Evaluation

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

I chose the song “Mad World” by Gary Jules for my song and targeted an audience that enjoyed listening to acoustic style music, aiming to hit a large age range of people. The song has been recorded over the years by many different people, including Tears for Fears and the more recent version by Alex Parks, winner of Fame Academy; which means that the song has already hit an audience of a wide range.  Even though the song is hitting a wide target audience there is still only a small fan base.

My video should capture the imagination of people viewing it as it doesn’t challenge the forms and conventions of my music genre; however it does incorporate some new ideas. Rather than the original that Gary Jules has filmed with the video being mainly performance based and filmed out into a city scape, I have used the countryside and tried to put my twist on a mad world. My music video includes a mixture of both performance and narrative footage. I also included nature which meant that I used the countryside for a variety of shots, including balloons floating down the river and familiar faces being represented through gravestones.

I studied many videos looking for inspiration and particularly liked Ben Howard’s ideas and way he included nature in to his videos, and this is what I have aimed to achieve. 

Ben Howard’s videos incorporate a lot of nature and as my video follows the same theme I found them very useful and they offered me some really good ideas to help me develop my video. I liked the various different high angle shots he uses to capture different effects in the woods. This made me when watching the video immediately think and let me imagine what is beyond the trees and let me interpret what I want to which is a really technique to use. I especially liked the high angle shots he used looking up into the wood canopy and the other more direct camera shots. It was especially useful to study his mise en scene as it helped me focus on what I wanted my artist to wear. In all his videos I looked at, the artist was wearing plain clothes without any large patterns such as a plain green hoody, so I thought that my artist wearing a plain grey coat, would firstly look effective and secondly still fit in with the music video as it reflects the sombre mood of it.

I originally shot lots of moorland scenery footage trying to use rock formations as familiar faces for example, but feedback from friends suggested that this was a nature video rather than a music video.

Therefore I decided to include much more narrative and performance footage and combined it with countryside shots. I found that my storyboard was very helpful for the re filming as it offered me structure as the director and helped steer most of the filming.

I carried out a lot of research throughout my project including using focus groups, and the internet. For my focus group I chose a variety of ages, both male and females, as this would give me an overall view of my target audience.

During my music video, I didn’t use Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze. Mulvey’s theory comments on the way women are portrayed through dress, dialogue, the sounds around them and the camera angles plus all the other contributing factors. This makes men see women in a different light and is shown to draw men into the music video for example. But in this video I didn’t use or incorporate her theory, as I felt that it added no value to what I was trying to achieve in my music video.

I included Andrew Goodwin’s theory which links the lyrics to the music and the visuals shown. This was done through lip-syncing and the general mise en scene which went with my music video. This is an important thing to include, as it makes it easier for the audience to follow.

A good example of Andrew Goodwin’s theory in practice would be the video below. This music video made by Coldplay has stop motion and the lyrics to the song appear behind the singer making this a direct link as with the background.

In my music video I used the ‘Black & white’ effect for the piano scene to give the impression of this scene being filmed a long time ago. At first I was unsure what my audience would think of this style but when I did my focus group they commented and said it looked very effective and was a good change rather than just having the normal colour footage. I also used this effect on the river scene as at this point I wanted to superimpose my artist, Nick, over it to achieve a dreamy feel without any clashing of colours.  The focus group felt that the mood change had a more powerful result and a deeper meaning which fitted in well with both my chosen music and with this genre, as it followed the forms and conventions of the video. I used a few different types of transition between the various video clips, and this meant that the video ran smoothly making it easier for the audience to follow.

Towards the end of my video I zoom into follow Nick and then I change the focus so that is focused on the tree rather than Nick to show the clear contrast of distance.  During one part of the music video it shakes a bit, but I did this to create different light patterns behind my superimposed artist. This gives it a slight subtle twist and makes the colours behind my artist look more creative. Throughout the video I slowed parts down for example the part with the balloon, as this meant that the balloon was in the shot for longer and making time go longer. Whereas the part with the balloon floating down the river was sped up as the balloon wasn’t moving.

