My Evaluation: The Introduction

I am now going to provide a detailed evaluation on the course work I have been working on over the past few months. I have planned, designed and made a three minute music video, a CD cover for the song and a magazine advert for the new release of the CD.

To fully evaluate my project I am going to answer four questions, these are placed on four different blogs (My Evaluation: Question 1, My Evaluation: Question 2, My Evaluation: Question 3, My Evaluation: Question 4).

The Evaluation: Question 4

Question 4 _______ How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

I feel that I made full use of the technology we had at hand. Just before I started my project our media department at my school invested in 26 new Mac computers, with programs like Photoshop and Final Cut Pro installed on them, the department also invested in 10 Sony Handcam cameras and 10 brand new tripods. I feel that having all this new technology dramatically improved the amount of work we could do and to the degree we could do it to.

There were four stages of my production, research, planning, construction and evaluation. Over these four stages of production I feel that I made full use of the technology and the resources I had on hand.

Over the research stages having a new Mac computer to work on was really useful, mainly because we were able to work on our blogs, where as when we started the course in July, we were working on normal RM computers connected to the school network, meaning that Blogger was blocked; so all work I was doing on my blog had to be done at home.

When I was carrying out my audience research, I decided to send my research questions to my friends over facebook. As I thought people were more likely to complete the research if they received it over facebook rather than receiving several pieces of paper.

Over the planning stages of my project I had full use of a Mac computer finish the planning stages. I was able to draw up and make several plans for my magazine advert; I did this on Adobe Photo shop. When we were planning our pre-lim task, Midnight At The Oasis, I was doing all the background work, planning and then construction on a standard Compaq computer. Me and my group drew up storyboards for each scene by hand, I then used a HP printer and scanner to scan the storyboards onto the computer. I used Windows Movie Maker to fully edit the video, I feel that because I used Windows Movie Maker to edit the video the effects and transitions were very limited. And this effected the video as a whole. I think if I edited my pre-lim task on a Mac computer my work would be up to the standard that my actual project is.

Whilst filming this, we made several mistakes, for example, we didn't properly plan our day or keep consistency during different clips. Like when we were editing our footage, people were wearing different clothes in the two shots, which meant we couldn't use half of the footage we filmed; this was a big set back because we only had a day to film. When we started filming for our music video, we made sure we had a second by second in depth treatment, and a detailed shot plan, whish showed every shot we needed to film on each day we went filming.

Without having the Mac computers I feel I wouldn't of been able to complete my project as a whole, as I used the programs on the Mac's to plan and construct my project (I made my music video in Final Cut Pro). If i worked a normal windows computer then wouldn't of been able to use the same effects (chroma keying) and transitions (cross fade) that were used in the music video.

Although at the start of the year we only had basic computers and other technology to work with I feel I still used this equipment and technology as best as I could of. For example I came up with my shot planning on a simple word document. I feel that even if I was working on a more updated Microsoft Office Word like Windows 7 for example, would still have come up with a decent shot planning document. And I don't think how up to date the word processing program is would effect how well I would do my work.

I used Final Cut Pro to edit my music video, which I thought was a really good programme and without it I don't think our music video would be as good it is, this would be mainly be due to the effects we used. Such as the Chroma Key device (which was used near to the end when Ben walks past a billboard when it changed to him and Lilly. The Chroma Key device changed the bottom layers of the background allowing us to cut the background out of the moving image and replace it with Ben and Lilly running and laughing), which was a vital part of our music video and without the Mac computers this could not of been achieved. The Chroma Key effect can be seen near to the bottom of the editing my music video blog.

When we filmed our pre-lim task and our music video we used two Sony Handcam video cameras, which enabled us to shoot from more than one angle with the clips still being in the same resolution and size. Although it was useful for us to use more than one camera, I personally think the cameras weren't that good, and if we had a couple of brand new and better quality cameras I think our music video may of been better. This was one of the only things that I thought slowed us down when shooting, for example, the battery life on the cameras weren't very good. So when we were out filming on our first shoot, the camera 1 went dead. Meaning we could only film from one angle at a time, slowing our whole filming process down. Along with the Sony Handcam's, we got 10 new tripods, this helped our filming process because it meant that we were able to hold a steady shot, and also it made it a lot easier when we did panning shots.

We were also given 2gb memory sticks to keep all or work on, this meant that I was able to take my work home and complete it on my home computer. During the filming process, I filled up my memory stick; therefore I went out and purchased a new 8gb stick. From then on I stored all my work one, this included all word format files of everything I had uploaded onto Blogger and all our filming documents. Having this 8gb memory stick really improved my work, because meant I could have all my work on one stick, and not several. Making my work more organized and easier for me to find it.

