Evaluation - Question 4

"What have you learned from your audience feedback?"

Here is a live recording of our video coming on in the cinema and the audience reaction we received. The audience cheered at the end and beginning of our video, which makes us feel very proud and we feel we may have met the needs of our audience, as some of our target audience are in the audience. The young, mainly female university age students, with a different style and artists who like alternative pop/rock music.

Below are four videos of the direct video responses I received after we have watched our music video on the cinema.

The main comments we received on our audience was that they really liked the projection shots in our video and thought that it was very creative. They also liked the parts of our video, such as when the artist is running through the woods and the make up styles we used. Overall, I learnt from my audience feedback on my music video that hard work really does pay off! I think we have definitely succeeded in making a conventional music video, I feel that we had met the media expectations as the audience did not reflect back any negatives or things that they felt we could of improved which is always a good thing! I would personally say, we could of possibly used more wide shots in the projection base track, and ensured that everything was in sync and I think one part of the video looks a little off. So really, it's just about sitting and watching it repeatedly to see if there are any visual faults! However, I do think that we did well, Poppy (who was this artist in the video) really had so much energy and performed so well, and I think this lead to the success of our video. She was very enthusiastic and really took on the role of the artist, so this definitely made our video more entertaining to watch! We attempted to meet the demands of the audience as best as we could; so we met the conventions of music videos by editing the shots to the beat of the music, using several close ups and ensuring the artist looked directly into the camera to connect to her audience, as well as cutting quickly towards the end to build a climax. I also feel that each one of our base tracks were well thought out and really followed the conventions of an alternative pop artist music video, we tried to be very creative in her styling and look.

In conclusion, I am very happy with the product, and by the response of the audience I feel our hard work has paid off and we have met the demands of our target consumers.

Here is a short video of a couple responses of my ancillary work. I also received some other comments:

'I really liked the way that the picture links to the video and the one on the advertisement. It's a little plain but it doesn't go overboard.'

'I like the font and the colour scheme, the darkness links to the video and you've done really well in linking the products to the video.'

'I like the darkness and cold feel to the cover, and the advert is really simple and direct, which is important to reaching the audience'

' It's really good, and the pictures are relevant and look really nice on the Digipak, only small thing is on the advert you've forgotten the "www", otherwise I like it!'

From all this feedback I have learnt that my ancillary work is good enough and does follow the conventions. This is the task I struggled with the most and I think it showed but I did try my best to constantly link both products to make a successful promotional package. I think that used appropriate images and tried to add extras to my Digipak, such as a sticker and copyright information on the CD space. I think that I will attract my target audience as my video was a success, and my Digipak is based around the images in my video so together they can attract my audience and be a successful product.

QUESTION 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

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

Before we began our music video we discussed the over all pop video conventions that critics mentioned such as Mulvey for representation of women and Goodwin for structure. We worked against the representation of the 'sexual fantasy' of women in our video just as other music artists have done so, such as Florence and the machine and Bat for lashes who both aim their videos on translation of the lyrics in an artistic form as well as rely on their vocal talent and dedication for their fans rather than relying on their figure and the amount of skin showing that they can get away with. We worked against that through using our wardrobe to express an elegant and mature look with long dresses with bold block colors such as blue, red and white and with these dresses to be presenting the elegant and fresh look we were aiming to achieve. Andrew Goodwin observed that some music videos do not present traditional narratives, and can be presented in many different formats such as; Disjunction,amplification or illustration. Instead, our artist looks at the camera as she lip-syncs for the majority of the song which would most likely be seen in Goodwin's eyes as a mixture of disjuncture and illustration, our video also follows conventions in the way it climaxes as it comes closer to then end, reflected through the fast cuts and frequent cuts from shot to shot that build up faster as it comes to the end of the song.

However, Carol Vernallis observed the editing of music videos have a much more frequent edit to cutting so it is in sync with the beat of the song. For the majority of our music video we do exactly this, following the rhythm of our track 'Howl' by Florence and the machine and cutting at every other beat throughout the song until near the end when it picks up (the climax) when the editing becomes faster and more frequent as the song ends. 

We have a few edits that we have used in the music video to catch the audiences attention such as the fast edit and a very brief Glowing effect in one of the first verses of the song. We used these effects to grasp the audience's attention to show the artists interesting image and her individual and unique styile and look on her video. 

In the prezi below it is a small presentation of some of the research and inspirations that we had, it is shown briefly on this presentation however it'll be explain in detail later on in the blog. 

MEDIA on Prezi

Watch

Q3 How did you use media technologies in the construction and research and evaluation stages?

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

Q2 How effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary texts (digipak & advert) ?

How effective is the combination of your main product (video) 

and ancillary texts (digipak & advert) ?

I scripted an interview with the artist: Poppy Power and the Radio Channel F.F.M: Fresh faced music for me to answer this evaluation- I hope you enjoy it. :) 

Evaluation - Question 3

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


Construction and Research

In the construction and research of my music video I used various technologies to enable me to create an idea for my work, as well as understand how to produce it.

1. The Internet - Whereby I used websites such as Youtube, Google, Vevo, ITunes, Vimeo.
2. Cameras - State of the art Video Cameras, Mobile Phone Cameras and Digital Cameras.
3. Programmes - Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, iPhoto

In my planning and evaluation I used even more technologies to complete my work.

1. Internet - Vimeo, Da Font, Blogger, Youtube,  Prezi, Iaza, Photobucket, Facebook, Twitter
2. Programmes - FInal Cut Pro, Photoshop,  CLipgrab, Wordle
3. Cameras - Flip Camera

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Here is another screen recording of me using IPhoto - an editing programme on the Mac. I used this programme to edit the colour of my image used on the Digipak, here is an example of me demonstrating some of the skills you can do on this, it involved me changing the contrast, cropping and image, and changing the colour scheme. This was important in making my image suitable for my Digipak and the theme I was trying to convey by doing this.

Here is a Quick Time screen recording of me using Photoshop. I am just demonstrating some of the things I am able to do on the programme. Therefore I am cutting out images, pasting them onto my work, adding and removing texts as well as rotating it and changing the colour.

Here is a Prezi of me showing how I have used media technologies in my work.

Here is the animation of our storyboard, we were able to complete this on Final Cut Pro as we felt it was a more creative way to capture our story board, and we could develop our skills on the programme and put good use to media technology! This was also easier to paste onto our blog, as we could edit the shots to the time of the music - similarly to what we done in the music video - following the conventions.