Bryony's Evaluation

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

A genre convention of hip hop music video would show evidence of a glamorous and luxury lifestyle through mise-en-scene. You would see expensive items such as designer clothing, jewellery, expensive cars and large houses. However our media product challenges this convention by showing almost the opposite lifestyle. In our music video, the artist is portrayed as being an unpopular, middle class character that shows no evidence of being wealthy or living in luxury. Our video was also filmed in a low budget location whereas a stereotypical hip hop music video would be filmed in a high profile location such as a club or a luxury house. Another major convention and one of Goodwin’s Points that we challenged was the notion of looking. In most hip hop videos there is often voyeurism where women in particular are objectified. There is no voyeurism in our music video as the artist is looking directly at the camera and addressing the audience throughout and although in some parts the artist is turned away from the camera briefly, he is not being objectified in any way. We have challenged a lot of conventions for this genre; we have also used and developed one. It is conventional in hip hop music videos that the artist is the main focus of the video and is being sold to the audience throughout. It is also one of Goodwin’s Points of Analysis that the music video should meet the demands of the record label, to sell the artist. I believe that our music video strongly conforms to this convention as we see the artist in almost every shot. In our video we included close ups of the artist helping the audience and potential consumers recognise him, but we also included medium and long shots to sell the artist’s style. Although our media product challenges a lot of conventions, I feel it is done in an effective way. We deliberately conformed to stereotypical genre conventions to make our video unique and to put across a different style of hip hop artist. Instead of trying to match the visuals with the lyrics in the song as most hip hop videos do, we focused much more on building a strong relationship between the visuals and the music. We did this by incorporating lots of colours into our video through costume and props and by emphasising the beat of the song with the artist walking along to it. This works well as the visuals are not completely random, as they link in with the music. Our digipack for our music video both conforms and challenges genre characteristics. When we researched digipacks from other hip hop artists such as 50 Cent and Nelly, we found that the main focus of the product was the artist. We wanted to stick to this convention as we thought it would be effective to carry on selling the artist using the digipack as well as throughout our music video. So we spent a lesson taking images and choosing the most effective ones to then put on our digipack. Both the magazine advert and the DVD cover are focused on our artist, therefore conforming to the genre conventions. Another thing we picked up on whilst looking at different digipack examples was that they were not very colourful and instead concentrated on showing the consumer the artist and their ‘bling’. We challenged this convention as we wanted to include a lot of colours on our digipack to conform with the music video and also to reflect the artist’s style. The main theme for our digipack was purple as this was the most dominant colour from the artist’s costume. I think the balance of using genre conventions and our own ideas for the digipack worked well.

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

I think that the combination of our music video, magazine advertisement and DVD cover are very strong together. I think that there is a strong sense of continuity between all three products. This was our aim from the start and I think we carried it out well. We took a photograph on a stills camera of the artist who was dressed in the same costume as he was in the music video. We decided to do this to create continuity but to also make the artist recognisable to the audience so that they could make a link between the music video and the magazine advert. We took a lot of images on the stills camera from all different angles, trying to get a good shot that would sell the artist well. I think we picked the most effective ones as they are a little bit edgy which reflects the artist and his character and the style of music video. The images create an edgy and slightly comical persona for the artist which also ties in with the music video. I think the magazine advert acts as a good promotional tool for the DVD. Although it is quite simple, the image is very eye catching and the text is strong and also quite edgy making the advert memorable. We included quotes on the advert from NME Magazine and The Sun, which are two well known papers/magazines. I think that this helps sell the DVD to the consumers as it has been rated by well known companies. The quote also supports the needs of producers as it reflects well on the product. The DVD promotes the artist well as he is the main focus of the DVD as his picture appears across the front and back. From reading our feedback I think that we could have made the back of the DVD a little clearer if we had more time but I think we have included all of the necessary information on it and I am pleased with the result. The DVD cover has continuity with the magazine advert as it uses a similar image and the same font. It also has continuity with the video as the image is of the artist with a big grin, which we see a lot of in the music video. Although the products have continuity between them, we also wanted to make each one a little bit different. For example we left the background on the magazine advert white to make the image of the artist look more striking and eye catching for the reader. However we then changed the background of the DVD to a brick wall to give the product a bit of differentiation to the advertisement but to also keep it looking different and edgy. I believe that the magazine advert and DVD cover would successfully attract our target audience of teenagers aged 15-18. The magazine advert would catch their attention as it uses graffiti style writing and the colours and unusual picture style would draw them in. I think the DVD would also attract them as it uses a similar image which shows off the artist’s style which I believe would appeal to someone that age.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

