Evaluation

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

All music videos are made up of a narrative or performance based around the artist’s music. These music videos are used to create and image, promote and sell the artist. In our music video we have decided to use both narrative and performance to fit in with the urban and rock genre of our song. Another reason we chose to incorporate a narrative into our music video is that we could show the emotion in the lyrics through the visuals.

In music videos there is usually and should be a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. The song lyrics tend to show a general feeling. They can also establish a mood or sense of subject matter. Some also have a meaning which can be heard through the lyrics; however they can contradict them as well. In our music video we have followed these forms and conventions by making the visuals in our music video match the lyrics. An example of this is when we used a long shot to show the artist throwing stones on the floor at the same as it says ‘you throw stones’. This clearly shows the relationship between the lyrics and visuals. It is a key line that plays a part in the visuals associated with the song.

There are other forms and conventions that we have followed and incorporated in our music video, for example the relationship between the music and the visuals. A music video usually uses the tempo of the track to influence the editing. It can also emphasise sounds from the track such as guitar and drum solos or any other instruments by foregrounding them. This is another convention that we have followed when we created our music video. You can see this convention mainly at the beginning and the end of our video. At the beginning the tempo of the music is slow and to match this we have less cutting/longer scenes, but when the chorus starts the scenes become much shorter and we have used more cuts. The long scenes and fewer cuts at the beginning of our video enable us to show the emotion in the artists face. In the last section of the video the tempo is more upbeat and this is where we hear the instrumental solo. During this part of our video we have decided to use more cuts to keep in pace with the music.

Certain types of music genres have their own distinct characteristics which they include in their music videos. The ‘rock’ genre usually has a lot of performance included in their video. To include this in our music video we decided to film the artist performing on stage. In our music video there is a section where all you can hear is the instruments, during this part we decided that the artist should do some head banging which I saw in rock videos such as Lil Wayne – On Fire. It can be said that we challenged the conventions of the ‘rock’ genre since we have not included the artist playing actual instruments.

Since music videos are used to sell the artist as well as promote the song it was important that we included a lot of close up shots. By using close up shots we attempted to establish a relationship and intimacy with the viewing audience. These close up shots also allowed us to show the emotion on the artists face, such as her sadness and loneliness, an example of this being when we showed the artist crying. Another way in which we showed the emotion in the lyrics through the emotion was through the editing. We decided to make the entire video monochrome to create a dark feel. A black and white music video is not a convention of the ‘rock’ genre so it could be said that we challenged the conventions. I think the image that we have created of the artist is mixed. In the beginning of the music video the artist looks innocent but as we progress through the video we see a scarier side to her. In our music video I don’t think we have used any conventions of the hip-hop genre, and since our song is a mix of hip-hop and rock I feel that we should have used the hip-hop conventions somehow.

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

There is a link between my main product and my ancillary texts. I decided to only use 3 main colours when making my ancillary text. Since the genre of our song is ‘rock’ I thought red and black would be a good choice of colours. The black represents the darkness and rock style of the artist and video. I decided to us red simply because the song is called heartbeat, the red would represent the blood that flows through our hearts. The other colour that I used was silver. I used this colour because it helped to make the writing on my digipack stand out; it was a big contrast to the red and black. The silver and black that I have used for my ancillary text link with our video because our video is in black and white. If we were to use colour in out video it would not give off the same dark, sad feel that we wanted to give out. The way I have written heartbeat represents a heartbeat monitor which you would see in hospital; this makes it look more professional. One of the main conventions that I have used when creating my ancillary text is that I made sure the artists name was all in the same font to make her unique. I have created an iconography of the artist by using images where the artists image looks similar to that our music video.

What have you learn from your audience feedback?

From the audience feedback we gained it was clear to see that people enjoyed watching it and it didn’t bore them. Most of the audience feedback we received was positive, with people saying things such as ‘the video was very creative and professional’. A lot of people said that they liked the was the song showed the story behind it which is very important to know. This meant that our narrative captured what the song was trying to say. However someone did mention about the camera shaking. We did this purposely but maybe in the future we should only use shots that are steady. Someone said that we should have stuck to the conventions of our genre a little bit more. I believe with have stuck to it and tried to include as much characteristics from the rock genre as we could such as the performance on stage. The narrative we have included is a characteristic from the hip-hop genre. I think that if we added more conventions from the hip-hop genre such as cars and jewellery the music video would not portray the lyrics and match the artist’s image which is important.

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

Media technologies such as iTunes helped with the construction of music video. It allowed me to go on it and purchase the song I needed for our music video. Google and YouTube were also very helpful with the construction and research. I was able to use the internet to find out what the original video looked like and the artists image. I was also able to research other music videos with a similar genre and concept such as Lil Wayne – On Fire and Evanesence – My Immortal. Media technologies helped with the planning of the music video a lot. We used cameras and I even used my iphone to take images of locations that we were planning on using for our music video. These images were then uploaded onto a blog which allowed me to share my work with others. When doing the annotation of lyrics i used Microsoft word, this software program meant that I was able to make a table and made the work more presentable. Using the internet we were able to search for props. When actually making our music video we used a lot of media technology. Since I was not acting in the film i was able to film scenes such as the argument scene. To do this I used a video camera and a tripod to make sure that the shots were steady. I also did the lighting for the stage scenes; this allowed me to work with theatre lights which were very complicated. Once all the filming had been done we uploaded it onto ‘imovie’ so that we could edit and piece together our video. Even though I didn’t actually use the software to edit i did give input and suggestions. From watching others use the program I have learned how to use it myself. When the video was completed we decided to upload it onto YouTube and facebook to gain audience feedback, which helped to evaluate our video. To create my ancillary text i used Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. These programs allowed me to edit the images by feathering them and removing the background, I was even able to download brushes which I used to create the background for my images.