Bianca Rahmany

EVALUATION OF MEDIA PRODUCT

In this evaluation of my media product, I will look at how, by working in a group

we created a music video, CD cover and advert. Throughout I will be answering the

following questions:

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and

conventions of real media products?

To do this we had to look at real media conventions and analyse them, to find out

what different conventions and features can be seen in a UK Hip-hop music video,

before deciding on what things we would use for our own music video. It was

necessary for us to identify these things, so that our product would be as realistic as

possible and easy for the audience to relate to.

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

This question will look at the synergy of all our three final products.

INTRODUCTION

3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback is vital when creating media products, as it is them that its aimed for. By looking at what the audience wants it gives us an idea of what our target audiences want from our product, in regards of planning. Once the product was created, audience feedback gives us the idea to see

how successful it would be.

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

In this question I will reflect on the different technologies that I needed to use throughout the process of creating this media product, both in regards

to hardware and software.

In what ways does your media product use, develop

or challenge forms and conventions of real media

products?

(1)

Before we could begin to produce our media product, we needed to do a lot

of research into music artists from the same genre (UK hip hop), as well as their

videos. This was necessary so we could see what conventions are used in these

videos, and so we would be able to recognise them and used it in our own music

video. We needed to know about our target audience to do this and what market

we would be approaching, so they would recognize and relate to our product.

When we had an idea of what we wanted to do, we drew up story boards so

we had a clear plan of what we would to film and locations of shooting. We also

wrote up call sheets so our teams roles were clear.

MARKETING AIMS & BEGINNING STAGES

HOW WE USE CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS:

After watching varies music videos, for instance ones by Drake and Chipmunk, I noticed a pattern. Artists are usually seen standing in front of an impressive landscape or building. This then become one of the conventions we followed when creating our music video. We had our artists in front of monuments such as, the Big Ben, London Eye and House of Parliament. We chose to have imagery like this in our video, as it is something that is highly repeated in many hip-hop music videos, also, we were fortunate to have the luxury of filming in England's capital, London, that hold many impressive sites which we could have in our shots. Also this type of imagery matches our lyrics, as the song talks primarily about London, and politics around the city.

HOW WE USE CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS:

When doing research, a convention of hip-hop music video that I picked up on, was that they use different transition effects, that is smoother way of changing shots. One that we used in our music video, is a dissolve effect, we dissolved in and out of different imagery, this was done mainly when the artist is talking about a particular topic, and therefore the visual is a very relevant thing, and intensifies the meaning of the lyrics, to the audience.

We added these effects when we where comfortable using the editing software and had the song in sync to the video, after this we were able to play with the visuals to make the video more interesting. We decided to conform to this convention as it works well with our song.

I looked at UK hip-hop group N-Dubz’s video, Ouch, and throughout the video, they have used several dissolving scenes, as you can see the screen shot below.

In our music video, our artists wore simple branded clothing, that can be seen as an

urban style, and that most UK hip-hop artists wear in their music videos. We filmed

during December and all our filming was done outside, and so because of the climate, our artists just wore a puffy coat and jeans.

We conformed to this convention as many it was most practical, as well as one that many members of the audience would be able to relate to, which is a good selling point for

us, as the production team.

In this screen shot we can see UK hip-hop artist Professor Green wearing something similar that our artist, Smartz wore in our

video.

However, one way we did challenge this convention, is how we didn’t make the

clothing a huge part of the video, and we didn’t add extra shots of just expensive

clothing's, which is something that we can quite regularly see in hip-hop music videos.

HOW WE USE CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS:

Many hip hop music videos these days, put the title of the song and the artists name at the beginning of the video, in a styled way. This makes the video look prestige and also tells the viewer who and what they are about to listen to. We decided to follow this convention, however at the same time challenging it, by putting the name of the artist and the track in one shot, and by having it at the beginning of the music video as well as at the end of it, we also added the names of our production team.

HOW WE CHALLENGED CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS:

Now a days most hip-hop artists, whether from the UK or USA, always seem to feature a flash expensive car as part of the mise-en-scene, whether it relates to the song lyrics and story or not, producers today are always able to fit it in. I think this is because it’s what the target audience want to see, and gives them this idea of a glamorous lifestyle, that they could aim to be part of, as inevitably, an audience will

always look up to their favourite artists.

We challenged this convention, by not having any cars in our music video, as it wasn’t relevant to our lyrics at all, so

therefore we didn’t find it necessary to have that sort of imagery.

Another huge convention of hip-hop music videos, involves girls. Majority of hip-hop artists usually have a glamorous woman by their side, sometimes dancing in the video, and

other times they simply have them just by their side.