One of the things I think we learnt from our audience feedback was that our original idea for the music video was a bit too ambitious. We had planned to film the video in the centre of Cambridge with a big cast, as the artist walked around Cambridge members of the cast would join in dancing/singing. When we pitched the idea to our classmates we had a lot of questions which made us think about how realistic our idea was. People asked, when would we find a time to film when everyone was free? How would we manage to get everyone to remember the words? Had we planned which parts of the song we were going to sing? Did we have enough time to get everyone organised and film all our footage? These questions helped us to decide to film our footage in college which was a more convenient location for everyone. We were then worried that it would look like we made no effort as we filmed in college. However when we put our rough cut together, people commented on how the location suited the video. We got positive and negative feedback when we put our roughcut on the blog. One of the negatives that we picked up on was that a lot of groups in the class had commented on the fact that the artist was singing along to the female vocal in the song. We thought about perhaps changing this however we liked this effect because although Rob is portrayed as being the artist, he is also shown to be an unpopular geek at college who is walking around singing along to a song, and acting goofy. The fact that he sings along to a female vocal adds to the effect that he has a goofy character and is not a very ‘cool’ student. We also learnt that we needed to include more shot variety as most of the footage we had was all medium shots of the artist. Shots such as close ups and long shots would help us sell the artist and make the video more interesting to watch. One of the positive comments we received was that all our lip syncing was really good and was edited really well. This gave us the incentive to make sure that all of our lip syncing was edited as well as this in our final video. After reading all of our feedback we went out and filmed more footage for our video. We had all our comments from classmates which helped us keep focus and film effective footage. Not only did we get feedback on our roughcut but also on our final video. The most important thing we learnt from this feedback was that we had managed to make our video appeal to our target audience. Our target audience was for older teenagers aged 15-18. We know that our video appeals to this audience as our classmates are in this age range and we got very positive feedback and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Although our target audience is 15-18, we would have to rate the video 18 because of the language used. This is one thing we failed to include on our DVD cover which was also mentioned in our feedback. We also received some positive and negative feedback for our digipack. One of the things we learnt from negative feedback we received was that the back cover of our DVD was a little confusing as the order of the quotes and the special features is a little bit muddled up. We realise that this could have been made better if we had more time to do it. A classmate also picked up on the fact that the logo for the artist (Lyrics Born) is different on the DVD cover than the magazine. We knew that this may look a little strange however we struggled to make the logo from the magazine advert look good against the brick wall so we decided to use a different logo that would stand out more. However a positive we received was that both pieces of work look professional and the use of the artist on both the DVD cover and the magazine advert is effective.

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

During the construction stage our group used the dolly to aid us with our filming. Although I have never used the dolly before I thought it was a really useful piece of equipment and was actually very easy to use. I think helped us a lot in our music video as a lot of it involves tracking shots following the artist around the corridors. The dolly helped us to keep these shots smooth whereas it would be very bumpy if we did them handheld. I think that I have also developed my skills on final cut during the editing process. Each member of our group got to have a go at editing. When it came to my turn, to start with I was nervous about ruining the work that my other group members had done but looking back on it I am surprised how much I have learnt since the preliminary task at the start of the year. Our preliminary task was to make a very short music video for a minute of a song. The video I produced in my other group consisted of very basic editing using just simple cuts and no effects. However from doing this project I have learnt to use final cut so much more effectively. In our video we have included different transitions such as spin outs. This is where we span a frame out to the corner to reveal the next shot, using motion key frames. This is a completely new technique and I think it looks really effective. I have also learnt more about using different filters to change and enhance the appearance of our footage. Our song is quite upbeat and we wanted this to be reflected by the colours in our video, however our footage actually looked quite dull when it was all put together. To change this we put on a colour corrector filter, which I have never worked with before, and used it to change the saturation of the colours and the contrast of our footage. After playing around with this we got the desired effect and also learnt to use the effect for future reference. I feel that I have also developed my skills on photoshop from doing this project. I use photoshop quite regularly in my photography course however I learnt new techniques from other members of my group. I have learnt how to apply a painted effect onto parts of an image rather than the whole of it using brushes and blending tools. We used this effect on the image for our magazine advert, it looks effective as it makes the image more eye catching and interesting. Not only have did we use professional programmes to help us create our music video, but we also used the internet to do a lot of research which was really useful in helping us work out our ideas and the style we wished to use for our digipack. We found that it was helpful to record all our research and findings from the internet and ideas on our blogs so that we could constantly refer to them and make sure we were on track.

Overall I feel that our group has worked well together and used our time and programmes effectively and efficiently to create a professional DVD cover, Magazine Advert and Music Video.