Amandeep Sathi.

A2 Media Studies.

Critical Perspectives.

EVALUATIONEVALUATION

How did you use your new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and

evaluation stages?

Research: Research: InternetInternet

Mp3 unsigned –Searching on the internet we found a website

which had a wide variety of genres, and we were trying to find a song/artist specific to our genre, that we felt could be effective to use in a music video. We had to ensure the artist was unsigned due to copyright laws.

YouTube – This was another well known website we decided

to use. We used other music videos from artists within our genre to analyse typical codes and conventions used, and to begin to familiarise ourselves with what our audience expect to see, and how we might use the conventions in our music video.

We also used other websites such as dafont.com for text on our packakage, zamzar, to convert video files.

Planning:

Facebook- we used social networking as a means of communication with other others in our group, to organise days and times that would be sufficient for us to film on. We also used facebook as a way to communicate with members of our music video to find out when they were available to film.

Celtex- This is a script writing and storyboarding programme we used to help us plan our shooting schedule, plan out our narrative, and construct a frame by frame storyboard of our music video in still images. This programme helped us to get our planning as professional as possible.

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

Conformed:

In our music video we conformed to conventions of our genre, and what our

audience wanted/expected to see, to ensure that it would appeal to our target audience (young women). As you can see

on the left hand side there is evidence from our research when we conducted a

questionnaire that our audience prefer to see the singer in the narrative of the music video. Therefore in our music video (on the

right) we have ensured our singer was featured in the narrative within the music

video. By conforming to what our audience expect to see, we can be sure that our

product will appeal to them.

Conformed:

When we conducted our research, we became aware through our questionnaires that our target audience do not often come across our ‘soul-pop’ genre in magazines. Therefore while constructing together our magazine advertisement for our artist, we were able to be more lenient and didn’t have too many conventions to follow.

Although because in our research our audience told us that ADELE

appealed to them the most out of current artists in the industry from within our genre, we made sure we

researched ADELE in magazines, and stuck to some of the

conventions used in magazine advertisements she is featured in to know that it will successfully appeal

to our audience.

For example, placing the artist very large on the page with minimal text

around it, so the image of her stands out- which you can clearly

see on our magazine advertisement.

Challenged:

From our research, looking at music videos such as Leona Lewis, Amy Winehouse and Adele, who are all artists that fall into our genre, we decided to not go by the conventions of the majority of their videos. We wanted to challenge the idea of women always being left weak and left vulnerable, with concluding the music video with our artist being empowered and strengthened, not left as the victim. In other music videos of our genre, it tends to follow to convention of the female artist being controlled by the a man (which can be conveyed through lyrics or the narrative).

We knew that this may not appeal to our audience however did not feel the need to comply with every single convention of our genre, because this may widen our audience to more than our target audience, however it may also leave our audience aware that not all women are weakened by these issues, and hopefully reflect a more positive moral.

For example- We used a strobe light which kept flashing during

the bridge of the song, creating a tense build up, however, the use of a flashing light and faster edited clips, it created a more empowered atmosphere it wasn’t slow and didn’t leave the impression that our artist was still left weak. Also because it is a high angle shot, it makes our audience aware that something has changed because this has not been used in any of the previous scenes.

- Making the concluding scenes slightly brighter to show empowerment, instead of leaving a dark vulnerable atmosphere which created a tense feeling. Also by placing our artist on top of the piano, to show she has confidence, and also by placing her at eye level which shows she is not a victim of the man in the narrative any longer. It allows our audience to connect with her more.

How effective is the combination of your main product and

ancillary texts?

How well does our package look together/are there any followed themes?

When putting together our digi pack and poster, we wanted to make sure that it followed a similar theme throughout, so it looked like a well constructed thought through package.

The colours we used are very mellow, and light, such as yellows, sandy browns and light blues which all connote soft emotions, which we wanted to reflect through out package, because our artist is represented as soft and emotion filled individual.

In our poster however we went for a more black and white style theme, because we wanted to make our artist stand out, and as it is featured in a magazine we wanted to make sure it stood out.

The use of simplistic colours we found was very effective because it allows the audience to connect with out artist more, and our audience research also indicated that our target audience prefer to see softer colours on a digi pack for this genre. By following the conventions that our audience expect to see, to be successful marketing campaigners, we know that our package will appeal to them, and perhaps even a wider market because the colours are very neutral and doesn’t make too much of a statement.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Our audience feedback was really helpful for us to get a good critical response from what our audience thought of our music video. We received both positive and negative feedback.

Example of positive feedback:

Example of negative feedback