Evaluation

Our finished media product uses many aspects that may be found in real media products. We worked carefully to ensure that we acknowledged and included genre conventions which has meant that on the whole our video has not challenged conventions but used and developed them. Our genre is Indie or Alternative music relating to videos such as those for Little Man Tate and the Gallows extending some conventions whilst playing down others. Some of the conventions we attempted top include were the use of Indie style clothing such as skinny jeans and plaid t-shirts, although this is not wholly evident, a fast overall pace to the video with a narrative whilst still being slightly disorienting, lots of people and close up shots of the singer miming. We have also included a variety of shots including mid shots, long shots, close ups and extreme close ups, point of view shots and high angle shots. This variety of shots is evident in many main-stream music videos as it maintains the viewer’s interest for the whole song.

We looked at several different music videos relating to our initial idea of a party atmosphere and a group of friends. These included videos for song such as House Party At Boothy’s by Little Man Tate, I Gotta Feeling by Black Eyed Peas and Staring At The Rudeboys by Gallows. We also looked at the Adidas advert to the track Hey There Delilah by Plain White T’s. All of these videos contained the same characteristics such as a fast pace, quick shot changes and use of light patterns and interesting camera angles. They all also fall in to the similar kind of category of music (Indie) which is the same as the song we chose. We came up for the idea of our video before we had looked at these particular videos as we looked at these to further our own ideas.

We took ideas that could be used in the editing of our finished piece making use of different speeds, rewinding footage, cross cutting and making sure a linear narrative was generally present. One of our most effective and interesting pieces of footage I think is the shadow dancing on the wall which was created by placing a green filter on a light and placing it behind two people dancing casting their shadows on the wall. We filmed the two people dancing for around 20 minutes gathering a range of footage and then imported it to Final Cut Express where we chose the sections that we wanted and edited the speed. We also experimented with shadow puppets although decided no to include this in our finished piece. The Gallows video for Staring At The Rudeboy’s has a similar piece of footage where a red light has been shone behind lead singer casting his silhouette on to the camera. We thought this was very effective and developed it in to our own video idea.

When looking over the videos we used for inspiration I found that our finished video was very similar to that for Little Man Tate’s video for House Party At Boothy’s in which a group of friends are shown messing around and throwing a party. It shows a narrative from before the party starts to people getting ready and travelling there, arriving and the party becoming underway and gradually spiralling out of control. It has many elements of humour in it such as the reference to ‘impersonating a Police Office is a crime’ while many people are dressed in Police related costumes along with more comical things such as Big Bird from Sesame Street. This humour is continued through to the end of the video where the end of the party is shown to be closed down by police and a tired, worn out effect is created as everyone stops dancing and the music calms. I think that although we did not necessarily intend for out video to be so similar to one that is a real media product you can find many aspects of this video in what we have created. We aimed to have quite a relaxed feel to the video which is ever present in House Party At Boothy’s showing people laughing and messing around. Footage of people arriving and travelling to and from the party can also be seen and shots of only the lead singer performing are present. These are mainly mid-shots which is what a majority of ours are as well although we also attempted to include some extreme close ups as these are often seen in professional music videos.

On the whole the element of performance in our video is essential to it being at all related to a real media product as a record company producing a video for this song would require the motion of looking for the viewer and an element of performance by the artist. We did not however include footage of other band members performing which to an extent challenges an aspect of real media products as videos for similar styles of song will include reference to instruments such as drums, guitars and bass’ throughout. We used many ideas that are already established in the Indie music scene such as the theme for a party, friends having a good time, drink, dance and performance based along a narrative. As we have included these things in our finished media product I think that we have developed what would already be expected from a video for a song like La Song by Supergrass rather than challenging the audience to reconsider or question what is on the screen.

I am pleased with the overall media product we have produced however I think it could have benefited from the inclusion of more up-beat, active shots and an element of instrumental performance.

