Script

Ada: 1. In what ways does your media product use , develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (Text with Voice Over)

Charlotte:  The camera work we used had direct address which was effective because like other pop videos it made a connection with the audience. In our music video this helped portray the emotion to make the audience feel more emotionally connected to our artist and understand how the artist felt. We also framed the artist all the way through our music video with a range of shots which mainly included close ups which is another convention that we used and developed through our music video. The emotion that the lyrics portrayed was definitely shown across our music video by the way that our artist performed.  In parts of our music video we had direct scenes which did exactly what the lyrics said, for example "I tried crossing out your words", for these lyrics we had our artist ripping up a piece of paper that said "I'm Sorry".

Lucy: Our music video mostly follows Goodwin's Analysis so we see that it uses the conventions of a real music video, we used the stereotypical performance you would expect to see in this sort of video, the stereotypical genre characteristics and also the narrative clips telling parts of the story so we see we've also shown a relationship between the music and visuals.

Jade: While editing we have made sure to cut the shots on the beat of the song as we realised pop music is intended to encourage dancing. We have made sure the editing clearly shows a link between the lyrics and the visuals to help show off the typical relationship portrayed in pop videos. 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. We have also used shot transitions between some shots where we thought it was needed. We 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 on a more professional level.

Ada: For the mise en scene we filmed the artist's performance repeatedly in different outfits so we could cut between them, adding a further dimension to our video, this helps to create the feeling of movement and keeps our video from looking like one long continuous shot.  We used some props in our video, for example a mobile phone, we did this to add a realistic touch to the characters, which lets the audience identify better with the artist. We also used props such as a cardboard box when the male character was leaving to add some realism to the scene.

Lucy: 2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary text?


Jade: Our main product would not be successful without the backing of a digipack 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. We choose to use the colours pink and black as these worked complementary with each other and also seemed to fit well with the track names we used, which portray themes of love, heartbreak and upbeat dance songs. I believe we have created appropriate imagery to conform with our music video and think we have shown realistic qualities.


Charlotte: The shots throughout our main product and ancillary texts were consistent.   We used close ups and direct address in our music video and to fit with our pop genre. This helped to engage and create a connection to our audience. For our digipack we also framed our artist by using a close up which works well along side our music video as it not only keeps a common theme but again connects with the audience and fits in with the conventions of the genre. For our magazine poster we thought it would be more appropriate to use a similar picture but of the whole of the artist rather than just a close up. This worked effectively alongside the other products because it was more of a casual, fun side to our artist which contrasts well with our other products and shows that our artist can be versatile.


Ada: Our product fits well with the ancillary products we created to distribute with it, the digipack cover is influenced by our music video but not directly linked as this is not the title track of the album and we wanted the album to be more reflective of the artist than the song. Our magazine advert ties in well with our digipack and when presented together they look as if they are are meant to be a set.


Lucy: As a package they are effective due to the fact they work together and successfully show what we wanted, which is a promotion and video. The video turned out better than we could hope and we have successfully promoted with our digipack and magazine cover and the fact both show the stereotypical conventions e.g the picture of the artist on the digipack and magazine cover is something you would tend to see on albums and magazines for artists like Lady GaGa and also the mostly performance based video showing close ups of the artist, means when looking at the digipack cover you can be reminded of the close up of the artist in the video.


Charlotte: 3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?



Lucy: Audience feedback has showed us that we made quite a successful video, following most stereotypical conventions you would find in a professional video of our pop genre.

Charlotte: The feedback that we got through our project was constructive and helped us develop on our product. We took everything that was mentioned into consideration and I think that this helped improve our music video as it was "outside" help. This therefore was effective because it was from an audience's point of view and it is the audience attention who we aimed to capture so their opinion was important throughout.

Jade: The feedback we received for our rough cut suggested we should add more cuts of various shots of the artist and also add more close ups to show breaks from other shots. As we took this on board we think we have made a great improvement from our rough cut to our final video. We as well recieved 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 and the way we have cut clips on the beat as well as using shot transitions where appropirate. Although we have reveieved many good comments we also got some feedback that would help make our video even better such as adding a filter on some shots, for example the shot which we filmed in the green room, as this shot doesn't fit as well as we would have liked.
 
Ada: The feedback we recived allowed us to look at our work from a fresh viewpoint and highlighted areas that we could improve aswell as identifing our strengths witch we could play to, the feedback indicated that we should include more cuts to keep our video from stagnating and looking asif one continuos shot, we were also told that filters were needed to be added to our video to make it look more clean cut and proffesionaly shot.



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

Ada: During the course of our project we have used a varity of different technoligies to create our final products, the video was created with the use of HD camcorders, and a DVW (Digital Video Workstation) in our case Final Cut Pro on the Apple Mac. The other half of our final product, the Ancillary project, was shot with a still camera and then edited in Photoshop CS3 a high end proffesional photo editing package. we also used the still camera to take photos of some of our planning and used these images in our group blog on blogger.com.


Charlotte: The whole way through our project we have constantly used blogger to blog our thoughts, ideas, plans, research and now evaluation. The blogs have helped because they are always there to look back on with all our ideas. In our planning and research ideas we used Google to gain the information that we needed. For the music video its self we use HD Camcorders to film our footage and then Final Cut to edit our music video together. The HD cameras were effective because it made our footage look more professional. For our ancillary tasks we used Photoshop to produce our digipak and poster.

Lucy: Nearly every aspect of this project has enabled us to use some form of technology, Blogger gave us the opportunity to get our idea's, research, planning and evalutions out in the open and extend upon them whenever we wished and I found it very beneficial to the project through all the stages due to the fact we all have access to the same thing wherever we may be. Further research was also done via Youtube and Google as the internet is now possibly one of the most informative resources we have. We found relevant artist's video's and this helped us to see stereotypically what we should include within ours.  In regards to our music video, editing and filming was made easier with the use of the HD camera, giving us better quality footage to work with in the construction stage and also the use of Final Cut, a very good editing program which after a while we got the hang of and it was quite easy to work with.

Jade: From the very beginning we used blogger to view last years media groups work so we knew what the coursework entailed. We then progressed in our reserach by using 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. 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 and construct our own creative work with professional influences being present.