Evaluation

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

During the production of my media products I was influenced by many forms and conventions of real media products. For example, I was influenced by others political hip hop artists and their videos. As our song's genre was political hip hop I sought to attract that sort of audience and so included themes from that genre. I felt my music video followed Andrew Goodwin's theory of amplification. This is because we wanted our video to introduce new meanings to our audience of being stereotyped and prejudged but we did not want to contradict the lyrics of our song. Instead we added more layers of meanings. We did this by showing our artist literally in a orange prison outfit and literally standing in front of the Houses of Parliament, thus directing the lyrics of the song to those in power, but in a more exaggerated way.

 

For example, this video from 2pac includes several establishing shots of the city of Manhattan, which in turn reflects a hard life and struggle. For me and my group we decided to include some popular well know London areas such as the Houses of Parliament in an attempt to confess our grievances to the highest office in the land. Going in to this product, our message for our video was one of fighting against the stereotypes of all Muslims being terrorists. We wanted to challenge the views many have that if one person is a terrorist, so too is everyone else. We wanted to show our audience that the more you brand someone and assign them similar characteristics to that of other people, the more you anger, prejudge and force people to become what you expect. This in turn made the message of our video more meaningful as we shot some scenes outside the Houses of Parliament.

The visual aspects of 2pac’s video were quite appropriate for my video as it includes many location shots. The bottom two photos include the themes of a prisoner being entrapped, this relates to my video as my leading character is a victim of stereotyping and being scapegoated. I tried to challenge these views many have by directing his message at the Houses of Parliament, which here, is meant to be directed at the stereotypers. 

Public Enemy is a fellow political hip hop group just like Lowkey, therefore I was able to secure and challenge many features from their front covers. For instance, the prison theme on Public Enemy's digipak was easily relatable to my digipak as my artist is fighting against being made a prisoner, in a sense. Also, this picture from Lowkey's video includes a prison suit which my character is also wearing. Throughout my digipak advert and music video I have included this running theme of orange as it represents every stereotype creating another prisoner. Also I included some features found on real digipaks: bar codes, record labels, copyright notices and track listing. I did this so that it will not only emulate some conventions of real products but to promote the artists album and record label.

My magazine advert also includes the orange theme which runs through all my products. Moreover, I decided to include many features found in real magazine advertisements in my own. Popular shops and websites were included so my audience can locate and follow my artist more easily, thus giving him the appropriate exposure and promoting him as an artist. Tour dates and social networking sites were included so my audience can track our artist on tour and keep up to date with him on the go. We also realised real media conventions would include this sort of information and so I decided to use and develop these features.

This video from Public Enemy, 'Fight The Power', links in with my music video as it about being oppressed and therefore fighting back.

Here is a short video of me analysing a music video from 2pac and explaining how I further developed ideas for my own music video

2. How effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary text (digipak and advertisement)?

I feel that throughout the production of my music video and both my digipak and advertisement I have attempted to make clear visual links running through them so that my intended audience can easily identify my artist and genre. I was hoping this would attract my audience and in turn promote my artist.

For example, the font I used in both my digipak and my advertisement is written in 'Impact' font. I was hoping this will make the artist name and the tour date stand out. Also I wanted the font to become assigned to my artist, David. I wanted to make sure if someone was looking at my advert in a magazine they would easily identify he is a political hip hop rapper, and in turn, identify his album in stores or online more easily. Throughout the production of my media products, the mise en scene I used in my advert, digipak and music video reflected my artist’s genre as well as identity. I did this to tie all three products toghether.

This image here, taken from my music video, shows my artist in a prisoners suite and behind bars. I was hoping after the audience saw the video, the orange prisoner theme will make my artist and his political genre easily identifiable. Similarly, in my digipak and magazine advertisement my artist is wearing the same mise en scene, and in the case of my front cover, he is behind bars.

This is an example of my mise en scene running through each of my products. I feel that overall the features I have used makes my video and ancillary texts combined easy for my audience to identify my artist. The font, colours and mise en scene make it easy for my audience to spot my genre, which is political hip hop, thus promoting my artist as he can be easily traced through each product. 

One particular album that related to me and my genre was Public Enemy. I took some inspiration from their digipak's album cover as it had a two colour theme and a bold title displayed on the front. I decided to emulate its style in my own digipak. 