Our main media product works well with our relationship between the lyrics and visuals being slightly illustrative although the lyrics appeared to lack meaning to us (this could have been related to us not being able to find a complete set of lyrics for the song until after we had produced the entire video). The relationship between the music and the visuals I feel is amplifying as we used the beats of the song and pace of the music to produce a large part of our video editing the speed of the shots to relate to the pace of the music. This is particularly evident in the bridge where we have taken a piece of footage and rewound it then taken different sections of it and put them at different speeds so that the footage starts off in slow motion but builds up to be a lot faster than real life. You can also see it in the penultimate shot which is slowed to match the dieing out of the music.

As well as creating a music video we had to create two ancillary products to go with it; a digipak and a magazine advert for that digipak. As we created the video first we had to link both our digipak and magazine advert to elements found in the video and also to the information and background research we had done on Supergrass and CD’s they had produced in the past. Our finished media product and two ancillary products had to compliment each other and work together as a portfolio as well as individual pieces of work which at times proved to be quite difficult.

We designed and produced our digipak first after our music video but as it was a digipak it was not only advertising La Song and the video we had made for it but also an entire album and other bonus features including downloads. This meant that we could not make our digipak specific to one song and had to include varied information and ideas that were separate to that of our music video. We did a lot of research in to Supergrass as a band and products they had produced in the past in an attempt to make the product as professional and relative as possible. We also tried to link the contents to the style music and what would often be expected for products such as a digipak today. We decided to give the digipak an overall worn or textured background relating to the ‘used’ style a lot of their products have. In our eyes however this seemed to make the product possibly appeal more to an older audience and as our target audience was teenagers we chose to design a crest similar to one you may find on a school jumper to go on the inside of the digipak so it is seen as soon as the product is opened.

This crest is also present in the magazine advert which pulls many of our ideas together using the crest which is found in our digipak as the main focal point keeping the slightly ‘old school’, youthful feel and the same type face as that found on the outside of our digipak for the main titles and information. It also uses the image of an ‘open space’ relating to the finial shot of our video where someone is alone in the middle of a field. We also felt this gave a broad, open, relaxed feel to the magazine advert keeping it illustrative to an extent of some of the work we had done for our music video whilst it could also easily relate to other videos or songs while still clearly being an advert for our digipak. Although it may not be obvious we altered the colours in the main photograph for our magazine advert so that the trees were a similar colour to that of the background effect of the digipak.

Overall I feel our finished media product and ancillary texts work well as a portfolio. There are aspects in each product that relate in some way to those of another ensuring that they are all interlinked and constantly appealing to the audience to view the product or spend money on the digipak. I feel that the crest is a very strong linking point as it is present in both the digipak and magazine advert linking to the youthful, playful feel of the video while also advertising the band with the letters SG in the middle. If we had planned ideas for out digipak and magazine advert more thoroughly earlier on we could of included the image of the crest somewhere in out video making it a continuous link throughout the portfolio of work. We also included images of us as band members on the inside of the digipak as we are the characters that are present in the establishing shot of the music video. On the whole the artist is not really represented in similar ways in our finished media product or ancillary products. I think this is a down fall of our project as if we had spent more time planning and working as a group we could have produced a much stronger linked portfolio of work.

I am pleased with the overall outcome of our media portfolio as I feel all the products link together whilst also being able to be stand alone products. However, I feel that we could have produced a much better magazine advert and made some more improvements to our digipak if we had spent more time working as a group as this would have meant that we spread the work out more equally and would have had more time to spend on the individual products.

Throughout our project we received feedback from class members, our teacher and friends. This helped us to develop our project to meet both consumer interests and needs and keep to the requirements of the production company. We were offered feedback on our blog, research and planning process, pitch, rough cut, final cut and ancillary products meaning we constantly had other people’s points of view to take in to consideration while producing our portfolio as well as our own leaving us with a better quality of work in the end.

