Media Product evaluation

1) Our media product features many forms and conventions of real media products after researching other artists and previous students media products alomg with inspiration from goodwins points. Goodwins points was a key base when creating our music video. We focused mainly on the relationship between lyrics and visuals as the storyline of our music being about a guy who has lost his girlfriend thinking about past memories, matches the lyrics to our song. We also focused on the demands on the record label by showing close-ups of the artist and regular shots of the arist lip syncing. We also did this throughout the whole media product by using a "haunted" and "ghostly" theme within the video, magazine advert and digipak with the use of a black and white effect and blurring images. When researching artists media products I noticed there is always a theme used in their digipaks and magazine adverts taken from their videos, so this was an inspiariton for us.

2) I think the combination of our main product and ancillary texts is rather effective as they all work together as a promotional package with the use of a "haunting" theme used within the whole product, enabling the audience to recognise the theme and link it to the song. The theme witin our media product was used to create a concept of  "haunting", we decided as a group to do this as it matches the lyrics, title and meaning of the song. However, we then carried this on within our magazine adver and digipak to allow people to understand the genre and concept of the song and also to attract the right audience to the song through the advert and digipak. A very sensitive and depressed image is created of the artist as it is a strong link with the mood and meaning of the song and can also help the audience relate to the storyline of the video.

3) We recieved feedback on our roughcut from a teacher who suggested we added a lot more dissolves between cuts and to exaggerate the black and white effect when showing memries of the couple. We were told the whole idea of cutting from memories to then showing the depressed guy alone was effective and the suggestions we were given to increase the effectiveness of this idea definitelt worked well. This was shown when we recieved our final cut feedback as we were told by our peers that our editing was effective as it was clear and effective but also gave a ghostly feel which was what we wanted to portray. We were also told that the use of props, costumes and lighting were effective, all jelping to create a ghostly but romantic feel. Our feeback on goodwins points was all rather positive as well. We were told the strimg link between our lyrics and visuals was good as the song has a strong meaning. However, the artist could have shown more emotion like the couple.

4) We used a lot of new media tehnologies within the whole process of our media product. Throughout the  planning process blogger was a big help with keeping all our ideas together in one place and also with keeping all of our research together of other artists and previous students to help with our own inspiration. Final cut was then used to ut together our music video and to add effects which enabled us to put all our ideas into one project and create our video. We used the HD cameras to film the scenes in our videos, these allowed us to have a wide range of shots of our artist, actors and to also get good quality shots, for example the sun set towards the end of video. The internet was a huge help in our research of artists and also to help with gathering information on the real artist to our song, rihanna. Finally we used a lot of photoshop within the making of our media product which became useful when putting together our digipak and magazine advert as it allowed us to create our images to fit into our "haunted" theme.

Question Four Script

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

+ The use of blogger allowed us to keep a diary of what we had done in each lesson and what we needed to do, so this was key to keeping us on track. As well as this it helped us blog our journey: our research and inspiration to show how we got to the stage of the final video. It also allowed us to recieve feedback.

+ HD cameras helped to capture high quality clips which would lead to the success. Also helped when doing test footage.

+ Still cameras helpe to create a high quality image for our digipak and magazine advert.

+ Final cut - used to edit using filters such as colour corrector, which played a key part of showing the past and present. It helped show the creativity as we were able to use cross dissolves which helped to show the memory aspect and haunted aspect.

+ Photoshop - also helped to create a successful product. Such as being able to change the images into black and white, altering the hue and saturation and the brightness. It also helped to change the opacity. This is what made our digipak and magazine advert stand out. So the use of photoshop maximised our creativity.

Question Two Script

Me: The second question is 'how effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? So to begin with how all three work as a promotional package?
Chloe: They work exteremely well as a package as they all share the haunted aspect and the emotion from losing someone. So because of this haunted and emotional aspect it well promote our package as its bold and people will be able to relate to losing someone you love.
Me: Okay so what concept were you trying to communicate?
The concept we were trying to create is the pure emotion of the lyrics. We did this through the contrast of the past and present within our video. It is also shown through our ancillary texts. for example the digipak has a haunted image of the couple with the opacity quite low so therefore it looks haunted, and then the magazine advert has a faded image of Abi in the far distance which plays with the magic eye.
Me: What image do they create for your artist?
The image they create for the artist is that the focus of the artists songs will always be on the lyrics and the meaning of them. And also they show that the focus will always be on the narrative instead of dominating shots of the artist. This is shown through all our materials for example the video has a strong narrative, our digipak has no image of the artist but pictures of the haunted aspect as well as the magazine advert. So therefore this is the image we have created.
Me: How are they successful at attracting the audience?
Chloe: They will attract the audience very well due to the emotion of the song being reflected in all our products. And some viewers may be able to relate to the concept we have of the narative of losing someone they have. 
Chloe: Finally they work well together as we used the ethos of the video into the digipak and magazine advert and therefore viewers will easily recognise them due to the use of black and white, hautned, non vibrant use of colouring throughout all our products. 

