Laken Baldwin A2 Media Blog

Media Evaluation

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

There are many different codes and conventions for music videos depending on what type and style the music video is. For example in a performing video when the artist is on stage, crane shots are used when the musician is performing, allowing the camera to hover around the stage and capture everything that is happening. Pans and tilts are used to follow the performer; an effective way to show locations is using pans, these are very easy to show the location of a video. If an artist’s costume plays a big part in the video then this can be emphasised with the use of pans. Also in video, close-ups are used to focus on the performer’s mouth as they sing the lyrics, this would suggest that they want the audience to listen to the lyrics because they are a huge part of the song and are important. Moreover, close-ups can also be used to show the artists emotions. If there is a very important part of the song, for example a sad part and they want the artist emotions to get across to the audience so they can relate to what the artist wants to portray. Furthermore, close-ups can be used to create emphasis on instruments when there is a stage shot and they want to emphasise the instruments if they play a major in the song, or they can also use close-ups to create emphasis on some props. For example, in a video where the performer has a necklace on and it is part of the music video’s story, such as in a narrative, they would have a close-up of this prop to emphasise to the audience that this is part of the story. Low establishing shots are also a convention of music videos, these can also be used to show location in the music video, so the audience know where the video is set. Mid-shots can be used to ‘sell’ the artist, they can make it clear to the audience who the artist is, the audience would then copy their style and create a role model for the audience. The use of bright colours in a music video, suggest that the song is very upbeat and energetic. When editing a music video, jump cuts are the most popular convention. These are used because they are the easiest and quickest way for the video to ‘keep up’ with the music, if the music video is fast paced then the video will have quick shots with lots of jump cuts.

In my own musc video, I have used a number of these conventions. I used a track as a mid shot to follow the artist and other people in the video to show outfits and because the artist was lip syncing to the camera, I wanted to create emphasis on the lyrics, therefore I used a mid shot. A tilt is also used in my video to also give an emphasis on the outfits worn in the video, this helps with pointing ut the genre of the video, is shows that it is pop music and the costumes fit in with the video. I have used a close-up in my video, this was to show the emphasis of the artists emotions on the camera. This shot is of the artist laughing which is slowed down, this is to show the happinbess of the artist in the video. Using the close-up helps me emphasise this to the audience. Also, in this show the close-up is used to make sure the it gets across to the audience the emotions and the lyrics of the close-up, this will make the lyricws very important to the audience and this will make sure that they are put across as being important to the audience.

In my research, I have researched the codes and conventions used in pop music videos. One of theses conventions was using bright colours, in most of my video I have used bright colours including clothing and background scenes to make the pop music genre very obvious. For example, in some of my shots, I have a pink and white backgrounds which would suggest the very pop music video. I have also used bright clotyhing in some of the shots also, this also suggests that this music videwo is pop music genre. Furthermore, when reseaching the music video genre, I found that another convention of the popo music genre was fast cuts. As you can see from my storyboard, my music video has 92 shots, this would be due to the fast pace of music in the video, the very fast shots and regular cuts are to help the video ‘keep up’ with the pace of the music. This also suggests that the music video has the genre of pop music.

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

In my music video, my artist wears a range of different costumes. This media language, I used to portray the pop music conventions. I used bright colours on costumes which also matches the pop music video conventions. In the background of some of my lip syncing shots, I have used bright coloured background to also portray the pop muisic video conventions. At the beginning of my video, I have edited the footage to make it black and white, I have also done this on my digipak. I have made some of the images including the front cover black and white, this is to make the link to the music video. There is also a link with the bright colours on the digipak, these match the music video. The picture of the heels that I have incorporated into my digipak are the heels that the asrtist is wearing in the video, this makes the link also to the music video.

With the album poster, I have made links to the digipak. The artist is wearing the same clothes as she is on the digipak. This would be the same media language in the digipak as it is on the album advert. Clearly, I have also used the same name as I have used on the digipak so that the audience know it is about the same person.

The artist has the same body language in the digipak as she is on the album advert and the music video. After researching the different album adverts and digipaks of other pop muisic artists, I also found the conventions of these too. The digipak would have a picture of the artist on, the name of the album and the name of the artist,m mainly on the front cover. Then, when researching the conventions of the album poser, i foyudn the conventions of this was that of making the name of the artist and the album clear to the audience and then making the release date of the album clear. I realised that the conventions for this were very similar. Furthermore, because the digipak and the album were going to be so similar, I made sure that the same body language was used for both the digipak and the album poster. When making them both, I also made sure that I used the same text type, this wayt the audience would be able to make the link between the digipak and the poster more easily. This would also make it obvious that the continbuity of them both was clear, and make it clear to the audience that is was for the same album.

In the digipak I wanted to make sure that the artist was portrayed in a pop music way. I did this by using pop music text face, this would make iut easier for the audience tell which genre of music the artist was. I also masde sure that the artist was dressed in a pop music genre way, I put the artist in clothes to make sure that it would be clear to the audience which genre of music the artiust was portrayting. Furthermore, I also did this for the album poster. I made sure that the artist was wearing the same clothes which would also make is easy for the audience to make the connectionb between them both and I also made sure that the same text family was used so that the audience could tell the genre of music between them both.

