James' Evaluation

Evaluation


Our music video was made by using the song “Seventeen Candles” by The Pink Spiders.


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

My music video uses current forms of real media products. This is done through Goodwin’s six points. The genre characteristics are common of an indie band which is the genre of our band. The characteristics include their image which is clothing. In the video a large black jacket is seen on the singer, which is a trademark of The Kooks. This is also the case with the other characters in the other scenes of the video, who all display the typical clothing. This fits in with the image of them.
Feelings are always usually displayed within Indie genre songs, and this is also the case with “Seventeen Candles”. The character is seen singing the lyrics to the song, which creates more of a live performance, even though it isn’t. This adds to the true characteristics of an indie band, which is what we were trying to represent. This increases the bands image and they are represented as a classic indie band. This is because indie bands undertake many live performances. This then tells us that the singer is related strongly to the lyrics of the song and this helps to represent the meaning and story of the song.

The visuals in the video relate strongly to the song lyrics. For example the song is called “Seventeen Candles” and at the end of the sequence we see 17 candles on a cake being blown out, showing it is someone’s birthday. The lyrics suggest a party atmosphere which is reflected in the video to show this. There is no strong intertextuality to any other music video, but the indie genre is strongly reflected throughout the video. The location was outdoors in a simple garden setting which can be quite conventional amongst other music videos. The artist within the video relates to a party atmosphere would be very appealing as this is also an interest of the target audience age.

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

The combination between the music video and DVD/Magazine cover is very strong. The atmosphere that is portrayed in the music video is reflected on the digipak. This is done by using the images of the two main characters. The use of the two characters helps set the mood of the song and also what it is about and also gives the audience an insight into what the video will contain. The DVD cover shows that one character is relatively happy, whereas the other shows signs of depression. It is also reflected using effects, for example black and white to show unhappiness and negativity. This helps to create a strong link between them and strengthens continuity. Increasing continuity is good as it helps the product increase promotion and also establishes an image for the song itself and the band. I think that the link between them help the audience get a strong feel for what the song/video is about, which is always a plus as the video can become more enjoyable and keep the viewer interested in the story. The continuity helps the band to be recognised if it was seen in more songs and this will boost promotionally reach. Adding the record label MTV to the front of the cover boost promotion and creates a larger package for the digipak.

The Mise-en-scène shown in the video is in keeping within the media products and does not have an unnecessary change of style, which would make the audience confused. For example within the video the party atmosphere is seen to be in an outside area, in a garden. The cover of the DVD also shows the outside and sticks with the same area of Mise-en-scène. This combination makes the overall look more effective and distinctive.

What have you learnt from audience feedback?

The feedback given has been helpful in the development of our project, as it as helped to indentify existing problems and also allows us to see the video, from effectively our audience. It is very helpful having feedback when we were still developing our idea and video as we can see if the audience see the same, as what we are aiming for. This is very helpful as it lets us know what parts we need to work on and which parts really appeal. It also lets us know if what were are doing makes sense and is not too confusing.

We could also refer back to the audience feedback at later stages in the development to resurrect ideas and put them into practice, if there was a positive general consensus.

Our initial pitch showed a different location, which the audience thought was very good, however it was not possible to undertake this idea as achieving it would be very difficult and complex and weather conditions would need to have been perfect.

When our rough cut was shown to the audience it was obvious that some scenes were too repetitive, and we agreed. After the rough cut deadline we adjusted this by filming more footage and capturing the lip syncing scenes. This made the video more varied and interesting.

From the digipak the feedback given was mostly positive, but we learned that some information wasn’t included, i.e. a band website. Also we chose to use greyscale on the DVD cover only as it creates an atmosphere amongst the characters. We learnt that the continuity overall was very good, as it used similar photos, same style font and colouring.

Using Blogger made it very easy for us to revert back to our feedback that had been given, and by using the feedback we have been able to enhance our video and adjust it to the eye of the viewer and how they would like to see it, which is what we were primarily aiming for.
From viewing the feedback from our final video, I would make changes for next time, including a live band, with performance related scenes, which would give a stronger atmosphere, as it would link into the party scene.




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

From the beginning of our product we began using media technologies to help research our project. Our primary source was YouTube. We used this website to analyse other videos using the same theme, this was done to help us with ideas for our video. We looked firstly at The Pipettes as they were a band of the same genre, and YouTube allowed us to search many videos of theirs to get a general feel, which was very useful.

Once we had captured footage for our video we then uploaded it to Final Cut Express HD. This program allowed us to cut and move select footage, add many effects such as transitions, colour adjustment and other specialist effects. It also allowed us to add the song to the video and edit the video as far as possible to achieve our finished product, which is made into a QuickTime.
We designed our digipak in Photoshop. This was used as it allowed us to make a very comprehensive image with specialist tools to change the look of the image. We used effects to help make the image eye catching and attractive. However when using this program we were sometimes unsure on how to complete a certain tasks. So we used YouTube to locate a tutorial on how to do this. This was very successful and enabled us to go on with our project as we planned it.

The main new media technology that we used was Blogger. This online website blog allowed us to keep all of our plans, ideas, updates, completed tasks, photos, videos and comments on one simple page. It was very useful as it held all of our feedback and also made it ease for the audience to find our information. Our final media technology we used was the video commentary. This was done by using a video camera to record a commentary from the group on select questions, the use of the video meant a new way in which to make a commentary that was more interesting and fun to watch. This shows how the modern age is taking over and changing the way in which things can be done.