Evaluation Questions

 

Evaluation

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

Andrew Goodwin did work on music videos and his set of ‘points’ are useful for understanding how to construct a product that follows codes and conventions. He states that at least one of his points will be included in a music video.

Our media product uses some of the codes and conventions of music videos in relation to Goodwin’s points. This is because we have provided a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. We managed to achieve this by having the lyrics included in the slender notes which are a key part to the sub plot of involving the "Slenderman". We were able to produce our own slender notes which we used within our filming of the sub plot to then include within the video where it matched the lyrics to provide this relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. This uses the codes and conventions of music videos because Goodwin states that there will be a relationship between the music and the visuals. He said that the visuals should illustrate the lyrics and that is what we have achieved by producing the slender notes within the music video.

These two shots were included in the music video where the lyrics are 'Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na' and 'Who Do You Think You Are'

 

We also followed the codes and conventions of music videos because we provided a relationship between the music and the visuals. We increased the pace of the editing throughout the music video and it becomes faster by the end. This was essential because the tempo of the song increases throughout. It provided a good relationship between the music and the visuals. This was so we would be able to keep the interest of the viewer and provides good emphasis on the music and the cutting on the beat. This also follows Goodwin’s points for the codes and conventions of music videos because he states that there should be a relationship between the music and the visuals. We achieved this convention of music videos by ensuring we had enough coverage and were able to out in a variety of different shot types to make the pace of the editing increase.

 

All of these shots were included at the end of our music video to increase the pace of the editing. 

We have gone against the codes and conventions of music videos. Goodwin stated that record companies will demand a lot of close ups of the main artist or vocalist. In our music video we have not included as many close ups of the vocalist. We have two different shot types where the vocalist is shown up close but the main areas were the vocalist is shown is through the master shot of the whole band. We decided to do this because we wanted to include a variety of different shots of all the other band members and not just the vocalist. This could be said to follow the codes and conventions of music videos but the background band members are not the main artists or vocalist. This does not follow the codes and conventions of music videos because we have not included a lot of close ups of the vocalist.

 

 We followed the codes and conventions by having voyeurism present in the music video. We have included voyeurism through the shots of the “Slenderman”, where there is a first person view of someone looking for the ‘slender notes’ and finding the “Slenderman” in most of the areas that they found the notes. This is voyeurism because it is shown as the notion of looking, but it does not follow the conventional theme of voyeurism where there is a female present or a system of looking. We decided to use this voyeurism because it related to the sub-plot that we included in the music video. This follows the codes and conventions of music videos because Goodwin stated that voyeurism will be present in many music videos. This voyeurism provides interest for the audience because it intrigues them and they want to know why there is someone looking at or for something. This is why we decided to include voyeurism into our music video.

 

We also followed the codes and conventions of music videos because we decided to provide and intertextual reference within our music video. The internextual reference that we decided to use was the reference to the game “Slender: The Eight Pages” which is where we came up with the idea to film as if we were in the game and include the “Slender notes” and the “Slenderman” in a sub plot to the performance in our music video. This idea came up because we looked at the lyrics to the song and found that they related to the game in a certain way because the lyrics are about looking for love. We decided to make this reference to the game, because the “Slenderman” and the game player are both looking, but take a twist on it and make it so that the “Slenderman” was looking for love. Once we had this idea we then decided that it would make an effective sub plot to keep the interest and provide pleasure for the viewer. This is following the codes and conventions of music videos because it has a reference to an outside product within the music video which was used to keep the interest of the audience which we managed to achieve through audience feedback.

 

Our music video was also conventional of the genre that we were trying to represent. The genre of the song that we had chosen was pop punk and we decided to try and re-create this genre within our music video. To do this, we decided to get the band members to wear clothes that would be classed as fitting into the pop punk genre. Two members of the group wore check shirts, skinny jeans and vests which is conventional of the genre that we were trying to follow. This was effective because it meant that the product looked more realistic and looked more like the genre that we were trying to represent.

 

This image shows that the band who's song we used, You Me At Six, also wear check shirts coventional of the genre.