My first transition, of the original music video didn’t work well and looked tacky because it didn’t flow smoothly, this was good feedback from my focus group as I was then able to amend and improve it.

As well as making a music video we had to make a digipak and an advert for the artist as part of our ancillary tasks. I wanted to keep a strong link with nature throughout, so decided that I would keep the same simple colour scheme. I also decided that I would add an effect to a couple of the pictures and ensure the colours remain constant. I kept the mood the same throughout, by the mise en scene surrounding the artist. When filming I took a variety of different pictures and this meant that the mise en scene was consistent and you could see the resemblance with the video and images used.

I looked at many different digipaks before creating my own. All digipaks followed a similar layout of pictures of artists, album name, and the artist name. I followed the forms and conventions of the genre for the digipak, and kept it simple but clearly displaying everything required. I saw that it was very important to the audience to have a picture of the artist on the front page as this gives off an ionic symbol and instantly associates you with their music.

How effective is the combination of your main product with ancillary tasks?

The main product matches and goes well with the other ancillary tasks due to the use of the same colour schemes, same artist, and mise en scene throughout all the tasks. The music video showed nature scenes from which I was then able to link the advert in with the main product by having a forest as the background to my magazine, this then shows the correlation with the digipak as my artist is outdoors in a few of them surrounded by nature. The back page of my magazine is a blurred picture of some trees and other shrubs to give the effect of a blurred out image with a mixture of colours being different shades of brown, and greens to give an intriguing appearance.
On my magazine I have superimposed Nick on top of the wood scene as this made a powerful picture making him brighter and clearer than the background.

The other pictures on the digipak all show a clear link back to the music video as I took those pictures when I was out filming with Nick to maintain consistency with the music video.

I would say that there was a definite link and you could clearly see the synergy between the different tasks.

Have you learnt much from your audience feedback?

I decided early in the project that frequent feedback throughout the production of my media products was very important to make sure I was always thinking of what the audience wanted. This is why it was very good to have my regular focus groups, as anything they didn’t like was clearly highlighted, and any errors I had made were identified.

What really helped me to create my digipak was obtaining feedback on photos and the layout of the text. When editing the images I was able to ask the focus group for feedback on photos, which helped me tailor to their preferences, highlighting my errors and aiding my decision making.

I put a link to my music video on Facebook and then asked some friends to give me feedback on it to ensure that I was still hitting the right target audience. Also when creating the digipak, I ensured I asked my focus group questions like ‘Does the colour scheme fit the genre of music?’ This was very helpful to decide things.

I realized during my project that I was too close to the video and could not find objective judgements however focus groups dipping in and out of the task allowed them to be blunt in their direction. A directional change encouraged by them for example was to cut the amount of the piano playing footage and increase the close up singing and the amount the artist featured.

When uploading my second music video the various feedback I received was useful as they told me the playing scene went on for too long and should be reduced and the main artist should be featured more. So I reacted to their feedback and then decided to include the artist in more scenes and make the lip-syncing more accurate.

After speaking to other people in my class I was told that uploading my focus group video would take a long time due to the video being in excess of 10 minutes. So I decided to link my video through Facebook which meant that more people could view it and give their advice on how it could be improved.  I found this worked well and it was very good to get the wide variety of feedback.

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

During the research and planning stage I had to do a lot of research into the music industry. Most of the research was carried out through browsing the internet and analysing different things we had to make, e.g. music videos, adverts, and digipaks. I also used the various music channels on television to see new adverts for CDs and the latest music videos. This was really helpful as I could then base this information on my genre of music and have a wide knowledge to help create my media products. The main channel I used on the television was 4music. This channel predominantly shows music videos, and watching these various music videos offers different ideas to include, and incorporate into my own. The large advantage of using 4music was that I would discover music videos I was unaware of and this meant that I would find out about different artists. This then led to access to videos outside my genre and would then mean I could follow the forms and conventions of my genre, or choose to break them.

During my research I also looked for guidance from an advertising company for advice on storyboarding and how this can be done more effectively. They said that I had a good basic structure, but I should include more detail to communicate what I wanted to achieve during filming. He then said that the church in my storyboard could be a variety of different colours, size, age, etc. highlighting his point to be more specific.