Once again we choose not to conform to this convention as it was unnecessary and had no relation to the lyrics of the

song, so therefore that sort of imagery would have been out of place, and could be distracting as well as confusing for

the audience.

HOW WE CHALLENGED CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS:

How effective is the combination of your main

product and ancillary texts?

(2)

For our ancillary text, we had to produce a digi-pak to go with our music video. This involved a CD front cover and back, and a CD booklet as well as an advert for the CD.

We had to do a photo-shoot to have images for the this, as we chose to not take the images on the same location of our filming.

We also had to research into other artists, CD’s that were from the same genre of hip-hop.

ANCILLARY TEXT

Drakes Take Care album covers

We took our photos for our CD covers and booklet on a separate time and location to where we shot our music video. This in my

opinion was a good choice, as when filming it was very dark and streets were busy, so by

having a separate photoshoot we were able to have more professional and brighter photos.

These images were still shot in an urban location, which fits in with the genre.

PHOTOSHOOT

FRONT COVER

Fonts for the writing was created using www.dafont.com i chose to use different fonts for the album title and the artists name, as have a more urban font for his name makes it seem like a logo, which gives the artist a higher title status.

Adding a parental advisory logo, as some lyrics are explicit, and for marketing purposes, it can bring in an audience who recognise the logo and realise what music the album may contain.

Clothing is typical of a hip-hop artist, and the pose of the image see the artist making eye contact with the camera and inevitable the audience

The photo focuses on the artist, and has the background blurry, the pose he strikes represents his CD and company. The blurry background makes him more prominent and important in the image.

BACK COVERI had the conventional song lyrics down the left hand side of the album

Image colour had been edited to be the same as the front cover, this creates synergy. The background is dark which makes the artist stand out. It is also an urban looking background that follows the genre.

I added the conventional barcode and ‘hip-hop village’ logo as it can be seen on all hip-hop albums

I added the artists name and title on the sides of the album edges as this were it would fold in, another convention of a CD.

CD BOOKLETI used a image were the artist strikes a similar pose to that of the image on the back cover, to have a link to them all, the colouring is also similar to the front and back cover.

I added a small biography on the artist in the booklet as well as a quote of the artist. This is a convention found on many hip-hop album booklets.

On the right page of the booklet I added the track list again, with the producers names under each song.

I added Smartz twitter page and company website for advertisement purposes.

ADVERTISEMENT

Adding the names of where the music in a banner gives clear indication for the audience

I used the same fonts as I did on the CD covers so the audience are able to link the two.

Putting a red background under the artist name and when the album is out makes it stand out and is what the audience would focus on

I chose to use this image, as the artist is striking a similar pose which adds synergy. The image is composed with him being central in the shot, and looking directly in the camera, giving him an authoritive look

I added a small image of the CD cover to have a link to the actual music and so the audience would be able to have that connection

What have you learnt from

your

audience feedback?

(3)

Audience feedback is very important as part of creating our media products, as we need

to know if our products would work and be sellable in a the market we are aiming it at.

Quickest and easiest way to aim this information was to create a survey and ask people

we know from our target audience to answer the question, so the responses are accurate.

We create a survey using www.surveymonkey.com, however it was not so successful

and we didn’t responses like that, so I simplified the questions and asked people face to

face.

To get the feedback I asked 6 people, in our target audience age range, to respond to a

selection of questions, after watching the music video, and looking at my CD cover and

booklet. Their opinion is what is most important. Feedback was mixed, which tells us that

there are some improvments we could have made, and things we could have spent more

time on as a group.

GAINING AUDIENCE FEEDBACK

We uploaded our final music video onto the

video sharing website, YouTube.

After uploading the video, clearly we

needed to promote it some how so we

could get the word around about it.

Myself and another member of the

production team, chose to use the

social network site, Twitter to promote, I tweeted a link to the video, and tagged our

artist in the actual post. He then

retweeted the post to all his fans and

followers, which meant a very much larger number of

people would have been able to hear about the video.

SOCIAL NETWORK & PROMOTING MUSIC VIDEO

Other members in my group choose to

promote on Facebook,

uploading the video there to gain

feedback. After several months of

the video being up, we have had nearly

600 views on it. This form of

promoting clearly proved successful.

We got a bit of feedback from comments that

viewers had left on the video on

YouTube. Although considering the

amount of views it got, I would have expected more.

YES NO0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

Chart Title

Series1

QUESTION (1)DO YOU LIKE THE VIDEO?

This chart shows that 4/6 of the people we asked said that they did like the video, and 2/6 said they did not. I asked what is was that some liked about the video, and they said the locations, as well as different effects in the clip.

I then asked those who said they did not enjoy the video, why that was, and they expressed that they felt it was too dark in some areas, as well as blurry at times.

Do you think the video is representative of

other Hip-Hop music videos?