 

Our music video was also conventional of the genre that we were trying to represent because we managed to get a whole band to be included within the music video. It was conventional of our genre to have a whole band included within the music video to show a performance by the band. We managed to get together enough people to create a four piece band to do the performance of our music video. We also managed to get hold of a drum kit and also get this to the location for us to be able to create this performance that is conventional of our genre. This was effective because it meant that we could represent the genre more clearly and also make sure that we were sticking to the genre that we were representing.

 

We produced two ancillary tasks which were to create a Digipak and Magazine Advert for our music video. The Digipak was to be an album design that had the song that we covered on it. The Magazine Advert had to promote the Digipak including reference to the song.

Our Digipak was conventional of the genre of the song that we chose. The genre of the song that we chose was pop punk which we felt would be good for the song and also it would be effective for the Digipak because we could relate to the genre very well. Our Digipak was conventional of the genre that we chose because we decided to use dark images that show the band members which is conventional for the genre because with most pop punk albums the band is generally shown. It was also conventional of the genre because the front cover and back cover include dark backgrounds with bright images which is conventional of the genre because pop punk is generally ‘dark’ but has a bright side to it.

 

Our Magazine Advert was also conventional of our genre. This is because for our genre it is conventional for magazine adverts to have generally dark backgrounds. We decided that it would be effective to use a dark background because it was conventional to the genre but it would also mean that the text on top would stand out and catch the eyes of the audience. It is also conventional of our genre to have bright imagery included within magazine adverts. With this in mind we decided to use the image from our Digipak as the background to our magazine advert and then have text on top of this. This was because it was a bright, contrasting image compared to the dark background so it would grab the attention of the audience and it would also stand out.

 

Our magazine advert was also conventional of magazine adverts in general, not just typically our genre. Magazine adverts will almost always have reference to the sites where the album or tour is available to gain information or buy from. We decided to include the websites of places that we felt that our album would be available to buy, and included the logos and websites of these into the magazine advert. It is also conventional for magazine adverts to include reference to the Digipak in some kind of way, to make a link for the audience between the two different products. We decided to include the image from our Digipak front cover on our magazine advert because this would provide the link between the two for the audience and it also made an effective background for the information to go on.

  

Q2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

I used powerpoint created software 'Prezi' to be able to create a presentation on the information below and answe the above question.

After the filming, editing and final production of our music video, we had to create two ancillary tasks to accompany our music video. These were to create a Digipak and a Magazine Advert for our music video. We have created our Digipak and Magazine advert, and within these we have tried to reflect the genre that our music video was. Our song for our music video was of the pop punk genre so in the video we tried to recreate this.

We first created our Digipak which was to be a CD cover for our music video. Within this we were able to include images that would represent that band. We decided that during our filming we would take photos which we could include in the Digipak. These images included a variety of different shots of the band together as well as the equipment etc. This links our music video and our Digipak well together because it provides a link between the two products that would be recognisable by the audience. This also then provides a link to the genre because it means that the style used within the music video was reflected in the Digipak. This is through the costume that the actors wore for the performance. The performers were asked to wear clothes typical to the pop punk genre which includes skinny jeans, check shirts and vests. Once we had managed to gain this link to the genre within the music video then it was easy to recreate this in the Digipak because we took the images on the day.

We also again provided a link between the music video and the Digipak through the genre. This is because the genre that we had chosen was conventional to include dark colours. Within the music video we were able to use dark colours through the forest scene for the performance and well as through the sub plot for the “Slenderman”. These dark colours came from the background which is conventional of the genre. We managed to recreate this through the colours used for the background for the Digipak front and back covers as well as the images used within the Digipak. We chose to use black as a background because it was the darkest colour possible to use and it would reflect the genre. We also darkened the images used inside the Digipak using Photoshop so that we could make the images a bit more original and conventional of the genre. It is also conventional for bright colours to be used to emphasise certain things such as instruments, guitar straps etc. We managed to incorporate this into the music video through the use of a guitar and guitar strap. This provided a bright stand out colour that provides and emphasis onto it. We recreated this in the Digipak by using bright colours for the front and back covers for the Digipak. After we used a band name generator for the name of the band and the name of the album we then decided to recreate these in the covers by using bright colours. An example of this is that we took the name of the band, being “Neon Lizard Junkies”, and decided to take this opportunity to add in the bright colours that are conventional of the genre. We managed to do this through taking and image of a lizard and editing it so that the edges and insides were of bright, neon colours. This was effective because it allowed us to be able to include the bright colours whilst also linking to the band so that it didn’t look out of place. Another example for us being able to include bright colours within the Digipak was that we used the name of the album within the front and back covers. The name of the album is “Hipster Nicotine” which we managed to use for the front cover including a cigarette and the same for the back cover. From the cigarette we decided to make the smoke bright colours to continue the genre links from the music video. We again used Photoshop to be able to change the colours of the smoke to make it different colours.

