James Bolton - Reflective Evaluation

Question One: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media productions?

I think that our video does use and represent conventions of real media products, not only in the style and content, but also in terms of the characters and people that are featured in the video. As you can see from the video for the single ‘Meantime’ by The Futureheads, they’re wearing dark clothing; typical of an indie band and that is something we aimed to replicate. The image of the band is very important as it, as well as the music, is a factor that often influences fans of the band and helps to sell them to the target audience. Something that we feel we have done well in terms of sticking to conventions is setting. In the ‘Never Miss A Beat’ video by Kaiser Chiefs, the setting where the performance takes place is a rundown working men’s club which looks very similar to the setting we have used (a pub skittle alley). This type of working class, unglamorous locations are typical of the indie genre. Performance is very important to an indie video as it is important to fans of the genre to see their bands playing instruments live, as it makes the band look authentic, which appeals to the target audience. We therefore felt it was crucial we had performance in our video, to accompany the narrative. In terms of the editing and camerawork, we used a variety of angles and shot distances and used continuity editing and quick and frequent cuts so the video flows. We had a rule of no performance shot lasting more than 2 seconds, as that is too long and doesn’t fit with the fast paced music or the typical conventions of music videos.

Above: Our video.

Above: 'Never Miss A Beat' by Kaiser Chiefs

Above: 'Meantime' by The Futureheads

Question Two: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Our video revolves around the theme of the main character leading a double life, which are lyrics from the song. In keeping with the dark narrative of theft and crime, we have incorporated the idea of a mug shot into all three of our media products. As you can see that is the main focus for the front of our digipack, but where a normal board would have the criminal's name, we decided to integrate the band name and song title on the front and as the track listing on the back. It is also featured on our website, with the band members having their own mug shots, holding up their name and instruments. This gives a personal touch, so the audience are aware of 'who is who', while still maintaining the intimidating look of a mug shot. Finally, in the video itself when the main character is arrested, he has a mug shot too, but this time, some of the lyrics from the song are on the board (this is one of our 9 key images). Conventions are maintained by using black and white as well as the same shot distances (mid-shot). In the video, we juxtapose the double life with split screen shots, in a similar way we have compared day and night time on the digipack (at work and mug shot).

Another way we have made all three of our products interlinked apart from the look (e.g. colours and tones) and the theme is the idea of a QR Code. I came up with the idea to add one to bottom left corner of the back panel of the digipack. It is a unique code that you scan using your smart-phone and it directs you to a website. This gives complete integration of the products across different mediums in one simple step.

Above: A flow chart to demonstrate how the QR Code gives us complete cross-media integration using all three of our products.

Above: The front, back and spine of the digipack.

Above: The inside left and inside right of the digipack.

Above: The website homepage

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We conducted our audience feedback during one of our lessons, and got members of our class to fill in sheets (click here for sheet scans), which would evaluate our use of narrative, performance, range of shots and whether it is suitable as a music video for our chosen band and genre.

We created a Wordle of the feedback sheets and the more often a word was used, the larger its size in the Wordle. As you can see, the words “good”, “suitable”, “professional” and “well” are frequently used, showing our work is both appropriate and completed to a high standard. The Wordle also includes “performance” and “narrative”, which is the structure and content of our video, as well as including “stop-motion [when the tie is removed]”, “sped-up [referring to the shot at the desk]” and “flashback [at the end of the video]”, which are the main talking points of our video in terms of effects. The feedback we received on these three things in particular was very positive.

Above: The Wordle created using the audience feedback sheets.

In terms of improvements, some highlighted that some of the instruments weren’t quite in time with the music in a couple of places. While we did our upmost to try and get instruments in time, sometimes this had to be compensated in order to get the lip-synching in time, something that we felt was much mire important. Another thing highlighted was the fact the break-in scene is not shot at night, as the lyrics suggest it should be. This is something we had planned to do but was not viable due to availability of actors and location. We did try to correct this in editing by attempting to darken the video, but we felt the look was very artificial and inauthentic.

We do agree with the feedback to a large extent. We too feel the stop-motion and sped up shots work well; the narrative is clear and in keeping with the song and the performance element is strong and professional.

For the full feedback sheets please Click Here

Andrew Jobe - Reflective Evalutation

1. Our music video fits the conventions of a stereotypical Indie/Alternative music video, which was something which we felt was very important. Even though we based a lot of our music video around narrative we included a large amount of performance because that is what Indie/Alternative bands are known for. Music video’s are used to publicise the band and showing a lot of the band playing will help the audience remember them. We ensured that there were close ups of all band members, and a lot of the singer singing as that’s used heavily in performance videos. We also included the whole band playing together to signify the “group” as a whole, like both of the other videos.  The camera movements and tracking shots of the band also add a different element to our music video, which bands use to keep the audience's interest. We followed the Indie genre by all wearing stereotypical Indie clothing, we all had clothes that went together and it made us seem together as a band. Both videos above, from ours and the Futureheads have similar "quirky" elements, and performance. There's is a lot less serious, but have quirky elements such as the stop motion section.

