Lewis's Evaluation

Media Evaluation

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

From the start of our music video we started to research in to previous videos as well as researching well known music videos, however after hearing our chosen song, which was Camera Obscura – If Looks Could Kill, we decided to research into music videos. As Camera Obscura come under the Indie Alternative genre, we decided to look into the likes of the Arctic Monkeys - When The Sun Goes Down and The Verve – Bitter Sweet Symphony. After researching into music videos such as these we came up with what we think was the right idea for the type of genre and song. Our general idea links in with parts of The Verve and the Arctic Monkeys, as our general idea was to challenge some forms and conventions as we decided to make our entire music video narrative based and link it to the lyrics in some ways. I feel this was achieved as the end media product worked well, however this was taken into consideration as we looked into Goodwin's points and decided to follow that, but also go against the normal structure of a music video which boosted me into wanting to create a music video that challenged conventions in a different but good way.

As Goodwin's points were a good guideline to follow the music video started by looking into Camera Obscura's real music video and looking at it in a different context, as there actually music video shows a lot of effects of mirror image and is set in quite a cheerful way, however we decided to change that around and look at the lyrics in a more depressing way, which worked well as the lyrics were very flexible, as in the way they could be perceived either in a good or bad context. This followed Goodwin's points as the lyrics and visuals were very linked such as one lyric says 'Tell me when it all went wrong' and this is as the main character is taking abuse from local thugs. As we decided on this Narrative structure for out music video, and we still needed to link the video to some of the lyrics and music, so when it came to filming we needed to focus on the main character and get across the point that he is having the worst day ever and before that his life wasn't interesting at all. This is where we use other media products in our music video as the editing worked well in our music video as the pace of the song matches the video with shot changes and the general pace of the video from start to finish. Another way in which we change a normal convention of a music video was that I changed the music video from colour or natural light to black and white or sepia all the way through the video, and this was a changed that I feel has boosted the video, as it changes the mood to what sounded right from the lyrics and the music. Another way we've used kept the music video flowing was different shot types and kept to some conventions of narrative music videos by keeping the music video interesting and changing the style of the music video to keep the audience happy, this was made by using tracking shots, low angled shots, match on action etc. just so the video has a bit of differentiation when it is actually just focusing on one character. Another factor that we had to take into account was the location and settings of our music video, this also contributed to producing a different and watchable music video, as the setting went with the style, genre and mood of the song as well as making the audience see this, such as choosing the park in Newmarket worked well with the style as it was a long lonely walk to emphasize his bad day as well as the walk way of establishing the gang of youths then as the main character gets closer they start to make his bad day get even worse but this kind of urban location was great for getting different angles and shots, but also gave it a feel of loneliness as if something should be happening.

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

First of all from the music video, we represented it in a more depressing mood by using black and white effects as well as the narrative based effect of showing up the depressing mood to represent the song, as our general idea was to show this character having the worst day of his life when everything feels as if there against him and he's on his own. To show this loneliness we need to represent him in his own world, tracking shots as well as medium close ups were very effective to show how the character is represented. Also from the locations of having wide angled shots as well as long to medium shots really emphasized the narrative.

Next was to create our ancillary texts or our Digi-pack, which was our DVD/CD cover as well as a magazine advert, we decided to link both with our music video. We started to discuss our DVD/CD cover and decided to keep the theme of the video, as we decided to put the main character on the front of the cover. This was based upon the look as well as the genre as it had an indie alternative feel to it. We decided to use the main character standing in the middle of a high street staring at the camera, as I took up about half of the shot. We then decided to play around with effects on Photoshop and ended up on finding a way of keeping the genre of indie as well as our narrative structure of this loneliness by blurring the background in the high street and keep the focus on the emotion of the character which links in well with our music video as well as keeping the colour scheme the same of a black and white indie feel. For the other sides to the cover we decided to included the main features such as the song list, but we also decided on bringing in the two lead singers which are two women. As we still needed to keep the style and emotion we decided to keep the colour scheme going of black and white throughout the whole cover, however we didn't want to confuse the viewers so we made sure the two singers were in the right place as we had them in a grimy location with graffiti in the background, as we faded in the colour of the graffiti to give it more effect. The colour of purple was a big choice as we used this on the graffiti and the titles which was an effective choice to have a bit more alternative view which was a good link with the video. The last media product was the magazine advert which didn't turn out as we was hoping it would due to time issues. The magazine advert worked to some extent as we kept the theme of the main character as our main focus to keep a good combination and connection throughout the whole media product. The magazine advert was the only product not to follow the black and white theme however we included the DVD/CD in the advert but didn't follow the colour, this would be the only media product not to follow the same structure from the music video.

Overall we used an effective combination that suited the genre, as we also used an effective pattern to transfer the mood and style of our video onto our ancillary texts, as we've focused on getting the point of this bleak look into life when nothings going right around you, so I feel the combination worked well except for some time constraints, and one main focused that worked well in the end was a look into colour, which was a good representation into life.

What have you learnt from audience feedback?

Our group feedback for all of our media products were generally good and productive feedback, however the main thing that I can pick out is the way in which having no lip sinking and a whole music video narrative based worked, viewers were quite pleased with the outcome. This big feedback helped me to learn that you don't have to do everything by the books and your own ideas and challenging some conventions do work, especially if they create a different or bold music video that genuinely works. Feedback was quite helpful throughout the whole project as we posted our roughcut version on our blog, and then the feedback given by other groups was very effective as a lot of feedback was about the lighting of our video as we tried to film at dusk each time, but it started to get dark in some shots, so this was the reason we altered our video into a more sepia black and white look, which was an effective change to highlight our genre and to heighten the narrative.

The feedback on our ancillary texts were also helpful, as we could see what we've done well and what others may not like, such as generally the feedback was that everyone seemed to like the black and white theme and the link with our video and our ancillary texts. Such as how we used effects to create our meaning in both video and text form. Another useful feedback that we received was about our ancillary texts and the CD/DVD cover, how we used the two lead singers, and how a lot of the feedback told us that people were confused that they were in the cover, however I feel we needed to include the band members and show something different however this will need explaining on the blog. Another piece of feedback was the criticism of our magazine advert as we had not put enough on it such as information and rating, however timing was an issue as we didn't have time to finish the product.

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

In the researching and planning stages we used mostly web based research, which included websites such as Youtube, music director websites and Google. But the main website was Blogger, which was used to create this type of diary of research and planning to keep our findings in order as well as sharing with other groups. Researching was mainly due to looking into previous music videos such as the Artic Monkeys and Camera Obscura's video which was good for brainstorming. Where as Google was used to get facts and different images of each style of some different music videos to put onto the blog. Blogger was useful for bouncing ideas of other people and starting to build up feedback from other groups to see what we were doing right and wrong, as well as develop other ideas from feedback. Another way Blogger was used was to put our storyboard onto Blogger by photographing each screen shot on the storyboard and post it onto our Blog.

In the construction stages of the music video and the ancillary texts, we used final cut express to edit our footage and also create the effects on our music video, and then for the ancillary texts we used Photoshop to create the general layout as well as add on some effects to the still images we had taken. These were all used for the evaluation stages as we could look at everyones media products and start to give and receive feedback on everything leading up to the group.