We also created a Magazine Advert which could be used to promote the album in which the music video would be included. We decided that to create an effective link between the Digipak and the Magazine Advert we would use the same image that was on the front of the Digipak. This would be an effective link for the audience because from the magazine article they would then we able to recognise the Digipak because of the repetition of the image. Through this link to the Digipak we were able to make genre links for the Magazine article through the codes and conventions of our genre. An example of this is that again our genre would typically use dark colours as a background. We managed to repeat this in the Magazine Advert because we used the same black background from the Digipak. This made an effective genre link because it followed the convention of having dark background whilst also emulating the Digipak. This also provided a link to the music video because in the music video there were a lot of dark images used such as the background for most of the sub plot shots of the “Slenderman”. Another genre link we created through the use of the Digipak and the Magazine Advert was the convention that our genre used bright colours to make certain information or items stand out. We managed to create this link to the genre through the use of a bright back image to make the poster stand out. This colour was then used for the ‘Sticker’ that provides the information of the release date of the album for the audience. This provides a genre link because it shows that we used bright colours to be able to make certain parts stand out which we used within the music video, through the use of bright instruments, as well as within the Digipak, through the use of bright images.




Q3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We created a Directors Commentary which includes clips from our music video. We created a directors commentary by recording us talking about our audience feedback and how we used this feedback constructively to create a better final product.


   


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

I used Xtranormal to create a presentation of the new media technologies we used in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages of our music video. This software allowed me to be abel to type in what I wanted the characters to say and then it would put it together to create a presentation of the information.

Adam Stronge Evaluation Question 4
by: longroadmusicvideo12

evaulation

media
by: yasz

Q.1

Q.3

Jake Hardwick Evaluation Questions

Jake Hardwick

Evaluation Questions:

Question One:

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

 Our media product tends to be seen conventional to the genre it is classified as. Therefore we had followed the opinions and ideals of Andrew Goodwin whom identifies key features that categorize a music video. We had the visuals of a band therefore making it a performance video following the visual style of similar musicians and bands keeping true to the genres style and iconography, though knitted in the threads of the video we had a story sub-plot that amplified the relationship between the video, lyrics and music.  

 Here you can see how we kept the genre loyal portrayal of the band, with our performers to the left and the band who is the actually responsible for the song we chose on the right.
 

 The sub-plot I mentioned is an example of intertextuality to a urban and internet mythological creature known as "The Slenderman" or just "Slender". He was created at the Something Awful Forums: "http://forums.somethingawful.com/" It is said to be seen as wearing a black suit, it appears very thin and able to extend his limbs and torso to paranormal lengths in order to induce fear and ensnare his prey. Once his arms are outstretched, his victims are put into something of a hypnotized state, he is also able to create tendrils from his fingers and back that he uses to walk on. Not much is known, as no specific information has been found about origins, but his objective and habitat are made very clear. It has the need to kidnap children, and is seen right before the disappearance of a child or multiple children. In our case we contradicted the ideal that "The Slenderman" is some awful hellish hunter of innocent children and as seen in the last shot of our music video media production is a misunderstood simple creature who only searches the world looking to find love.

