Lois Lame EvaluationTerri Ritchie

In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? We knew that our genre was ‘pop’ and that

most ‘pop’ music videos have a clear narrative structure to show a ‘cheesy’ storyline. We kept to this convention by allowing a narrative to flow through the lyrics and beat of the music. Our influential artists were Taylor Swift, Avril Lavigne, Katy Perry and Lilly Allen, these artists videos kept us on track to stay with the conventions of a ‘pop’ music video. My favourite ‘pop’ music video is Carly Rae Jepsens to ‘Call Me Maybe’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWNaR-rxAic

The star image of Lois Lame was clearly promoted and met the conventions in my digi-pak due to it clearly showing that Lois Lame represented herself as Superwoman to her fans. She shows she can and loves playing the guitar and also sends out a personal message to all that have supported her. Lois Lames key prop (The nerdy glasses) are shown to represent Lois Lames quirky style and personality, they show that she is different from others but likes to be like that as nobody is the same. I used a white background to allow everything else to stand out on the page, it also represents Lois as innocent and brand new in the music industry. The two different types of pictures of Lois show her two personalities telling her audience that we all have a different side. Overall, this digi-pak fits with the conventions of a pop genre.

We studied our narrative closely at first, making changes to it to perfect it. We aimed for a clear and simple but fun narrative that would flow smoothly and be clear to the audience. We did this by creating a storyboard with drawings naming our locations and camera angles we needed.

Within our music video we wanted to range our camera angles and shots. We did this easily by noticing that pop genre music videos like to use close-ups on the artist along with mid-shots too. We included plenty of these in our music video so the star image of our artist is promoted.

The narrative of our video is based in an American school due to the pop and cheesy storyline. I wanted to convey this culture through the font I chose on my Promotion poster. The font I have chosen reminds me of an American high school’s poster that is promoting the next Basketball game. However for the font on my album cover I have used a font that stands out and fits with Lois Lames Superhero theme.

To fit with the beat of our music, we created a fast paced montage when editing to show the narrative at a fast pace during the end to add energy to the video.

Our music video did not show any conflict or jealousy between the two girls in the narrative. We did this to use the typical Mise-en-scene of a pop genre music video and change it instead. This sends out a positive message to the audience telling them to rise above anything going on like this. Usually the normal Mise-en-scene would be a young cheerleader falling for the popular football player who leaves her for another girl then the conflict begins between the females. We did allow Lois Lame to play both girls in the video to add humour and to also fit with a convention of the pop genre music video.

Lois is never shown to be with a boy in a relationship but only as friends. This represents Lois as a young, free, outgoing and an independent girl who works hard. This creates a positive view of her in the media to inspire the younger girls of her generation.

Lois Lames two different sides (Everyday girl & Superwoman) shows she has a serious and mature side to her aswell as a fun and bubbly personality. Giving her two personalities allows more girls to relate to her, creating a wider star image!

An example of Lois Lames split personalities is Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus in the Hannah Montana TV show. Miley Cyrus represents the everyday high school girl who doesn’t stride to be popular, just like Lois Lame. However, when she wants to be, she can be Hannah Montana who is a rockstar to her fans and is adored by many with her bubbly, friendly, fun and laughable personality which is just like Lois Lames Superwoman side. It also relates to how Taylor Swift is represented in most of her videos, a nerdy girl who is just herself and wants someone to see her for that. (E.G. You Belong With Me).

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

My products completed are my music video, my digi-pak/album cover and my promotional poster. All these are very similar to promote Lois Lames distinctive star image. In every one, I have included Lois Lames Superwoman theme to represent Lois Lames personality. We chose that red, blue and yellow would be our main colours running through our products at the beginning to create a pop art/superhero theme. I have done this and so kept a consistent house style which creates professionalism. The house style has been kept by the white background on everything to allow everything else to stand out such as the bright colours and pictures, the white background also represents Lois Lames innocence and introduction to the music industry showing she’s ‘new’ to the fame.

To also represent Lois Lames quirky and ‘different’ style, I have again included the nerdy glasses in all my products, to promote the star image of Lois lame.

Overall, my main product has linked well with my ancillary texts due to the constant promotion of a consistent house style and star image. The theme of ‘Superhero's’ has ran straight through my product representing Lois Lames personality to her fans and audience. The use of pictures, fonts and colours are not too ‘girly’ and so can appeal to both girls and boys which will widen Lois Lames target audience. The popular ‘pop’ themed music video will be a great way of entertainment for the teenagers today and overall I think it has worked well with my promoting ancillary products.

In class we had a Music video screening set up to show our class our music video. Everyone was given questions to answer about our music video, some of the people in our class are around that age of our target audience and so would be an appropriate group to ask. The evaluation questions were:

1.What do you think was successful?2.Can you think of any improvement that could be

made?3.Who do you think the target audience is, and

does it appeal to them?4.Does it fit the genre?5.What is the narrative? Is it clear to the

audience?6.Do you really like my work?

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

As a class, they agreed that our video easily identified the pop genre due to its narrative structure and fun factor. They also agreed that the narrative was easy to understand and that we had included a wide variety of shots to balance out the video. They loved that we had a difference in setting to represent the two different personalities and that the stage presence was energetic. We needed to improve on lip syncing at times due to the timing being off, and also the guitar playing, due to it not fitting with the music. They agreed that our target audience was met and that teenagers (mostly girls) would love Lois Lame.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? The whole of our Media coursework has been

based around using modern technologies to film and record our coursework. We have used the blogging website, Wordpress to write down and record everything for our coursework, such as talking about audience research to talking about the profile of our artist. It was a great blogging website due to it being easy to use and portable on and app for Iphones.

To film our music video, we used two different cameras to capture our footage. These were a Mini DV camera – Canon Legria HV40, this was used for portable filming out and about round college and was very useful. The second camera was a Canon XF305, this was a huge HD camera that we used in the TV studio. They were great to use for capturing clear and amazing videos but not so easy to use. We also used the HD cameras to film our directors commentary, using green screen to project our music video in the background.

We used YouTube a lot in the making of our video due to us using it to find influential videos to link our video to and give us ideas. We could get any music video we wanted quickly and easily. We also used YouTube to link our music video to our blog.

We found social networking incredibly useful to us on the production of our video. We used Facebook in particular, this was used to make a group for our 4 member to pass and share pictures and information to each other regarding our video. We could plan what we would be filming in that week and also communicate as a group when not in class.

Twitter was used too, this was also to communicate to each other regarding media classes and to also Tweet Katy Perry to ask to use her song. (One Of The Boys).

In order to put our music video together we had to use various programmes to make our Digi-Paks and video.

To edit our video we used Adobe: Premier Pro, we cropped and put our video together using this practical piece of software. This software was used to create the spin effect when Lois Lame turned in to Superwoman, it was a clever way to portray Lois Lames star image.To make our Digi-Paks and Promotional poster, we used Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator on the Macs which was difficult to use at first but easily adapted too when you get used to it.

Another programme we used was Microsoft Powerpoint to create this evaluation presentation. We also used it to show our artist profile at the beginning of this media coursework.

When out and about I took some pictures of filming by using my iPhone 4s, this was handy as we could show the hard work of all the filming through the pictures taken. The iPhone was also used to play our track to Patsy when she had to lip sync to it as Lois Lame on the video.