A2 Evaluation

1) IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA

PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE

FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA

PRODUCTS?

Within my research I analysed specific indie convention which we directly reflected and

challenge these in our final products. Some of the bands that we researched into were

Arcade Fire, Two Door Cinema Club, One-Republic and Bastille. We were aware that

these bands are all from the Indie Genre, due to similar conventions which we

discovered in our research, such as dark narratives, live performance and recognised

idols which mime. With these bands we also used them to compare similar conventions

within their Posters and Digipaks. All of these bands use ambiguous imagery on their

digipaks and posters and by using ambiguous imagery it makes the audience want to

connect and know more about what it means, which we reflected this in our products by

using a screenshot from our music video which would draw the audience in to want to

know more. When researching the Indie Genres digipaks and posters, we noticed that

there was a colour style which all Indie Bands used, such as Two Door Cinema Club

which used dark and bright colours which reflects the songs. Bastille also did this, they

used black and white imagery on their poster which reflects that their songs are deep.

We decided to reflect this convention of Indie Colours in our Digipak and Poster. We did

this by using a black and white image but having coloured text, which was a binary

opposition as the colour pink has a convention of happiness and love when in fact the

video is extremely dark. It is also a binary opposition of the song itself, as it has a great

rhythm to the song but the lyrics are in fact really dark.

QUESTION 1) CONTINUED - MAGAZINE

Andrew Goodwin’s ‘Dancing In the Distraction Factory’ (1992) demonstrates that genre characteristics are shown within the digipak, music video and the magazine advert, which is what we followed when making our final products. For our magazine advert we slightly subverted our sources conventions but we also reflected them. For the magazine advertisement we used a screenshot from the music video we created. We did this because Bastille, the band we reflected conventions the most in our products uses a screenshot from their music videos because it gets the audiences attention to where it has come from, and it promotes the music video. For Bastille’s ‘Bad blood’ album there advertisement was ambiguous as it is just a man running in the distance with a vignette effect which makes it surreal. It makes the audience intrigued for what it means. This is why we used a still from our music video to get the audience’s attention, but also to follow a convention used in other Indie Bands such as One-Republic, which have familiar icons on the front of the magazine cover which the audience can recognise. The still we chose was the male actor walking through the graveyard, we felt it suited the genre as it was dark and showed their was a strong narrative which is a common convention of the Indie Genre. The reason we may have subverted from the Indie Genres main conventions, is because some of the bands such as Two Door Cinema Club use bright colours against surreal imagery, which is again ambiguous but is also a Binary Oposition of a positive thing against quite negative imagery. Which we reflected by using brighter font on our magazine against black and white imagery.

(Images of Bad blood Poster and our Magazine Cover on next slide)

QUESTION 1) CONTINUED – THE MUSIC VIDEO

All Bastille music videos which we researched into with great detail such as Laura Palmer, Pompeii and Of The Night – show genre characteristics of narrative. Andrew Goodwin’ states that within a genre you see a link between the visual and lyrics, which with the research of Bastille I found that was only in Pompeii, which Pompeii is about a real event which matches dark and optimistic lyrics. Each videos narrative has a dark and surreal theme to it, which is why we reflected this and chose a dark narrative about someone’s partner dying. When it came to filming, we changed the cameras ISO and Colour Balance to get cold colours in the visuals, which created a similar style and in our feedback our target audience said it was very similar to Bastille’s other music videos. We also reflected conventions from Bastilles music videos by using text within the video, our text was extremely similar as shown on the next slide, by doing this it slightly subverts with the narrative as it say’s ‘Rhythm’ which is a happy subject.

Our music video uses Denis Mcquails Uses + Gratification Model (1987) through the narrative of the video, apart from the fact that people watch music videos for Entertainment, it is also for personal identity, as people can reflect on it about the grieving process, as almost everyone has gone through losing something whether it’s a person or an animal, so our video is something the audience will relate to. Our video’s narrative shows a positive way to deal with grieving about something, as he never gets angry, he just starts to accept it as the video goes on.

We used similar mise-en-scene conventions from Bastilles music videos, as we shot on location in the streets which is obviously a common convention in Bastille’s videos as in our research it was something we noticed.A common convention in the Indie Genre is having a recognizable idol from the band mime the song, in which we went against because we didn’t think it was appropriate with the narrative, but by not using mime it makes it quite an ambiguous video as to is it just diegetic sound as he goes through his life, or also is it a song in his mind as it goes through this narrative, I think the video can be interpreted in different ways which work.

SPECIFIC CONVENTIONS WE FOLLOWED

Mid shots of the main

singer in a band is a

common convention of

the Indie Genre. so we

casted someone who was

a similar age to our target

audience, and also

dressed in generic indie

clothes which are casual

and of our current

generation.

All of Bastille’s video’s in

which we have research

use text at the beginning

of the video with the

name of the band and the

song title, we decided to

use this and used a

similar font to Bastille.

In Bastilles Music Video

to ‘Laura Palmer’ there is

use of the Handheld

camera, we thought this

was extremely effective

and with the narrative we

chose we decided it

would be very efficient,

and we used the

handheld shots to show

flashbacks of memories.

THE MUSIC VIDEO CONTINUED….

CAMERA + EDITING

Our storyboard altered on our filming days, as when filming something’s

work better than others. We decided to use a lot of close up’s and mid close

ups. By using quite close shots it gives an emotional connection between

the audience and the video, as you understand his emotional state of mind,

it also gives a clear understanding of how the narrative works by using

these types of shots. These close ups and mid shots became a common

convention that we repeated throughout our video. The video had a visual

motif of ‘Looking’ which was shown through the fast cutting rate, the motif

of ‘Looking’ is shown when whenever he looks she disappears, which

happens throughout the video which will get the audience understanding the

narrative more by this motif reoccurring.