As well as taking influence from the original mythology we took ideas and interpretations from the massively popular indie game title "Slender" designed to scare the player through the use of sound and a creepy looking over your shoulder atmospheric feel. The player plays in first person really making you feel like it is you in the dark forest being hunted down by "The Slenderman". This game has taken off and became instantly vastly popular as it is said to be one of the simplest but scariest games of all time. The simple objective of the game is to go around collecting "Slender notes" that are basically scraps of paper with scrawling on them depicting "The Slenderman" and they also have writing with creepy or almost psychotic phrases on them. Going back to Andrew Goodwin we took on the idea of using these notes/pages in our video containing lyrics from the song in the style of the "Slender" notes, this becomes a link between the visuals and the lyrics. These scenes are also shot in a 1st person perspective like the game adding a sense of voyeurism as you are seeing through the eyes of the individual who is experiencing this in our video.

As you can see bellow the direct intertextuality we used between the game and our video. A still from our music video on the left and a print screen from the game on the right.

The subplot also carried through into the editing of the video. In the game when "The Slenderman" draws close to you, your vision becomes static like and the intensity of the static changes with the distance between the player and "The Slenderman", so we took this into consideration and we used the same effect on the relevant subplot clips as seen by the examples bellow, again our video on the left and game on the right. 

 

The static for the game is influenced by a Youtube fake documentary series called "Marble Hornets" on "The Slenderman" where the camera would be effected by glitches and static when it draws close. The series can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/user/marblehornets

The Mise-en-scene of our video the game and the documentary series all are in a wooded or quiet area at night setting the mood and tone.

It has been awhile since I mentioned the Performance aspect of the production so I am going to go mention that for awhile. The bands performance is seen as standard from Goodwin's perspective with close ups on the instruments and medium shots of the band, it is seen as standard all par me doing some singing. Unlike the standards of Goodwin we had very few or no close up shots of my attempt of miming dramatically and they where all mid range with other members of the band in shot, this shot ended up being dubbed as our master shot that we always referred back to and had as the base shot for the whole video. We had a very big range of coverage with not much time to fit it all in especially with the subplot story element.

Apart from this we kept the performance segment conventional to the genre a good example being from 2.29 - 2.35 where we really showed how editing can fit with the pace of the music to keep everything relative and flowing. 

 

(Video for reference)

As well as the video itself as a group we had the task of creating an authentic digipack panel for a CD and a magazine advert promoting the CD we have created. After looking at several digipacks in our genre of "punk pop" or something like that I came to the conclusion we needed something abstract that is not just a photo of our band but more like symbolism or something else that stands for something and is eye catching so I opened up a oil painting of a smoking skeleton I did, as it seemed deep and symbolic in someway that all these other guys where doing trying to keep in conventional in Adobe Photoshop that had disappointingly not been updated in awhile and gave it some fashionable aviator sunglasses with the reflection of our four band members in it. I also changed the colour scheme to make it jump out more and be all in your face and noticeable. 

Before on the left and after on the right.

 It could have a message that smoking kills and therefore is ironic with the skeleton smoking or it could just be a "badass" cover with a skeleton with pimped out shades living life.

Our magazine advert also had the same feel and conventionalism as the digipack with similar images as seen on the digipack. Unfortunately I do not currently have access to the image of the advert so hopefully I remember this and come back and edit it in, if not and you are reading this then I apologize for being so forgetful.

Question Two: 

Question Two can be found here: http://prezi.com/q9ze-jogi9ek/

Question Three:

 

Question Four:

 Question Four can be found here: http://www.xtranormal.com/xnmm/story/14039536/&movie_id=14039536

Evaluation Question Three Notes/Script base

We asked members of our group who fit our target audience criteria of what they thought of our music video based on elements like camera shots, lip syncing etc.

One of the problems that people had with our rough cut music video is that the shots were static and didn't really move to make the audience connect with the video. We took this criticism on board and re shot some aspects of the video including some moving shots of the members so it keeps the energy of the song and help connect the audience to the visuals.

Another comment that was mentioned was that the pace of the clips was too drawn out and didn't match the tempo of the song as well the over abundance of the master shot of the band. With this in mind we shortened the clips down to 4 seconds at the most for each shot and used the new shots we re-filmed to replace some of the master shots which kept repeating in the rough cut.

One last thing that was mentioned to us was that the lip-syncing was off in some places, this was due to Jake's early queues which de-synced the singing. For the Final Cut we kept all the lip syncing that was alright and then replaced the bad lip syncing with new shots with better lip syncing.