We received our blog feedback earlier on in the project to help us to develop our initial ideas and to encourage us to look at different things we could do. The feedback for our blog was overall good. We put a lot of time and effort in to our initial ideas and planning process looking at intertextuality, other video’s related to our idea and the auteur theory using it to analyse work by music video directors such as Chris Cunningham and Jonathan Glazier. This research and variety of blog posts provided both visual and analytical information for the viewer giving a detailed summary of our initial ideas whilst providing information on real media products and directors. One piece of feedback we got was that we could include more images and photographs of our ideas and the band to give the reader a more detailed understanding of what we hoped to achieve from our project. This enthusiasm about our initial idea gave us confidence to carry through our ideas and produce our finished product.

At the time we received our blog feedback we had just shown our pitch to our class and teacher to be able to use the song La Song by Supergrass to use for our project. As we were unsure that we were going to be offered this song we had also included planning on our blog for two other songs if we had not received our first choice. In our peer feedback on our blog they said that this gave them a good idea of our ambitions and showed we were prepared for things to not go as we hoped.
Our pitch was successful and we got the song we were hoping to use. We were offered feedback from our class members on our pitch and what was good and bad about our idea. This allowed for us to develop what we had already thought of in to a more clear professional idea fitting to our song and Indie genre. Our pitch gave a clear idea to the audience about what we wished to achieve making sure all our ideas were related and consistent while also reminding us to ensure that our video did not simply look like a person walking around a house with a camera. We were also advised to focus on the surreal aspect of our video in relation to our narrative which gave us a good idea of what an audience expects from an Indie video. The final piece of feedback we were given was do some intertextual research in to film and television programmes such as Skins, Shameless and The Simpsons. The feedback on our pitch was overall positive giving us encouragement to continue with what we were planning to do while also giving us an insight in to what would be expected from our target audience.

The peer and teacher feedback we were offered on our planning, research and pitch allowed us to develop our ideas and begin filming and testing footage and effects through until our rough cut deadline. This was roughly 3 weeks before our final deadline and when we had uploaded our video to our blog we were again offered feedback on what was good and bad and what we may wish to consider including to appeal to our target audience and to please a production company. Comments were made on our camera work, footage, editing, conventions and what was missing. One of the main things that was pointed out was that our rough cut missed any sense of performance as we had not had a chance to film the miming and were still unsure as to whether we were going to include performance on instruments. Our editing and transition of shots was also commented on as although we had put a majority of our footage in we had not placed many filters on these sections so it was slightly bland and the section with shadow dancing was far too long. These comments encouraged us to look at different ideas that could be included in our finished piece and also gave us ideas for what we could do with footage we had already shot in order to make it more interesting. Again the feedback on this section of our project was mainly positive complimenting much of the editing we had done and the variety of shots and angles we had included.

Being given positive feedback gave us confidence to be more experimental with our ideas and try things we had not initially intended to do even if we did not then use them in the finished piece. However it was also important to be given negative feedback as this helped us to improve out product through taking out ineffective footage and including ideas that we may not have thought of in the first place which was effective in the eyes of someone not involved in the production process.

After receiving our rough cut feedback we proceeded to shoot our final video producing some extra footage and a large amount of miming experimenting with green screen and different coloured filters. When we had finished our video we again posted it on our blog where our fellow class members gave us feedback based on the Goodwin Analysis. The overall review of our media product was positive with demands for an Indie music video generally being met whilst keeping an element of humour and surrealism which is essential for making our style of video work. Our video was described as being illustrative of the music as we had edited much of the footage to match the beat of the music and often changed shot on the beat of the music as we felt this gave it a more professional feel. From the feedback we were offered on our finished product we learnt that our video contained many of the required elements while also challenging some presumptions through missing out things such as instrumental performance. We were pleased with our finished media product and so I am glad that we got generally positive feedback on our finished piece.

Finally we produced our ancillary products for which we also received peer feedback for on our magazine advert and digipak separately. We got mixed feedback for our ancillary products with more positive feedback for our digipak than our magazine advert. This response was expected to an extent as we did not plan our time carefully around this part of the project and therefore had to rush the production of our magazine advert meaning we overlooked some obvious faults. Both our products were relatively simple to produce due to our lack of time with them both using the same font face for most information and taking many of the same ideas and images for instance the crest being the main focal point in the magazine advert and being the first thing you see when you open the digipak. These similarities are good as they ensure our products work as a portfolio with the video constantly reminding the audience of the main product. Although some of the feedback was negative I feel this was necessary as a large part of our feedback throughout the project has been positive and this more negative feedback has emphasised something we may wish to focus on in future projects.

