Media Studies A2 Advanced Portfolio Evaluation

Joe Sams

Introduction

• I feel I have come a long way over the last two years. When I look back at my preliminary task it is clear to see how far I have come and I am going to be discussing this in further detail throughout my presentation.

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

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

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

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

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

• Ever since the begging of my first year I wanted to challenge the different media conventions. I needed to abide by some conventions to make my production make sense but I enjoyed challenging the ones I could. For example I noticed that all music videos these days seem to be centred around the artist singing or in some sort of love story. Neither of these things interested me so I was certain that I wanted to challenge this convention. Some of my favourite music videos tend to have more of a narrative and it doesn’t have to be a soppy love story. For example ‘Cops and Robbers’ by the Hoosiers or ‘Lazy Sunday’ by the Lonely Island. As there is more of an interesting narrative I find it more fun to watch which is what I want my viewers to think. The narratives usually link to the lyrics of the song in some way and I also wanted to achieve this. I have always been a strong fan of this type of music video.

Breaking the Conventions • I followed some conventions but only the ones that I felt would make my video better.

I made sure not to follow too many because I did not want my video to be the same as every other new music video. I did not conform to conventions such as dance routines similar to artists like Beyonce because I noticed a lot of music videos were doing this as well. I did not use miming in my music video because when I watched other student’s music videos the miming looked tacky and fake. So I decided to create a strongly narrative based music video. I based it around some song videos I had already seen by artists such as ‘‘The Wombats’ from the album ‘A Guide To Love Loss And Desperation’ I liked the song ‘Moving To New York’. I first designed a character that would fit the song and I went on to create a story line that would fit certain lyrics. I was telling a story about this character that fitted with the song lyrics. There was always going to be a risk when challenging the conventions in a music video. If I had got it wrong then the video could have been confusing tacky or boring but if I got it rite it could be really good

Effects• I challenged conventions by using some simple visual effects. In parts of my

video I de-saturated some shots and in others I over saturated it. I kept this simple unlike some videos that seem to over load the viewer with effects or use none at all. I used handheld shots to show the characters mood which is rarely done in music videos. I made sure the shots still looked good so they didn’t look like it was a low budget video shoot. It can look careless but I made sure mine looked well thought out. I used editing to fit with the music, when the music was upbeat I used quick sharp edits but as the music slowed so did the editing. I hoped this would keep the audience’s attention and make them want to see where the story will lead.

Digipak• When I created my Digipak I conformed to the conventions of bands like ‘The Wombats’ and ‘The

Hoosiers’. Both these bands used quirky items or images in their album covers so I decide to do the same. I felt that these images best suited the genre and if I was to stray away from them the viewer could get confused as to which genre the Digipak would belong to. I looked closely at the albums by lots of indie pop artists to give myself a better idea of the types of things that are common. I wanted to link my album to others in the same genre but I did not want to copy others, I wanted mine to be different. I noticed that the albums contained bright colours and hidden messages. I wanted to copy this technique and as I am doing an art a-level I felt if I painted something myself it would be good enough. I saw an image that I liked and decided to create one myself using ‘paint’ and ‘photoshop’. I kept the bright colours a tried to create hidden messages. I chose a font that would link with the title of the album. As the album was ‘A Guide’ I decided to use a font that looked like hand writing. I was still making sure that my Digipak challenged some conventions.

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

• I think I worked hard to make sure the main product and the ancillary texts linked. I think this was achieved because I spent a lot of time writing the texts to a high standard. I think all areas of my media product helped promote the album. Each area did the same thing but in different ways. The music video helped because I think the actual story line linked partly to the type of story lines by ‘The Wombats’ this means that fans of ‘The Wombats’ will see my video and may be attracted to the entire product. I tried hard to link my Digipak to the styles of ‘The Wombats’ because I felt the viewer would get confused about the genre if I changed it to much. Looking at the font type and the pictures on my Digipak it is clear to see the link between my Digipak and one by ‘The Wombats’. I felt that doing this would promote my album to more ‘Wombats’ fans and attract them to my entire product. I also felt that fans of indie music would be attracted to this as it links to that genre. I felt that I did stray away from conventions but I did not stray too far so the usual fans would lose interest. I also kept my magazine advert near the same genre but I did experiment a little.

