MEDIA EVALUATIONBy Sade Clarke

Introduction

In this evaluation I am going to depict how my music video achieved its target goals by focusing on four main questions, which are:

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

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

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

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

In what way does your media product use,

develop or challenge forms and conventions

of real media products?

My media product follows generic codes and conventions that our target audience is use to, the main reason for this is to make sure they are familiar with the style and technique of our product therefore making it easier to understand.

Using generic codes and conventions that our audience is used to challenges us , as a group, in many ways to step up our game and be different. That’s where having a USP (unique selling point) comes in, our USP is having our video in black and white which is different because its a style which has been modernised.

Research is a vital element of our media product as it shows us what is needed to outline the basics of our music video. I deeply assessed different types of media formats and layouts which are in the same genre of my music video (UK Rap), as a result being able to understand the conventions needed to be involved for this genre to work. Abiding by these conventions allow the audience to develop a clear understanding of the concept given off from the video which is our aim.

Promotional offers, memorabilia and strong marketing approaches allow us as a team to and me as an individual to get under the skin of what its really like to sell our product. Making notes in my media journal of ways to promote and lure our audience into buying our product was effective because it made me want to work to the best to my ability to make our end result appealing in every way.

Over all I am convinced that our final product mirrored the conventions which made the audience happy and enticed. Which is satisfying enough to know that we not only worked well on our own accord but also as a team when it comes to decision making and deep thought on planning.

Our main artist was Ibrahim alongside Abel, two young males performing in casual fashionable attire. UK Rap video genre usually associates itself with a male rapping as the main artist and a female singing the chorus or adlibs, we as a group tried to challenge the conventions of real media products by leaving sum aspects the same and making the co star a male also.

Watching UK Rap music videos, the target audience aspire to be like the main star if they are also male by recognising the quality of their fashion, hair style and swagger, simultaneously on behalf of the female side of the target audience aspire to want and desire the star of our music video.

The main star is purposely objectified on the front of the CD cover and poster to force the issue of portraying the image of the star.

UK Rap video locations are not in any way similar to American rap video locations , usually you see people in places such as prestige clubs or publicising there body parts on sandy beaches. We tried to not incorporate our UK rap style music video with Americas because i have noticed that the UK rap style often try and copy the American style. So we decided to give our video the modern street look which people from the streets can relate to.

Location is a very important aspect in our video because it points out the background behind our theme to connect to the generic codes and conventions. The costume that we have chosen although the video is black and white is very urban and affordable.

Ways in which we challenged the conventions of real media products also is by using suitable props to create a urban atmosphere to the mise en scene. Purposely we decided to make the visuals in the video imitate the meaning behind the song especially where the it was set for example in a estate, on the bridge to portray the feeling of everyday life struggles.

Every song has a meaning behind it and normally our target audience are used to hearing about love songs so we challenged the media conventions by changing it up and bringing something new by talking about life in general. This shows that the star is empathising with the audience and is like everyone else which automatically makes th audience relate.

In the opening shot the star and the co star shake hands to show a sign of unity this is a technique used as a sub meaning to show everyone coming together as one which is a contrast to the streets in reality with people affiliated with knife and gun crime.

Creating meaning is a vital convention which has been challenged in our video which is effective because it shows significance to the importance of our target audience and how deep the concept really is.

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

Themes and location are all connected through the idea of synergy and relate to the ancillary texts. The main themes running through our video are urban, life and the streets we chose locations in comparison with these themes to make it all tie in together which was definitely a success. Having the streets as one of our main themes almost forced us to chose our focused location in an estate which goes by the name of Rayners Lane .

Some of the props used in these locations such as metal fences, tall trees and flats in the background added to the urban environment and mise en scene.

Other possible locations could have been used but we decided as a group the estate was the most suitable choice.

As mentioned earlier marketing is a key aspect of getting our product known so we, as a group had to put our heads together to come up for an idea to promote our video such as:

-Adverts

-Posters

-Layouts for our digi paks

As a result we managed to get a feel of what its like to actually promote a product considering we put hard work and effort into our product.