Other than these criticisms, our video was well received from audiences praising it for its Slender Sub-plot, the band's performance and the camera shots that we did use effectively.

Magazine and Digipack

Production Booklet

We filled out a production booklet which had information on our shotlist, locations, contact details and health and safety information. This booklet was used at the set so that we were clear on everything we needed to do whilst filming our music video. This production booklet was scanned and uploaded to flicker. The images of all the pages are below.





This is our music video set-up, this is where we decided what shots we were going to be using in our music video, we also decided what roles people in our group would be allocated to as well as pro[s and location.


These are the health and safety sheets, we used these sheets to list possible hazards that we might come up against whilst filming in the woods.

PRODUCTION BOOKLET SCANS

http://www.flickr.com/photos/56223899@N06/sets/72157632122615152/

 i have looked at Goodwin's six points in two music videos that are both by the same artist.

ALL TIME LOW - WEIGHTLESS                                                       ALL TIME LOW - TIME BOMB

GENRE CHARACTERISTICS

pop punk                                                                                                   pop punk

this music video has a lot of characteristics towards                       this video doesnt have as many
punk such as they playing as a band with all the                            characteristics as the other video
instruments.                                                                                   because it is more of a narrative then

                                                performance and most pop-punk are
                                                 performance.
                                               






both these music videos have some performance video which is a big characteritics to that genre of music but timebomb also has a bit of narrative.

VISUAL AND LYRICS

wieghtess doesnt have a video that fits with the                      The song is about two people torn apart               

lyrics, the lyrics  are about something not                  by their own infatuation with one another
 being brilliant now but in the long run will be                    It’s one of those things I think a lot of 
 where as the video is about what bands are                       people have felt, that kind of relationship
being made into when they get really famous                      where everything is so strong, but the
and big.                                                                            relationship itself becomes volatile. It’s

                                                                                        about the struggle to hold a relationship like                                                                                                     hh                                                                              that together, and the fight and the desire to make it

What is a Digipak?

A digipak is a style of packaging that is used for CD's and DVD's. Digipaks typically consist of a gatefold (book-style) paperboard or card outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside. Digipak-style packaging is often used for CD singles or special editions of CD albums.

Examples of Digipaks include:

 This is a 4 panel Digipak. These would be easier to produce but can have less information and less representations of the star.

This is a 6 panel Digipak. This can have a lot of information displayed of the star and the songs. The downside is that these kinds of Digipaks will take longer to produce.

Final Cut

Magazine Advertising

Most artists use magazines as a form of Promotion for either albums, tours, video releases etc. Magazines such as Kerrang and NME specialize in promoting musical artists in different forms. One form of magazine advertising is featuring an artist on the front cover of the magazine using big pictures that stand out from the rest of the magazine with the use of image size and colour contrast. The reason that magazines use this method is because it stands out compared to the rest of the magazines on the shelf which would appeal audiences into buying the magazine.

Artists will want to use magazine advertising because it is an easy way for them to be able to promote to their target audience. It also allows them to be able to get across a lot of information into a small place. Artists are able to use images for people to be able to relate to and recognize, which then means that when they use any other kind of promotion then their target audience will see these and want to look at this other promotion. They also try and promote other featured artist by using bold text to alert the viewer of what other artists are featured in the magazine.

Magazines will also use reviews of live performances to promote artists. The reason why magazines use this is because it provides the target audience with reasons to go and see the band and it also makes the audience feel that it is worth them seeing the band. Along with this magazines also incorporate album reviews which give critic reviews on what they thought of the band's album and if it is worth buying or not.

Feedback and the Reshoot

During lesson on Monday the 6th of November, we gained some audience feedback from our peers. We had people look at our music video and then fill in a sheet to let us know what they liked, what they disliked and what they thought we could improve on. Most of this feedback was positive of constructive. This helped us to be able to come up with new ideas to use when we did our reshoot. Some of the positive comments were that the style of our editing looked good and related to the music. Other comments were that our shot types were good and we had produced a good relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. The constructive feedback was that the lip syncing was out in a couple of places and this would need highlighting and fixing. Our feedback also showed that we needed more of a variety of different angles and shot types, specifically of the singer, bassist and guitarist.

