Emily's Evaluation

1.) In what ways does you media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

With reference to our music video, a lot of research was conducted in order to be aware of the generic conventions of them. We looked at Andrew Goodwins theory of music videos and also the work of music directors Hammer & Tongs and applied Goodwins theory to their videos which can be seen in our blog. In terms of genre characteristics our music video was under the Indie genre where it is common to challenge the image of the band. For example, Supergrasses ‘Pumping on your Stereo’ features the band in an animated form where their limbs are exaggerated to be very long; having very strong mise-en-scene. Indie videos are most often quirky and unique and we were influenced to build upon this convention in our video using bright colours, plasticine figures and animation.

Our group was also inspired from children’s TV programme such as the ‘Magic Roundabout’ and ‘Morph’ from ‘Smart’. This was because we wanted our music video to have the same child-like and playful theme as shown in ‘Supergrasses’ video.

We also followed the convention of a strong relationship between lyrics and visuals. The decision was that we would try to have the lyrics to be a literal representation resulting in a strong narrative as the viewer could follow the main character. We decided for our main character which is the singer David Ford to have very stereotypical costume of the indie genre i.e a pair of jeans, a plain coloured top and a hat. This was also for the demand of the record label as well as the representation of the artist as we wanted to portray him as a genuine guy that anyone normal person could relate to. Also, when researching pictures David Ford it was common to see him wearing a hat so we followed that representation of him in real life and animation too.

However, with complementary music and visuals throughout the video, we did in fact challenge this convention due to our combination of real-life and animation footage. For example, at the beginning of the video the viewer can see the artist in real-life playing his guitar along to the music then as he starts to sing, the camera pans upwards as if the artist is thinking and then the audience views his memories. When editing on final cut we defocused the last shot of real-life and the first shot of animation to make it clear to the viewer that the character is trying to remember and then it all becomes clear to him when the shot becomes focused again.

We also conformed to the convention because whilst editing, we chose to have only one type of angle shot during the i-stop motion footage to reflect the pace of the music and only a limited number of shot types for the real life footage e.g. longshots, low angled shots and panning again complementing the long paced flow of the music. Also, in terms of notion of looking, we used voyeurism to an extent to which the viewer is given an insight into the main character’s thoughts and feelings. This is where we use a front facing shot for the animation footage in order to comply and accomplish the effect onto our audience. The use of intertextuality within our promotional package was also encouraged our viewers to relate to children’s TV programmes such as morph from smart and Wallace & Gromit as these were in addition were our influences too.

We researched real magazine adverts and digipaks for our ancillary products which are shown on our blog. For example, the advert for Prefab Sprouts new album and the digipaks for Acquired Taste. From doing this we were able to summarise their main constituents and functions and refer back to them when making our products. We then posted these on our blog so anyone in the group could also view them.

For the magazine advert we aimed to have a very recognisable link with the music video as this is common for them to do so. We made the decision of using the location, setting and mise-en-scene of our animation for the background of our magazine advert. For the foreground we used David Ford from the real life footage, wearing the same costume as in the video, to keep up with continuity but also to promote the artist. Further conventions were featured such as the album’s title, a review from a well-known newspaper and where the album was available to buy. We made sure we included as many conventions as possible in order to carry out the adverts functions which were to promote the artist, sell the song and be visually striking. For our digipak we endeavoured to follow their conventions too by using recognisable screengrabs from the music video itself and including special content making the video and an interview with David Ford.

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

From looking at various music videos and their albums or magazine adverts it was clear to us that the majority of them have clear visual links so that their fans/viewers can easily relate and recognise them. Therefore we decided to follow this feature of having a strong relationship between the products in order for them to be effective. Our music video consists of both real life footage and animation so we wanted to show this combination in our ancillary products.

