Pia's Evaluation Essay

In what ways does your media products use, develop, or challenge forms of conventions of real media products?
how effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?


The music video our group has produced, is to the song "La Song" by Supergrass, the genre of the song is indie/rock and what makes our video similar to that of a real music video, is due to various different reasons, one is because it is the same length, which is normally around 3-4 minutes. The sequence begins with a medium - long shot of "the band" (our group) asleep on the sofa which is a main feature throughout the video, the music is synchronised with the footage as it starts off very slowly with an organ and violin playing, we use many conventions similar to ones in real music videos, like slow motion, and editing which helped the group make the video carry from clip to another clip nicely and makes each scene flow from one to the next.
Using the editing to create a big effect when the music beat suddenly starts around 38 seconds in to the footage, this is used to indicate the past when the frame inside the still digital camera jumps to full screen moving footage, these transitions are all similar to ones that are used in real media products.
the genre and style of music in our video is represented through different use of micro elements such as: camera work, we filmed typical angles indie videos use, for example, we used shaky cam and hand held cam to shoot Adam lip syncing / singing, this is characterised by the shakiness and jerky movements to create this effect on the footage also using this with a slight high angle to create that skinny look. The mise-en-scene also portrays the indie style of genre through costume and props, like chequered tops, skinny jeans, the guitar being played, all of which increases in representation when joint with the music, for example the kooks, arctic monkeys etc, for example Niave - by the kooks, where the main character is walking around in his skinny outfit and wavy hairstyle sining the lyrics.
Editing plays the biggest role in the creation of the music video, as this can pick out and enhance the tiniest of features or footage, this is all done by playing around with the cutting of footage, transitions, modifications, filters and more, by playing around with all these effect it also helps synchronise the song, and beat to the footage and helps relate the genre of the song more.
Representation of the band and instruments being played was required in the music video, and real music videos has representation of the lyrics , whether the lyrics are being represented by being sung and lip synced by the artist or having visuals / illustrations of the lyrics - for example having them written on screen or footage of the lyrics being written down, therefore we filmed alot of footage representing the lyrics, we filmed various different locations with the lyrics being sung, we did also capture footage of visual lyrics, however it was chosen not to use this in the final cut of our video.

A lot of other conventions we used in our video were, a montage effect, when Adam was lip syncing and singing there is two shots of him on the screen at the same time depicting different settings/locations of the house and different shot lengths of him, indicating passing of time. We also used different coloured gels (blue/turquoise/red/pink/yellow) - which allowed us to create more colours by combinding two gels at one time, we have a variety of shots, there is a good use of close ups in the camerawork, especially taken of the performance. Editing and cutting the video to the music beat, slow motion and rewind, these effects are in the bridge of the song where it gets really slow again, this is similar to the begining of the song then the music sound is guitars being played backwards and sounds as if it is being rewound therefore the idea of rewinding the excess footage synchronised well and worked out really effectively. We used many transitions to make the film flow and work together like fade in fade out all of which real media products would use.

The digit pack cover and magazine advert are similar to that of real media products as we have researched examples and created our products with this in mind, the digit pack has a picture of each member of the band (our group) positioned on, the back has a short summary of what to find in the pack and more to make people want to buy the product, we have written it asthough it was a message from the band themselves, "we are Supergrass, and this is our DVD album" this makes the reader/listener feel more connected with the band. Captured still shot photos from clips of the final music video are included and created a logo for the band, to make it look more similar to real products we have used icons like the DVD symbol and bar code, and we used them with a textured background, by researching other digit pack cases and information that we then got the ideas of what to apply to ours, we felt we gave the digit pack a more professional finish.

we represented the band by taking individual pictures of each member and editing the color and giving them effects in photoshop, we positioned them so that a 2 Cd's would be covering us, this is so we are not seen all the time, we placed them like this because each of our band member is an individual, and like different styles, however we are all equal and we are together, but have our own spaces and this represents us more personally.


What have you learnt from your audience feedback?


the feedback we got when we did the first pitch of our initial song choice and idea for the music video was positive, however there were doubts at how we would get the footage we wanted of the "party" scenes, this allowed us to set ourselves targets so that the work was consistant, and that our pitch idea was carried throughout the video, we were advised to look at similar clips like scenes of parties from TV series like Shameless and Skins, and to build up the effect of the sofa theme we looked at programmes like The Simpsons and Friends, we also had competition as another group wanted to use the same song choice as us which made us work more efficiently to achieve more and get the best information and pitch backup.

the feedback on all information taken in and set out on the blog was again positive, and it was obvious to peers that we researched lots on how to make our video conform to typical media conventions, it was advised to make research and analysis better to add test footages and photos of preparation to make it more visual, and to distinguish our music video from others, this gave us a giudeline of what we needed to do and how we could improve.

feeback we recieved after our music video draft was again very positive for example "use of speeding up footage was affective, and where the camera linked the narrative, worked well played backwards" "angle "shifts" on arrival are affective", all that needed amending was the performance footage which we had not yet filmed.

Feedback on final cut version of music video was once again very positive with little recommendations on what to improve as this was the final draft, therefore this feedback was emphasizing positive features of the finished video "good video, demands met", our group agreed with feedback based on goodwins analysis.

Feedback on ancillary products was very helpful it pointed out the strong parts of the digit pack cover and magazine advert and recommended what could be improved to make it more enjoyable to the public, the digit pack having a more positive outcome than the magazine for example "clever use of screen grabs, the style is conveyed even with contrasting packaging and music video"- digit pack, "magazine advert, not very clear hard to read".

in conclusion most of the feedback recieved overall was positive, however there were strong recommendations that were helpful and useful, critisism was appreciated as it was taken in and put to good use to help improve on products, which helped make products better and more enjoyable, the feedback we got allowed us to look at others views and provided outside views we could use to improved development, we took to consideration all feedback that was given by our peers and used it to build on our ideas and create better overall products.


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

we used the internet for many stages of our project, for researching on search engines, we created a social networking blog to contact the band this was bebo, we asked their permission to use their song for our video. We created a youtube account for our group to help in the process of uploads so we could easily put them onto the blog and it benefitted many tasks we did.
we used photoshop for our ancillary products to create pictures, moodboars, digit pack and magazine advert and more, this helped us create something more personal to our group and make it effective, and we used final cut to creat and complete our music video drafts.