Set backs

Due to my operation, the group had a slow start but once I was back at college everything was back on track.

We filmed our first shoot and everything went well until we realised that someone who previously used the camera managed to leave the setting on there and things such as time, date and other setting were permanently on there. This was a major set back because as a result we had to start again.

Also in the beginning we had four people in our group which was me(Sade Clarke, Shakira Seraphin- Whyte, Nadine Cowan and Nayna) Nayna decided that she wanted to withdraw from the course therefore we had to allocate roles again.

synergy

Synergy was a major aspect of our project because it focuses on what we can use to promote our music video. Our main source of synergy is our advert which was effective because it gives our audience a taster of what our video is like and its vision, because it shows a urban outlook. Synergy is needed to give our video the publicity it needs.

The ancillary texts we used such as CD covers and adverts I think are effective because it gives out the message we want our target audience to receive. And they can relate to it because its to do with life and the streets and how to overcome the struggles of it.

Music video footage

The shots we used were simple so the audience can understand because they would be used to the codes and conventions but at the same time a few minor differences so our video is unique.

We used a range of angles to so the shots are not all the same. We used angles such as: high and low angles.

The time length of each shot was quite long at first but with advice from our teachers we realised if the shot is too long with no change it can appear a bit tedious and boring so for that specific reason we added a few straight cuts and edits.

Audience Feedback

Comments and Audience feedback

Audience feedback is important because it helps me understand where the negative and positive points are in our product and gives us a chance to develop our final product and further our skills.

People made constructive criticism such as its too long and there are too many cuts in various areas of the video.

Some positive audience feedback that we got was that its a catchy song, very UK urban and that they can relate to what is going on in the video not only because of the narrative of the song but because of the location, setting , costume and general mise- en- scene. This is the effect we were trying to visualise from the beginning which is that our audience empathise with the mirror imaged ‘real life’ occurrences in our product.

The originality in our music video comes from the vital information we obtain from audience feedback, simply because its our goal to fulfil our target audiences satisfaction by maintaining that ‘satisfaction guaranteed’ factor. We made sure that the glamourousity of the costume and outfit was not exaggerated so the audience does not feel of a different social class compared to the stars in our video.

changes It is self explanatory that our product is focused for our target audience so what

ever constructive criticism that we receive we make changes according to that. I am fully aware that the changes can be from a minor detail to a major setback but as a result will challenge our team work skills and better our perseverance under pressure to achieve work to the best of our ability.

Due to one of the constructive criticism being our video being too long we shortened the song and in the media editing suite excluded unnecessary shots elongating the timing in the music video. This change made us realise as a group the only vital scenes are needed simultaneously with a range of different shots and angles which show our versatility and understanding of how a music video should look and how to work under pressure whether it may be limited time or anything else major.

Another piece of constructive criticism was that it contained too many cuts which as a result made the video look choppy and disorientated from time to time which was not suitable for our audience expectations because then it makes our editing look a bit abstract and out of place. To overcome this challenge we dwelled upon the focal points which could be altered and achieved our aspirations to fit the audiences expectations.

Has the addition of footage made our video better

The footage is what make our video come together it is the main aspect of the video because without it we would have no video. Shooting footage in different places with the same mise en scene for our genre may seem a bit bland, so to show that we are versatile and are able to broaden our horizons we shot our footage in different locations for example:

The studio- personally, I think that the studio is one of the best places to shoot footage because it shows realism in the shots of the artists life as he explains all the struggles he has been through in his life through the lyrics. The studio shots challenge the generic codes and conventions of the correspondence theory of truth because the music video has an independent and external reality.

And the Rayners lane estate- ‘bringing it to the streets’ when people hear the word estate they automatically think of the words ‘street’, ‘urban’ or most commonly ‘hood’ and you almost straight away get a vision of the slums and the ‘ghetto’ way of life. It may also bring up key disadvantages like broken homes and distorted families.