During the evaluation stage of my project I feel I have learnt a great deal, and I will continue to use these new skills I have, like the skills I have learnt on Adobe Photoshop. I will continue to use these skills throughout the rest on my life.

I feel that I am now very equipped to use Adobe Photoshop and Final Cut Pro, when I first started editing on Final Cut Pro I didn't have a clue what to do or even how to edit. I now find it really easy to use this programme and it’s something I will continue to use.

This combination is so effective because it’s simple, attractive and because it follows the conventions of what a music video, CD cover and magazine advert should follow.
In hindsight, I think I would change the music video. I would change some of the shots and the actors positions is some shots. I think the shot where Ben is running over the stepping stone near to the end of the music video, I would re-shoot this clip and get Ben to walk faster and smoother over the stepping stones. I would change this clip mainly because I think Ben (real name Zak) walks very stiffly and slowly. In order to make it look like he was running, I had to speed the clip up by 5%. This meant that Ben walks very quickly and stiffly over the stepping stones. I feel that this clip lets the scene down.

The Evaluation: Question 3

Question 3 ________ What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Feedback was an important aspect of my project; I ran some audience research on 20 sixth-form students aged between 17 and 19 who go to my school, Epsom & Ewell High School. This was really useful because I found out vital information that was key to our music video. I asked the teenagers questions like 'what do you like most about music videos?' and 'who do you like watching music videos?' and 'what is your favorite music video and why?'. This really helped my group when we were writing the treatment because we knew what our potential audience wanted to see in a music video and why they like it. This was especially important when we were casting our characters, Ben, Lilly and Lilly's mum, mainly because we knew we were targeting a young audience, which is why we have mainly young actors in our video.
Although this was a very small group of people to run my audience research on, I decided that it would be appropriate as 17 to 19 year olds would be more likely to watch music video's than actual fans of The Feeling who range from 15 to 40.

There are two types of audience research, the first being before you've made your product to aid your planning and creation. And the second should take place after you've finished your product, this is to gain some feedback to help gauge how well its going to do. I conducted my second audience research over facebook, just as I did with my first, but this time I sent ten 17 to 19 year olds a link to my music video on Youtube. I then asked the 10 students what they thought of my music video, most of the comments said they thought my music video was really good. Although this is still useful audience feedback, I feel that because I asked people I know what they thought of my video, some of them held back on what they really thought in case they hurt my feelings.

Some of the more useful comments included:
- Its really good, its a fun, cheesy laugh. Its really fun and definitely put a smile on my face. I don't know if you meant to, but it makes the guys look really camp
- it's very good, very well edited and put together
- the video works well with the song, which is very good

I thought the 1st comment was one of the more interesting comments I received, this was mainly because the person mentioned the male actors looking 'camp'. This was always an issues that I thought may arise due to the feminine nature of the song and music video. I feel that this is something that I would work on to try and prevent if I did my project again; because although it does push the stereotypes, this is something that we didn't meant to achieve.

We recently finished our music video and I thought it would be a really good idea to write to Pete Fraser, the chief examiner, we thought this would be fantastic opportunity to speak to someone who regularly marks work like this, so therefore would have the appropriate knowledge to give us some good quality feedback. Shortly after we finished editing our video we uploaded it onto Youtube and e-mailed a like to him via Facebook. My group member Adam e-mailed Pete and asked him what he thought of our music video and how we could make it better. The e-mail went as follows:

"Hello Adam

There are some nice touches here - the book with images and some of the shots are very well composed. The main problems I would identify are that there is not enough of the band and they join the video rather late - they are too static as is the camera and editing given the pace of the song. Story is very good and actors are too!

Pete"

This was one of the most useful pieces of feedback we received mainly because we knew the feedback we got was from someone who knows what they were talking about. He made some really useful points about our music video like there are not enough of the band shots, this was something that I didn’t think was a major problem. And If was to do my project again, I would re-consider the amount of band shots, bringing them in earlier and making some of the band shots longer. I would definitely think about asking the editing faster and choppier, including shorter clips to fit in with the fast pace of the song.

I was pleasantly surprised at the feedback that Pete made because I didn't think when the band entered the video was a problem, I thought they entered at a relevant part of the song. I thought he would say something about Ben walking across the stepping stones at Box Hill, because I think this was one of the clips that let our video down. However, I am still pleased with the feedback he gave us and If I were to do the whole project again I will now know what I need to work on to improve my grade.

