1. 1. A2 Production Evaluation Questions LUCY HAYWARD (Elite Productions) Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? My media product both uses conventions of real media products (indie music videos) and develops them. By going along with typical conventions that would be seen within this genre, for example; the use of filters, washed out effects and dreamlike features such as coloured smoke, I have made sure to stick to the generic conventions for an indie music video aimed at teenagers, so it is clear to my audience what type of video they are watching. It is important to establish to an audience early on what genre the video is so that they know whether to carry on watching or not, I have done this by creating an (on the whole) consistent theme throughout the video. I have also included different features from other music genres such as pop into my music video, as the dripping paint effects used within the piece are typical of what someone would expect to see in a pop video or something more mainstream. Merging the indie genre with elements of pop or another genre creates a unique and imaginative music video that ensures the video remains interesting to it's viewers, rather than being seen as boring or predictable. Doing this makes the media text itself stand out and grab the attention of it's audience, and challenges traditional conventions of media texts. Our media text is a performance, rather than narrative video. Conventions for a performance piece were followed in our work in a variety of ways, for example there were a lot of close ups and extreme close ups which are typically seen in performance texts as there is always a high demand for exposure to an artist and being able to see them in music videos. There is also a range of scenery and nature shots in the piece which are normally seen within this type of music video as there is no story-line as such, and so a wide range of shots such as this are normally used to create something interesting and very visual for the viewer to watch, as opposed to watching a set out storyline or series of events in the narrative. Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? The combination of my main product and my ancillary texts was effective as I was careful to make sure that each ancillary piece matched well in all aspects with the main task. This was done by having the same mood, colour, and design scheme across all the texts including the music video itself to ensure that synergy was achieved and a consistent brand/image was created for the artist. Mise-en-scene such as the clothes and makeup the artist is shown wearing on the CD cover is similar to what the artist is shown wearing in the video itself, whereas the smoke effects which is a running theme throughout the video is also incorporated into the background of the CD cover.
2. 2. Creating this synergy made the texts effective as it established a clear image for the artist and made it clear what type of artist they were, meaning if they were a real artist it would allow them to build up their own fan-base based on this, and be instantly recognisable to their fans, which would boost popularity and sales. Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback? From conducting audience feedback I received valuable information on what my target audience thought about the final text. From listening to my audience's comments about the video I was able to alter it where needed to ensure it was suited to my audience and would be as appealing as possible to them as well as being aware of what didn't work within the video. However, I was also able to find out what my audience did like, and this helped me know what to keep in the video itself and what its successful features were. For example, I learnt that my target audience particularly enjoyed the smoke used in the video, so I made sure that this was a main feature. Certain things the audience didn't like such as reused clips and long cuts were also remedied. It was vital to make sure I learnt what my target audience's honest opinion of the media product was or else I could not hope to create a successful piece of work that would suit its purpose of being entertaining to my audience group. Following and taking into consideration the feedback we received from members of our target audience shows we are effective and adaptable as a group and can take criticisms and praises and work on correcting or improving them Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation? Media technologies were used in many ways throughout the construction of my video. We used a Canon EOS 700D camera to shoot the music video itself, and to take the additional photographs that were used on the album/CD cover and any photographs that were used on our blog. To edit our video we used the Apple programme iMovie which enabled us to add a filter to the video, to cut, reverse and speed up certain clips (which were a main feature of the video) and to cut out unwanted clips, amongst other editing features. This camera in particular was used as it had high definition quality and so I felt would give the video an overall polished and professional finish, making it look as much like a real media text as possible. For our research we also used the same camera. We used the camera to record our audience feedback from various members of our target audience as well as a webcam to record our target audience's thoughts on the video. We showed them the video on youtube and then we recorded them via the webcam delivering their feedback afterwards. In researching real media products I again used youtube to analyse existing artist's music videos. Photoshop was also used to create the digipack and ancillary tasks like the CD pack.
3. 3. For the planning of our video we used charts and graphs to document our shooting schedule, health and safety checks and our shot list, which we created on Microsoft word and excel. Any other written pieces of work such as storyboards were scanned and uploaded onto our blog too.