Evaluation

Media Evaluation

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

In general music videos contain a lot of conventions and forms that are followed in most other music videos. These conventions create the fast action effects of the rock genre music and the slower styles like classical. However obviously different genres of music use different effects to go with the sounds, but general music video conventions are:

Well-lit shots allowing the artists face to be shown. They contain fast cutting edits in pace with the music to create matching effects. The Videos often repeat certain scenes to get the storyline into the viewer’s head. They can include slight storyline to create an emotional viewing experience and to make the music video memorable. The record companies often want lots of shots of Artist giving them the maximum advertisement. The videos include close-ups allowing people to recognise the artist. They often include the opposite sex to artist to allow a sex persona and attract people to the music video. They will use the Artist in video but they perform they will use him as a character to allow for advertising still, but they are a storyline character. They will use low angled shots showing the artists has power and is in control. The producers will often use tracking shots allowing for moving footage like panning and running shots. Often extreme close-ups will be used bringing different facial features creating intensity.

Record Companies will want performance equipment and merchandise in the videos this creating the image that they are an actual band and makes them look realistic they also allow for the band to advertise them self-more if they have merchandise. They also use crane shots to put the artist into perspective of the surroundings or to show that they stand out in the crowd. The costume of the artist will also be a key issue as they want them to have an identity therefor they use what they normally wear to show they are real and not fake. There are more conventions that are typical in music videos that I have not listed.

However Oliver and I created the music video for the genre of Acoustic Indie;

Example's of Indie Acoustic by Ed Sheeran


(Last One Standing)


(One Night Stand)

This genre does not use some of the conventions of the general music videos and also uses some of its own styles. The conventions extra for the genre I am creating for are:

Lots of shots of the artists signing quietly allowing them to show their talent behind the voice and also allowing people to identify them. They also use quite a lot of acoustic setups therefore you would expect to see acoustic guitars in the videos and also other softer instruments. Lighting is normally natural or in some cases extreme to show that the character is in open sunlight.

(Lighting)

There is usually a love story theme behind the music of a couple splitting up and getting back together. They are mainly set outside in deserted locations with either flashbacks or memories cut in. Close ups of the guitars are usually seen when the artists is picking the strings and strumming.

Usually lots of pans and tracking shots are also used creating some slightly fast paced shots, but keeping in with the theme of the song.

Therefore when Oliver and I created the music video we tried to consistently use conventions that are found in the acoustic indie sub-genre. We used outside lighting and the sun to create a natural feel and used acoustic guitars to fit in with the genre. Our first idea was to have the artists looking for his lover who had walked out, however in the end we realised that it looked a lot better to used a old style film to look like the artists was looking back on his life and the girl he loved. This fits with not only the song but the conventions of the storyline being about love. We also used pans to capture emotion and different angle close-ups as well. We didn't use any fancy editing techniques as these are rarely ever found in the acoustic indie genre as they do not fit well and therefore kept in line with normal cuts and fades to the next scenes.

One of my ancillary texts is to create a Website homepage for the band, the typical Characteristics of a music website homepage are a key area I had to focus on when creating it, the conventions and forms of a band/artists website homepage are:

Pictures of the artist are often used on the homepage to allow users to recognise the artist and the brand. There are usually use aesthetically pleasing titles that stand out and are interesting, but also that relate to the band/artist image.

(Website homepage showing title and band images)

Websites usually contain multimedia files like videos or songs on the homepage to advertise the artist’s work and allow for people to recognise them. Now that social networking is a big part of online activity, websites normally incorporate either links to the bands social network sites or direct live feeds of the individual band member’s social feeds. There is Information about the band/artist in general that gives some facts and figures about them. The website also includes advertising for the artist’s latest merchandise this would include posters, clothing and CD’s. Picture sideshows are a usual convention on websites as it allows people to recognise the band or artists and gives them for advertisement and there identity is shown more. Tour dates are often on the website as this allows for people to know when and where the artist/band are playing. One very common convention that is found on nearly every artists site is ITunes and music advertising by this I mean online music downloading services being advertised as to wear users can download the artists music online, this is because online sales within in the music industry is worth billions of pounds a year.

(Devlin Album Advertisement)

Also a very common attribute of Artists websites is to the same colour scheme of the artist’s identity throughout the website and the albums they create, this means logos, fonts and colours should all be the same.

As these conventions are for all music websites, I decided to fit as many as possible in my homepage, this includes; a Big title that is clear to read and easily shows that it is the artists. The artist’s logo showing that it is there band and this allows people to easily recognise who it is. I also have social networking links and an email link to get the latest news from the artists. AS one of the main points of the website is what the artists do, I have included a music video and a song on the homepage allowing users to see and hear what the artists work is like. I have included pictures of the artists to create recognition and also have placed and iTunes advert showing you can buy his songs online and also the latest album. There is a small area of text detailing the life of the artists and his accomplishments so far and contact details if the user would like to get in touch with them directly.

The second ancillary text that I had to create was a Digi-pack to hold the CD, the Digi-pack consists of 6 panels either side, 3 on the inside and 3 on the outer side. Compared to the other products I had to create there is a very little amount of conventions that Digi-packs conform too.