When we were nearing the of our construction process and starting the editing process, our media teacher got hold of a degree level media student called Tom Herbert. Tom helped us get to grips with Final Cut Pro and the editing process as a whole. Tom dramatically improved my knowledge on FCP, and without his help I feel I wouldn't have been able to complete the editing process. After we had finished the editing and had finalized our music video I e-mailed Tom and asked him for some feedback on what he thought was good how we could improve our video.

I e-mailed Tom the link to my video over facebook and waited for his reply.

Tom’s comments were split into two sections, the good points and the improvements, they are as follows:

"Good points:

- There is a well structured story line

- The use of chroma keying and de-saturating works well, nice linking of beginning and end with the book

- Good locations and mise-en-scene, some well chosen shots

- Lip syncing good overall

Improvements:

- Given the pace of the song, the editing could be faster, and this would of then given the video more energy

- With the band standing still, the camera needs to be handled and moving. Combined with faster editing, this would match the pace and energy of the song better"

Tom's comments are really useful because he not only gave the good pints but also gave me ways that I could improve my video. I defiantly feel that the comments about the editing were expected, because the music is very up-beat and fast, where as some of the editing is the complete opposite. And this is something that I feel needs to be rectified, its something that would be at the top of my list to change if I did my project again.

I feel the comment about the camera and how it should be move to compensate the band standing still. I didn't think of how the camera would effect the band standing still. This something I would think about changing, but would have to be very careful about changing because if the filming and camera moment is not done right it could bring down the quality of the whole video.

On the other hand, I am really pleased with the good points he made, because he is a media student himself I feel he appreciates all the hard work we have put into the video and how complex it is to use the chroma key effect.

The Evaluation: Question 2

Question 2 ______How effective us the combination of your main product and the ancillary text?

A theorist once described advertising as:

' A form of communication used to influence individuals to purchase products or services or support political candidates or ideas. Frequently it communicates a message that includes the name of the product or service and how that product or service could potentially benefit the consumer. '

Advertising is a crucial part of the release of any product. The way a product is advertised can effect how well the product does on the market. An advert connects the target audience of the advert and briefs them about new products being released, anything from a new computer to a new model of car can be advertised.

I feel there is a really good combination between my music video and my CD cover with the advert. This is especially noticeable when you see music video then see the album cover and advert. Because our album cover and our advert include the clock, it only makes sense as to why there is a clock on the advert after you’ve see the video. Apart from that I think our main product and our other tasks relate and link really well. An example of this is in Empire Of The Sun's music video for 'We Are The People', the actors/singers are wearing the same costumes and are in the same surroundings in the CD cover and advert as they are in the music video.

The intended role of a CD cover is to attract the buyer or audience to their CD. The cover serves three main purposes:
- To advertise the CD inside
- To express the artistic aspirations of the artist
- The image is key to the promotion of the product; anything that looks remotely like it associates the audience to it.

When I was planning for the cd cover and magazine advert I realised that all album covers and single covers are the same as the adverts advertising them. This was a key piece of research because it heavily influenced our advert. The relationship between a CD cover and an advert is very close, they are two very similar products and work really well together because of this. When I researched magazine adverts I realized that most of them had the record label pictured somewhere on it, along with the release date of the album. Sometimes the advert may even have ratings on it by prestigious radio stations or magazines on it. When we made our advert we were contemplating adding in some single reviews and an album release date. We decided against a release date and added some text saying ‘NEW SINGLE OUT NOW’. We thought this worked just as well as possibly better that having a release date.

- This advert is an example of an advert with text on it. This text may include anything from tour dates to album releases. The text on this advert includes tour dates, album release date, website address and the record label. Although this album covers all the normal conventions for an advert, its still unusual, because most advert advertising a single or an album usually just contain the band/artist name, the album/single name and release date; this advert is covered in information. And unusually it works well.

- In this advert the singer of the band is pictured with a pair of lungs hanging around her neck, this related to the album name, which is called lungs. The cover looks very natural and organic with the greenery placed behind the singer. This is a simple album cover with the singer in the middle and the advert text placed at the bottom and top of the advert. This is an example of an advert which is exactly the same as the CD its promoting, the picture is the same, the only difference is the text is now above and below the the original picture, and not over it.

- This is the original CD cover. As you can see its mostly the same, the only difference is in size and the placement of the artist and album name which on the advert are placed above and below the picture. The advert is longer than the CD cover which enables it to fit onto an A4 size page or a magazine page.

