1. Media Evaluation<br />Questions<br />1)In what ways does your media product, use, develop and challenge forms of conventions of real media products? <br />2)How effective is the main product and your ancillary task?<br />3)What have you learnt from your audience feed back?<br />4)How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, production and evaluation?<br />Answers<br />My media product is a music video, I continually watched and analysed many music videos to help me decide what my product will present. Many music videos I watched had a narrative, a story behind the song therefore I chose to present a strong narrative in my product. I did not choose to consume the artist in my product, which helps the audience define it is a narrative music video. This helps my audience understand what the song is about. I used no performance in my music video which challenges the majority of music videos as most consume at least minimal performance. However as my C.D cover did not present my band, and used a model, I wanted the same effect in my music video, which is that my band are unidentified. This is ironic as my song is about a magazine model who everybody knows therefore I have challenged the conventions of a real music video. In addition, I used a young male and a young female, this is conventional as there is always some strange love story behind a song and is mainly used with the opposite sex playing the roles. I used my female to be a model, a magazine model that have developed many problems that came along with her job, for instance alcoholic, drugs, like she is seeing somebody else in the mirror because she is not happy with her appearance. Many young teenagers have a problem in their appearance, maybe not drugs related, however according to statistics 70% of American and British young females are not happy with their appearance, therefore teenagers can relate to the music video and understand. However to add convention to my products it ends happily, which the audience mostly like to see. The couple work out their differences and the young female becomes more comfortable in her own skin. Most music videos end this way or similar with a conventional ‘happy ending.’ As my song is an Indie song, I thought about challenging real media products and giving the song a sad ending, however my target audience is for teenagers, and I did not want to present a young female die or have her love life or career ruined because of her problems, I wanted to present her to become happy and healthy and have her comfortable in how she looks naturally. This will give off a positive ending that may reflect on my audience to be happy with them as appearance is not everything. I challenged conventions of a music video in other ways as I did not use a sequential order in the making of my final construction. I felt I had to challenge conventions of a real media product to make my design more different. I collided the past and present throughout my music video, with the past being in black and white almost like flashbacks, and the present being in colour. TO make my video more effective I have used effects to show the mood my model is in, for example when she is supposedly ‘high’ I put the effect on to show a blurry image as it is her through her eyes. Another convention is that when the beat of the songs becomes more fast I repeated the images in a faster movement, therefore it collides with the beat of my music video, However to challenge convention, I followed the fast and repeated movement with a slow movement which although seems would not fit, gave off a stronger effect. At the end of my music video I featured a black and white image and used a ‘shaky shot’, this challenged conventions of a music video. Most of my shots were all directed and filmed steadily and professionally however the shaky shot was to show the past of them happily in day to day life as though they were recording themselves. <br />2) My main construction could be viewed as very effective as it features problems in which young adults can relate to. Many people, mainly women are not happy with their appearance; my video has a conventional happy ending which shows the female characters becoming happy with herself which would give off a positive effect to my audience. It brings the awareness of drugs and alcohol especially in young adolescents. My ancillary tasks are effective as it promotes the main production and allows the audience to have a view on what my main construction is offering. It helps me gain the experience from my ancillary task onto my main construction, as without producing my C.D cover I would not have had an idea on what I would do in my main construction. My C.D cover album is called A view from another eye, this shows my model looking into a mirror and seeing a different view from another eye, this relates to my main construction as my song is about a young girl who is not happy with her appearance and therefore sees herself in a different view in which everybody else sees her. Without producing a C.D cover and advertisement, in reality a music video will not be successful therefore my ancillary tasks helped me produce my main construction. At the beginning of my music video, I use my main mode, Charlotte looking through the mirror and then seeing another girl, this reflects back to my C.D cover as my model is looking through the mirror therefore without my ancillary tasks I would not have produced the same effect. My ancillary task is produced with a model promoting the band, instead of seeing their faces, this could give off a curious effect on my audience, on why the band are not promoting themselves. My digi pack produces many different images for example the first image is in a aluminous neon effect, with the model pretending to smash the guitar, I did this to show anger and to create a different effect. I t then shows a much simpler image of snow on the wall, with eyes appearing. This is a more naturalistic image, I have based my ancillary tasks on the ‘Eye’, as the album is called a view from another eye, I have based my images around a different view promoting the ‘eye’ to give off a stronger effect. <br />3) I have learnt many things from my audience feed back. I have learnt that I am a good director and I am confident with my own ideas for creating a music video. My audience liked the idea of how I was getting my message across of the awareness of drugs and alcohol and how many young teenagers have problems in the way they look however liked that I consumed a happy ending which shows teenagers that appearances aren’t everything and you can be happy with how you are naturally. My audience liked the idea of having both black and white and colour presented in my music video. They also liked the theme and narrative and how it related back to the lyrics of the song. They also enjoyed how the beat of the song was show in my music video by using special effects. I have learnt that this makes a music video much more successful as it is more enjoyable and exciting to watch which attracts the audience. If I was to consume another music video, I would look into a more of a conceptual music video and analyse all aspects of music videos, therefore I could consume many different types being narrative, performance and conceptual. A comment used from my audience feed back was that the couple seemed close and comfortable filming together which created a more professional video, I did not want to film two people who did not know each other, I wanted to create realism and comfort therefore I searched for two friends in which fit the part perfectly as they was close and comfortable with each other. <br />4) In my ancillary tasks I used a programme called photoshop which allowed me to produce successful C.D covers and an album in a professional way, it allowed me to take on simple ordinary image and make it into a unusual effective eye catcher. I used adobe elements to edit my music video and use continuity editing and jump shots which went with the beat of my music video. This was the most important technology of the production for my music video as it allowed me to use effects in which helped me create my ideal music video. I also used a video camera to explore and film the different shots I used in my music video. As I wanted to contrast two images together but only had one camera made it quite time consuming, as it meant I had to take many different shots and angles one by one and then put them all together and edit it so it flows well. I used the internet to research my textual analysis which helped me understand what I need to produce in my main construction. I also used ‘Youtube’ on the internet which I viewed different music videos to analyse which also helped me produce what I was going to consume in my main construction. I used a mobile phone and emails to contact my actors and partner to meet up and also seek approval to use the song by an unsigned band. On Adobe Premiere 8, the editing machine, I used different effects to put over the shots of my filming to show the emotion my model was feeling which helps the audience understand her feelings which again makes it successful. <br />Overall, I personally feel my music video was very successful, I attempted to create realism and use real life problems in which people may go through therefore my audience will connect to my video and it will be more popular. I used conventions of real music videos which help it seem more realistic and professional however I also went against conventions and challenged them which made my main construction more unique and unusual which will also make it successful. <br />