Evaluation

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

 

When first deciding on initial ideas for our media products we felt it was important to use the conventions of the indie genre to ensure a consistent style and quality that could be related to other media products in the genre. Firstly the song is quite fast paced so we decided on a house party theme, the house party theme is not exclusive to the indie scene but relates to wider youth culture. For example the theme is use in the video of the song ‘I Gotta Feeling’ by The Black Eyed Peas.

            The important thing was to keep it relevant so we used mise-en-scene to create the same aesthetic as an indie band, for instance we used clothes (like plaid shirts) to identify with the indie scene. We also used certain items of furniture such as the sofa to reinforce the house party theme.

            As far as shooting is concerned we shot a lot of close up and extreme close up shots to use to create an identifying link between the band and its audience, this is important because the audience needs to be able to recognise the band members and remember who they are. This is hugely important in nearly all popular music videos.

             We also felt it was wise to include a short narrative in our video, which is also another convention of the indie genre. For example short narratives are used in the videos for both 'Fluorescent Adolescent' and ‘When The Sun Goes Down’ by the Arctic Monkeys. Our initial idea for the narrative was the band simply waking up after a house party to total destruction, after some story boarding we discovered that the planned narrative would have to be compresses for the video as it wasn’t possible to fit so many shots into the intro.

 

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

 

Our ancillary texts were designed to be both derivative and innovative at the same time. They needed to share the qualities of the video whilst offering a new look and style that would count towards the bands overall desired image.

            When designing the ancillary media products I wanted to include something British as the band Supergrass had roots in Britpop so I decided on an old school leather finish journal look. This is emblazoned with a crest, which is a combination of several British military crests with an old English ‘SG’ put in the centre. I wanted to capture the look of an old Grammar school journal. The design was directly inspired by the album cover of an album called the comfort of home by a band called Rufio.

            The magazine ad was a simple ‘green space’ image that had been manipulated to emphasize its colours and give it a reddish hue that related to the red leather look of the digipak cover. Our new Supergrass crest had been placed and faded over the top to once again relate it to the digipak and the overall band image.

            On the inside cover of the digipak we decided of putting the track listings in the middle and the four band members faces and their names either side, two each side. This was so as the CD or DVD was removed from it’s housing in the digipak the band member’s faces and names would be revealed. The images of the band members on the inside covers were rendered in black and white and we also applied a filter to give them greater texture.

The target audience for this product was not just younger fans of the indie genre but also older fans of Supergrass that may have been disenfranchised by the bands more recent image decisions and want something that pays homage to the bands roots.

 

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

 

The audience feedback was useful to gauge whether the products we had produced were consistent with the conventions of the genre and each other. We received pier feedback at various stages throughout the project, some of this was useful and some of it wasn’t.

The blog feedback we received initially on the pros and cons of our blog up till that point was useful, it recommended we try to make the blog more visual by adding more pictures and videos. I decided to make it my personal target to facilitate this as I struggle with written posts.

The feedback relating to the rough-cut version of our video was positive expressing a keen approval for the use of effects and different types of editing, especially in the bridge of the song where the video is designed to correspond and flow with the music to create an experience that is both aesthetically and musically pleasing. We were also recommended to fill in some of the gaps left when editing the rough-cut in order to meet the deadline.

The feedback concerning the final products, them being the final video, and the ancillary products was varied. Most of the feedback for the final video was positive and constructive. For the ancillary products some of the feedback was negative, from this we distilled that the reviewer must not have understood a lot of the imagery included in the products and more importantly would mean that we would have had to make a range of changes in order to make it more accessible to audiences that have difficulty in grasping the concepts portrayed, ‘dumbing down’ in affect.

 

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

 

As a group we use many new media technologies, these ranged from digital computer applications to research and presentation websites. For instance in the construction of the music video we used Final Cut Express in order to edit both the rough cut and the final product. Final Cut Express is a video editing and manipulation program, I found it easy and intuitive to use. The great thing about final cut is that it can be used to fully manipulate footage. For instance in the bridge of the song we used it to alter the speed of footage and make the footage play backwards whilst speeding up gradually as the song does. I got the idea for this when listening to the song and trying to visualize what I was hearing, I wanted to use the sofa as the central feature of the shot, keep it as a static feature and have people coming in and out of the room as it sped up.

We also used techniques like this in the intro of the song as the song built to the beginning of the performance. We slowed down many of the shots in the intro but cut them so they moved quickly to give a sense of disorientation that reinforced the idea of waking up after a house party, this we felt was important because it makes the audience feel part of the performance.

In the production of the ancillary products we use the photo editing software Adobe Photoshop. Use of this was crucial in the production of the digipak covers inside and out and in the production of the magazine advert. We used Photoshop to manipulate taken and internet images to create the key components of the products. For example we used Photoshop in the production of the look leather finish of the digipak. We found an image of a piece of leather that had a good texture, then using Photoshop we manipulated the colours turning them from bright reds to a subtler warm browns and cropped the image and transformed accordingly.

When producing the magazine advert we used a similar technique to what we used when producing the leather of the digipak. We took an image of a green space when out taking band photos; we then took this image and altered its colours so that it had the same hue as the leather of the digipak, this created a more stylized image that related to the final product and added an idea of what we were aiming for as far as band identity was concerned.

We also used new media technologies when researching ideas for the final product. The site video sharing site Youtube.com was a massive asset to us in our research because we could use it to research and watch videos that we felt could be used as inspiration or to illustrate an effect or aspect that we wished to include in our video. We also used the social networking site Bebo to contact the band and let them know we chose their song for our project.

Throughout the project we were instructed to keep a blog on Blogger.com to record our progress. A blog is a great way to record and present a projects progress as all entries are displayed chronologically. They are also very easy to use and edit. Video, text and pictures can all be displayed on a blog and all entries can be commented on.