Evaluation Question 4

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

New media technologies were very important in the research, production and post-production stage of creating the music video, digipack and magazine advert.

During the research and planning stages of the production the internet was a very important new technology. I used to internet to look at other music videos, digipacks and magazine adverts from bands in the chosen genre. Having access to the internet in the research and planning stage of the production was very important as it allowed me to get an idea of the key conventions of music videos in this genre, for example music videos in this genre often have a large proportion of performance shots. I was also able to see similarities between digipacks and magazine adverts in the genre, for example a lot of digipacks and magazine adverts use dark colours and images which will often link to the music videos for songs in the album.

A large amount of technology was also used in the construction and post-production stages of the production. In the constriction stage, we used digital cameras to film the footage we planned to use. Aspects of the camera allowed us to be more creative when filming the music video, for example having the choice between manual and auto focus meant that if we wished we could focus on a selected part of the frame to make that part strand out and show importance to the audience. During the construction of the digipack and magazine advert, we used Photoshop to put together the images we wished to use for these two productions, although the piece of software is rather complex it allowed us to produce something of a higher quality than we would have been able to create if using other editing software. This is because the editing software we used allowed us to edit the images in a number of ways which allowed us to create a professional looking final piece. During the post-production stage of the music video, we used editing software called iMovie to edit our film together, this editing software has some limitations however we were able to achieve the effects we wanted to in our music video.

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

 

 

Feedback is an important part of the production process. It gives an outside opinion on what works well and what should be changed, if feedback is ignored or is not asked for it can lead to a final production that only looks good to the people who created it and this may not be the same opinion as the target audience. However getting feedback can also hinder progression, getting feedback from a large group of people from varying demographics can lead to contradicting opinions on what works and what does not.

 

For each rough cut we created we showed it to a group of people. We got feedback from the group with good points and ways we could improve our video. By doing this we were able to create a music video that would strongly appeal to our target audience. As rough cut one was largely unfinished there were many improvements we had to make. We received a number of good points from our first rough cut, from receiving these good points we decided not to change the sections, for example we kept the sped up  shots in our music video. We also received a number of improvements to make; for example, we received feedback which told us some of the shots were too long and some shots had unintentional shadows. After receiving this feedback we added in more shots of the band as suggested, we also cut the length of a number of shots and removed shots where there were unintentional shadows.

 

We also gained feedback for our ancillary tasks; we did this to insure the digipack and magazine advert linked together in a cohesive fashion. We created a number of versions of the digipack and asked a group of people to select their favourite digipack and magazine advert. We took the feedback into account when creating the final digipack and magazine advert which insured the products appeal to the target audience

Evaluation Question 2

How effective is the combination of the main product and ancillary task?

Throughout the creation of our final products we had to insure that all three products had to link together to create a cohesive and professional looking final piece.

The products all link together in a cohesive way due to the use of linking images, conventions and colour schemes. While researching music videos for artists inside and out of the genre we also looked into magazine adverts and digipacks from a variety of different genres to find conventions that fit each genre. By then seeing the conventions that run through all of the products, for example dark colours, and similar images we were able to create a set of products which all link together in a clear way.

The music video we created revolves around a single male character that is in a mental asylum. The music video uses a lot of artificial lighting to increase and decrease the level of brightness within the shots; effects were also used in the video to decrease the level of colour in the shots. The front cover of the digipack is very similar to the final shot of the music video; this will allow the audience to link the video and digipack together and will be aware which band the digipack is for without having to look out for the band name. Another reason the music video and digipack link is the images of the building are images from an asylum.

The music video and magazine advert do not link as closely as the music video and digipack. This is because the advert is based off of the digipack. The background image on the magazine advert is the front cover of the digipack, which is also the final shot of the music video which is one of the few ways the music video and magazine advert link together. Another way the two products link is because of the dark tones used in the image and shots; this is often seen in many magazine adverts music videos and digipacks.

The digipack and magazine advert are closely linked. The front cover of the digipack is the only image seen on the magazine advert. As the image on the magazine advert and the front cover of the digipack are the same, the target audience and people who wish to buy the album will be able to remember the image of the front cover when finding the album. The font and colour of the information follow the same theme yet stand out from each other so they eye I drawn to different parts of the advert so will read off the information, the colours of the font link the two products as the dark colour contrasts from the light background making the titles and information stand out.   

Evaluation Question 1

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

As the band we have chosen for the music video is a rock/metal band we have decided to follow the stereotypical conventions of music videos in this genre. Videos with a narrative tend to have equal amounts of performance and narrative shots. This is because the performance is usually the strongest part of the video and the narrative is usually simple and very easy to follow as the audience is usually focused on the performance shots. The narrative shots in the videos will also often feature members of the band. One of the videos we used as inspiration contains a number of these generic conventions as it has a simple narrative, strong performance shots and members of the band are featured in the video.

In our music video we have used equal amounts of performance and narrative shots. We used a very simple narrative so the audience could follow the plot with the performance shots added in between. 

In some metal videos for example ‘Slipknot- Before I Forget’ the focus is more on the instrument and only very rarely show the faces of the people playing them. In videos of this genre the music is often a lot more important than the narrative so during performance shots the instruments are the main focus.

In our video we decided to use this convention and have the main focus on the instruments during the performance shots and only show the face of the lead singer/ actor in our piece.

The editing in majority of rock/metal videos is very fast paced, with short clips and cuts in between, this increase the pace of the music video. We followed this convention by using short shots and cuts to increase the pace of our music video.

The lighting in music videos of this genre is usually very harsh, the performance shots usually have artificial lighting to make it look a lot darker or brighter than what would usually be seen, in narrative shots this can be the same or the lighting can be more natural. We decided to follow conventions in our music video as we decided to use artificial lighting in both the performance and narrative shots to increase the brightness and harshness of the shots.  

Second design idea for a magazine advert

I have designed the magazine advert in this way because it links to the digipack because of a similar image and again links to the music video because of the similar image, the colours and font used also link to the digipack, the advert also contains information that is important to the reader such as release date and the bands social networking address.

First design idea for magazine advert

 

I designed the magazine advert in this way as it fits with the genre of the band, it also contains all of the important information such and band and album name as well as release date and social networking information. However, it is not a very good magazine advert and it does not link to the digipak and does not link to the music video either.

Analysis of a magazine advert in our chosen genre

Machine Head-Unto The Locust

This Magazine advert is for an album called 'Unto the Locust' by 'Machine Head'. I analysing this advert as it is for a well known artist in my chosen genre. This advert has an image of the album front cover on a background that follows the same theme of the album title. The dark colours used in the advert are often used in adverts in for albums in this genre. The dark colours also fit with the theme of the album. The advert gives important information such as release date, record company information and social network information.