VISUAL MOTIF OF

LOOKING.

These screenshots of our music

video show the visual motif

which we had embedded in our

Music Video, it worked really well

and really pushes the narrative

forward.

2)HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION

OF YOUR PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY

TEXTS?

Our Final Poster + Digipak

+ Music Video Prnt ScreenBastilles Posters and Digipaks

QUESTION 2

CONTINUEDMagazine Poster Analysis

A convention within the genre that we researched was that most Band Posters was that

the imagery would include a close up or mid shot of the lead singer, which the audience

would recognise the idol. Which was why we made the decision to cast someone in the

video which would suit the target audience by being a similar age and also having a

similar style, which the audience would be able to connect with because of personal

identity (Uses+Gratification Model). The official Bastille poster included a mid shot of

the lead singer running into the distance, we decided to take this on and use a similar

shot. we directly copied the vignette effect of how it fades to black around the corner,

but not as much. The colours in the official bastille poster are quite dull and faded

which reflects the Genre. We decided to reflect this by using Black and white Imagery.

We were just going to use white text on the poster in style to Bastille but we realised it

didn’t work and needed more colour, as the Bad blood poster does have some colour in

it even though it is quite dull.

Similar use of Font

Similar long shot used

Similar effects used, fade to black

Similar colours used

3) HOW DID THE FEEDBACK HELP

YOU MAKE THREE ARTIFACTS

BETTER? WAS IT USEFUL?

1) With the construction of the music video, feedback was extremely important, as we wanted to know what our target audience wanted. The feedback we got from the construction of the video was on survey monkey, where we asked questions such as ‘What colours do you like to see?’ ‘Do you like a narrative with a music video?’ and with the answers we were able to analyse and make our video to target the audience in the right way.

2) With the final product we made, Our feedback was extremely positive. We shared our music video on social networking sites such as facebook and youtube, where people commented saying what they liked about the video. The power of media was shown when other students from different sixth form commented on our video (shown on next slide) showing how it really did target the right aged audience. We also shared our music video with peers in our class, some people said ‘the lighting throughout the video goes with the meaning of the video’ ‘jumpcuts are good, fits the narrative and shows emotion’ ‘ similar colour balance and suits the genre’ this feedback really complimented are work.

3) Feedback wasn’t only important through what other people thought, it was also extremely important within the group, as everyone has a different opinion so as a group its up to us to experiment and see what works and what doesn’t, such as on filming days if something didn’t look right, someone would say maybe try this instead etc. I think feedback is extremely important within a group, as you are working together and with the feedback amongst yourselves you can achieve good things.

3)CONTINUED

With the feedback that we got from the audience it really supported our project

as a whole, as the audience we targeted our video at gave us positive reviews

of how the editing was and also the similarity between our music video and the

original.

QUESTION 4) HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA

TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND

RESEARCH,PLANNING & EVALUATION STAGES?

Research:

In the construction stage our most valued technology is to use is the

Internet, as you are able to access many different sources to do research.

Youtube was one, as that’s the website we used to watch music videos to

analyse them. With youtube we were also able to share links to one

another in the group, and also gather information about what the audience

likes.

Survey Monkey was a huge part of our Research process. It showed us

how much technology really is beneficial, as it enabled us to just share

our survey’s on social networking sites instead of having to go out with it

by hand and asking people. It also enabled us to go into great detail with

out questions, and chose how we would like people to answer – whether

they have to ask it otherwise they cant complete the survey, or whether

they can tick it etc. It also enabled us to analyse our results in detail by

looking at pie and bar charts. During research process, facebook was

good to use to share links on to for our research, we shared the survey

monkey link onto facebook so people would see it and complete it for us.

QUESTION 4) HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA

TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND

RESEARCH,PLANNING & EVALUATION STAGES?

Construction:

We used a Canon Camera to film our music video, we were extremely lucky to

have a good camera to film with, as we were able to shoot in manual and change

the settings to suit the style we were wanting to shoot in. These settings include

the right ISO, Focal Length and F. stops. I feel great skills have developed within

the second year when making this music video.

Premier Pro was brand new to me when making this music video. I found it a lot

simpler to work as to Final Cut Pro, it was a lot easier to work however still had

the same process of what it was going to produce. It still followed the same

process of a relationship between planning and making the real thing. As I had

to have the visuals in sync with the music on the timeline. It worked within the

storyboard process of dragging and dropping videos on the timeline to make a

full video. I also learnt general skills with this software such as inserting font,

and visual effects and transitions. Relationship between planning and making

the real thing.

Photoshop – the first time I used photoshop was when we made the preliminary

magazine in the AS year, I had limited photoshop skills, but since then I can now

edit images with confidence and add different layers, colours and font. Which

photoshop was an extremely effective software for this coursework as we were

able to make digipaks and posters on it, and they would look good quality.

Construction Continued:

We also used Hotmail on the internet to email the record label to get

permission to use the music, this again shows how efficient technology is

today, as it saved us from having to handwrite a letter and send it in the

post to the company.

Evaluation Stage:

Facebook, Youtube and Twitter were social resources and extremely

efficient within the evaluation stages. It enabled us to share information

towards one another in the group and also to our target audience. We were

able to share information towards our target audience, such as when we

shared links to our surveys, where the target audience of young people

gave us the information we were wanting. Facebook we were able to share

links to our friends on facebook so they could see the music video we had

made and give us feedback. We also shared the video to Bastille the

official band on twitter where more bastille fans saw our work.