Evaluation 120

Q1- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our music video is called Rum and Redbull. The genre of the music comes from Dancehall and also Caribbean music. Dancehall is a famous genre of Jamaican popular music that originated in the late 1970s. Our music video is more of a multi strand video rather than a performance based video as we didn’t want to take the stereotypical approach and have a performance based video. To keep in with the codes and conventions of a music video we did have one performer who appears in the last minute or so of our music video.

As we wanted to do something different and unique we decided on a multi strand music video and we had lots of different clips of a radio DJ to link all the other scenes together. Our music video did not use a crowd of sexy female dancers as we didn’t want to make a stereotypical dancehall music video. Instead, we decided to focus on everyday people drinking Rum & Redbull and the effects that it would have on them.

Our camerawork follows the predictable technical codes by using a different variety of shots and unique angles to depict a sense of personal connection between the audience and characters. We used a lot of long shots to establish all the different scenes and close up/mid shots to show the characters and almost introduce them to the audience. We achieved this by using many short and quick takes to keep our video fast paced, showing that everyone is getting more intoxicated with every mouthful of Rum and Redbull they take. Our plan was to place the audience in a position where they could identify with the characters, as well as keeping up with the pace and intercutting of the scenes which allowed us to create an entertaining atmosphere for everyone. We also used point of view shots to place the audience in the characters position which made it even more amusing because it was as if they were there taking place in everything that’s happening.

The editing we used follows the conventional style of music video editing, with it having some transitions being cross fades at the beginning of the music video and also some cuts between the beats of the music as we felt that this would allow the visuals to flow with the music. Because the whole track has a fast pace to it and is so energetic we felt that we couldn’t add any short shots or cuts as that wouldn’t work with the music.

Q2- How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I felt that the arrangement of our music video and its ancillary texts worked together as we learnt the key elements of branding such as; brand personality and brand position. We put these elements to use in order to make our product look as professional as possible. In the video we tried to not follow the same techniques as some of the music videos have today and use what already existed in the current era of music videos, by not featuring any lip synching or female dancers. In that case we decided to do the exact same with our ancillary texts. After doing a lot of research we decided on some powerful colours for our digipak and magazine ad.

We decided to have the Jamaican flag colours (red, yellow, green) throughout all our ancillary texts as this made a clear link between the artist (Beenie Man) and our products (Rum and Redbull). The use of this also helped keep a clear relative between all the products and so there is a persistence of the mood from the music video to the digipak and magazine advert; the bright colours match the fast paced and lively music video. Throughout all our products we have used a key logo which is the bat as this represents rum. This is also the logo of Bacardi rum, and by using this we have instantly made this our identity and put it on all of our products so everyone knows that they are all linked.

Our digipak follows several traditional forms and conventions of other digipak’s for example it has the name of the artist, song, a theme, price and lyrics on the inner sleeve which you can find inside the digipak. Many artists choose not to have their picture on their digipak or album so we didn’t feel as if this would be an important factor, as we wanted to concentrate more on selling the song and music video rather than the artist. During production of our digipak’s and mag ad we used which were similar to the two logos that had already existed which were the Bacardi rum logo and the Redbull logo. We traced the two logos from their products and placed them into our ancillary texts.

Promotion was an extremely important part of our ideas regarding the magazine advert. We had decided that by using a snap shot of a character from the music video, people would be able to make the connection between the image on the magazine and our music video; as a result of this would attract a lot more attention to the audience and they would be more liable to watch our music video. As a group we thought that having our Michael Jackson look-alike as the front cover would bring a lot of attention from our target audience as he was famous and easy to recognise. Accordingly this would catch the viewer’s eye and they would be more intrigued to watch the video. Our magazine advertisement follows customary forms and conventions by showing the name of the artist, song and also a release date. These are all important towards promotion as they let the audience know all the details. We felt it was important to keep a sense of continuity so when the audience see magazine advert and the digipak, they will be able to recognise that the two ancillary texts come from the same music video.

Q3- What have you learned from your audience feedback?

From our initial research stages we learned that our target audience would mostly be males and females aged from around 15– 25yrs. This was mostly because Dancehall hasn’t been around as long as other genres of music and has only been receiving mainstream success since the 1970’s. Our target audience research showed us exactly what kind of music our target audience generally enjoyed more and what they liked and disliked about music videos. For example we found out that their favourite genre of music is RnB and they preferred fast paced songs to slow melodies.

After doing some research we then tried to create a music video that would appeal to our target age range and to help us achieve this, we used a mixture of actors that were in the same age range and also of different ethnicities so it would appeal to everybody. This allowed us to form a link between

the target audience and characters which also gave our music video a whimsical side as we aimed to try and get the audience to laugh at the fact that similar crazy things happen to them when they are drunk. In our script development, we incorporated the use of lots of particular camera techniques for example; close up shots and point of view shots were used to place the audience within the situation. We also used a lot of pull focus and shaky shots in our video as this allowed the audience to feel exactly how the characters felt whilst intoxicated.

There was a lot of positive feedback with a lot of people saying that our video was much better than expected and was definitely unique as they had never seen a music video without a defined performer lip-synching the words. The audience also said that they would watch more music videos with a concept like ours because of the fact that it was so different and stood out amongst lots of other commercial music videos. With regards to our main product a few people have said that our non linear/multi strand narrative was a tad confusing and that they also didn’t understand

what was going on until we explained the narrative to them. This was disappointing as we one of our key plans was to get the narrative across effectively yet we were unable to fulfil it.

Everyone was equally as stunned with our ancillary products as they liked how we had made a clear link between our products and would definitely be interested in purchasing the video after seeing how professional our magazine advert and digipak designs looked.

Q4- How did you use new media technologies in the research, planning, construction and evaluation stages?

The majority of research was achieved by gathering information via the internet and search directories such as Google and Youtube. Using Google was much easier to use rather than any other search engine because it provided us with relevant images and useful information. It was also much easier to use because when searching for a particular product or artist, it would list thousands of websites and images within a matter of seconds. Another exceptionally good new media technology that we used was Youtube which especially helped me with my similar textual analysis because all I had to do was type in the artists name or song and it came up with lots of videos regarding what I

typed in the search bar. I then selected a music video that I wanted to analyse on Youtube.

We used the Canon XM-2 Camcorder to film our whole music video. To get the best out of this digital tape camera, we needed to the basics of how to use this camcorder such as know how to set

up several controls like how to insert and play back a tape, how to adjust the white balance so our recordings would be clear in each location and also how to zoom in and out which was quite useful in our close up shots. We learned how to use used manual focus, which

allowed us to capture clear shots from different distances with the option of pulling focus when required. We also used the Canon’s manual exposure adjustment for when our DJ is dancing in his studio.

During the editing stage, the editor used Apple’s Final Cut Pro. We were able to effectively use the log and capture feature whilst playing back our tape though the external video tape player. Another technology we used in the construction stage was Adobe Photoshop for our print production. This software wasn’t new to me as I study photography therefore I am quite familiar with all the tools and the software itself which made the digipak production easier for me as I was able to use lots of different tools (the crop and blur tool) successfully to manipulate the inner sleeve to exactly how we wanted it. Generally, we had to upload all our work on to Blogger. However, I used Slideshare most of the time as this was a lot easier and quicker to upload documents and pictures all at one go and would also keep the layout of the document intact.

Example of a Digipak.

Our group