As you can see from the two adverts above they both include the record label's logo on it somewhere. This was a vital piece of information that I found out, and was key to make our magazine advert effective and keep in line with the conventions.

I feel this combination is effective because of the close relation of these products. The main reason they are so closely related is because of the bands existing identity. Even when were editing our music video I looked at ways The Feeling's videos were edited and tried to replicate this. This was evident when we were editing the band shots, the band were running through a field. In The Feeling's video they are running doing cartwheels and joking. Originally we just wanted the band running through the long grass, but after coming across The Feelings video we decided to change the scene with the band fooling around in some long grass, also with some shots of the band doing cartwheels, this clip shows the audience that the band are happy and enjoying themselves. This scene only features in The Feelings Join With Us video, it is not present in any of their other video's.

The Evaluation: Question 1

Question 1 _____ In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The conventions of a music video can sometimes depend on the genre of the music, however the overall conventions include: seeing the artist perform in the video, the lyrics of the song relating to what is shown in the video, the pace of the music reflect the mood and pace of the song.

On the whole my media product doesn't challenge the conventions, I know this because when I looked though the generic conventions, my music video had them all. For example, the lyrics of the song relate to the video, the band are shown singing throughout the video and the pace of the music fits in with the editing and mood of the overall video. The narrative of my video is easy to understand, the video takes place in the past and in the present, and some people may find it hard to see this transition in time. The main character, Ben, is seen in the past with his girlfriend, Lilly. Then later on during the video we see Ben in the present time, looking lonely and sad without Lilly.

I studied different kinds of media texts to gain an insight into how different media texts use generic conventions and how they develop or challenge them. I found out that most adverts promoting the release of a new single or album are nearly always the same as CD cover they are promoting. An example of when an advert breaks and challenges the normal conventions is when adverts are different from the CD covers they are trying to promote, normally the adverts are the same as the CD cover. Click here to view my CD cover research. I also found out that CD and album covers usually relate to the music video they are trying to promote. This came in very useful when we were designing and planning our magazine advert and our CD cover, because we knew that they would be relatively the same. Click here to view our Magazine Research. As part of my magazine advert research, I analyzed an advert and this is what I found:

- A French Kiss In The Chaos... This is exactly what the picture is showing, two people kissing beneath a massive explosion, the picture does what the album says. The advert also includes a record label logo in the left hand corner and an album release date which is placed in the right hand corner. This advert follows the normals codes and conventions for a magazine advert.

- This is the album that the advert (above) is promoting, as you can see they are more or less the same image, with the album name influencing the actual image. The only difference is in the placement of the band and album name. New additions to the advert include an album review by NME, and a release date in the bottom right hand corner. Another difference between the advert and cover is the size difference, the advert is considerably longer where as the CD cover is a square. When we were making our advert we decided to change the placing of the text and added the record label logo in the right hand corner to keep within the conventions.

- As you can see both our CD cover and our advert are very similar, the only difference is the addition of the record label logo and the text saying 'NEW SINHLE OUT NOW'. We did this because after detailed research I realized adverts and Cd covers are always similar to each other with the addition of a release data and sometimes an album review.

Doing content analysis's really helped me to plan and construct my own music video, mainly because I was analysing the very thing that I would be making. I became familiar with the generic conventions and this was then easy to incorporate into my own media product. Click here to see my content analysis of Rihanna's Disturbia. When I did this analysis I found out that at the start of the video before the song kicks in, the dancers and actors move to the sound of the piano, the shots flick and change to coincide with this noise. This became very useful when we were deciding the plot for our music video, because we could either stick to the normal conventions of a music video and have a video telling the story of a song, or we could break free from these conventions and possible even challenge them by having a video with the same storyline, but with a darker meaning, for example, running with the theme of gun crime or simply incorporate some wider issues to give the video a much darker deeper meaning (like Rihanna's video for Disturbia).

Our media project can be compared to similar products released by The Feeling. For example we tried to replicate scenes from their ‘Join With Us’ music video when the band are running through long grass and doing cartwheels, we decided that the intertextuality in that particular scene looked really good as the band ran through laughing and messing around, we also liked how this would contrast with Ben and Lilly also running through a field looking happy. Click here to view a content analysis of The Feelings video for Join With Us. If I were to do my project again I would defiantly try to incorporate The Feeling more into my productions and through the brand its self.

