Evaluation Questions

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our music video is considered to be of the pop genre, I believe we have used the typical elements included in professional music videos to create a realistic video that can reflect real media products. For example, we have made sure to frame the artist so direct address to the audience is present, this being the artist miming towards the camera. We have also emphasised this further by including many close up shots of the artists to clearly show the singer is engaged with the audience through obvious eye contact.

Alongside this we have also developed a narrative to be used alongside the performance aspect, which was an element mostly used in real products. As a group we decided that adding clips of the narrative though out the video instead of in a block would work best to create a visual contrast between the narrative and performance and also show clear breaks as one verse ends and a new one begins.

I think that we have successfully used a variety of shot types within our video so we are sure not to keep repeating shots and making the video lack audience appeal. While completing the filming stages we made sure to record enough footage to cover different shot types that included both long, medium and close ups. This is an important element of real media products to help maintain the audiences attention and add further dimensions to the visuals on screen. We then cut the shots on the beat of the song as we realised pop music is intended to encourage dancing or it uses dance-oriented beats or rhythms as well as maintain interest.

While editing we made sure that the lyrics of the song showed a relation with the visuals. An example of this would be where we have cut back to past experiences of the couple, walking in the park and the scene where they are arguing while the lyrics are describing the relationship the couple had.

Furthermore, we have used shot transitions between some shots where we thought it was needed to show a break from past to present time. This showed a more of a subtle but noticeable change from one clip in the narrative to a new scene without a jump being present. We finally choose to use more of a noticeable form of editing at the end of the video, where there is the overlays of clips all present on screen at the same time which works effectively to bring the clips to a fade and clearly show the end of the video which could develop conventions of professional videos usually just end with a fade unlike where he have created a unique summary of all the clips in the video.

Observing the sound in our video, I notice that the music also shows a link with the visuals, so it is prominent that we have used this convention of true music videos. As an example, where the music has more of a faster pace at the chorus we have used more shots with faster cuts on the beats to show an association with the music, this is as well present for when the pace of the song is slower as we have used longer shot durations to conform with the music.

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?
Our main product would not be successful without the backing of a digipak and magazine poster as this is what attracts the consumer. To do this we made sure we chose an appropriate name for the album which sounded professional to the way we wanted to portray our artist. This was then emphasised by artist pictures, this being a close up of the artist on the front of the album and also a medium shot of the artist on the back of the album which we used again on the poster to show continuity. From research into professional album covers we noticed that this was the typical type of photos used by professional music artists with the same audience we wanted to attract.

We choose to use the colours pink and black as these worked complementary with each other with the pink being feminine and allowing females to relate making it eye catching if it was on sale in a shop. We also chose track names to conform with the name of our song 'Second Time Around' and decided the album would reflect themes of love, heartbreak and upbeat dance songs. As well as making sure we kept the colours the same for the tasks, we made sure to use the same font type and record label picture as this is what is needed to give a professional finish to our work.

Overall, I believe that the combination of the digipak, magazine poster and music video all relate nicely and would look appropriate as a set. The imagery we have imagery we have created reflects themes of our music video which makes it even more believable.

3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Looking back at our rough cut, the feedback we received suggested that we should add more cuts of various shots of the artist so that the video has more interesting qualities to maintain attention. There was also a comment about adding more close up shots of the artist to show breaks from other shots and show the video is engaging with the audience. As we took this into account, I think we have made a great improvement from our rough cut to our final video.

For our final video we received comments that we have framed the artist well to maintain the audiences attention and they commented on our strong performance from the artist. We learnt that one of our strong points was our editing, especially the way we have cut clips on the beat so the music fits well with the visuals. We also used shot transitions where appropriate and a split screen, which both received positive feedback.

Although we have received many positive comments for our video, we also got some constructive feedback that we could use to improve our video further. These featured comments such as adding a filter on some shots, to complement the lighting effects. The shot that we filmed in the green room could as well be improved as the green wall in the background doesn’t fit as well as we would have liked.

Overall we found that most people agreed that our video shows realistic characteristics of the pop genre and we are pleased that the narrative is something others can relate too.

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

From the beginning of our project we used blogger to view last years media groups blogs so we knew what the coursework entailed. We then progressed in our research stages by producing blog posts with our own research to ensure we had a good idea of what we wanted our video to include and made sure we were prepared when it came to the important part of filming. It is clear that without this planning our video would not have been as successful as it is.

To progress in our research we used Youtube to view professional music videos, which allowed us to analyse them using Goodwin's analysis and help us gain a better understanding of the characteristics we would need to include in our own video. This alongside previous student videos allowed us to make sure our planning was thorough enough to use in further stages of our project.

When it came to filming we used a HD video camera, which gave us excellent shooting qualities. Being able to watch the footage as we shot it was useful as we got to see what was working well and what wasn’t. We made sure to use the camera to its full advantage and shot many shots multiple times to ensure we had the best quality footage to use in our video and enough footage to cover the whole length of the song, which made the construction stages much easier for ourselves.

It is clear our video would not be as successful without the help of Final Cut express as this is what we used to put our finished video together while constructing our own creative work with professional influences. While using Final Cut, I also learnt new skills such as lip-syncing all of our footage to our song. I also learnt how to use split screen, which was an effective element in our video.

Finally, we used Photoshop to create our ancillary tasks. This was a new programme to me and I managed to develop skills, such as cutting around the artists photo and placing it on the digipak and magazine poster. I also found that changing the photo colour to black and white helped to make the products even more realistic. I found the programme gave our products a professional look, which we wouldn’t have been able to achieve without it.