Most of my research was carried out on the internet as it was easier for me to access at any time of the day and have all the information I needed in one place. When analysing music videos I was able to replay them many times on YouTube to ensure I had covered all aspects of the video, including mise en scene, and to see what theories are connected to the video. I used You-Tube for analysing my music videos as this is the most popular place for people to upload them and is where we have to upload our own music videos we create so it is good practise to familiarise myself with the website and its various tools. When analysing music videos, on the side of the page there were various linked videos including some by the same artist or genre broadening my research.

 I used the blogger throughout my AS and A2 media course, to record any research and work. Although it was difficult to get into the swing of at first I developed a skill that helped me to structure my work. During my AS year I was able to ask the A2 students for advice on using Blogspot, so I was familiar with it before starting my A2 year.

 In my research into music videos, I also used Adobe Premier Elements 10. This was on my preliminary task, where we had to make a version of songs in real life. This was good as I managed to get used to the various equipment, including the green screen, cameras and lighting plus the other equipment we had to use. The idea of songs in real life is to include little parts of different songs in normal everyday life, so this is what we were set as our media groups’ preliminary task.

 Once seeing this video we realised that we only needed to include 10-15 songs clips. We had to then storyboard this and once we had our storyboard to think of various lines which we could use in that part of video to fit in with the storyline. 

When researching my digipak I looked at many different designs on Google. I found that Google images was the best place to find these bits of information as when I was viewing different websites I found that many were not relevant, whereas on Google images however I was able to see the image before going on the website, so I didn’t waste as much time. This was also good as I was able to go on the internet and see the various digipak layouts and decide on the one I wanted.

When filming my music video, I used a Panasonic Video camera, for the capturing of the footage before editing it. When filming the scenes I wanted, I used the Panasonic SD40 video camera. This video camera was very good and managed to capture the woodland and river scenes. The camera can film in high definition improving the quality of my footage. When filming these scenes I also used a tripod, this was so that the camera was not shaking creating a blurry scene, and meant that the panning shots I did were effective without the camera moving really fast or slow, it was able to be kept at a constant speed meaning that it was more effective. On this camera there is 16.8 optical zoom, which I used to effect on the main shot but I found it was also good when zooming in and out as it achieved a smooth transition. I was able to use the tripod at various heights and different angles, changing the length of the legs. Having a spirit level on the top of the tripod ensured the shots and filming was always on the horizontal.

 After capturing what I thought was all of the filming I needed I had to then start the editing process. I used Adobe Premiere Elements 10. This was a good software to use as it enabled you to add in any animations and overlay clips. One thing that I liked about the software was how easy it was to add various effects to the different clips and to change them without ruining previous work. Originally the software on the school Dell Computers wasn’t working properly and meant lip syncing in the singing parts, was a very long and tedious job due to jumping. I then decided to get the software on my own laptop. This made it a lot easier as it ran smoothly without jumping and this meant that the editing time was reduced.

I was able to post the videos onto YouTube and then link this to my Facebook and get many people to comment on it and give their feedback.

When creating my digipak, I used the photos I was able to take on the video camera but I also used another camera. This was a Panasonic Lumix DMC- FS16 Compact Digital, 14.1 megapixel camera which was a good camera to use as it has good optical zoom and a clear camera screen to view the images taken. This camera was good for capturing the images I wanted for my digipak, but I mainly used the video camera as I took photos when out filming for my music video. This was because it was easy to do as you didn’t then have to take two different cameras you could just take one, which can do the job of two. Having the video also meant that whilst filming I could take a photo whilst in the middle of filming, so saved loads of time in the long run. 

When I was creating my digipak I didn’t want to just insert the plain image, so I used Adobe Photoshop Elements 10. This was a very good piece of software for me to use when editing images. I used the previous edition, Adobe Photoshop Elements 7, the previous year when making my music magazine, so was familiar with the various effects, so when editing these images.

At the start of my AS course I had little knowledge of how music videos were made and the various software available to achieve them. I know appreciate the various software used and the skills behind the creation of them realising how long it takes to create them.