Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
During a period of time, I was able to research and explore current music videos in order to develop planning for my own. I explored various genres of music videos before coming to a final decision on what genre to produce, being R&B. I decided to focus more on female representation in R&B music videos and how they have been presented. When studying these music videos I was able to gather that female R&B solo artists such as Alicia Keys and Beyonce like to focus their videos around themselves and themes of love. These particular female artists have a great deal of performance in their music videos, singing, dancing and close-up shots. For example in Beyonces Halo music video, the audience were presented looking at Beyonce dancing in front of mirror through the eyes of her boyfriend. This wasn’t exactly key to the song yet it was being used to promote Beyonces image. I have also noticed how if a narrative features through the music video it is entwined through the performance and it doesn’t necessarily over dominate the video. If, however narrative is quite key in these particular music videos, there will always being a balance with performance. In some cases, a narrative doesn’t feature at all. In Alicia Keys’ video No One there are no elements of narrative throughout the video, instead it presents her performing. She is displayed, dancing, singing and playing her piano, giving Alicia Keys a positive star image. I wanted to adapt these particular themes of existing music videos to my own. My music video, centres on themes of love and relationships, and obviously also promotes a female solo R&B singer. Similar to other female R&B music videos, performance is heavily presented in my video with elements of narrative. There is a balance. During my performance sections of my video, the artist is presented looking glamorous, attractive and appealing. She is presented to uphold a particular, perhaps stereotypical appearance and elements such up hair, make-up and dress all help to achieve this appearance. Many close-up shots are used throughout the performance to promote the artist and allow audiences to become familiar with her. The artist is also presented on a black background when performing, one to enhance her loneliness with relevance to the song, yet also to enhance her performance, making her appear bold and eye-catching to the audience. Even during the narrative, the artist is being presented with a positive star image. Even though she isn’t looking glamorous and attractive, the fact that she is being presented looking lonely and detached makes the audience, particularly young girls sympathise with the artist. My music video also displays clear relationships between the lyrics and visuals and the music and visuals. A narrative has been included to reflect the current story of the song which is regular idea that occurs in R&B type video’s today. The pace of the video is also very slow and calm for most of the song, reflecting its mood and atmosphere yet it also picks up speed at parts where the music pace increases. For my ancillary texts I also looked at other existing digipak’s and cover’s to assist me with my own projects. I looked at other R&B female covers and tried to draw on their similiarites. These elements helped me when creating my own cover and I began designing it around real conventions of media products today.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
After successfully creating my music video, I then had to develop the advertising for my product, the ancillary texts. This consisted of designing a digipak and the advertisement promoting the digipak. For the digipak, I had to design the front cover, back cover, CD face and inner booklet cover. I took many images of the artist, half from performance and half from narrative as I wanted the digipak to uphold the style of the music video. The front cover of digipak is extremely important as it is the first element audience’s will be drawn and attracted too. I thought it was key, to have a close up image of the artist on the cover. Not only will this be relevant to its particular genre, but it is also obvious that it will attract audiences. Also, the fact that many close up’s of the artist featured in the music video will have contributed to the audience being able to identify the artist. I experimented with different colours and effects for the front image attempting to create an attractive and powerful cover. Accompanying the cover with bold and dominant fonts would then work together with the image creating an appealing and eye-catching digipak. I then used the other images to represent the narrative in the music video but also to connote the balance with performance. I then went on to create the advertisement for the digipak and when designing this advertisement, I had to ensure that it will share the same styles with the digipak. For example the main images on both products would be the same; the exact same fonts and designs would be used and also similar colours. This advertisement is promoting the digipak, so I would want audiences to be able to identify immediately what digipak it’s promoting and who by. I think my digipak and advertisement successfully work well together, the clearly share the same styles and could easily be identified as promoting the same product. When relating to my music video, I feel again, it works effectively. I have described how I have used my digipak to relate and connect to my music video. In terms of audiences I feel both my music video and ancillary texts successfully attract the same target audience, being females between an age range of 12-19. The girlish colours and the glamour of the artist will all help to attract this particular audience.

What have you learnt from your audience feed back?
Before creating my real music video I uploaded the footage onto my computer and begun to create a rough cut for the first verse and chorus. This not only helped me gather how to use the iMovie editing program, it also helped me by allowing me to figure out an order of inserting my shots and clips. Once I completed this rough cut I was able to collect feedback from my peers. I asked 8 people what they thought of my rough cut and how it could have been approved. Suggestions such as improve on the lip syncing, add possible effects and add colour where possibly in the narrative where implied by my peers. After working through different effects and doing more work on lip syncing I was able to gradually create my final video as the audience feedback helped me a great deal. I was also able to gather audience feedback through my ancillary texts for my digipak in. After experimenting with various colours and tints for the main front image, I was split on what one of the images to decide on. I again asked my peers to choose the image they preferred and what they thought was the most affective. Out of 4 images, the black and white image received 1 vote, the green and pink tinted images both received 3 votes each leaving the yellow tinted image with 6 votes. I was extremely happy with this outcome as it strengthened my opinions on this image being the strongest. I then went on to use and build upon this image for my front cover of the digipak. I then included polls on my blog and reaction tabs underneath where my work on my blog. I feel the reaction tabs are a good way of people being able to get their opinions across, it is very quick and easy and they can give their genuine and initial reaction to my work they have viewed. One of the polls asked “Do you feel I have presented the artist with a positive star image? And the second asked “Can you identify a similarity between my music video and other female R&B music videos? Overall so far the results have been extremely positive. 85% of people feel that I have presented my artist positively to the best of my ability. A further 100% of people are able to draw upon similarities between my music video and existing music videos. This informs me that I don’t need to make any changes to my music video or ancillary texts as I feel I have successfully achieved what I aimed to do.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research planning and evaluation stages?
During this project I used many different technologies. I began using a JVC camcorder to film my footage for my music video. In order to become experienced with the camcorder I decided to film a practise music video to become more familiar with its features and how it works. I also used supports such as tripods and dolly’s to accompany the camcorder whilst recording, which obviously allowed the camcorder to record steadily and also be able to move when needed. The Apple Mac computers have also played a huge part during this coursework project. It was very easy, quick and simple be able to upload all of my video footage onto the computers, particularly to the iMovie editing program which was the main editing program I used. Again, I needed some time to grasp the basics of using iMovie and completing a draft version of my music video helped that. Once the footage was uploaded, I was able to insert the song for my music video and begin syncing up the lyrics to the footage. After all of my clips had been arranged successfully in the right order, I was able to explore the iMovie features to see if any effects would have been necessary for me to use. Different effects were available such as black and white, the contrast and colour could be adjusted, clips could be slowed down and there were also transitions available to use. I also used Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator when designing my ancillary texts, the digipak and advertisement. Photoshop allowed me to edit the images I had taken for my ancillary texts and improve their appearance. There are many different types of tools and brush types available for me to use, for example the healing brush and sharpen tool. After I had employed the many different effects to the images I was able to use Illustrator to add the finishing features such as the text. I went through the texts that were included with the Illustrator program but i couldn’t find any that I thought were suitable to my front cover. I then searched the internet, which has also played a huge part during this project. I looked on various font websites and found some to download which I then went on to use. The internet has also allowed me to use websites such as Blogger and YouTube. On the Blogger website, I was able to create a blog where all my work could be uploaded; I could also create polls where people could give their feedback on my work. I also used the YouTube website to upload my own music videos and also search for existing videos to use for my research. The internet helped me a great deal during this project as did many other technologies.