We used a variety of new media products to produce our final video including the internet; search engines, Blogger and a variety of websites, Final Cut Express, Photoshop, Itunes and a stills camera. This selection of technologies helped us with our research, planning, construction and evaluation stages of our project.

The main use of the internet in our project was for gathering information and to aid with the initial planning and development stages. The main sites we used were google to do research on aspects such as Supergrass’ background and previous work, lyrics and images and art work related to our video idea. This meant we could gather a stable base of knowledge as to what may be expected form our project as it allowed us to look at things that constantly appear in Supergrass products. We also used Youtube to watch Supergrass music videos and also to gather intertextual references and view related music videos. This again helped with the planning and gathering of information as well as the construction as it gave us ideas as to what may be able to be included in our project that we had not though of before.

Our main use of the internet however was for Blogger, a blogging website where we wrote all our ideas, research, planning and feedback. This allowed for us to ensure all our information was always organised and in one place so when required we could find what we wished for quickly and easily. It also meant we could monitor our progress and keep an eye on whether or not we were working to standard. It helped not only with our planning and research but also with the construction and evaluation of our work as all feedback was posted on the blog at appropriate points in the project. This blog ensured we stuck to our ideas and did not stray from what we hoped to achieve from our video as well as allowing us to quickly and easily document work and bring up previous files when working on our ancillary products.

Final Cut Express was one of the most important programmes in our project as it allowed us to edit our footage and store it in one place alongside the soundtrack test footage. It also allowed for us to add effects to our finished video such as changing the speed, rewinding footage and adding filters to alter the colour or appearance of a shot. It also provided us with the ability to zoom in to a moving image on a stills camera without having to shoot a steady zoom on the digital recording camera which proved to be very difficult when we tried it. We also produced test footage in Final Cut experimenting with different speeds and filters before using them in our video and also tried to use green screening for our miming. Being able to test these meant we knew what we was appropriate to use in our final video and the difficulties we had with the green screening showed us that it was not really a good idea to put in to practice. This programme helped us with our planning and construction allowing us to produce a better finished piece in the time we had.

We did not use Photoshop for the production of our music video however we used it to create both our ancillary products and produce moodboards visualising ideas earlier on in the project. We created image brainstorms showing clothes that we may wish to use and photographs of the type of atmosphere we wished to create including images of parties, friends, alcohol and nights out. This programme was useful as it allowed us to manipulate images/photo’s and create text all on the same document. It is a very versatile programme allowing us to experiment and produce finished ancillary products that were interesting and experimental. The main use of this programme was for the construction of our ancillary products but also partially for visual planning of our music video.

Itunes played a small part in our production as it held the song we wished to use and allowed us to track time and plan our video before we had taken any footage or imported it to Final Cut.

We also used a stills camera at various points in our project to take photos of our storyboard, record the effect of the different gels in the light and take pictures for our digipak and magazine advert. This piece of equipment allowed us to use many of our own images in our finished product and gave us fresh ideas to work from as images such as that used in our magazine advert of the landscape was a spur of the moment image and we like how it looked while taking photos of us a band members. This piece of equipment mainly aided us with the construction of our ancillary products as this was generally the only time we felt it necessary to use still images however we did photograph certain parts of our research and planning giving a visual idea of what we wished to do as well as a written one.

Having access to this wide variety of new media technologies allowed for us to research, plan, construct and distribute our finished media products to a very high quality. Being able to use these products meant we could experiment with many different and ideas and do things that young or amateur producers would not have been able to do in the past. Some of the facilities were also free such as the use of the internet used for research and distribution meaning that in the future I could be able to produce and distribute pieces of work at a reasonably low budget.