With this feedback in mind, we decided that on Wednesday the 7th of November, we would go out during lesson and try and think of some test shots and see what looked effective and what didnt. Unfortunately we could not go back to the original location because all of the filming had to be done during lesson time. This meant that we had to find a secondary location in which to film these shots. We decided on a small woodland area just by the college because this seemed to have everything we were looking for in a location linked to our original one. Whilst taking this test footage, it was clear that we needed more movement from the camera as all of our original shots were still and from the same angle and distance. We took test footage of high angle shots, long shots, tracking shots and mid shots to see what would look effective for our music video. With this footage, we decided on the shots to do for our reshoot and we were almost prepared to film.

During the lesson on Wednesday 7th, we decided that Friday the 9th of November would be the best day for us to reshoot. With this in mind, it was decided that all the band members had to come with the same clothes they had during the initial filming to provide continuety, they also needed to bring any equipment that they had during the first shoot and that they needed to be on time so that we could get all the shots we needed during the lesson.

On Friday the 9th of November, everyone involved in the filming had arrived at the lesson and we went to the location to film. Unfortunately the drummer could not be at the reshoot because he works during the week, but that was not a problem because we had enough coverage of him through a variety of different angles and shot types. At the reshoot, we began initially by getting more coverage of the bassist as there was not much of him. We gained two or three shots which we thought would be effective and we could pick and choose between them for the editing process. Wethen decided to gain more shots of the guitarist so we also took two or three different shots of him in a varity of different angles. We then decided that it would look effective to have shots of both the bassist and guitarist together showing a lot of passion to make it look more realistic. We decided to encorperate camera movement into these shots. These shots looked really good and the group as a whole were happy with them. Finally, it was time to gain the all important coverage of the singer. With this in mind, we decided that a variety of different angles would look good. We decided that we wanted a high angle shot on the singer showing a lot of passion. To do this, we needed to use the wheelchair provided to gain the hight we needed. To comply to health and safety, we mande sure that the brakes on the wheelchair were filmly placed on and that two other group members held the camera person to make sure they didnt fall at any point. We decided to use a canted angle for this shot because it made it look a bit more abstract which is what we were trying to achieve with our music video. We also took a shot of the camera following up to the singer and then showing his face singing. We would then speed up the walking process to make it look abstract and then have it slowed down to original speed where we see the singer. We also got a few more shots of the singer to make sure we had a lot of coverage.

Overall, the reshoot was effective because it allowed us to be able to use our feedback in relation to making our music video more appealing to the target audience as well as making it more interesting. We managed to gain a lot of coverage which was our aim and we used our test footage in mind to gain this footage.

our reshoot

we decided as a group that we needed more footage of the band and different shot types because the shots we had were all basically the same, the shoot went really well we managed to get some more of the lead singer, bassist and guitarist. we came across some problems such as we couldnt get the drummer to come and film more takes because he had work, another problem we faced was that we only had time to film during a lesson and didnt have enough time to get over to wicken fen again, so we used the forest at the back of the college to film some more shots. to gain more shot types we used a wheel chair to get a tracking shot, it didnt work so well so we used it to get higher shots by carefully standing on the wheelchair with the brakes firmly on holding on to each other, i managed to get a shot of jake when he turns around to go at the beginning of the video and swoops in on his face, we then decided with this clip that we can reverse it to go at the end of the music video.  as a group we had decided before the reshoot that we wanted to get more shots with movement  because many of our shots are standing still in the forest or of the notes so there werent much movement. especally as the song sped up towards the end the clips were still the same speed. we got more clips or the guitarist and bassists interactions so that not all clips in the music video are of them singley or of them as a whole band

The set up of our music video part 2

For the second part of our music video, the slenderman subplot, we had to get prepared with out slender notes and having our actor (Adam S) dressed up as slenderman. We prepared 8 slender notes which shows intertextuality between the game and our music video because there are 8 "pages" in the game. We decided to use the slender notes as a chance to relate to one of Goodwins points which is to show a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. We decided to take lyrics from the song and have them on the slender notes so that we could have these at certain points in the song to relate the visuals back to the lyrics. After we have prepared all of these elements, we decided to go out and film the sub plot to our music video. Below are some images of us out filming: