MEDIAEVALUATION

QUESTIONS 1 & 4

When carrying out the re-search process prior to the construction of my music vid-eo, it was key for me to carry out some key concep-tual analysis, particu-larly that of codes and conventions and micro analysis. From this I learnt a lot about various con-ventions that were typi-cal to music videos. For example, they consisted of a lot of close up shots of the actor and key props featured within the video. I also carried out research into the conventions of the pop rock music genre and the videos produced for this gen-re of music. I found that they do follow some generic con-ventions such as particular camera positions; however,

some more dis t inct ive c o n v e n -tions might be darker lighting and more fran-tic cam-era move-m e n t s . When re-searching theorists for the exam segment,

Andrew Goodwin’s music video was very applicable to my genre and style of mu-

sic video as I feel that there is a clear relationship be-tween the lyrics of the song and the visuals on the screen. Goodwin argues that a successful music video should al-low the viewer to visual-ly see the lyrics heard. A way in which I have

used this c o n v e n t i o n highlighted is through the use of the lyr-ic cards which directly link to the words of the song. For example, the

first lyric “I miss the taste of the sweeter life” is stuck to the inside of a terry’s choc-olate orange box and the word ‘sweeter’ connotes the sweetness of chocolate. Another aspect of Andrew Goodwin’s theory that fea-tures is that of the three nar-ratives in which I believe two apply to my music video – il-lustrative and amplifying. An illustrative narrative is where the music video has used certain images and camera shots to illustrate the mean-ing of lyrics to their song and

genre. Ways in which I be-lieve this is evident is when the actor in shot acts out directly what the lyrics state – for ex-ample “I’m changing all of the stations” and the actor physically changes the sta-tion on the car stereo. How-ever, an amplifying narra-

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

tive is where the images and camera shots are manipu-lated and shown repeatedly throughout the music video. For example, there are a lot of close up shots showing the pictures scattered over the ground as well as the scene where the actor rips up m u l t i p l e p h o t o s .

A n o t h -er theo-ry that I b e l i e v e s h o u l d be used to create s o m e -thing successful is the Uses and Gratifications theory. It is important that the audience is able to form a personal relationship with the media product and gain whatever they need through watching

this. For exam-ple, I believe most people will use the music video as well as others for enter-tainment, iden-tity, escapism and to be able to gain ways of interacting with others who

share similar ideas, likes and values. Overall, I believe that this will be achievable through the varying shots and the ability to apply the lyrics to the visuals on the screen.

When look-ing into oth-er Maroon 5 music vid-eos, I found that the ma-jority of them are heavi-ly narrative based. For e x a m p l e

“Sugar” features Adam Lev-ine and the other members of Maroon 5 turning up ran-domly and singing at peo-ple’s weddings. I believe that I used this convention of

“I feel that there is a clear relationship between the lyrics of the song and the vis-uals on the screen”

their videos and developed on this, as I too have creat-ed something heavily narra-tive based. However, I have challenged this convention also as many of their vide-os are quite large pro-d u c t i o n s which are quite dark – with the e x c e p t i o n of a couple – and they seem to cost quite a lot of money. Ob-viously there is a near on non-existent budget for my music video, however I feel with the equipment and

props that I had, the narrative of the video worked out quite nicely. Additionally, there is typically some lip synching in their videos, however, this is not something that I chose to do as the actress was not comfortable doing so.

In terms of the Digipak and Magazine Advert, it was im-portant that the two were consistent and were obvi-ously linked with one and other. This would be a typical convention of advertisement and promotion for music art-ists and their work as consist-ency is important otherwise the audience would not be able to recognise the prod-

ucts. I believe that overall, I have used and developed the typical conventions of both of these products. First-ly, there is a house style of

m a r o o n , black and white that is consist-ently seen on both tasks. Ad-ditionally, in terms of the mag-azine ad-vert that is used to p r o m o t e the Di-gipak, I

kept the design quite clean and simple as it is important that the audience are able

to understand what is being promoted, this would not be possible if an illegible ty-pography is chosen with too much colour as it would de-tract from its main purpose. In terms of the Digipak, there were many typical conven-tions that were followed. Firstly, it is important that the audience know what songs are featured on the CD, therefore it was key that I in-cluded a track listing on the back page of the Digipak. However, I challenged the typical format of just listing the track names, and instead wrapped the text around a capital V to link to the name of the album. Furthermore,

on the front cover, it is impor-tant that there is either the name of the album or the artist on their in some way so they audience are aware of what they are buying. I did this by having ‘Maroon 5’ centred towards the top of the page with the actor holding her hand out flat with 5 fingers showing linking to the roman numeral V which means 5, connoting the fact that this is the fifth album be-ing released by Maroon 5. Another thing that I adhered to and used the conventions of is the credits and thank you message inside the cov-er of the Digipak, alongside the record labels and copy-right information. This is typi-cal as it allows the artist to connect with its audience as they are able to thank them on a more personal level.

Overall, I believe that all three of my products in some way, use develop and chal-lenge forms and conventions of typical real world prod-ucts. It could be argued that doing this is extremely impor-tant as not only do you know that typical formats and ide-as are successful with par-ticular products, but you can add your own touch to your own product, making it orig-inal and letting it stand out against other possible prod-ucts that have been created.

“I believe most people will use the music video as well as others for entertainment, identity, escapism and to be able to gain ways of in-teracting with others who share similar ideas,

likes and values”

Technology played a massive role in terms of the construction, re-search, planning and evaluation stages for my coursework. Tech-nology has allowed me to make sure that my work is of a high standard which is aes-thetically pleasing, but also acquires the con-ventions needed for the audience that I am targeting. The most im-

portant piece of technolo-gy that I used in this process was the internet and was fre-quently used from the begin-ning to the end. At the start of the process, I had to cre-ate a blog in which I would display all of my work. I have done this process before when completing my course-work at GCSE and AS Level; therefore I did not have to spend too much time look-ing into how to use the site which gave me more time to carry out the research tasks. Overall, this is where I uploaded all of my work for the planning, construction, research feedback areas of my coursework, but also where I logged my process.

Blogger was a very useful tool as it did allow me to up-load my work when it was in various formats such as moving image and print. For example, when carrying out research, the majority of the tasks were on PowerPoint. I would upload the Power-Point presentation to slide share and then I would be able to embed this onto my blog by clicking on the HTML tab. With it being the hub for all of my work, it did allow me to go back to previous posts that I had made and make any ad-justments and make sure they adhered to the brand guidelines that I had set out for my product as it was extremely important for me to ensure that there was consistency throughout. One aspect of the website that made this extreme-ly easy for me to do so was the labelling of posts, for ex-

ample, the rushes log was a part of my planning there-fore this was the label I gave it. This enabled me to have subheadings, which overall, made it easier for me to nav-igate through the posts that I had uploaded to the site.

Google and the internet played a massive role in the research aspect of my coursework. The search en-gine allowed me to find masses of information which enabled me to produce de-tailed posts. For example, many of the posts consisted of me looking at other mu-

sic videos and the directors and podiums in which they can be presented on, us-ing sites like Wikipedia and

YouTube – which I found through Google – allowed me to find out all the necessary in-formation that I needed for those posts. Another use for YouTube was me being able to gain access to

tutorials and explanations on how to use various parts of the software needed for the editing of my work. This made the process much easier due to there being

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

a step by step process to follow alongside the expla-nation given by teachers.

The internet as a technology also played a massive part in audience research and feedback through various surveys and social mediums. For example, when gaining access to feedback from my target audience, Survey Monkey was a website that I used to produce a questionnaire to go alongside my music video and subsidi-ary tasks which en-abled me to gain feedback from my target audience. From this I was able to make any altera-tions to my work as I wanted to make sure that it fit the genre that the video was being made for. Also, social medi-um websites such as Facebook and Twit-ter were also a mas-sive help in terms of the audience as they helped me gained ac-cess to people and friends

who I felt would be the au-dience I would target for this music video. Gaining feed-back from my peers and

friends was extremely useful as this did allow me to make any adjustments to the foot-

age, further-ing the alter-ations that I made through feedback I gained from the question-naire on Sur-vey Monkey.

When filming the footage I needed for my music video and taking the images that I needed for the subsidiary tasks, I used a Canon 550D DSLR camera.

Prior to this, I had used these cameras when completing

my coursework at GCSE and AS Lev-el, however, I had the camera set-tings on automatic, whereas this year I used the manual settings to ensure that the footage that I filmed was of the highest quali-ty. As the manual settings were not something I was familiar with, I used the tutorials that were on the Hay-

don Media school website, alongside those that I found on YouTube to experiment with the different tools that

were available to me. When collecting ideas on how to film my music video, I had decided that I wanted to use a variety of close up and mid shots with a shal-low focus, as the props fea-turing in the video played a

key role in the narrative. This meant that it was important that I had the camera set up properly in order for me to achieve the look that I want-ed. In order to allow me to get this shallow focus, I need-ed to use a wide aperture lense that would be set at approximately 1.8, allowing me to have a blurred back-ground whilst allowing more light in, which in relation to the ISO settings was benefi-cial as due to this being set low to approximately 100, less light would be allowed in to ensure that the picture was not grainy, therefore, by having the lower aperture, I was able to get the perfect shot. In addition to this, I also

“Blogger is where I uploaded all of my work for the planning, construction, research feed-back areas of my coursework, but also where

I logged my process”

3 lights to brighten the shot – 2 diagonally pointing to-wards the actor in the cen-tre of the shot, the third posi-tioned in the background to brighten it. When shooting I

experienced how important it was for me to get the light-ing right, for example, when I had not positioned the light covers correctly, the foot-age was much too bright. Fi-nally, when filming on the first day, I had struggled when trying to make sure that the footage was in focus as the screen on the camera was quite small, however, I spoke to a teacher and they gave me an additional screen which was slightly larger and it enabled to make sure that the quality of footage was good and that it was in focus.

When it came to the post production of my video, I ed-ited the footage that I had filmed using Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 and Adobe After Effects. Both programmes

were installed on the com-puters in the media rooms at school and I had access to them both during and af-ter school time. I imported the footage into the pro-gramme and dragged them on to the timeline alongside the chosen song Maps – an audio film I downloaded. As the music video I produced was solely narrative based, I did not have to ensure that the lyrics matched what the actor was saying, however, it was still important for me to ensure that the footage

lined up with the message amongst the lyrics in the song. For the majority of the shots I filmed for the footage, I used a Steadicam to ensure that the shots were clear and not shakey, however, there were still some shots which still looked a little shakey, es-pecially the footage filmed outside of the black box. To adjust these issues I used the Warp Stabiliser tool in Ado-be After Effects. This tool al-lowed me to smoothen out the footage and make it look more aesthetically pleasing and professional. Another piece of software that I used was Adobe InDesign which is where I produced the fi-nal Digipak and magazine advert. It was important that I followed the Brand Guide-lines for both products, which is something the paragraph style tool allowed me to do. The tool enabled me to make sure that the font size and adjustments was consistent through both products as well as the colour of the font. Overall, various technologies played a massive role in the construction and research, planning and evaluation of all of my media products.