Evaluation.

1)In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the form and conventions of real media products? When researching music videos before creating my own, I noticed that there are certain patterns and rules which appear in all videos. All lip syncing is completely in time with the music, the video helps to create a certain image for the band and portrays something to the audience. The visuals also usually get across the meaning of the lyrics and have some kind of narrative which relate to the song. I believe that our music video has related to all of these things and we have portrayed the band in the right way. Andrew Goodwin was quoted to say ' a music video responds to the pleasure of music, making the music visual in a way that accentuates assisting associations. We analyse the relationship between moving image and the music in a video and comment on if it illustrates, amplifies or contradicts what’s happening on screen.' This is something I believe we have captured in our own video very well. The way the narrative works and is related to the lyrics works really well. We kept the tone of it quite dark because that is the way the music is, and we have managed to keep both performance and narrative separate. I think this works well as the narrative is an interpretation of what we believed them to be about. This means that it was nothing to do the band and we made up the story behind it. and it became clear when we did our audience feedback that the audience enjoys this link too. I think that the only thing they were negative about in this aspect was the acting. They believed it could've been to a higher standard, however like industry standard videos the lip sinking, band's performance and atmosphere to the video seemed to satisfy them. We also helped in the image of the band during editing. The music is quite dark and slow paced, and using effects and slow motion allowed us to create the video to the beat of the music, and to add in effects that amplify the music at certain points and make it more eye catching. This seemed to wow and impress the audience as they said they really liked the effects and thought it added to the video in the feedback questionnaire.





The video at the top is our final piece, and the one below is a music video I have chosen which I believe to have similar work in to my own. There is a lot of slow motion used in it which is something we have done in out own. The effects are also quite shakey and make the camera look hand held. This is also done in our own work as we wanted to use point of view shots as though the girl was running. 2)How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? Looking at the audience feedback, and the questionnaires we gave out at the beginning of the project to see what people wanted, i'd say our overall media was very effective. As far as the actual video is concerned, the audience wanted a mixture of both narrative and performance and that is what we gave them. However, when we got feedback on the actual video people had a few complaints about the narrative. They liked the way we had combined both narrative and performance. They did not like the way the camera angles we used and thought there could've been more variation in the narrative. They also believed that the acting wasn't very good which could've reduced the popularity of the video if it were to be shown to the actual target audience. The narrative seems to just follow the lyrics rarther than actually follow a story line, and I think this confused the audience in the feedback as they seemed to feel that it didn't make much sense. I think this is because they were following the video and not listening to the lyrics. We shold've focused more on the narratice than trying to go along with the lyrics. I believe that the audience feedback is fair about the acting. They wern't professional actors, however they were quite good for the rolls. I think the camera angles we used were very effective however, and made the peice look far more interesting. However maybe we should've used more of a veriety. Maybe some high and low angle shots. But we tried to incorperate shots which we believed fitted the mood and narrative of the video, and I thought we captured it quite well. The mood and image of the band is also taken over onto the promotional media we made, and the digipak we created as an album cover for the band. I have compared the products we have created to actual promotonal material. I looked at the audience feedback and the advice given in those, and then looked at the work on the other digipak and poster and saw where we had done excellent work and where we could've possibly improved.















I really like the poster. I love the way it all fits together and how you would be able to read it from far away. It really stands out and it gives me enough information about the album.




The poster works so well, and I love the way it matches the digipack. It goes with the whole theme of the band really well!



You really get a feel for the band and their image form the ancillary texts. They work really well with the video because it's set in the woods and the ancillary texts contain trees and woodland aswel as images of the band.



The video is paced so well to the music. It goes really well with thestyle of the band and their image. It's quite dark and the music fits into it really well. I love it!



I think the video could've been a bit shorter! There's too much band performance and not enough narrative.



The Narrative confused me a bit. I didn't understand some of it. But I thought the effects used were really well placed and impressive.






3)What have you learnt from your audience feedback? The audience feedback was very useful. When comparing it to the researxh questionnaire we did in the first place, there is a significant difference in what the audience asked for, and what they liked about the video and products we created. They asked for a narrative and we gave them that, however they said in the feedback they found it confusing because of the fact we related it to the lyrics more than the actual story line. We thought we had given them what they wanted, however they didn't seem to be satisfied. On the hole the audience seemed to like the video. They thought the effects were ecxellent and fulfilled just what they'd asked for in the questionnaire we asked in the first place. They thought that we had hit alot of the targets they had asked for in the innitial questionnaire, and that the ancillary media along with the video itself would sell really well to the target audience. I believe that the range of special effects we used helped us to appeal to a wider audience. I think that they really made the video, and they helped the transaction from frame to frame look much smoother. People seemed to especially like the part at the beginning whre the band members appead one by one. We were going for a drak and uneasy feeling to the video. The audience told us in the question 'How did the atmosphere of the video with the opening music make you feel?' that they felt unseay and anticipated to find out what was going to happen. This is the exact kind of thing we were going for as it would make people want to watch on. However, some felt that it dragged slightly, and that maybe we should've used a little less slow motion and put a bit more action into the song.

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

During the research stage, we compiled a questionnaire to give to people to see what they would like from a video and the ancillery media. All the date we found from this was put into charts using Microsoft Excel. We were able to put the data in and show it in a series of different graphs and charts.

We also used the internet to research different types of digipaks and posters for the ancillery media. The website Youtube was our main source of research because we were able to search different music videos whenever we needed them and wherever and anylise different parts to find out what we wanted in our own music video and work out the conventions.

We have used Blogger.com to record every step of our journey to making our music video. We have taken print screens along the way, photographs of our filming process and actually on the set, and we have put all of our research and results onto the site. Everything we have done has been recorded on our own personal blog.

We also used Myspace to research the band we chose to use (Moscow Square) and we took the track, with their permission, from the Myspace. It is a social networking site, where the band have their own page and are able to promote themselves for free on the internet. This is also how we came into contact with the band.

We used a Cannon XM2 camera and a tripod to do our filming. We used no cranes or tracks as the settings for our video were not suitable. Alot of the shots were also hand held and didn't go with the pace of the music that we wished to use. There were alot of point of view shots needed such as the girl running through the trees. The use of tracks wouldn't have been right for shots like this as it would've been too smooth and wouldn't have the same effect on the audience.

When editing the footage we had got, we used Premier Pro. This is a type of editing software. It is here where we were able to cut the scenes down and edit it all. This is also where we added our special effects such as the black and white and slow motion. It also helps us when capturing the footage in the first place which makes it much easier, and it's somewhere we can keep all the clips in one file.

When creating the Ancillary media, we used mainly Photoshop. We added our own primary images in from a photoshoot we did with the band, and we created the whole mood of the video. We used quite a dark colour scheme, and we made the digipak to match the poster. The poster has primary images of tree branches in the background. I was able to develop the way I use all of the software throughout the project. I think I have improved my skills on all the software, as I have used it before but not with the same skill as this time.

Overall I believe our project to be a majour success. I like the way it has turned out, and i'm very proud of the ancillary media we have produced. I think it goes very well with the video, and that the target audience would be very interested. The feedback we have been given is mainly positive, and I believe the area we could've improved in most was the quality of the acting and narrative of the video.