When we were planning our CD cover and magazine advert, we took into context past albums that The Feeling have released, analysing them to find that singles releases from their (The Feeling) 1st album are in cartoon, and all with a hand holding an object relating to the video in some way. We decided to include a hand holding a clock on the front of our CD cover, mainly because the clock is a main part of the transition of time in our video. Although it looks plain compared to other singles and albums The Feeling have released we decided to keep it plain and simple, as we felt it worked much better than over crowding it. Our rational for not using a more complex cover came from when I analysed other adverts, I found that they are mostly simple and uncrowded. But on the whole they look exactly the same as the CD cover, and as our CD cover just had a had holding a clock we used this as our advert. However despite this I still feel its to plain and simple, and needs more another picture and some more text to fill the empty spaces.

Without watching our music video, any audience member may find it confusing as to why we have a hand holding a clock on our advert and CD cover, as it doesn’t relate to the song: Sun Is Shining. Our advert is similar to other adverts in the way its set out, its simply a longer version of the CD cover with some text saying ‘NEW SINGLE OUT NOW’ and the record company’s logo. Click here to see my planning for our magazine advert.

Our main influences were The Feeling, Flickr and DrawPictures. Click here to view my bricolage. A bricolage is a range of diverse things that have influenced the creation of any project or production (intertextuality) , the thing included in my bricollage are key to my production process. The Feeling were one of our main influences mainly because they wrote and sang the song that we made our video for. We looked at them for inspiration when we were planning and creating our music video, CD cover and magazine advert. We looked at a lot of their previous work and sometimes even based our work on theirs. For example when we used their idea of having our band running through long grass doing cartwheels, this was taken from The Feelings 'Join With Us' video, this is an example of when we used intertextuality.

There is a scene about half way through our music video when the band are running through long grass laughing and doing cartwheels, we took this from The Feeling’s music video for ‘Join With Us’ because we loved the contrast between the band and the min story line (happy/heartbreak).

Flickr is an online site where unknown photographers upload their photographs on the site for all to see, it’s a way of gaining publicity and also to get their photographs well known. From October 2009 the site hosted over 4 billion images. When we were looking through Flickr we noticed some images that we really liked and wanted to re-create. We then started looking into Flickr in much more detail and found many other images, these images were anything from a picture of a scrap book, to a picture of an old cottage.

DrawPictures is a website where lots of visionary directors, writer’s artists and producers work together to create all types of visual media, this visual media is then uploaded onto the site for all to see. The site hosts different kinds of video genres, from commercial to journalistic content. The site explores new ways to integrate and market cinematic entertainment. There was one particular video by an editor called 'GoodTimes', we looked at some of their video's and came across a music video for a song called 'Can't Stop Moving' by Sonny Jim, when we came across this fun loving video my we (my group) knew that we wanted to gain the same kind of effect that this particular video used. We liked the grainy effect the video had, we thought this gave the video a really nice sun kissed look, with the sun rays penetrating the camera lense. We liked how the video was filmed next to a big ugly block of flats but the video still looked really good and professional despite this. This video played a main role when it came to editing our own video, we liked the grainy effect the video had and wanted to re-create this in our video.

- This was the artist who inspired me the most on DrawPictures. Below I have some still pictures from the video called 'Can't Stop Moving'.

- The video is filmed with a big bold block of flats in the background, but despite this the video still works really well. I thought the way GoodTimes used still images and drawings in the video worked really well, because it was something that was rarely done, and by this the directors were challenging the conventions. These two images are presented during the start and middle of short film, the camera is at a low angled tilted shot, the clip starts of with the building and then the colourful arrows/stars flow across the screen like a snake.

- This is the effect we wanted to achieve, with the sun shining through trees. And this then creating a sun ray effect on the screen. This effect was also shown by Empire Of The Sun in their music video for 'We Are The People'.

- The dancers are dancing with the sun shining penetrating through the camera lense. I liked how the dancers look almost like silhouettes. This was the effect that I wanted to create in some of the band shots, unfortunately, I was unable to do this because on the day we filmed the bad shots on an overcast day.

(http://www.drawpictures.co.uk/promo-directors/goodtimes.go)

The one main issue of stereotyping is in our music video. I feel that we broke free from the mundane stereotype of stick thin women and masculine men. Ben was a normal 17 year old student who attends sixth form, and this is why my group chose to cast him, because he wasn't your ordinary main character of a love story.
Following on from breaking the stereotypes, Lilly's character also achieves this, mainly because she is larger than your average size zero movie star. This is why I am proud to host a video which breaks free from the average every day stereotypes.