Final 2-4 Evaluation

Luke WainhouseA2 Media StudiesEvaluation

In what ways does your media product Use, Develop or Challenge form forms and conventions of existing media products.

Question 1

Question 1 is on blog as video commentery 

Conventions of Music Video’s

Camera shots: Music video’s conventionally contain long shots and close ups which create emphasis on the artist. Close ups don't just get used for emotional purposes but reflect the words of the song.

The camera almost always follows and traces the artist.

Mes: The mis en scene in music video normally relate to the genre of the band and use props that relate. A example is architects.Editing: Jump cuts are the

main kind of edits for music videos, this is because the music is constantly changing e.g. Verse to chorus also transitions such as fade and dissolves are popular.

Colours tend to be used to set the mood in video’s such as blues and blacks for sadness and warmer coolers for happiness.

Emphisis on the genre is key which can be shown through location, props, fashion or style of the band e.g. August burns red – white washed, the band have Ibanez guitars which is a trait seen in a lot of metal-core bands.

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

It is significant that when shaping a music video brand identity is a key element that should be used. The uniqueness of the image produced should be consistent throughout all of the products which relate to the artist/ band, e.g. Album Cover, Advert and Gate fold. The Artist should be represented throughout these Products and almost always specify to a target audience.

The guitar is significant in both the album cover and music video, especially the movement of the guitar.

The main singer/ guitarist is the main man in the band and contributes to a lot of their image.

The dark imagery is used throughout The Clashes work and can be seen both on the album art and in the music video screen shot.

Example The Clash’s album London calling and music video London Calling, the band are know as a reckless punk band and the album art shows this which is band recognition.

The Age of The Understatement

My mistakes were made for you Music Video.

Standing next to you EPMy mistakes were made for you EP

Brand identity with ‘The Last Shadow Puppets’ is a big part of the band as seen by the Album art and Screen shot Women are used in all of the images, This is meant to be a femme fatal theme which is used throughout all the Duo’s work. Its effective because it relates to so many mediums film and media being two of them.

All of my products are similar because I wanted to create a band image much like ‘The Last Shadow Puppets’ this is because it works so well, the Debut album alone became number 1 in the UK charts just because of the built up band image.

My Band Identity Firstly I had to decided what my brand identity would be but I found it hard to be original, I first had the idea to use a hostage situation on the art work because it would fit into the ‘Punk’ genre and come across as quite a reckless idea.

Next I started thinking about the back of the album, I wanted the picture to be taken at a different time of the day than the front cover , so I took one at night and it didn’t come out well so I took it just a few hours after the front of the album was taken and it worked out fine. The idea again relates to the front cover idea of a hostage situation and the hostage has escaped and the back and chair is all that’s left.

Theme: Hostage SituationTime of Day: Midday

Theme: Hostage SituationTime of Day: Sun set

I tried to challenge conventions by not relating my music video to the album cover because I found bands like ‘Arctic Monkeys’ haven’t followed the conventions either, but their logo on the products can be seen throughout their products which is what I have done with my Advert, DigipaK and Album art.

Band LogoArctic Monkeys logo

Like Arctic Monkeys I have not put my logo or anything that relates to my ancillaries.

My band logo’s font is a big part of my bands identity I researched other band logo’s with the same genre and found they normally have a much adventuresome font and background which is why I chose mine. Also punk band never really break away from the black and white colour scheme for logos.Rancid bands original logo.

I have used the font (polla) in all my ancillaries including the Advert basically because I wanted to create a brand which people will recognise in a quick glance and from the feedback with I have received I think this has become possible.

The star of my music video isn’t the artist of the song which I have used I did this because I found a convention in music videos where the band are shown in the video but a separate story line is also shown I felt I did this because I was influence by two music videos in particular ‘Architects Early Grave’ and ‘August Burns Reds Internal Canon’ both music videos have narrative story lines and band shots.Early Grave Bob (my music video) Internal Canon

Story/ Narrative

Band Shots

In the music video props and location were the two main elements I found I used the coin because I felt a convention In music videos was to be basic but also unique, the coin is significant to the lyrics how the addiction the singer sings about his following him much like the coin being where ever the actor is in the music video, giving in is also signified in the music video much like the lyrics when the actor goes to the off licence . We wanted the location to be in a average family home to suggest money is needed by the actor much like in the lyrics I found this was tricky because restriction were inevitable.

“Fifteen years 'till his liver explodedNow what's Bob gonna do now that he can't drink?”- Lyrics in the song

Q3 – What have you learned from audience feedback?

Before getting creating the products and get feedback I had to find the audience the music was for e.g Teenagers, 20-30, I did this by creating an image mood board and a audience profile I used image with what relate to the target audience.

The audience was punk teens roughly between the age of 14- 22 , most had a DIY look at their fashion i.e. Cut sleeves off t shirt or cut their own hair. I found various movements in the audience such as straight edge where they stay clean from drugs and alcohol, also black and white is again a on going theme.

I first started looking at the Rancid’s Twitter page and see who follows them and what other tastes and products they like, I found this productive because it got the ball rolling and helped me put together a mood board.

To gather information about my target audience I looked at the followers of the band and followed a few of the people on their, and from the information I gathered from the followers I added it to my mood board. It too helped what the music video would be like because a lot of the followers where posting music which they liked which I used as inspiration.