The Wombats video is a bit slower than ours, and has slower cuts, but our video is similar to theirs in the fact that it moves between performance and a narrative. Our cuts needed to be quicker because of the pace of our song, and to fit the conventions of a music video.

2.  We kept a clear house style throughout all of our media products and that was the idea of a “double life”. The background of the website with the mugshots all linked together with the digipack and parts of the music video. This is something which we’d planned to do to maintain a clear image and theme. We have the QR code on our CD cover which allows you to get a code which you can trade in for a free video on our website, this allows both the CD cover and the website to be interlinked. They all target the same kind of audience and all are suitable for the Indie market, they’re a bit quirky and different and the mugshot theme will flow throughout and it will be something that the audience will remember. The inside of our digipack and the video have images which feature in both, the picture of Alex in his normal life and then his alternative life are something which are noticeable in both media pieces. On the website we have links where you can buy either the song or the music video which allows fans to purchase online, and it links all of our media products together, and with social media, which is important in this current day and age. The CD cover and website can be seen below. We tried to keep a dark tone throughout all of our media texts.

For our blog post which has nine images that we thought we key parts of the music video, which show a clear house style throughout Click Here

3.We gathered audience feedback by showing our completed music video to the rest of our class. The main issues raised were that the “robbery scene” could have been filmed at night, this is something which we originally wanted to do but felt that it wouldn’t have been as clear to film. We then tried to change the light on iMovie but it just didn’t look right, so we felt that it’d be better to leave it how it was. Five people said that performance looked professional, but one person said it didn’t look professional. As none of the band could actually play, we pieced it together to make it look believable, and we felt we did so. Everyone said that the video held their attention throughout, and said that it looked like a proper music video. A few of the comments highlighted how they enjoyed the fast performance cuts. Most of the feedback was positive, but if we were to film again we might have filmed the final section, the “robbery scene” at night time, to make it feel more menacing. I agreed with a lot of the performance feedback, but some comments such as “try not to use group members in your video” didn’t seem like they were a problem.

A wordle of our feedback

For a link to our feedback sheets Click Here

Alex Beale - Reflective Evaluation

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our media product definitely does follow and also develop the forms and conventions of previous music videos from our chosen artist and the genre of music. Most music videos include some performance; certainly our artist has performance in all of their music videos. You would expect this in a music video which is why we felt that it was important that we follow this convention because without performance a music video is not recognisable as a music video. Our artist tends to have the performance in an unrecognisable location which is usually simple and quite dark, we chose to replicate this to match the genre of music as indie/rock music video tend to be set in simple locations which are working class. Another convention that we followed was the use of narrative. Most indie/rock videos include some narrative; however our artist doesn’t use narrative in all of their videos. As you can see from the two videos ive uploaded, we have stuck quite well to the main conventions yet also added some of our own original elements. We thought it was important to include narrative as it would make the video more interesting and more developed as it would be hard to keep an audience interested for three minutes of performance. Although our band tends to avoid narrative we think this could be because most of their songs don’t have an obvious story behind them. We thought the narrative we chose would be appropriate as it sticks to the indie/rock genre of being quite dark and also controversial.

The Futureheads - Beginning of the Twist

The Killers - Mr Brightside

Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main products and ancillary texts?

Throughout the media products we have kept a clear image and theme that is appropriate for our song, artist and genre. We decided to have our main theme as a double life, with a normal life and a life of crime. The themes have been followed throughout as we wanted to make sure the CD and Webpage were recognisable as being related to the music video. Our products are well interrelated as I think that you can see that they are connected as they all have similar photos, colours, themes and text. For example we have the image of the main characters mug shots for the CD cover, which is also shown in the music video. This image is replicated on the Webpage as we have pictures of the bands mug shots as the background image. The CD and webpage are also related through the use of a QR code which is on the CD, when this is scanned with a smart phone a link to our website appears.  All three products have a main purpose, which is to make money by selling CDs. They are all also designed to promote our artist and get them noticed by more people. The CDs and Webpages are all designed to promote the artist by appealing to the target audience. For the indie genre the CDs and Webpages are designed to appeal to teenagers. This is why the images are often of the band looking serious; the images are usually quite dark and serious, unlike what you’d expect from a pop artist.