As shown on our blog, our magazine advert uses the location of i-stop motion footage: already there is an immediate link with the video. Again, the use of abstract, bright colours theme for the advert continues through all our products and keeps in line with the indie genre and we were able to enhance the colours further through using the contrast filter in Photoshop. However, in our digipak we found a similar location to where we filmed our real life footage, following continuity throughout all our products. Our original plan for our ancillary products was to display a picture of David Ford transforming along with the background from real life to animation and vice versa for the other. From attempting this we found it quite difficult and unfortunately the products weren’t as visually striking as we had hoped. Our solution was then to include either backgrounds, depending on it being the advert or the digipak, and to include a picture of David Ford in either plasticine or real life. He still wore the same costumes in order for the viewer to recognise him from the video and we also felt it was still important to show David Ford for the demand of the record label. In terms of looking professional I feel that the magazine advert doesn’t look as good as the digipak and maybe it could have been more stylised. Perhaps this could have been done by applying a different font to it as we used the same in the digipak but it just looked out of place in the advert. Apart from that I believe the main products and ancillary texts have a very effective combination as we have linked them very well in most aspects.

3.) What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

We received audience feedback throughout our project from our teacher as well as peers. Firstly, our teacher and class mates reviewed our pitch and we felt that we had very strong, clear ideas and if asked could say what was happening in the video. This came across well as our teacher feedback mentioned that we had ‘very clear ideas’. From our rough-cut of our music video, we were given very encouraging responses including suggestions, such as timing as one group mentioned how ‘The lyrics didn't particularly link or seem that obvious to relate to what was happening,’ so this was where we could improve which were very helpful. From this we made it our imperative to make sure that the music and the visuals fitted together exactly as at this stage we weren’t quite in time with what the viewer was seeing and hearing. One piece of feedback I was particularly pleased to get was that our peers picked up on how we were influenced by children’s TV programmes. Unfortunately we didn’t receive any feedback for our ancillary products which would have been helpful in knowing if they saw a recognisable link between our main products and the ancillary. Another useful response was that our real-life footage needed to be more varied. We took this into account as we agreed and followed their suggestion of filming some different angled shots of the artist playing the guitar, such as close-ups of him playing the guitar and low-angle shots of the artists profile.

I have learnt that audience feedback is very helpful when not only making a promotional package such us ours but can also be applied when creating any sort of project. This is because feedback may suggest something you don’t think of and can improve the project overall hadn’t thought of as shown above, it can bring more variation to the project, thus making it more interesting and capturing the audiences attention.

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

Throughout the whole of our project we used the new media technology of a blog, blogger.com, to keep track of the stages in our project. For example in the research we constantly noted down any ideas and plans for what we were going to do next to show our progression and to help stay organised and focused. We uploaded our storyboard and upload any pictures of us filming in the construction of our project.

I also used the website ‘Youtube’ to research any music videos that used i-stop motion and then uploaded them onto our blog so the rest of the group could watch them too and be inspired, one of these was ‘Melpo Mene- To Be Someone’ which was most similar to our idea of using animation with plasticine figures. We also used this website to research indie videos such as Supergrasses ‘Pumping on your stereo’ and any videos directed by Hammer & Tongs.

The social networking site ‘Myspace’ was also used in the research of our product to look up the artist and hear other songs by him to confirm that his genre is indie. We also used ‘myspace’ in the construction of making our ancillary products when writing down the track list for our digipak as we wanted to ensure the product was as realistic as possible by using real song names by David Ford.

We also emailed David Ford through ‘myspace’ to let him know that we were A-level students making a music video and ancillary texts for his song ‘A long time ago’.

Final Cut was used in the construction of our music video for uploading footage from another new media technology of i-stop motion and we could edit on this programme. For example, in the editing stage with Final Cut we had to speed up or slow down a lot of our footage to make sure the timing of the lyrics and visuals was right. We also used Final Cut for our evaluation of our music video and ancillary texts. Photoshop was also used in the making of our ancillary text for stylising our images and enhancing the colours as well as adding font to them.

The search engine ‘Google’ was used in the research of our ancillary products to evaluate the generic conventions of digipaks and magazine adverts. We then uploaded our summary again onto our blog.