Mathew's Media Evaluation

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

For a UK hip hop music video the video we made was generally unconventional in a number of aspects. Although the artist is clearly in the video we have not tried to make him look glamorous or extremely rich in order to try and emphasis the actual lyrics being conveyed to the audience. In typical Hip Hop music videos one of the main focuses are to emphasis the artists wealth, in the form of masses of cash, diamond encrusted jewelry, good-looking women, expensive cars and nightlife. Therefore, we intended that not including these things would make the audience focus their attention on other aspects of the music video such as the artists expressions, body language and more importantly the lyrics as they are a fairly violent narrative within the video itself. In addition to this the music video was predominantly filmed near the Camden River, whereas typical videos would have various locations such as in the car, their mansion, on the beach and in a strip club. However, I believe our media produce slightly conforms in some manor, as the video still focuses on the artist primarily but just doesn’t emphasize his wealth, by doing this I believe we have developed this convention of having a lead artist.

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

As a group we ensured that our ancillary texts were effective, correctly targeted and made a clear and direct link to the single and music video itself. In order to ensure the our poster and CD cover we believed it was important to ensure that it promotes the artist and makes purchasing that particular single appealing to consumers on the market. The poster informs the audience that the single will be widely available for consumer purchase and matches the colour scheme of the CD cover, this being black and red. These two colours signify violence and bad activity, this relates to the theme of the music video and the lyrics being conveyed. In addition to this our ancillary texts do not reveal the full identity of the artist, this would be more effective if the artist did not already have a well-established fan base as it would have an enigma effect on the audience in the scene where they would be more intrigued to see the artist identity in the video. Moreover, the poster also reveals the location of the music video, when consumers see this before hearing the single it will raise questions as to why a song with a title like ‘Suzanne’ would be set by a river.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

In order to be aware of our consumers opinions on our media product we as a group all posted our music video onto our personal facebook profiles and youtube accounts then constructed a questionnaire and also had one to one conversations with people who have just watched it. From this I gathered that the majority of the audience adopted the preferred meaning whereas about a third of those questioned took a negotiated understanding as to why we produced a music video that doesn’t emphasize the artist’s wealth. In addition to this I have become aware that some parts of the music video were not filmed in complete seriousness and this comes through in some of the filming affecting the mood being conveyed to the audience. Also, our questionnaire revealed that the audience believed our technique of giving the audience different visuals to focus on was effective in making the audience focus more particularly on the lyrics as these have a significant meaning in the song one which must be followed throughout to be understood.

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

By constructing questionnaires and polls online we were able to observe consumer feedback by using the Internet. We chose to place our research material in places where they would receive maximum exposure and be utilized by as many consumers as possible in order to give us the masses of information from which we can withdraw the most accurate conclusion on our audience. The music video was primarily filmed using the cannon fs200 HD camcorder, once all the filming had been complete the video files were then imported into IMOVIE 2009. IMOVIE is an effective and efficient software to edit music videos with to a good quality level and our entire group were familiar with is why we chose that particular software to edit on. More over, when producing one of our ancillary texts particular the CD cover we used a process called ‘green screen’ as we wanted to create the effect of me standing near a river without actually taking a photo of me doing just that. Green screen is where you take a photo or video of somebody acing, standing or performing in front of a green screen and then once imported into an editing software the green screen option will erase any green background surrounding the person allowing us to them apply that image or video to another image, creating a realistic effect.

Marwa's Evaluation

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

The genre we picked was R&B/Hip-Hop, whilst investigating which one was the most popular we also found out that a majority of people enjoyed listening to music within the Grime/British Hip-Hop scene. In our media product we used and developed certain conventions, for example we used the typical artist exposure throughout the music video but with some limited coverage when compared to the genre the artist is the main focus throughout the music video. We changed some of the typical conventions that you would normally see for example, controlled sexual exposure of the characters within the music video and making sure the music video wasn’t to provocative to suit our audience.

    

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

It is very important to have a connection between the main product and ancillary texts when using fonts, theme and colour a scheme. When making the poster and CD covers we made sure that there was a clear link between them.

When making the CD covers we used the same concept of hiding the male lead’s identity which creates an enigma. By hiding the characters identity it also allows the audience to give there own opinion on the characters looks and adds a sense of mystery to the music video. The intentional use of red symbolises death and murder, it also symbolises the characters passion towards the prostitute that he ends up killing in the end. The use of white however, juxtaposes this as it symbolises purity and innocence. 

By using a cannel as a background for the CD cover it helps make a connection with the music video and lyrics which creates continuity between the ancillary texts and the main products.

When making the poster we used the same idea as the CD covers, by using the same font and colour scheme, also some of the same ideas. By using the same concept with the poster it helps make a very strong connection with the actual theme of the main product and artist. We used a clear photo of the cannel in this text to help set the scene for the audience.  

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

In our audience feed back we created a questionnaire, which asked what type of music genre the audience preferred, a majority agreed on Grime/British Hip-Hop. We also inquired our audience on what types of music videos they preferred for example with a narrative/storyline, whether or not to make the artist the main focus in the music video or not and if they preferred special effects within the video. Our music video is based on all our audience feedback and what they think makes a good music video.  

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

During this process I have learnt to use different technologies,

As effectively as possible to help create my main product for example, a high resolution video camera which gave the music video a more professional look.

When we used iMovie it helped teach us to create continuity within the music video with the lyrics and movement in the music video. As a member of the group, I was part of the photography and documenting of our process whilst filming the music video which required me to use Photoshop when editing the photos and creating the ancillary texts.