Evaluation questions.

In what ways does your media product use develop or challenge forms of real media products?
Real media products include continuity throughout everything that is being produced and we have also attempted to create something in which continuity is also thorough. Our artists are linked to the indie genre of music and by researching the kook’s past music videos we came up with a few plans and conclusions of as to what they would wear and where their main settings are which were casual clothing and subtle setting. We have managed to use intertextuality within the clothing i.e. Ben’s trainer and we have done this by giving a quick close up at the beginning to show the brand of the trainer also we have done this when Ben uses his Iphone, we zoomed in as he was texting so that there is a clear view of the product. We realised that voyeurism was not needed as it did not match our genre. We managed to create a narrative which was changed throughout the filming process to make it more simplistic using the location within the college premises this was due to the lack of clear planning and the fact that we were unable to get hold of the people that were needed within the video.

However, we managed to compromise with what we had and matched the actions to the lyrics for example in the first verse we film the female walking away from the shot and then Ben walks in the shot to show that he is late and disappointed this is referring back to one of Goodwin’s points on narrative and matching the visuals with the lyrics. Indie genres are usually really simple and filmed in subtle places and so we didn’t really complicate the locations but we made it just black and white to create a more simple but engaging effect to represent the genre.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The combination of our music video and the other products is very effective as it includes continuity which represent the whole genre. The colouring scheme is kept roughly the same so that the products fit with one another.  The video is in black and white but the DVD cover and the magazine advert have a little tint of colour in them to make them look more appealing towards the target audience , this was done by lowering  the saturation of the image itself . For the magazine advert we didn’t want to leave too much concentration on the colour and details of the background so we blurred out a large portion of the trees in the background to make the artist stands out and as for the DVD cover we repeated the same process so that the focus is mainly set on the artist.

 The clothing is still kept the same throughout and the scenery is also kept simple and similar to one another so that an isolated image of the artist is created to match the song itself , isolation is shown through the shot types that were taken by the camera, for example, the magazine advert is an establishing shot of the artist as a whole with a blurred natural background and the DVD cover includes a mid shot of the artist but a horizontal establishing shot of the background which is used for  the back of the DVD cover, again a natural scenery.  All of these effects, tools and filters that have been used on Photoshop , promote the song in their own ways because they give an insight on what the video and lyrics itself may include making it more appealing and engaging for the target audience as emotion and moods are shown through the editing of the ancillary texts  relating to the video.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Our feedback highlighted our good features such as how effective the black and white was and the things that could have been improved such as the instrument playing which we could not do much about as no one in the group was actually able to play the instruments correctly . we tried to compromise with the instrument playing when we filmed by filming at different angles such as low ones to reduce the concentration of the actual playing and focus more on the instrument itself. We also had very short shots of the instruments being played to match the beat of the music which in some parts it failed but others it worked well.

We also learnt that there was more emotion needed to be shown within the artist himself and for this we changed one of the shots where Ben is writing lyrics at the beginning and we zoomed into his eyes to make it look more affective so that there isn’t too much of his facial expression showing but his eyes which the audience may find more appealing to watch rather than just a dull facial expression. This increased the variety of shots we had as we did not have an extreme close up within the video.

 We also got some feedback which we found to be untrue for example there was a lack of locations and costume changes. We did not agree with this feedback as we counted up the number of locations (11) and costume changes (5) and they seem to be enough for a subtle look. Another positive feedback was based  on the way we matched the action of ‘turning up the volume’ to the actual volume of the song being increased within the video and from this we learnt that the connections between the volume /sound of the music and the actions towards it can have a big impact on the way that the audience see the video and their opinions on it.

 We had some feedback on our initial pitch and one of the main constructive criticism was that the storyboard and the ideas were unclear as to what the narrative was because we did not have enough planning as to what we were going to do and how we were going to do it so in the end, as the video was based on college premises we just went with the flow and did what we could by compromising with what we had. From this we had learnt that planning in depth is needed in order to finish on time and create a successful piece of work

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Blogger was used throughout the making of the video indicating what we had done during that day and what was needed to be done in order to be organised and finish on time. We have also written out a timeline of what we had filmed when we filmed it and how long it lasted which showed us the gaps and the time within the gaps that needed to be filled in.  Our research and other video clips were also posted on the blog so that we could refer to them every so often to help us with our final products. The blog was also used by our teacher who informed us on what we needed to do to update our work which was also helpful.

 Photoshop helped us a lot to edit and create both the DVD cover and magazine advert as its tools allowed us to modify the photos that were taken into something more appealing and interesting. Some of the tools that were used were smudge, filter and blur. The photos that were used for the ancillary texts were taken by a professional still camera although we did attempt to take many various photos with the still cameras that we got given which weren’t as good quality and in order to get a very clear and professional looking photo we decided that a professional camera was more ideal.

Final cut was also a great help to us as we gathered all our shots and combined them in an effective way. We cut several shots out and attached them with others so that there is a clearer narrative. We also added an extra sound effect in the beginning of the video when Ben is walking so that it seems more realistic. The volume of the sound is also slowly increased during the video. Transitions such and fade in are used in-between various shots so that they blend in with one another to avoid making the video look less interesting as so did the black and white filter from beginning to end.