narrative and
performance as it made it seem like a professional music video and made it
interesting to actually watch. They did say that the narrative was hard to
grasp at first but once they had watched the full video they understood it and
liked the storyline as it did relate to the song lyrics. The audience also
enjoyed the transitions used in the music video as it made it more engaging to
watch. They especially enjoyed the scenes where Harmesh faded onto the swings
next to Faye and when he faded away in the break up scene; they saw this as
impressive and these effects attracted their attention. The ability to get the
lip syncing bang on time with the music also impressed the audience as it was
so precise. The 360 degree shots were another highlight the audience said as it
was a ‘cool’ shot. They mentioned that the pace of the editing suited the pace
of the song and therefore that was another good aspect.
They did feel however that there could have been more
locations used than just the park but as it was filmed in different areas in
the park it wasn’t too bad. Also, a bigger range of shots could have been used
as some of the shots seemed repetitive. As previously mentioned the audience like the transitions however, as well they said there was an over use
of transitions during the editing. They said it sometimes could have been a
simple cut used to make the video not look as slightly over the top with them
in, although them being usually engaging.
Overall I learned that my audience thought the combination
of narrative and performance was a good choice, which made me happy and confident
about the decision I made to use both.
Furthermore they liked the effects used etc. On the other hand I learnt
that if I had the chance I would film in a variety of locations instead of just
one to make it more visual engaging as an improvement.
Q4) How did you use media technologies in the construction
and research, planning and evaluation stages?
I used many different media technologies throughout the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages.
I used many different media technologies throughout the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages.
To begin with I used the internet, specifically
‘Blogger.com’. This would be used for my online platform where I would present any of the research I
carried out for the making of my media product; it was easily accessible and
easy to use; I had also used blogger before so I knew all how to use all the
features already. Also on the blog I posted my planning for the production, to
show the various stages I went through and how my project progressed. My
research was mainly carried out using the internet. For my analysis of music
videos, documentaries and short film, I used the internet to find some examples
for these. Most of the examples were found on sites such as Youtube and BBC
iplayer. I was also able to find out specific information for these such as who
directed it and the success it had, controversies surrounding it etc by using
Google and various websites from that such as IMDb. Using the internet to research existing
products helped me get inspiration for my own production.
For the construction stages of my production a DV camera;
editing software: Final Cut Pro and Photoshop were used. The DV camera was used
to film my music video; this allowed me to easily capture the footage as it was
small and portable. Whilst filming any lip synching scenes a mobile phone was
used to play out the music, so that the actor could easily lip sync along with
the lyrics with correct timing. It also helped during this for the editing
stages, as we could match up the mp3 track to the recording of the phone
playing the song. In order to get the
footage on the computer to edit it all together a tape converter had to be used
as all footage was recorded on tape; this was hooked up to the computer and
opened in final cut pro where any footage which we wanted we would log and
capture it. Final Cut Pro was the editing software we used. When it came to
editing various techniques were used to edit the final piece this included using
transitions, rendering the footage to ensure it was correctly viewed, changing
the pace of shots; layering footage to create the fade effect used on the
boyfriend for when he disappears etc. To make my ancillary texts I used the
programme: Photoshop. Photoshop allowed me to use certain features and
techniques to make my ancillary texts look professional, some of these features
include: cropping, changing the transparency, adding text, inserting images
etc.
When it came to presenting my evaluation I used an online
presentation software called: Prezi. It was used as a way to interactively
share my evaluation instead of just presenting my evaluation in the form of an
essay on blogger which is deemed as a boring way to view it. This was the first
time I had used Prezi and I developed a new skill in using this online technology.
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