Evaluation of my media project…

Natalie Palmer

In what ways does your media product use, develop or change

conventions of a real media products? … The CD Package

Generic Conventions for CD packageI’ve stuck by…•They have at least one image of the band.•Some (if not all) of the lyrics to each song on the album. •Style of booklet… in terms of it looking like a leaflet… some bands use this instead of the generic book.•Square shaped case.•Generic band photo pose and angle – mid shots, focuses on the head and the torso. •Serious pose •Band logo for the iconography. •Having photo’s from the video/footage of the band. This links them all together.•There is usually a them that runs throughout the posters and CD package work. The theme I’ve used is a misty black and white theme with the use of purple to make things stand out more.

That don’t follow the conventions…•The photo’s have generally been made to be black and white rather than staying in colour. •There is a photo where they are not in a serious pose. This shows the lighter more relaxed mood for the band.•Usually when seen in a band booklet the people are shown separately. I have merged them into one picture by using the airbrush on photo shop. I give it a black mist effect so that it all links together. (lyric leaflet/book) •I haven’t included a ‘thankyou’s and dedication page’. •In one photo of cassie (shauna) near the grave stone, this is unconventional because of the angle I have used in it. This would be a picture that would go on the oposite side of the lyrics page.

Reasons behind what I’ve done…• I have put the photo’s in black

and white so that it follows some kind of theme that would link all the pieces of work together.

• The majority of bands have a book for the lyrics inside the case, but there are others that have a leaflet sort of thing instead. I have chosen to do a leaflet because it differed from the normal band choice.

• The photos that I have taken could be interpreted to be fairly serious, which represents the band taking life seriously and being serious about what they believe in.

• I stuck to the generic photo angles for the lyric leaflet because I wanted it to look as if it had been done professionally and if I had taken the photo’s in any other angle it may have looked dodgy and it wouldn’t look right.

• For the lyrics leaflet I wanted to make the lyrics stand out and link to the rest of the project. To do this I used the black airbrush effect to merge the five photo’s together and then I used the white font to write on the lyrics. This made them stand out and makes it easier to see.

• I chose not to stick to the

General ‘big band nameon the poster’ this isbecause I didn’t wantto have the big name‘Flyleaf’ covering up thephoto of the band.

• I have used the photo of the rose and the gun on the grave because it is effective in summing up the video in one go. I have included lyrics on it to make it seem more like it has a meaning and that its not just a random collection of things.

• For the back CD cover I have used a still shot from

Reasons behind what I’ve done…the video itself so that it linksinto the video. The use of blackand white colour themesalso links it in, and the purplebits in the background link inthe purple theme too. • The use of the jesus on a cross picture on the CD back links the piece to the christian faith. And to the band.

• For the front cover I didn’t want to do too much that would make it really busy and make it look rubbish. So this didn’t happen I just found a flyleaf logo on google and edited it using photoshop so that it linked into my own piece.

• I have placed the lyrics in the black bits of the booklet however sometimes the words run over the whites of the band members bodies. To avoid the fact that the audience wouldn’t be able to see the lyrics I changed the font into a black or a grey colour so that it is easier for them to read the lyrics.

The Poster• In this poster you can see the use of the

air brush on photo shop. This is generally not done in the production of most magazines. Usually the editing is done so that you can’t see that it has been edited.

• The reason why I have included the black mist in this poster is to emphasise that even when this Christian band is going the bad times (represented by the dark mist surrounding them) they can have a good time and look on the bright side of things.

• I have generally stuck by the conventions of a band poster (apart from the massive band name) as there is a logo (telling the audience who the poster is of) and in terms of the layout of the band, it is similar to one of any professional band.

The Advertisement…• To make this I have stuck by the generic

conventions as there is a band title and the name of the up coming album is clear on the page.

• The websites at the bottom of the page are another generic convention that I have followed in order to make this look as professional as possible.

• I have done the date in large writing so that it stands out and catches peoples eye when they walk past it. This is also why it has been done in a white font.

• The band pose in this picture is a typical band pose where by they all look strong and committed to each other and the music.

• The white room in the original picture looks a lot more vibrant, but I edited it with photo shop so that it wasn’t so eye catching because it was stealing all of the attention so the information I was trying to pass on wasn’t being noticed.

How effective is the combination of the main product and ancillary tasks?

The song itself is based on the columbine shootings in america. Where by two boys go into school and hold their classmates hostage and shoot anyone that believes in god. The song was made in rememberance of a girl named cassie who saw her friend rachel being murdered and still stuck by her faith and said yes despite knowing she would die as a result of it. Flyleaf is a christian rock band who write songs about things that mean something to them and things that effect the life around them. The image I wanted to portray was the idea that a christian rock band doesn’t soley sing about christ. I also wanted to break the view that anything rock is sad, depressing or ad in any other way. The video I put together is one of rememberance for all 13 people that died in columbine on that day. I researched ‘flyleaf’s’ previous video’s , CD covers and adverts and found that they’re general style is fairly mixed. The style of cloths they wear vary from casual jeans and a t-shirt to fairly gothic dresses to light innocent looking clothing. I tried to recreate a version of they’re style by getting hannah to be in jeans and a t-shirt, and then some fish net gloves and a black flaired coat in order to add the rocky theme to her outfit. When I was picking out who I could use in the video I compaired a few people to lacey (flyleafs singer) and found that hannah looked more like lacey, I therefore chose to use hannah in my piece. I used this comparison of lacey and hannah to put together a ‘flyleaf’ style video, CD package and poster. Connecting each piece together.