However these conventions include: Pictures of the artists for easy recognition and identity, this allows people to instantly recognise them and also advertises them. They usually have any logos or branding on them to allow people to recognise the artist or band.

(John Legend Front Cover)

They often contain lyrics to the songs on the inside, a thank you message or information about the artist. The song list of the CD is always found on the back of the Digi-pack allowing people to pick it up and turn it over to see which songs are on it.

Therefore when I created my Digi-pack I decided to advertise the artist as much as I could and give them a bigger identity, I did this by using lots of pictures of the artists in different locations and poses. I also put the artist’s logo on the back with the song titles over the top allowing people who pick up the product to recognise them more. On the inside of the Digi-pack i placed other images of the artists and also the lyrics to the song we covered with our music video “Sofa” and a brief description of what the artists has been doing over the last few years.

Overall on all the products i have created, I think I have stuck within the conventions and forms of the individual products allowing for a professional final product to be created that matches the style or the artists and how they would want it to look like and feel. I think that as i have worked within the conventions that they look like real media products that could be used in real life and also that they match the way that real products would be.

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

I think that the combination of the main product, being the music video and the ancillary texts being the website and the Digi-pack work very well together. When creating the ancillary texts I wanted a general theme to be used that would link all the texts together showing that they are by the same artists and easily recognisable by any fans. Therefore I kept a similar colour scheme throughout and used edited photos that brought out the colours of the artists on both texts creating a great affect and also linking them to show they are of the same artist.

The Digi-pack works well as it maximises the opportunity to advertise the artist by having his face shown to the audience if they were walking past in a record shop, this allows awareness of who he is and also allows people to easily recognise him. I decided to edit the pictures altering the contrast and the brightness as this makes the pictures stand out and create a very sharp and clean affect, this looks really good and also makes people recognise the product and want to come over and look at it. I but picture of the artists on all but 2 panels. These being the back and the CD holding area. This is because on the back I wanted the artist’s logo so if people turned the pack round to view the tracks they can easily recognise that it is the artists and also as this is one of the largest panels and allows for maximum advertising of the artists logo when on show. The CD holding panel has pictures of leaves on it as the CD will block this area anyway and it would have looked very unprofessional to have only sections of someone’s face in this area.

The website is designed around the same theme and colour scheme as the Digi-pack; this shows the connection between the website and the Digi-pack and allows views to know they are the same artists. I wanted to advertise the artist as much as I could on his website therefore I created a big header of his name and put the artists logo next to it. Showing people who it is easily. I also put Pictures of him in different positions, ones used on the Digi-pack into one gif image, this allows for maximum advertisement of who he is and also links the two ancillary texts again. I put the final Video product onto the website; this then links the main product and ancillary texts together and creates a massive artist identity within them. I also added one of the artist’s songs to the website that automatically played on load up, this allows people to listen to one of his tracks and allows them to hear his music even if they never had or thought of listening to it, potentially grabbing new fans in.

I Think there is massive similarities among the products I have made in both my main and ancillary products as this is what I wanted to do, it allows for a artist identity to be created and allows for each product to be recognised as the artist work do to the other products that have similarities to the other products. This is one of the theory’s stated by Richard Dyer who says “A star is an image created from a range of materials” These Materials are the video the artists creates, the CD covers the artist is featured on, Media Coverage and lie performance. The similarities I have included are shown through the images and colours I have used on both the products, the texts I have used and the logo that appears on both products. These similarities show the identity of the artists, making them easily recognizable and also forming their overall identity as a product. This allows later things like books, CD’s and other products to be shown as there’s as they fit their identity that has already been created by existing products.

What have you gathered from the audience feedback?

I have received feedback on all of draft my products so far, this included the video, website and the dig pack, I got this feedback from other members of the college that are in the target age group of my artist’s music. This allowed me to adjust certain aspects of my products and also to look back on how I would improve my products if I were to have more time or do the course again.

The feedback I received on the music video first draft where that; I needed to include more shots and various angled shots, this was because people felt that it was a bit to slow just standing in the same spot and having no edits to angles. This is a statement that I definitely agreed on in my draft video as it was something I became aware of near the end of creating the video, this made me think over what different shots we could use when making the final video and we went back to the creation process.

The second piece of feedback was to reshoot some of the inside shots witch contained our actor Annie Nurse, this feedback was given as Annie and Me did not look enough like a couple and also Annie looked like she was on the edge of laughing, making it look very unrealistic. I also agree with this feedback, as Oliver and I wanted to create a professional looking video and therefore any feedback that would make this happen we took on board, I also agreed as it did make the movie slower when watching it again, therefore Oliver and I decided that we should have different angles shots all the way through it.

Thirdly, people didn’t understand why the actor was running through the woods and also these shots were very wobbly and amateurish, I agree with this feedback also the running shots did feel like they were there to fill gaps we had, and the wobbly camera was solely our fault we didn’t have a tripod and we found it very hard to keep a steady hand for the scene making it look very unprofessional. Therefore when we made sure that we had a tripod when filming all the other shots and we decided to get rid of the running shots and create an old style tape effect to make it look like he’s looking back on his relationship.