For our blog post which includes nine images that we thought we very key to showing how our music video works and also how it is integrated with the other products Click Here





Digipack Front and Back Cover



Digipack Inside Covers





Webpage


Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We gathered audience feedback by showing our finished music video to the other students in our class. They then filled in the feedback sheet which included feedback on the performance, how professional it is, how suitable it is, the mood and feel, the shot suitabilty and variety, the actors suitability, the setting and light and the special effects used. The also picked out their favourite aspects and areas that they felt needed improvement. From this feedback we found that gernally people really enjoyed our music video as everyone felt that it held their attention and thought that it looked professional, everyone also ticked that they thought the video was suitable for the artist and song, it looks like a real music video and that we have a good variety of shots. The aspects that people generally thought we the strongest were the stop motion tie, the flashback and the overall narrative. The areas that people thought needed some improvement were firsty the performance which some said it let it down, specifically the foot tapping. However all the the groups ticked that they thought the performance was professional and suitable so this is only a minor area that could have been done better. There is a comment that states that we should of had the break in scence at night to match the song lyrics, we decided not to film this at night becuase we chose to have our character leave work earlier because he cant wait to get out so it would be odd if it was suddenly dark. We did try to darken some of the video so that there wasnt such a dramatic change from dark to light, Click Here to view this. We didnt use this in the end because we didnt think it improved the video. The final comment that was made was about our use of actors, they said that we should of maybe tried not to use all of us in the video. Although when we filmed the narrative we had two people filming and only me in it, except for one shot where all three of us are included. When filming the performance I was doing all the filming and Andrew and James were in the band, it may have been better to include maybe only one of us so that we could have two poepl filming as it would reduse the likely hood of mistakes. We do agree with some of the feedback such as maybe not including all of us in the video, however we dont feel that the performance let the film down. We were very pleased with how the performance has turned out and we don't think that we would change it. When making our film we didnt change the product to meet the audiences needs as we had planned for this in the planning stages so the only changes we really made were small changes that we thought of when making it that would improve the final video. We hadnt planned to include the flashback or the handheld shots of performance. Overall we think that this feedback is useful as the people we asked are roughly the target audience.

For our filled in group feedback sheets Click Here, and it will take you to another blog post which includes the sheets.

This is a wordle created from our feedback

This is a wordle that I have created by using wordle.net/create, this basically shows the key words that came up on our feedback sheets filled in by our class. From the wordle you can see that the words performance, narrative, professional, lip-syncing and genre came up on lots of occasions. In the feedback form most of the people thought that our performance and narrative were both strong, most people also thought that the overall feel of the music video was suitable for the band, song and genre that we chose.  

Key Images From The Music Video

These are nine key images that we have taken from the music video, we chose these images because they show the narrative behind the music video in full including the performance, sped up shots at the office, stop motion tie, police arrest, mug shot lyrics and then the double life at the very of the music video where we have two shots side by side which shows the two different lives. 

Group Feedback Questionnaire

Above are scans of the feedback sheets that were completed by members of our class when they watched and evaluated our music video. People rated our use of performance, whether the song and video held their attention, whether the narrative was strong and suitable as well as how it could be improved. The feedback we got was very positive and all of them said our performance was professional, the video held their attention, the video was suitable for the band/genre and there was a large variety of shots. We will analyse this feedback in more detail in our reflective evaluations.

Final Completed Music Video

This is our finished music video.

Darkened video

In the above video, we have attempted to darken some of the shots of the main character outside, in order to get it closer to night time, as this is when the lyrics suggest the break-in should happen. It was not possible for us to film at night due to arrangements with actors and locations.

Having tested these effects, we don't feel it works all that well, but was something we still wanted to explore. The shots have a slight blue tinge to them and they look very unauthentic and unnatural, so we will be keeping the original setting lighting.

Filming Complete

We completed our final filming shoot Saturday the 7th of January. That was the section where we recorded the break in and the police part of our footage, and the main idea behind our "double life" idea. This shoot went successfully and we've cut up all of our footage and we're just concentrating on piecing all of our film together in time for the deadline in a couple of weeks time. In the next few days we'll be uploading clips of our film which we've edited.

Scheduled Filming

We are going to be filming on the 7th December, this will be our third and final shoot and it will be to film the final section on our music video which is the break in scene and the arrest scene. As well as that we will be filming the small stop motion section of the film, this will be where the main character is talking his tie off.

As some of the filming tomorrow will be carried out outside it is important that we check the weather forecast as on our first shoot we filmed outside, not much time passes between when our character is at the office to when he is at the house. Therefore it will have more continuity throughout if the weather is similar for both parts. The forecast for Saturday is for dry, overcast weather. This is similar to our first shoot so we should be fine with the continuity of the film. Below is a link to the weather forecast for our location on Saturday.

Saturdays Weather Forecast