Evaluation

    To view my evaluation on Prezi please click on the link below:

     http://prezi.com/xaitivbmanjw/evaluation/  

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.

     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.