I tried to use one theme colour throughout the whole of my project, this was black, white and purple. I used these colours because they represent the contrast between the two ideas of the christian (light themed) rock (dark themed), also the colour purple is a typical colour to be used throughout rock. Another reason why I used the colour purple is because in terms of roses it represents saying bye to loved ones. It acts as a colour of rememberance and this works with the video because that too is of rememberance. Within both the main and the ancillary tasks I tried to portray the thought ‘stand up for what you believe in’ I did this by adding still shots from the video to the ancillary tasks, thus again connecting the different tasks. Throughout the whole project I have tried to keep the shades of colour the shade which would be a dark shade or which ever colour. This dark theme takes away any ideas of this band being a ‘rave’ kind of band, but the colour also takes away any ideas of it being a ‘depressing’ band. The shades I have used say that this band is happy and they take what they do seriously, whilst still having fun. Within the ancillary tasks (as no writing was needed in the video) I tried to keep the fonts as close to the originals as possible, however it didn’t always fit what I was trying to do so at these points I have changed the font to something different. I have used the original font within some of the work. To keep the pages consistant I used the familiar font within the same shades of colour. The writing I have used is clear, bold and easily read from a distance. The images of the band that I have used portray them as a strong band that who take their work seriously whilst going to have fun. Another photo shows the closeness of the members. I thnk the font that I have used compliments the pictures because you constantly get a strong togetherness theme to it all.

If I had the chance I would deffinately get some better quality photos as some of them are not really well focused even though you can still see what is happening in the photo and they still give out the meaning that I was trying to portray in it. In that respect all the pictures are good because they all give off what I want them to give off. Another thing that I would have done differently would have been to take a bigger variety of photos so that I could use different things for the CD package. I would have also changed the general immage I was going for as it was hard to find the bands real posters and article in general. To work around this I used the general style of a rock pop band which in a lot of ways is similar. I used the generic conventions of that genre and mixed it in with the conventions I found for christian rock. In terms of putting the stuff together so that it looks realistic I think I achieved it. In the video there are a lot of things that I don’t like within my final product. For one thing I believe there is too much footage of hannah mouthing the song and too much of it is set in the graveyard (I think it gets a bit tedious). I would have liked to have set it in a variety of places so that I could give out an understanding of the real story behind the song. There are a few shots in the grave yard that I am happy with such as the where hannah has reached the grave stone up untill she is standing infront of jesus. One shot that I am both happy and dissappointed with is the one where andy pulls shauna up from under the table. I am happy with it because the way it slots into the video it is successful and with it being played in slow motion it fits in with the part of the song where it is played. I am dissapointed with it because of the setting, I would have wanted it to be in the library rather than the media classroom as the actual event happened in the library. I was going to reshoot this with a different person (as the andy looks too much of a rocker) but I was ill and then I didn’t have the time to re-shoot anything.

I think the majority of the band shots at stayfree are effective and work fairly well, the stage presence of each character is effective and work fairly well, the stage presence of each character is effective in showing you who (in some ways) more important to the band, to do this I used different levels. There are however some shots that I really am not happy with, these are generally the close ups of hannah mouthing the song. She didn’t listen to the way the song is sang and mouths it in a dodgy way so I couldn’t get the lip sinc right and thus making the shot look really bad. She has done this several times in a few different shots. To create my CD digi pak and posters I researced into types of adverts used by a similar genre as mentioned before. I used kerrang mag to aid my research in posters and CD’s in general. The music video fits well with the two ancillary tasks because I have used similar themes in each piece. I have ecorperated a bit of research in each product into another of the products to help make the package successful.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

From my audience feedback on my video I have discovered that I need to make the story behind the video and song more clear, as several people have mentioned that they didn’t understand it. They mentioned that the bits with andy in are fairly random and they don’t really understand the story. So I would need to put in more footage that outlines the story for those that don’t have a background knowledge on the song. I have learnt that sometimes if you use some odd camera angles that aren’t seen very often and that compliment the photo then your target audience may be drawn in more and find the piece more interesting. I have learnt that when I am ending a video I need to start it a bit earlier on because I was told that it ended too suddenly and this wasn’t liked so much. The audience liked the mix up of the footage of the band and the story. They said it kept them gripped. I have learnt that if you have too many clips in one setting it gets a bit boring for the audience and it is ‘too samey’. The audience have mentioned that they like the refrences to god and some of the suggestions to the bands christian religion.

How did you use your media •www.youtube.com i used this to research previous video’s.•Hmv – i used to gather music and find other bands with the same genre, i also used it to find posters and CD packages.•www.Flyleafmusic.com i used this to find other connections to flyleaf.•www.google.co.uk i used this to help find pictures, examples of things and more information on the band.•www.flickr.com i used to put all my photos together and to put it on blogger.•www.slideshare.com i have used to upload any and all powerpoints to my blog on blogger.com.•www.gmail.com i created this account so that i could make a blogger account and several other accounts so that i could use them on my blog.

•www.blogger.com is the website in which i have my blog and is where i store all my work for media. •Digital camera’s have been used so that i can get the photographs and so that i can keep an account of what i have been doing. •Video camera’s have been used in order to make the video.•Mac computers have been used in order to edit the video. •Fire wires have been used to transfer the video footage off the tape ad onto the Mac computer.•I have used several musical devises as props. Things like microphones and amps and cables and things, these make the room look more realistic.

•Camera tapes were used in order to record the footage.•Camera memory cards have been used in order to store the photo’s. •Photoshop has been used to edit all the photo’s and to put together the posters etc...•Imovie was used to edit the video footage.•www.A&Moctonerecords.com and www.myspace.com/flyleaf was used to email them asking permission to use the song. •Facebook, youtube and msn have been used in order to gather thoughts and views on my products.•Several products with wheels (such as skateboards and bikes) have been used to create some effects on my video.