Evaluation

Q1- in what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I feel that our music video, Blue foundation – eyes on fire (dubstep remix) is mainly able to challenge the forms and conventions of ‘real media products’ as well as use and develop them. Our video has been generated from a new underground wave of music genre, ‘dubstep’. Dubstep is primarily a hybrid of older genres such as; drum and bass, garage, bassline and niche, incorporating a darker, grittier sound which helps us to identify it is from the streets. Our music video is a fusion of both performance and narrative, the blend of these two particular structures give the video a wider appeal to the general public, catering to those who love narrative and visual arts as well as those who enjoy performance pieces, it is also atypical to the few dubstep videos which have in recent times been released.E.g.: Coki and benga: Nighthttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMR5K2QWfJkEssentially a ‘darker’ video, running in a non-chronological order, it is able to grip and perplex the audience – this I feel juxtaposes the typical forms and conventions of other similar media products of this category – One of the main influences for our more sinister take stemmed from the thriller movie genre, When acting as assistant director I opted to use such things as, heavy alcohol consumption and explicit drug use in order to amplify the intensity Both the characters featured in our video played a vital role in balancing out our structure, the girl playing the role of ‘Brooke’ in the narrative is perceived as a lonely, down and out individual who has an alcohol and drug addiction, she seems to be searching for something, but is unable to find it. Whereas our second character who is lip-syncing for the performance role, takes on a more menacing demeanour with subtle hints of ‘seductress’. The style of our presentation was one that originated from that of ‘film noirs’ used to make the audience aware of Brooke’s contemptuous personality when under the influence of their beloved narcotics.

In reference to other conventions we were able to expand on ‘voyeurism and the male gaze’, two things which are predominantly seen in ‘Hollywood’ and many American music videos, Hip-Hop in particular.

Although, we refrained from using the typical raunchy ‘video girls’, through using sneaky camera angles and we were easily able to create an atmosphere which portrayed the girls being unaware they were being watched – emphasising sexual allure and the concept of ‘male gaze’, were women are seen as mere sexual objects. We then lead to numerous body/face shots of the artist as these ‘money shots’ have become very high demand from various record labels in recent years.

The editing which we used abides by the conventional techniques of transitional cuts; fade up/ to black and layering he cuts to fit the music beat, although we decided to steer clear of heavy visual effects as we felt it would bombard our videos complex simplicity.As the main chunk of the song deals with heavy beats and drops, we used fast transitions in order to compliment the atmosphere fully, conversely during the songs intro and outro, the mood differs and becomes more soft and melodious, which called for much smoother transitions to portray the melancholy and gloom.

The camerawork centred around us following the traditional technical shots plus a variety of diverse shots to capture the relationship between both the performer and actress ‘Brooke’. We achieved this by using canted angle shots with Brooke to after she has taken cocaine to show her disorientation and altered state of mind, When she sniffs the cocaine, we used close up shots, to show the intimacy and virtual involvement we have with the character – sharing her emotions, Close ups of the performer were also imperative as they gave us a link to the root of the song, and helped us in understand/deciphering what the narrative was about.

As dubstep’s birthplace was London’s urban underground scene, we thought it only right to convey this ‘scene’ in our music video.Using a clash of the class systems, we made a point of showing both sides of London city, On one hand we see the lavish 5-star hotel and expansive clothes, yet on the other hand, the back streets of the West-end, alleyways and class A drugs, As we chose such a niche genre, we were able to stretch our imagination and creativity.

Q2- How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

My group members and I felt that it was of utmost importance we break away from current music video fads which shroud today’s entertainment industry, and create something more innovative. We disregarded the surrealism, explosive flamboyant colours and even animation (CGI) which can be seen in various artists’ videos such as (e.g.: Nicki Minaj’s – ‘Massive attack’ & ‘your love’ and Kanye West’s ‘Heartless’ & ‘The good life’)

We took a more artistic route, predominately our obscure shots and story-telling ability. During the editing period, we could properly manipulate colours/shots and overlays in order to keep the atmosphere of the video consistent. By having espoused the key elements of branding, our group was able to transfer and develop features from the video onto the digipak, ensuring the continuation of ‘mood’ from video to digipak. For example, the performer’s seductive side is seen through the use of red – connoting lust and anger, and the large kiss on the upper section of the back cover suggests sassiness and allure.