Social Network (Twitter)

I did two interviews with a friend and a fellow student in my class the first person after seeing my music video said

Feedback

“I think the music video is to generic in the sense that there's no effects used or break up of shots, I like the idea behind the music video and how the narrative relates to the lyrics of the song, I also think that not enough things relate to the genre. The album art on the other hand relates to the genre good it has many punk traits such as the band logo which really helps the band image.”

The second persons feedback

“I think the music video could use more band shots to split up the narrative of the music video, I like where the music videos shot and I think the editing could of been done a lot better like use more dissolves or fade at the end. The digipaks I like how the grass relates to the album art and back cover is good also I like how simple the digipak is but it could of maybe had more though, I really like how the advert has a image of the band as well as the album art .”

From the feedback I learnt I could of maybe challenged conventions more and been less generic but I thought if I challenged them more it would look more like a short film rather than a music video and I didn’t want this to happen. Also since the feedback I've changed the edits and put more band shots in to break up the narrative, I'm possibly going to add some edit effects such as dissolves but I don't want the music video to come across as a ‘corny’ video. I think my feedback for the ancillaries is mostly good apart from there not being enough on my digipak inside cover, but I was going for a basic look in the first place because it comes across as a much smarter looking inside cover and not polluted by unwanted writing or images.Start without band edit.

Start with band edit.

Questionnaire I gave 15 people a questionnaire which I made so feedback could be obtained quickly and efficiently. I gave it out after my final product was done and on each one I achieved above 4/6 which I am pleased with. It also show I took the initial feedback into consideration and changed what needed to be changed to fit my target audience.

Data received on questionnaires and put into chart.

Question 1

Question 2

Question 3

Question 4

Question 5

Question 6

0 2 4 6 8 10121416

NoYes

2 people didn’t think the editing didn’t fit in with the beat of the music which I was a bit disappointed with because I came back to the editing and shortened the long shots with quick edits to band shots, but on the other hand 13 people agreed it matched it which is a very good out come.

I found post of the feedback constructive for if i ever make a music video again i found the i and most happy with questions 3 and 4’s responses because it is seen that conventions have been used and the music relates to the video and gives it extra meaning.

Q4 – How did you use media technologies in the

construction, research, planning and evaluation

stages?

Research

I mostly used the internet mainly Google and Youtube to research for ideas for my products.

Internet

I mostly used youtube because of the music video database it holds, I found a lot of bad and good on their and I basically gave me a list of things I wanted in and not in my music video i.e. Shots, props. Google was used for the ancillaries especially the Album cover , I used the Image option on Google to find relative album art to target audience.

Researching the song I used Itunes and youtube, I was mainly looking at the feedback it was given to know if the song was useable because if people enjoy the song they'll enjoy the video with it.

Song feedback

I found a lot of advertisements in the magazine ‘Kerrang’ which helped develop my idea for what I wanted my advert to look like. I found using basic backgrounds is used quite a lot so costs are kept low for bands who can’t afford to advertise at a national level.

Magazines

I think this advert stud out from the rest because of the 2 image combination and the bold heading.

Building the music video.

I used a Fuji camera for the album art and digipak, then a cannon 550d for the Advert. I Found I needed a better quality image for the advert because it had the band image on it, I also found that grainier less quality images make better album art.

I didn't want to use any lenses or effects on either of the images I wanted them to be as natural as possible, I did find that the bigger and better the camera the harder they are to use.

Camera’s

I used Photoshop to create band logo, I felt paint and publisher where to amateur , I also created my album advert, I think Photoshop has a better selection of tools which is useful, its hard to use at first but I used online Youtube tutorials to help me.

I used the Colour range option to select the green of the photo and delete it, I did this because I wanted a plain whit background.

I also used it to merge two photos together, the actor on the right isn't meant to be apart of the actual photo.

Photoshop

I first cropped the image so it was 3 instead of 4 people then I cut a image of the left band member and dragged and dropped him where I wanted him then I selected and deleted the green then added a whiteBackground and added my Album details for the advert.

To edit my music video if used an Apple Mac, on the Mac I used IMovie to edit the footage and to add effects.

Editing Music Video

First I took the footage off the camera and drag and dropped it into imovie next I started editing the footage I found it hard because i was on a different running system I normally use windows.

I used basic effects to make my music video look more professional I tried not to go over the top with editing effects and normal effects.

With Imovie I found I had to change the project bar and the event bar because I was used to movie maker on windows.

I used This bar here to use cross media’s e.g. importing music or photos, this Is also where the effects are.

This here allowed me to create new events or projects it to allowed me to access my footage on my device and import it.

To design what my products were going to look like I used PowerPoint for the ancillaries and planned the music video on a storyboard. I felt I’d of spent a lot more time on a computer on Photoshop planning it and quicker buy using just a pencil and paper.

Design for Ancillaries.

I wanted to use PowerPoint for the evaluation because its easier to use a looks smart and professional I found Presi was a bit to fiddly and looked childish. I also wanted to make a video evaluation with Imovie but I was limited with my time and I did not have a Mac at home to make one. I found a PowerPoint wasn’t time consuming and was easy to post on my blog. I also could attach sound files for Question 1.

Evaluation