Despite Public Enemy's album cover containing a more artistic effect on the group members, the title 'Public Enemy', similarly is written in bold writing. I took especially to this idea as it is a way of immediately announcing whose album it is and the font type allows a certain types of genre and identity to be applied to that artist.

I was interested in making my digipak's front cover my artist behind bars as I liked the theme Public Enemy had used. Also, it related to my artist’s genre and message. I wanted to make my artists also be behind bars so I can visually reflect the prejudices he has been facing. In turn, I wanted this to highlight my genre and identity.

Overall, I feel that it will indeed be comfortable for my audience to track my artist through all of my ancillary and main products. I feel the mise en scene, font and colours tie all three products together, thus making it easily identifiable by my audience. I wanted to make sure anyone looking at his advertisement in a magazine or at his digipak in stores will immediately recognise my artist and therefore promote him more effectively.

                                                Here I further analyse my media products.

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


Going into the production of all three of my media products; music video, digipak and magazine advertisement, I required numerous amounts of media technologies to help me in the production, construction, planning and evaluation of my media products. For example, in order to make my music video I required a team- my group-to plan which song we would choose, the mise en scene we would require and or course the selected locations we needed. After a lot of planning we drew up a shortlist of songs we wanted our artist to perform and we also produced a pitch in front of our teachers, as well as a storyboard and animatic.

 

Pitch

Animatic

I used Final Cut Pro and Microsoft Power Point in order to produce my animatic and pitch. This was vital as it was all part of the planning process. It was necessary for us to know what we would be doing when and where so we made a production schedule and arranged meetings for further filming and editing sessions.

Naturally, different types of technologies and software’s were needed for constructing different parts of our media products. For example, during the construction of my music video I required Final Cut Pro to edit the footage we filmed. Final Cut Pro was especially effective for us to use because we, as a group, decided to make some scenes from our music video appear in a Pleasantville effect. In order to do this we required the colour picker. This was an attempt to make our artist stand out because his orange prison suit would be in colour whilst everything else would be black and white. Also, in order to film we need camera, camcorders and memory cards. We were supplied with all of these things by our media department. Furthermore, we needed Mac computers to work on. This in turn helped us edit things more easily. During the editing process of our music video we used much more complex editing techniques than we had previously used. For example we used the razor tool much more and edited through base tracks. This is why Final Cut Pro was especially necessary for us to use.  

Similarly, for the construction of my digipak and magazine advertisement I required the software Photoshop and Quark Express to manipulate texts, add photographs and mould my production.

Here is an example of us using some of our media technologies to construct our music video. We used our camcorders to film our video and a speaker to perform our song for our artist to sing along to, all in an attempt to allow his lip synching to be in time and realistic.

Moreover, during the production of all three of our products a considerable amount of research and evaluating what we had done was very important.

I used various sites on the internet such as; Blogger, Vimeo, Youtube, Google and Wikipedia to research other artists who we could develop our ideas on, also a place where we could post our completed music videos.

4. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

After the production stage of our media products had passed, the evaluation stage began. We went on a cinema visit to view everyone's music videos. In the period after the cinemas visit I conducted some interviews to see what my class mates thought of my video.

 

After I conducted my interview with one of my class mates I began considering some potential changes I could have made. For example, I could have made my character interact more with the public, or actors. Perhaps if we had included one or two locations where there were a lot of people then it would have been interesting to see how people would react to him in a prison suit. From filming, we got interesting and curious reactions from the members of the public who were interested in our mise en scene. Therefore, I feel it would have been interesting to see what reaction in the cinema we would have got if our artist interacted with people whilst wearing his prison suit. Perhaps it would have been a humorous or serious reaction.

After this interview it became apparent that lip syncing is a very important part of a music video. I felt that most of my video was lip synced realistically, but it also suggests we could have taken more care with the editing to ensure that the synching was to near perfection. If we were making our music video again I would consider changing some scenes from the video that didn't appear realistic. I also would make sure we only used footage where the synching was absouloutly realistic.

 

In comparison to one of the video that helped inspired ours, 2pac' video, I feel that even though at the beginning we included an establishing shot of 'Big Ben' and The Houses of Parliament, and later on for our choruses we had our artist in front of it, I feel perhaps we could have included more location shots. I could have included more shots of our locations without the artist in front as it would have given the video a more tough-looking effect. If we had shots of some of the areas we filmed in it wouldn't have appeared as a glamourous place and that would have created an important message.

Here, I further discuss the feedback I received for my music video.