As the viewer/audience will be more inclined to purchase the digipak after watching the video, it was imperative we made sure they both complimented each other through particular themes, eg: Locations and colours.

Our digipak, following traditional forms and conventions, includes the name of the song, a track list, extras – such as behind the scene footage, the name of the artist and most importantly, the artist herself, Although one way in which we challenged them is our use of heavy visual effects.We considered it of importance that the artist was featured on the cover instead of anything or anyone else, as it helps the artist to be identified and build up a persona/ connection with the consumer, because at the moment she is neither very well ‘known’ or mainstream yet.

In regards to our magazine advert, we kept consistent with the urban and ominous mood which was evident in our music video and digipak, however in order to make it more diverse, we decided on using a ‘3D’ effect so to preserve the warped mood of the video, yet give the audience something new so to not loose their attention. Although we used the same font for both the advert and digipak to keep a sense of familiarity – and to help recognise that both the pieces originated from the same video.

The advert also follows forms and conventions as we have shown the release date of the single,An image of the artist and the name of the song, these three things play a vital role in selling the product to the audience, as it ensures that the viewer knows who is singing the song, exactly when it’s due for release.

As the image plays the main role in capturing the readers eye, so the inspiration for the use of 3D visualisation was taken from our editor, Julio’s love for rap artist; Tinie Tempah - his album for his debut single Pass Out, has extremely simple, straightforward artwork, yet it is able to be an eye-catching image, making the readers want to stop and stare.

It has not been uncommon to some magazine ads to make reference to voyeurism, but we as a group felt that it had no importance in our advert as our video does not contain anything outwardly sexual. With reference to intertexuality, it is evident that our ad has been influenced by different types of artwork – mainly ‘modern art.

Overall, I feel that the mixture of our main product (music video) and the ancillary texts (digipak and magazine advertisement) have worked well in unison and adopt the key elements of branding.

Q3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

When choosing our target audience, we had to bear in mind that since dubstep is a niche genre we had to ensure that it would be aesthetically pleasing to the minority that enjoy it.We decided that we would have both males and females between the ages of 16 and 24 as our target audience – As dubstep is obviously a new genre we knew that it was more likely to appeal to the younger audience who are more aware of fresh music and artists. As a group we felt it wrong to only target certain genders or ethnicities, as dubstep is of an acquired taste and anyone is able to listen to and like it.

Our target audience research provided us with evidence of what they most enjoyed about our music video, From the research we found that everyone enjoyed the narrative and visual arts but to our surprise ‘performance’ was one of the least favourite – probably because many of the performance type videos are of the mainly rock, punk or metal genre. Example – Aerosmith: ‘Dream on’ Official music video.

When constructing our video, we took our audience feedback into account and aimed to present something which had a creative narrative and excellent visual arts as that’s what our target audience find most appealing, While we also knew that they were not too keen on the performance aspect, we still thought it would play an important role in our video (helps to disseminate the face of the singer and make her known to the audience and doesn’t make them feel empathetic towards the character in the narrative). We found that many of our target audience were mainly fans of commercial R&B/hip-hop, with some also liking the occasional pop song, so therefore we made sure our video contained certain aspects from these genres, eg: pretty girl and good storyline.

When relating our music video to our target audience of 16-24yo, we thought that the best way to do so was to have 2our main characters of that age range – We were able to achieve this by using my friend 20 year old friend Joedy as the actress, this helped the audience to connect with her and empathise, maybe even relating to some of things she did/went through.

When compiling our audience feedback, we learnt that the target audience found our magazine advertisement and music video to be more of a professional standard rather than our digipak, Over 50% of our survey claimed that they were unable to grasp the storyline fully, this was obviously disappointing for us as we had worked so hard on ensuring it would make sense to everyone, nonetheless 80% said that they had found the visual effects very pleasing, and that they were the main ingredient in creating a good disjointed feeling within many of the sequences. One person had also suggested that in order to give the video an even more disorientated feel we could have had some rewind motions as Brooke was snorting the cocaine.