There are many shared elements in my video, digipak and my album poster. Such as it is the same artist that I have used in m yproduct and my ancillary texts. I have portrayed her in the same way, as a pop music artist, in everything by keeping her dressing the same way and keeping the mise-en-scene the same throughtout all of the pieces of work I have produced. My texts also have shared elevemtns such as the black and white feature. In my video, the beginning is black and white and so is the ending of the video. This is also features in the digipak by using the front cvover and back cover and black and white. This theme continues throughout to the album poster where the poster is in all black and white, which suggests these all share the same features. I also have shared elements in just my digipak and my album poster. I have used the same text on both of them to make the link very clear to the audience. I have also used the saem clothing to also make that link to make it clear to the audience. I have used the same text so that it is obvious to the audience that they are the same artist and made sure the artist represents the genre of pop.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Once I had finished my video and ancillary texts, I asked people to fill in a feedback form. When making my video, I had a lot of people giving me feedback so I could improve on video footage throughout the course of the making of the video. One of the questions in my questionnaie was ‘Which part of the video do you think is the best? Which shots/part of the video stand out to you?’. One of the people said they really liked the balloons shots. Also, all of the aud8eince who filled in questionnaires, they could all tell who the main artist was accoring to the feedback. This was one of the main things that I wanted to achience. Because there are 4 people in the video, I wanted to make sure the audience knew who the main artist was. I wanted to make it clear by making sure that the main person on the video ‘Eva’ was on screen a lot more than the other people on the video. When I asked the audiencewhat they wanted me to improve on with the digipak and the album poster, a lot of people suggested that some improvements could be to add a lot more colour to the digipak and the album cover. Because there is black and white in the video at the beginning and the end, I though it would be appropriate to make this continuity carry on. However, I do agree with this that there should be more colour on the ancillary texts, because there is a lot of colour in the video, I thin k this would be improved by adding colour especially on the album cover. By adding colour to the album advert, this would catch the audience eye a lot easier than the black and white image.

Another question in my audience feedback was ‘Is there any parts of the music video you didn’t like, is so what? The audience thought that one aspect that could be improved on the video was the ‘party’ aspect, this could have been emphasised a lot more. Some of the scenes in the video are not like party scenes which are filmed outside. Some of the scenes which are filmed, could have been re-shot in a partyscene, this would have emphasised the party scene a lot more. This could also have been emphasised by having a lot more people in the video, this would have made a huge point of it been a party scene that I wanted to achience and then get the message across to the audience. Some of the audience feedback suggested that I should also add night time shots, because of the idea of the video which would be a party theme, I woulddefinitely make some more night time shots for the video. This would get the idea of this been a party theme across to the audience. The night time shots would really help with this.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Thoughout the making of my product and ancillary texts I used the internet a lot. During my research and planning stages, I used the inernet and YouTube to search for some similar videos to the ones I had an idea of doing. I also researched these to get some more ideas for my video, this was quite effective because some of the exmaples on my blog gave me great ideas for me to use in my video and these becamse quite big parts of my video that I used. I also used the internet to produce my blog, I did this by using a website www.blogger.com, this allowed me to produce a blog where I would keep all of the work I had being doing throughout the year. I had some problems with this website, at one point this wasn’t working and I wasn’t able to upload some of my work. This problem was then fixed and I was able to carry on with my work. Also some problems were that my video wouldn’t up load to this site so I could post this on my blog. While doing my video, I also use YouTube where I was able to upload my music video to put onto my blog. I also had some problems with this, I wasn’t able to upload my video because sometimes the file was too big, or it would take too long and then start to crash. Moreover, I had more problems when uploading my video that when I uploaded it, the size of the image would change so I had to fix this problem. I exported my video again and I had to change the settings when uploading this. Unfortunately, this problem still occoured and I had to just leave the video because it was something to do with YouTueb itself. Eventually, this was fixed by YouTube and I took down my orinigal video and I uploaded my video again and then this successfully worked.

I also used my mobile phone for a lot of this course. I did some research on my phone by using it to watch YouTube video, but I also used this to take images of my audience feedback forms. This then allowed me to upload this to the computer easily using the Blogger app from the Apple app store. This was very useful for me because if I didn’t have any of my work handy to the computer, I was still able to use my mobile phone to do research and upload worko to Blogger.

I used PhotoShop a lot while making my ancillary texts. I created both my digipak and my album poster from scratch using PhotoShop. Once I knew the basics, I was then able to get started with the making of my ancillary texts. Some problems while using this was that I wasn’t able to use PhotoShop very effectively, I then had the idea of reserarch some of the tools on PhotoShop that I didn’t know how to use, this allowed me to get more out of PhotoShop and then this did make my ancillary texts better because this way I was able to remove blemishes on PhotoShop and I was also able to change the black and white levels. I was then able to finish my ancillary texts using PhotoShop.

I had also used prezi white is available on the internet. Prezi is a free service on the internet which allowed me to make presentations on by using texts and images. I was then able to embed these presentations onto Blogger where I was able to keep all of my work, instead of having long essays and lots of pictures, Prezi allowed me to turn these into a presentation which looked better when presenting my work on my Blog.