Evaluation

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

Our media product conveys many conventions of Indie rock; therefore we have used many effects that you will find most commonly in other Indie rock music videos. After choosing from our top 3 Indie rock genres, we started viewing other music videos from that specific genre using YouTube. Wikipedia, MySpace, Bebo and Google were very useful when we were trying to get more information about the band that we selected; we found pictures of the whole group in Supergrass which helped us identify their sort of characters. Already we were getting many ideas of how our music video was going to look, the soundtrack just reminded us of how you feel in the morning with a hangover, which is usually feeling slow, like the soundtrack ‘La song’ it starts off very slowly then rather than gradually rising it goes straight into a faster more up beat sound. Our initial idea for our music video came directly straight to our minds after hearing the soundtrack, which was that at the beginning we have Adam slowly waking up, finds a camera then the scene would change to the beginning of the party. The actions and the whole event are mainly taken by account from the soundtrack. The main effects that we have used within our music video are the diversity of speed; it has given our music video great overall results, allowing us to convey our thoughts about our intended music video in a very in depth detail. Every effect has its own emphasis’, therefore to make sure that we get our point across clearly; we made samples of effects which were done on a random video helping us to examine what each effect gives, it also gave us a chance to practice and play around using the editing. The real challenge that we came across whilst doing our media product, was the whole idea of having our music video taken in a house, we knew this would be a problem but because of our intentions that in our heads fitted perfectly well with the soundtrack, we took the risks and gave it a shot. We needed one house only containing one huge sofa- this we found at Rosie’s house. The planning of the shots went pretty quickly and due to lessons, not everyone in the group was able to either stay longer doing the scene shots and or come at all, however we decided that we didn’t necessarily need everyone to be at every single shot, so we managed our times together and shot the one where we needed everyone involved. Part of the challenge we got was not finding the house to shoot our scenes in, it was shooting our scenes in the house without making it look like ‘this is our house and these are my friends partying’. Once we thought of what all our challenges for our media product, we also came up with a strategy, which was simply to record as much as possible after shooting the main bits we needed.

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

The effectiveness of our ancillary texts combined with our music video is inevitably effective; it is somehow though abstracted from how our music video intends to materialize. The digipak cover has another side of conventions that are found used in other Indie rock genres, it’s pretty simple, laid out to be presentable and it looks very authentic. The colour is very eye catchy as it’s vivid but it is also a darker colour of the sofa that we iconize in our music video. Our pictures presented in the cover manipulates the authority that we have within the cover, it sways the importance of album covers, how it is important to the originators and or artists too, and how it places the band under the music industry as well as it’s own genre. The logo and the way the cover has been structured overall, insinuate the high quality of the cover along with how the band is maybe seen. Moving on to another of our ancillary task, which was the magazine advert, the combination of this with our main product is more compatible than the cover. From the most obvious reasons on how our magazine advert merges well with our main product, is all much more exposed due to an actual field being at present with grasses. The field may automatically convey a part of the title ‘Supergrass’, therefore is easy to register, but again the initial idea of this ancillary was to give the impression of the authenticity and simplicity of our band. The font, the logo and the structure has been preliminary at thought after seeing the result of the album cover that is why it was straightforward to produce.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

The feedbacks that we received for our ancillary task were genuine, it was more positive than negative comments and with very little detail and rather abrupt notes, and we have taken them into account contentedly. Feedbacks which came from another group that was on the same level as us and were also doing the same project, gave us some pointers that were useful but some were a little inadequate. Most of the judgements that were said for both our ancillary tasks, were opinions based on what was put in front of them, what they could only see is what they will put their recognitions on how ever very little estimation they could give. I have learnt that feedbacks are very important, and therefore should be taken seriously; every helpful piece of advice should be taken into account. Some of the feedbacks are completely different to other people’s feedbacks and this is why it is relevant to have at least five or more others opinions, perhaps a mixture of groups too. What would be great for projects such as this are to get incentives by getting other people involve, who are acknowledgeable specifically to our certain kind of genre. Getting feedbacks from an Indie rock fan type would be able to give a better perspective of what inventions we have produced to emphasize the conventions of an Indie rock band, also because they would be able to spot what is unsuitable and so we could enhance our level of work to improving it to a more standard level. Rather than changing our cover to some of the responses and suggestions we got from our feedback, we tweaked it a little and have kept it to how we intended it to look like. The reasons for disagreeing with some of the feedbacks we got are mainly because of the different aspects we got about it, although we have taken them at interest, our motives regarding to our music project have been set in a way that we have presented them. For example, one of our feedbacks alleged that our digipak “does not look like a cover”; we found that feedback quite ineffectual as even if it didn’t look like a cover to them, our cover has its own initial proposal. Moreover, all the other feedbacks that we had gotten were all very positive and their visual thoughts and points about our media product are pretty accurate.

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

During the research and planning for our media product we used varieties of websites, such as Google, MySpace and YouTube to get some ideas about the band that we have chosen. All the websites that we used for researching had their own benefits of helping us learn about the band, they also gave us in depth detail about the conventions that we should include the most. Google was mainly helpful on providing images of the band and other images that we needed like a sofa, Google is also where we got the lyrics of the song we have chosen, although it was very hard finding the original lyrics we improvised anyway by listening very hard to the words. YouTube have it’s main use which is to expose music videos as well as other videos like the interviewing of the band backstage, watching the videos of the band behind scenes had helped us learn about their characters more. Other benefits that we have gained and used during the construction of our music video from YouTube was the screenshots; the screenshot helped us in many ways evaluate the whole of our music product, we screened shot techniques that we saw from other music videos such as Aphex twin which helped conclude to some ideas for our music product. Furthermore, by using YouTube we managed to express some ideas about our music product through other music videos from other bands, such as ‘I got a feeling’ by Black Eyed Peas. Another website that came to use was Bebo, we had to contact the band to inform them about our quest and or project, by using Bebo we managed to leave them a message, we did not get any reply but at least we have a record of us informing them.
In the making of our video we used almost all the equipments such as gel lights to give different effects, it was very helpful and whilst experimenting with each of the lights we gained more experience with how to use them correctly in a way to produce great effects in specific scenes.
Another method that we came across was the use of green screening, which we had trouble getting into perfection, there was too many shadows therefore the light writing that we wanted to put over the green screen did not work as well.
Photoshop was one of the other technology that we used many times, our whole ancillary task was made using Photoshop as well as our other previous assignments related to our music product.