In regards to our digipak, over 60% of people said that ‘less is more’, they felt that over cluttering a digipak makes it looks less professional – “simple and less complex idea make the best digipaks”.Our feedback also told us that our magazine advertisement had managed to serve its purpose and many people found it to properly convey the sense of ‘disorientation’, they were very fond of both the fond and 3D effects used.

Overall, I do feel that our final products effectively meet the OCR briefs as we were capable of both retaining our own creativity whilst successfully following and challenging the codes and conventions of music videos. As we also demonstrated quality technical skills, such as editing and camera shots, we felt that our video was one which could be on par with any other video of professional standard, Although when looking back on the final video cut, we did see some things which we would have liked to change, such as using more characters of the streets when Brooke is walking, making it more true to life and changing the last shot in order to make the ending slightly stronger.

For us, one of the main elements of the entire music video was selling the artist in order to make the audience want to go out and purchase the digipak – music, this being one of the main reasons both large and small record labels utilize music videos.We personally feel that our music video would be better suited to a smaller scale (independent) record label, mainly because the music genre and video type is niche and only targeting a small market, however we still hope that it will receive some type of mainstream attention.

Q4 - How did you use new media technologies in the research, planning, construction and evaluation stages?

When filming and editing our music videos, we had access to new technologies such as apple editing software – new video cameras and equipment plus many internet search engines and social networking sites, this was all a great help as it assisted us in achieving an overall professional standard.

Primarily, during the early stages of development, we were able to use the internet as a source to find information on things such as our chosen genre, job roles, representation issues and background info on our band.

The two main websites which we all used were Google and wikipedia – Google (search engine) helped us to find relevant information on practically anything we needed, secondly wikipedia was used if we needed more in-depth knowledge about something specific, such as codes and conventions of branding and marketing -

These both also helped us in developing our research skills.

Secondly I was able to use social networking sites such as tumblr and facebook in order to upload questionnaires and collate important information, the entire process from uploading to completing the questionnaires/surveys was done online so information could be gathered both quickly and efficiently, I was also able to access a wider more diverse group of friends, which I may not have been able to do if say, I handed out the questionnaires in college.

During our stages of planning much of our work was hand written and then typed up onto Microsoft word 2007 – when typed up we would either upload it directly onto blogspot or condense the file and use slideshare, many people found slideshare easier to use as it gave you the option to upload the file directly and not upload pictures individually unlike blogspot, another advantage of using slideshare is that it presents the work neatly and enables the user to browse easily.

During the stages of constructing our video, we used a Cannon Xm2 for filming the different scenes, the use of this camera

helped us as it was able to produce high definition and a greater quality in comparison to other video cameras out there – Although our video was low-budget with better quality we could better pass off out work as being of professional standard.

In regards to our editing, we used apple’s final cut pro programme, this ensured precision of transitions amongst other things and gave us a wide variety of special effects which we took full advantage of : manipulation of colour, fuzzy television effects and blurred effects.

When creating our digipak I primarily sketched 4 possible ideas we could use and develop, we then scanned each of then into Photoshop alongside photographs of Sophia – our performer and manipulated them until we found a suitable cover, The Photoshop software allowed us play around with different pictures and layer/overlap them creating something more original and professional looking, we also used dafont.com to help us chose a correct font which would compliment the theme we had running throughout the video. The same applied for our magazine advert; we manipulated various photographs of Sophia and then added different effects until we created one worthy of the final product.

During the stages of evaluation, the video was converted and uploaded onto both youtube and facebook, this ensured that we could collate feedback from people we knew as well as unbiased feedback from people we were not so familiar with, this helped a great deal as many of the youtubers gave us truthful opinions which helped us greatly.

Overall, using modern technology helped to broaden our horizons positively and helped us to familiarise ourselves with a more professional standard which we only touched on lightly as AS level.