Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
When planning our music video we decided that we didn’t want it to be like all the rest and conform to every rule of the genre. Many of the conventions that can be found in music videos from our genre; quirky Indie are; extreme close ups of the artists, fun colourful performance scenes and obscure make believe worlds; so instead of conforming to every convention we added a twist. We did this by making our music video both break; and sticks to conventions. This is what makes our piece exciting and unique compared with many others.
Our video demonstrates some genre characteristics for example the way the band are feature in the piece. Instead of making this a performance piece we replaced the lead singer with a lion; this then integrated an immediate difference from the other videos in the genre.
Although quite often boy bands are shown to perform dance routines, and filmed in a very sexy, intimate and voyeuristic way, we decided that this look wasn’t at all right for the band Harvey Danger. So instead of including extreme close ups of the males and using the camera in an objectifying way we decided to use simple and basic close ups in an insightful way. After looking at their previous work there was clear evidence that they too didn’t want to go down the conventional boy band route.
After breaking the one of the key conventions explained above we decided that we wanted to make a very clear relationship between lyrics and visuals just as Goodwin describes in his analysis’ of music videos; for example by adding the words of the song on to certain sections and then allowing the audience to see an image that demonstrates what the lyrics are portraying.
We also integrated a link between lyrics and visuals when we showed the lead singer looking in to a mirror and then being seen as a bear. This also relates to Goodwin’s notion of looking.
We wanted to add an element of fun to our music video so at times we used a very contradicting style through our editing; for example there is an image of the lion sitting in a boat on a sunny day yet whilst this image is being shown the lyrics say “I’m in hell”. We think this works effectively as again it plays on the fact that the song is about being crazy and mad.
We found that when it came to editing our music video we needed a fast paced transition between the footage to keep the visuals up to speed with the pace in the song. We tried to edit the majority of our transitions on the beat although at times this proved to be a very hard task.
To ensure that we met the demands of the record label, and the genre conventions we made it an absolute to include a wide variety of shots. These ranged from extreme close ups of the lead singer to panning establishing shots to show the change of location.
In our rough cut piece the band were not always present, but after producing this we received some very helpful, constructive criticism that helped us to realise that we should include more footage of the band. We then took some time looking over music videos from our genre and found that we could easily include the band members without going against our initial idea of making the piece different; for example the group “Wheatus” produced many music videos that narrowly broke conventions but were a great success.
The style of the song “flagpole sitter” is both very random and different and because of this we decide not to go along with Goodwin’s ideology of a music video and include voyeuristic references to the female body or show them in an objectified way as we did not think this would work effectively along side the lyrics.
After doing some research on the band we believe that our work relates well with previous work they have produced with in this genre but with a slight difference; by us purposely breaking some of the conventions we believe it allows the target audience to see the bands individuality.
We wanted to include intertextual references within our music video to show links with other media instituencies. We have a range of clips on our blog to demonstrate the relationships between our own work and other peoples work.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancilliary texts?
When producing our ancilliary products we made it key to include a link between the two pieces of work produced. Although the link is there it is not directly apparent there is smaller recognisable links; for example on both the DVD digi pack and the poster there is a Hawaiian flower present and the text remains the same on both of the pieces. The flower that is present on our work is both eye catching and colourful, even though the colours may vary it is clear that both ancilliary products have vibrant colours present. These factors being on both pieces of work then make it easy to recognise the image and associate it with the band. Both ancilliary products also include footprints; this iconography is present on both pieces and symbolise the idea of travelling. This also link in with the song “flagpole sitter”. We named the album “problems and bigger ones” by using this title we thought that the image shown on our DVD cover worked very effectively as it illustrates the hippy van having to face problems with hills and bends in the road.
Our ancilliary products are a very random style and this ties in with the style of our music video as well as the appearance of the band members. Although there is no direct link between our music video and DVD cover through image or text; the fact that they are both of a random nature, slightly obscure and very memorable then portrays the image we wanted to build for the band.
The products we produced also work well for viral marketing as they are very different to others on the market. This will then lead to the public talking about them and gaining a greater interest from a wider audience.
If we were to go back and produce our products again I think that including a more direct link would be a lot more effective for marketing and recognition purposes.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
After receiving feedback on our blog from class members we noticed that the majority of it was very positive and that in order to improve it we would have only needed to make slight changes for example; showing a greater link between the lead singer and lion so its apparent to the audience that they are in fact the same person, and perhaps another location so that the lion could have been seeing doing another unusual thing. One element of our work that got a great deal of positive feedback was the stop motion section; people thought this worked well as it made a change from the lion and also included text. One thing we could have done to improve this though was to spend longer when shooting as it would have enabled us to make the soldiers do fractionally smaller and smoother movements.
Although our audience like the fact we had a lion shown in the footage several people said that the novelty factor wore off fairly quickly so it was good that we included a variety of different shots; for example close ups, jump shots and panning establishing shots. As well as a variation in locations for example a shopping centre in town, a bedroom and the country side. The activities the lion is shown doing, such as running around in the countryside also add to the fun yet random atmosphere built up through out our piece. By including filters to sharpen the colours at the opening scene of our music video and editing the lighting to show a contrast between a section of clips it allowed very small changes to be made to our footage that then became very apparent to the audience; many people commented on how a greater inclusion of this could impact our work very positively. Although we listened to this constructive criticism after trying out some more filters else where in our footage, we decided not to use any more effects as we felt that they took the impact away from the previous sections where filters were present.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We think that the blog was a very positive way to get an audience to see our work as it allowed them to see the rough cut and give their opinions on how we could improve the piece before the final deadline but also allowed them to see our work in progress and the reasons behind the decisions we made. By having class members preview our work it also allowed us to make those minors changes in order to hand the work in at the highest possible standard we were capable of.
Photoshop made the construction of our ancilliary texts fairly simple and enabled us to insert images, alter them and change the colour schemes in a very short period of time. By using this programme we could also take screen grabs of our work in progress and insert it on to the blog to allow people to see the good and bad ideas, the construction problems and processes.
When creating are music video we used final cut express; this allowed us to play around with many different elements of our footage including the order, the speed and lighting. This programme again made it very easy to show our working in progress on the blog by taking screen grabs of our work as we added effects.
By having resources available to us on the internet such as “Youtube” and “Myspace” impacted our work greatly as it allowed us to evaluate professionals work, and then work on the elements we wanted to include on our own piece. Myspace allowed us to watch videos the band have produced, see what Harvey Danger fans like about their work and read about them as a group. This then made it easier to produce a piece of work based around them as you gain an insight on them as a band as well as individuals.
By having all of these programmes and resources available it makes it very easy to produce a film. Although the process takes a very long time, the cameras are very easy to use and reliable, with the ease of just being able to delete the footage that has not been captured properly. The quality of the picture is also very good and makes it very easy to work with various footage even if it has been captured on different days.
Itunes allowed us to have access to the song “flagpole sitter” very easily and Final cut makes it very easy to edit the footage to the music as you have a music track open on the file you are editing in. By having the song playing along a time line and the editing capabilities it made it very easy to get the lip sync edited once you had got the hang of it.
Overall the programmes that were available helped us greatly when producing our work as it allowed us to change both small and large elements of captured images and footage as well as play around with effects and lighting.