Evaluation

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

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

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

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

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

• In the creation of my music video ‘Schools Are Prisons’ by the band Sex Pistols I used, developed and challenged forms and conventions of existing punk rock music videos.

• A typical punk rock music video consists of a 4 to 5 piece line up including a drummer, bassist, rhythm guitarist, lead guitarist and singer. For example; Dead Kennedys are a punk band that are of a four piece. Another example are the British punk rock band named The Clash who also consist of a four piece set including; drums, bassist, guitarist and the lead singer.

• However my music video does not follow this typical convention as it only consists of a three piece set; drummer, guitarist and the lead singer.

• However my music video does not follow this typical convention as it only consists of a three piece set; drummer, guitarist and the lead singer.

• I have used the convention of a performance based music video with narrative scenes fitted in between these parts; the performance allows the audience to understand the band and the way they play and also allows them to be recognised. It creates an illusion of some sort of live performance. Although my music video follows this typical convention, it also does not follow it in the sense that usually the performance takes place on some sort of live stage, whereas mine is filmed in a classroom as we wanted to focus the attention on the setting to relate back to the lyrics of the song and also create a sense of entrapment.

• It is typical for a punk rock video to have many close ups during the performance based parts, which I have followed and included. For example close ups of the lead singer during emotional lyrics and close up shots of instrumentalists hands playing instruments. For example; I included a shot of the drummers foot as well as his hand while playing certain parts.

•I have challenged the typical costumes worn in punk rock music videos to a certain degree. Typical uniforms are dark colours, extremely casual clothing, studded belts, dark coloured wrist bands and anything with skulls. Clothing worn in my music video is very casual and many wear wrist bands and studded belts, however a lot of clothing is also of very bright colours. For example; the green uniform.

• Another typical convention that I have challenged is that most videos make use of dark colours and day rather than night. Whereas all the shots within my music video are shot in the daytime and in daylight so there is very little use of the dark colours apart from scenes which we then turned into black and white to give it more of a typical punk affect.

• Typical punk videos also have heavy use of visual symbolism. My music video follows this convention and consists of a lot of this feature. For example; there is a shot of a gate and above it a darkish sky with birds flying around which represents wanting to feel free. Also during the performance based parts in the background as part of the mise-en-scene we stuck up the Anarchy signs to put across the idea of anarchy to the audience.

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

• Typically many digipak images derive from images taken during the making of music videos. However I did not do this, although, my images do relate to the ideas behind my music video. The images I took are both strong and artistic.

• The image I chose to use is of a character who fit the image of the music video and who was not in it. The main image I used was of a male character standing with his back to the audience and his hands behind him tied up. The use of his back towards the audience represents the idea from the music video that the character wants to go against the ‘typical rules of society’.

The characters hands tied up behind him represent being trapped and wanting to break free which again are the ideas behind the lyrics and the music video.

• The other image I used was an image a took of a view of houses on a street in the snow which I then edited. I decided to use this image as it is a very peaceful view which relates to the video as the video is about wanting to break free. Therefore I thought this would be a good combination with the video as peaceful views such as the one I took an image of are often used by people to reflect and find somewhere to run to.

• The colours that I used on my digipak are purple, brown, hot pink, orange and yellow; all of which fit perfectly with my music video and its genre of punk rock. I chose these colours because they fit in perfectly with the punk genre. I didn’t follow the typical convention of magazine adverts by being too bright to attract the audience’s attention. I made my colours a mixture of both bright and darker colours to represent the ideas behind my music video of feeling confused and wanting to feel free. Also by using bright colours it allows the audience to think back and remember back to the video as most of the video footage is full of scenes that are bright.

• Lastly the fonts I used look like they are handwritten in messy ways. I used these fonts to represent the school children within the music video. Using these kinds of fonts allows the audience to refer back to the video and remember the school children within the music video.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

• From my audience feedback I learnt that I could have improved the quality of shots and improved the meaning of the music through the shots. I have also learnt that the lighting could have improved as a punk audience would want those dark lighted scenes, however the music video went against this typical convention. Again I learnt that there is always room for improvement.

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

• I used media technologies to aid me in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages. I used a range of media technologies such as blogger, IMovie, the internet, digital cameras and video cameras, Photoshop, publisher and Facebook.

• I used Blogspot to record all the evidence of my project for my music video. For example; I had to show all my research such as analysis and also my storyboard. Using blogspot is an efficient tool as it allows work to be organised and easy access. It cannot be lost, work can easily be shown and submitted and it can be accessed from anywhere in the world. This media technology allowed me to plan and organise the work for my project.

• To aid me in keeping in contact and updating and organising meetings with the people involved in my music video I used Facebook. This was very useful as people on it always check their Facebook and therefore it’s cheaper and easy to get in

contact with people no matter where they are.

• The next type of technology I used was digital cameras and video cameras. I used the video camera to shoot the scenes for my music video. I then uploaded all my footage to allow editing and constructing of my music video on a software package called IMovie. This software also allowed me to cut parts that were unwanted and to add effects to improve my music video. I also used it to create my video storyboard. I then used the digital camera to take images for my digipak. I then uploaded them to Photoshop and Publisher. These software packages allowed me to edit and manipulate images I took to improve them and create a digipak of my own.