Script for Question One

Chloe: 'in what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real   media products?
Me: Well to start with we used the conventions of Goodwins theory. For example: 'Genre Characteristics - we followed the genre by having shots of abi, having a narrative of throughout and also having an actor and actress which was chris and I.
*screen shot of abi as artist and screen shot of chris and I*
Me: We had a strong link between the lyrics and visuals throughout as we thought the lyrics were so powerful and meaningful that if we stuck to the lyrics then it would reflect the amount of emotion within the lyrics. An example of how we did this was showing a shot of the couple together on the stairs and then a shot alone. This was when the song was saying 'footsteps on the stairs'. So our visuals were very illustrative of the lyrics.
*screen shot of the stairs bit*
Me: For the notions of looking this is will be through photo frames and also the notions of watching the couple.
*Shots of the photo frames*


GENRE OF THE PRODUCT!


Me: when looking at existing Rihanna videos and other artists such as Leona Lewis which fit into our genre I was shown that the videos generally include a storyline, different shot types, clips vary in brightness, good lip syncing, shots of the artist and actors and actresses. So therefore from this we made sure that our video included these. 


*screen shots of these*


Me: After looking at various existing videos I got a lot of useful inspiration. Such as Taylor Swifts video 'mine' I got the inspiration of the shots going back and forward from the past to the present. also the photo aspects. Beyonce broken hearted girl had flashbacks in black and white, which showed the emotion. I thought this would work well with our video of showing Chris alone in the present to show hes lonely and sad.


*screen shot these videos*


Our Ancillary texts also match the conventions. We did this by looking at existing products and then making sure we had these. These include, record label, dvd video logo, classification e.g. 12, the title of the artist, the title of the album, a quote e.g. from mtv, release date, hyperlinks, barcoding for digipak and bonus material for digipak.  

Question 3 Script points

3)

PITCH FEEDBACK

+ haunted concept will work well
+ will have variety of possible footage
+ research how will show the past and present

ROUGH CUT FEEDBACK
+ we fitted the goodwins points well
+ lyrics and visuals were illustrated
+ music and visuals were illustrated
+ shots of the artist fit the genre
+ ghost effect = notions of looking

FINAL CUT FEEDBACK

+ fitted goodwins points well
+ music and visuals didnt match but cuts were in time with the music
+ lyrics and visuals matched well
+ editing was all fine but long cuts - which we did on purpose to show the emotion and lyrics
+ props were good and a variety
+ romantic locations were good

Creative Use Of Technology

Overall I feel as if I  have used the technology available very creatively. From producing the work to editing.

For example I did the filming of the music video except the lip syncing which I was still present at. When using the HD camera I nade sure I was using the technology in a creative way by ensuring the mise-en-scene was correct the angle of the shot and type of shot was creative and would fit the genre. So therefore I feel as if the result portrays my creativiity.

Also when using the still cameras I made sure the frame positioning and everything within mise-en-scene was considered in order to capture a high quality creative image.

I also did the editing and created ideas which were unique and which would stand out. For example changing the image to black and white, experimenting with the hue,saturation, brightness, contrast etc. Using filters available in photoshop, and experimenting with the opacity of images. So not only was I creative in the production of the work I also ensured that I used the software of the technology creatively too in order to achieve a bold and unique set of promotional package materials.

Analysis of Students Directors Commentary.

http://vimeo.com/8095587

This groups commentary was actually filmed on the location of where their video was filmed. This works really well as they are able to point to the location for example the grafitti wall and also when talking about the lighting they are able to point to their source of lighting which works really well and shown that they have thought about the location of this commentary extremely well. It's a really interesting commentary in which I enjoyed listening to due to the hand gestures, the fact you can see they had learnt their lines/ know what they were going to say before they filmed, which is reflected in their performance which makes it interesting.

Also the fact they used screen grabs and video clips of their inspiration works really well as it gives you a picture/idea of how they were inspired to create their video and digipaks. When talking about what technologies they used they had screen shots of blogger, photoshop, final cut and this works really well to show a step by step journey which they took instead of just simply talking which would be quite boring.

I like the fact they switch between speakers so you don't hear just a constant voice the whole time too. I feel as if they had just the right amount of detail within this commentary as you learn alot about their journey and the video.

Overall this is a great and interesting commentary compared to the rest which I saw which had just a group sitting in a class room speaking with the same speaker the whole time. You can clearly see that they planned their commentary and script well as it pays off to be a very successful commentary.