Overall, these main setting or locations protrude the idea of growing up the hard way and not being fed by a silver spoon.

Do you think our videos represent the UK music video genre?

The UK music video genre is quite recent compared to other genres such as hip hop, rap and R&B. But simultaneously, it probably the fastest growing genre evolving at the moment people are always bringing bigger and better things to the plate to escalate their mind scape when it comes to UK rap. Some may argue that UK rap is following in the footsteps of the American lifestyle but others dwell on the unique differences that make UK rap what it is today.

Understanding this, not only as an individual but as a group we start to realise that its not as easy as it looks when it comes to getting under the skin of the culture, ethics and lifestyle as well as the technical sides to do with context/subtext, demographics, iconography and ideology.

Overall, from our own judgement and our target audience judgement, comparing our music video to a typical UK rap music video stand quite tall to matching the codes and conventions and portraying our visual image of the video.

Representation is focused mainly on the artist and location which show the connotations subliminally through the mise en scene and aura.

Would our music video be suitable for music channels?

Some of the main music channels on broadcasting networks such as:

Sky NTL Virgin Show a range of music channels which, only if successful videos

get posted to, whether or not our video is suitable for those channels tells us that our target audience is satisfied with the end result.

The following music channels are: MTV Base Channel AKA The Box Kiss Being classed as top music channels, from various comments on

social networking sites such as YouTube and Facebook our video is very much so suitable for high end television broadcasting which as a result will make the circulation of our music video wider.

My Advert

I made my advert on Photoshop , carefully comparing it with my groups final products.

Digi pak

My Digi Pak consists of a front cover, the two insides and the back cover. I made this on Photoshop and compared it to my groups.

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

The two main Technologies used to make the video

Final cut pro- this is one of the main software around at the moment along with other high tech software such as dream weaver, etcetera. As final cut pro was what we were working with we had to take our time to get used its functions and how to use it properly to get our desired end result. This required practice, tutorials from our media teacher Steve Hannon and if needed additional tutorials from other sites such as YouTube, this helped us develop the skills needed to tackle our obstacles of the music video and getting done at full throttle. The practical side for me was editing, my main role of the editor pushed me to indulge in getting the grasp of the role to get the video to end up where it is now, which is a positive outlook.

Camera- it may seem highly obvious that one of the hardware such as the camera is absolutely essential. This is because this captures the live footage and helps us as a group and the target audience perceive our vision. Without the camera there would be no image, vision or structure.

Cd & advert Making the CD and advert was a challenge seeing as we had to make it

fit the generic codes and conventions of a professional UK rap CD and advert, simultaneously deconstruction our own urban look as a unique factor.

Photo shop- learning how to use photo shop may be tricky at first but once you get the hang of it its easy to give off the imagery in your head and put it to paper or in this case on the computer. This is partially a bit of the practical side to our product, but without it wouldn't be a full package. Slightly, our CD and advert goes into more depth of our vision.

There's always promotional side to any media product because without it the media would be half hearted. Our media project is very dimensional and automatically becomes a range of ‘mediums’. For example you need to circulate the word of a music video to get your point across whether it may be word of mouth, social networking or advertising. We used all three functions to combine and end up with the best results.

Research & Planning

Some people may argue that research and planning are the easiest things in this project but it really isn't, simply because it the main thing that gets the vision across and its where the vision is stemmed from. We have to do our research so that we can decipher what qualities are needed for our video whether it may be from minor attributes to major ones. For example:

what things are going to be in the shot whether it may be

houses in the background or a certain colour to represent a area code.wat ever the case may be we tried our hardest to do all the research we needed tot, to get the result we aspire

conclusion

In conclusion, I think me and my group succeeded in what we planned to achieve even though we had set backs and we are relatively happy with the results. The challenges we had was to make sure it was a British urban music video as a genre and I think we overcame that through careful planning and research.