Evaluation

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

For my coursework task I chose to construct a music video, and with this a magazine-advert for the band’s album as well as a complete digi-pak design. The conventions of my product are incredibly subjective to which genre I were to choose. If I were to have chosen a pop video it would have made sense to fill my video with very aesthetically attractive people and include a dance routine, however I chose rock/metal music. The conventions of music videos for rock/metal music are far more open as the genre varies so widely. My music video took the form of a horror/thriller storyline combined with a rock band performance on a stage. This is very typical of heavy metal music as the imagery of the film genre matches the sound and emotion of the music perfectly. One thing I was always certain I would include was the bands’ performance, on a stage, I had noticed from research that many students with the same task leave this part out entirely and it’s such a vital part of any music video, very importantly though, within rock music, certainly heavy metal, the band or singer aren’t necessarily the ones involved in the opposing narrative. My music video, very much took influence from all other videos by HIM, as they have quite a unique and celebrated style of music video and I think resultantly my music video did end up looking similar to one that the band would have made themselves. Also another thing i've noticed abotu other students work is the lengths of their shots being far too long, leaving the video unrealistic and unwatchable. My clips however average at about half a second so the viewer is constantly interested. I have developed this though to try and add my own unique style of filming and editing with my personal choice of varied shots such as close ups on the vocalist and the main character and dynamic moving shots of the bands’ performance in general. In terms of my ancillary tasks, however much I genuinely think they look good and that they fit their purpose perfectly, I would find it hard to say that there’s anything particularly original about them. Instead they are an incredibly typical example of a heavy metal album case, to the point where you could say they’re quite cheesy. I think this is ideal though, I don’t particularly think there’s any need for anything experimental or unique with the digi-pak instead I think it should clearly reflect the genre of music it’s containing and I feel I have done that sufficiently.

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

I think the combination of my main product and ancillary texts are very effective. To go with my
music video i created an advert for the album that would appear in a magazine and a CD album Digi-Pak which includes the front, back and side panels. One thing I always knew was very important was to keep the general feeling of the Mise-en-Scene the same as a running constant throughout all of my products. Therefore I had to make sure that the ancillary tasks gave off a similarly dark and moody feel to the music video. To achieve this I used a lot of darker colours, blacks dark browns and dark reds, combined with white font, usually with an orange or red shadow to create a flame effect (to match the song title soul on fire).  The photo I used for my album front cover and resultantly the advert too, was taken in a near pitch black room, and then affected later. I made this decision as I liked the dark shadows that occur in the confines of the face and wanted to play around with the idea of darkness. I then incorporated the use of candles, the idea of a weak flame that’s quite fragile but also providing this small source of light, I think fits perfectly into my ancillary tasks. At the close of my music video it cuts to a shot of the band’s name HIM and then fades out, I used the same font in the video as I did in my ancillary’s when displaying the band’s name, and this link works very effectively in my opinion. All together they make a very believable package, emulating hugely previous work by HIM but also previous work by me and incorporating these things together across the entirety of my coursework has been fantastic and turned out very effectively. 

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback has been an essential part of my coursework production process. Within our media class we compared all of our ancillary tasks together and collected feedback from our peers on several occasions, this helped me hugely in shaping my products. The video has been received very well by all i have shown it to, people have particularly commented on the fast rate of shots, the dual narrative of the story and the band performance, the editing surrounding the vocals( the syncing of the lyrics as well as the slow motion effect) and my general continuity and construction. The only negative comments i have received are that the storyline is relatively hard to follow, this is due to the fact that this video was originally going to be much longer with a prologue and a voiceover explaining the situation, but i altered this due to time restraints and then tried to make the story as simple as possible. Ultimately what I have learned from my audience feedback is that everything takes a lot of time, there’s no point in rushing anything like this and if I’m honest I would have liked even more time especially with the video.

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

Throughout the construction of my ancillary tasks I was getting to grips with new media technologies in the form of the apple mac. Though I understand the idea of a mac isn’t particularly new I’ve never really used one before, however I knew that they are dramatically advanced compared to PC’s in terms of artistic and creative work. I used word 2008 for the mac and found it to be both incredibly easy to use and super effective at creating dynamic and realistic looking products.

For the Music Video I first of all had to use a piece of software called AVS video converter Pro, as my video camera saved it’s files in an unusable .MOV format. I spent a good few hours scouring the internet looking for a free video converter to download, finding that most of them would leave a  water-mark across your video but eventually I found one that didn’t and I was on my way. I then had to upload all of these video clips into Windows Movie Maker. After spending so much constant time editing my music video using this software I would say I’ve not only become a semi-expert but I also never want to see it again. But seriously if you are to use Windows Movie Maker for any extended period of time it becomes very easy to use and although it’s limited in its’ editing properties it more than makes up for this in its’ simplicity and adaptability.

In terms of my evaluation I have used Facebook to assemble audience feedback from people as well as doing all of my research using the internet, being the only subject that I don’t partially rely on a text book for it has been great to research and record things as I would do myself with my own interests. The blog has been an incredibly effective and easy way of organising all of my coursework together and since doing this coursework I think I will be using them a lot more.