The final piece of feedback we had was to improve the lip-syncing, this was one of the key problems I myself was aware off, I did not edit the first draft to a professional standard and due to this the lip synching of the video was out my around half a second, this made it look very unrealistic and also made it look unprofessional. Therefore when editing the final video, I made sure I spent a lot longer editing the final video and making sure the syncing was perfect, this was to make sure it looked as professional as possible.

The overall feedback that was given for the music video was very understandable and realistic to act upon, therefore as soon as this feedback was given Oliver and I went about making these changes to the video and making sure there were no other alterations we wanted to do ourselves to create the final video and make it even better. We managed to create the final video within a week of getting the feedback of the audience allowing us to see if the improvements made where better than that on the draft and fitted in with the genre still.

I individually got feedback on the website homepage from my dad and his work college as these have both developed professional websites for clients over the years and the target audience. Because of this fact I decided these were the people were the best people to gather feedback from the website, there feedback responses where;

To get rid of the blank areas where there is just black space, they suggested including more images of the artists as it was his page and they said that it would advertise him more and allow people to recognise it was his website. I do agree with this statement as it is looking very blank and there was no advertising which held the site back. Therefore when it came to the final version I decided to add more images of the artist and also add an iTunes advert, which would show his new products available.

Another improvement that was suggested was to include the artists contact details for booking the events and any extra information they want. Therefore I will put the artists details at the bottom of the page when there final website is created, they will be pre linked so once they have clicked on the email link they are taken straight to outlook. This would make the final website very professional and user friendly.

Finally I also had to create a digi-pack for my artist, to get feedback on this I asked target audience members from college and out of school as to what to improve; they gave me lots of feedback and helped me to understand what they wanted on the digi-pack.

Their views were; to add more images of the artists onto the digi-pack that are more to do with the artists and what the album is like. As the pictures I had on at the time, were basic pictures of me. I do agree with this statement and therefore went out to take more arty pictures of for the digi-pack and edited them with image software to bring out a more variant colour flow and sharpness to the image. This is one of the key feedback points that I received that I think helped me a lot.

The Second piece of feedback was to keep a better colour scheme which is more in line with the other products by the artist, the users said that this would make it obvious that the products are related and create an easy to see artist’s identity. I fully agree with this feedback, as this is a key part of the way I want the products to look like. Therefore after this feedback I decided to change the way in which the digi-pack looked creating a new colour scheme to match that of the website.

Finally the last piece of feedback I received on the digi-pack was to include the artists logo on the digi-pack so people can easily recognise there identity. I do agree with this 3feedback, however I had already used the logo on the draft, therefore I asked more about it and they said it needed to be larger and in a place where people would see excluding the front of the digi-pack. Taking this in mind I have now changed the digi-pack layout placing the logo on the back of the digi-pack, allowing for people to see the logo when they turn over to see the song track list.

Overall all the feedback given on the ancillary texts are very realistic and are great views by the feedback providers, taken into account what they have said about the products, I have developed and integrated their views into my new products, which I believe now look a lot more professional and user friendly. They are now consist throughout and keep the same traits on all products showing the artists identity is held on all. I am very pleased with the final products and they would not be the same without the feedback that was given.

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

When researching how music videos are created and what conventions are normally found in, I used the internet as this allowed me to quickly find out what I was looking for and get many different perspectives and ideas on the subject. I also used blogger to create an online blog that the teacher and marker could access to see my work as this looks very professional and allows for embedding of videos that I could not have shown them any other way.

Using the new media technologies made it easy to find out about the styles and conventions found in the media products and made it capable for me to find useful techniques that I could use in my products.

When I was planning the Music video with Oliver, we used the internet and sights like MySpace, Face book to contact different artists as well as emailing them directly to gain permission to use their songs, this was a great advantage to using the phone as it allowed us to efficiently use our time and contact a much larger group or artists in one day.

We also uploaded location photos using a digital camera onto blogger and looked at other music videos and wrote about them too. Using these new media technologies made it easy to create and manage all the planning for the music video and the ancillary products, this helped a lot when looking back on what we had to do.

When it came to filming and the editing of the video, allot of new media technologies were used, obviously we used technology like cameras and editing software to create the video. But we also used YouTube to host the video online so we could show other people and easily make it accessible to the teacher and marker at anytime. The use of YouTube also means that we can get it to our audience quickly and see what their views of the video are.

(My Video Uploads for media A2)

These technologies made it very easy to get the music video out to people so they can view it and that as Ed Sheeran has a large fan base, these people can easily view the video as well as people who have never heard of the artist are now given the chance to see them.

At the evaluation stage, I will be using blogger to post the work I have created for marking as well as the music video on a DVD. Blogger has been the most useful new technology i have used during the whole of the project as it keeps my work organised and accessible for anyone to view. As well as this I used learning sky drives allowing me to access my work from any computer, this allowed me to work at home even if I had left the evaluation at college, it also allowed me to backup my work in case the original file was deleted.