Magazine Advert• My magazine advert applies to the same rules. I followed some conventions such as bright

colours and quirky images to keep ‘Wombats’ fans happy but I strayed away in some aspects to make it different. I chose a pretty middle class picture to link to the artist’s backgrounds. I also felt the viewer would link to this image and may make them more attracted to my entire product. I decided to create something that I liked the look of this meant I could put more passion into it and hopefully it would be an all over better piece. I felt that if it was just me who liked the advert it would promote the album less but I found that if I made some links to the normal conventions I could get around this. I enjoyed making this because I still managed to challenge a lot of conventions. I felt my approach to each product would appeal to ‘Hoosiers’ fans and other types of fans because of the type of editing and filming of the music video or because of the interesting art work on the Digipak and on the advert. I think the choices I made would appeal to a much wider audience and not just the fans of ‘The Hoosiers’.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

• I was really looking forward to the audience feedback. Although I felt I had created my music video to the best of my ability I thought an audience could find things that I had missed. I felt from the very beginning that audience feedback would be an important part of developing my product. I gathered lots of audience research in the beginning to get a good idea of what the audience wanted to see. I felt that this would help strengthen my final idea. I made a questionnaire which is very useful when given to the audience my video was aimed at. I found out why people watched music videos and what attracts them to a particular one. When I got the feedback I found that some of my ideas were perfect and I went on to develop them further and other ideas I discarded completely. I found that most people liked a narrative and they didn’t mind not seeing the artist or a dance routine. I liked using the questionnaire because if you made them anonymous then people could write whatever they really felt.

Audience Feedback• I then played my video to a large group of students in years 11, 12 and 13. I gave each viewer a piece of paper

and asked them to write a sentence or two on what they thought of the music video and how they think I could improve it. I played the video and left the room so people knew it was anonymous. Before I left I asked the audience to post their comments into a box on their way out after the video had been viewed.

• As I looked over the comments I found some easy ways of improvement. A lot of comments said that the video was hard to watch because I was using an effect called ‘Light Rays’. This made the outline of the picture glow which looked good but it did make the shot a little blurry. I decided to change this by removing the effect and changing it for over-saturation. This still gave the shots a bright look but it did not make them blurry. A few other comments said my titles should be brighter so I changed them for a brighter box and background. Lots of people liked the shot of him walking through the door because it looked like he was walking off into the sunset some commented that this might be a good final shot but I preferred the shot I chose because it starts and ends in the same place and I think this looks really good. People liked the cuts on the beat and the quick and slow cuts for different parts of the song. Some people mentioned that it would be nice to see where he goes when he leaves the house but I did not have time to film any more. I felt that the new broacher helped to explain where he had been but if I had more time I would maybe film a shot of him entering a travel agents.

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

• My media product used a large range of media technologies because I made three separate products a music video, a Digipak and a magazine advert. Without media technologies this would be very hard to achieve. Lots of media technologies were used in the creating, researching and planning stages. First the music video I produced, the research stage used varies technologies. I first used the internet and sites like ‘Youtube’ to see the current music videos. I also looked at books and magazines as more forms of research. I also used my questionnaires and people as another form of research and I found this to be one of the most helpful. I found that this showed the strong relationship between media helping to produce something.

My Music Video• Creating the music video was my favourite part of the entire product and I used a range of

technologies to film it. I used camcorders and tripods the most. They relationship between these two pieces of technology was important because each type of shot could give a different feeling. The wrong angle and the wrong message could be delivered. I think I used the different style of shots well to bring across the feeling I wanted. I used the tripod for some shots to show how he thinks his life is stable and everything is ok. This was showed by no wobbling of the camera and that the shots were all level. When he comes back down to earth the shots are more slanted and shaky to show that not everything is ok with this character I achieved this by filming handheld shots. I used sharp edits to show he was sharp minded when he is hallucinating because he was on top of the world. When he goes back to normal I used slower edits to symbolise his slow lethargic thinking and movements. I found all this very useful because it meant I could easily capture my ideas perfectly and put them together in different ways using ‘Final Cut Express 4’. Final cut really helped to edit together my filming. There is a vast amount of editing tools and editing effects which means my ideas could be captured perfectly. I also used live type to create my titles, this was good because it was simple to create something that looked really good. These technologies helped a great deal and without them this project would be almost impossible.

Photoshop/Paint• While creating the Digipak and magazine advert I felt ‘Photoshop’

and ‘Paint’ really helped. I created the album cover almost completely in paint which was really easy and simple to use because it gives me a range of tools and colours. I then went on to edit it in ‘Photoshop’ to make it look the best I could. I finally moved the design into ‘Pages’ where I added the text. I used ‘Photoshop’ to add effects to my album cover which was really easy because it lets you add a large range of effect to the pictures you have uploaded. This made it simple to create a really good piece of work

Blogger.com• I used ‘Blogger.com’ to upload all of my written work. This really

helped because it meant I could keep an electronic diary of how I was getting on. I could also look back at any old pieces of work and see how far I have come.

Review• I really liked the production of each section of my product overall. I

felt that in all three areas I had achieved something to the best of my ability and it showed with I had wanted it too. As I started each section I had a small idea of what I wanted the final outcome to be and with some audience research I developed my idea in to a much better one. I made plans and I think these helped a lot because I only had to follow the instructions to begin with. There is not much I would change in each section because I am very pleased with the outcome. In the music video I would have filmed the characters trip out if I had more time to film as I believe this would have made it stronger. If I had more time I would also have added shots in of New York broachers every time the lyrics say ‘New York’. I think my magazine advert would have been better If I could have got some better photos but I feel as I had to take the photos myself I did not have the time or money to take pictures of New York. Other than this I am very pleased with the outcome.