YESNO

QUESTION (2)

This chart shows us

that a grand part of

the group felt that

the video was

representative of

other Hip-hop

music videos, which

is a very positive

response, as it

shows that are

video followed the

conventions that

were very much

like well known

videos.

I asked what it was that they felt made

the video representative of other hip-

hop videos, the response was that the

urban looking location, as well as the

dissolving effect in clips, were factors

that made the video like over hip-hop

ones.

QUESTION (3)WHAT MUSIC CHANNELS DO YOU THINK IT

WOULD BE SHOWN ON?

I asked the group, out of these music channels, how likely is it that our music video would be shown on them.

Audience felt it wouldn’t be that likely to see our video on this channel as although it broadcast RnB and Hip-hop, they are videos from more mainstream well known artists.

Audience said is was highly unlikely that our video would be shown on this channel as our artist is an unsigned act.

Audience said they felt the genre of the song was grime, and this music channel wouldn’t play the video as they don’t play music of this genre.

Audience stated that they could see our music video being played on this channel, as they play videos from some unsigned act, also they play music from all types of genres.

Did you feel imagery match the lyrics?

YESNO100%

QUESTION (4)

The response to this was extremely positive, all members of the audience said that the imagery and lyrics were very well match, one thing they all picked up on was the news clips at the beginning of the video, which went well with the begin of the track, which is a news report. This proved to be a very successful part of the video.

YES NO01234

Does the video make you want to

look into other pieces of the artists work?

QUESTION (5)

This response was pretty

disappointing, and in my opinion

extreme. When asking the reasoning

behind this, they explain that the song

itself would make them want to listen to

other songs by Smartz more than the

actual video. Others said that they don’t

know the artists, so they wouldn’t know

what other piece of work they would be

looking to find.

LIGHTING: Majority responding that lighting was too dark throughout the video, which made the video difficult to follow, although others stated that they liked this fact about the video, as it gives the video edge and keeps it looking authentic.

BLUR: Some of the audience said that in parts of the video, the film seemed a bit blurry, which makes it look a bit unprofessional, and that could be improved by using different more advanced technology.

LOCATION: Our audience felt we could have used more urban locations when filming, as it would have gone well with the lyrics.

QUESTION (6)WHAT IMPROVEMENTS COULD BE MADE ON

THE VIDEO?

Main improvments our audience pointed out that we could make in for our music video

Does the layout and design of the CD cover & book-let remind you of those by todays

artists?YESNO

QUESTION (7)

The response from the audience was mixed,

those that said the CD booklet was like those of

todays artist said it was because they felt the

layout seemed professional, and the same as CD’s

you would buy in shops.

Those that didn’t think the CD cover and

booklet was like those by other artists, stated it

was down to the design, being the photo editing as

well fonts and colours used, although the images

were taken with a professional camera, on a

planned photo-shoot.

How did you use new media technologies in

construction, research, planning and evaluation

stages?

(4)

During the beginning stages of creating this product, the first thing we had to do was research into different artists, to find one that we felt we would like to work with and that had a song we would like to create a video for. Luckily, someone in our group had a contact for our artists and after looking at his work on YouTube, we felt he would be a good artist to use. YouTube proved very necessary for our research. We used the site to look at videos by artists from the genre Hip-Hop to gain ideas on what we could do for our music video. Using internet sites, like Twitter also helped me gain an understanding of what the artist was like, in terms of genre, and style. Looking at his previous music videos also gave us an insight on his work, and gave us ideas on what we could do for our own video.

RESEARCH

New media technologies, such as the internet, social networks, and YouTube, were all things we

used for during our research stages of creating this product.

When planning our music video, we didn’t use much technology, most of the planning

was done by writing ideas out for the video. We did however use the internet to get ideas for

location, and gain knowledge on camera techniques for filming, as well as researching into

music video ideas via YouTube.

EVALUATION

To present the evaluation of me work, I choose to do it

on a Power Point presentation. To add to my evaluation I

used images and logos that I got from google.

PLANNING

When constructing our music video, we used a film camera, Canon XM2, to shoot the video, as well as using a tripod. This was the first time I had been involved in a filming anything in this way, and I believe as a group we did quite well, we didn’t have any problems filming, nor with the camera. Whilst filming, I used a Nikon D60 SLR camera, to take photographs of the scenes to use for our CD cover and advert.

Filming took place over two days, first day we just filmed shots in central London, around Westminster and Piccadilly Circus, this was done as in our video some of the sequence does not have the artist in it.

Second day of filming we had the artist present and film him rapping to the song, which he played on his iPhone at the same time, so as to sing in time of the actual track which helps when editing the film.

The trouble with filming in such busy areas was that we weren't able to get some shots we wanted, people would move away from us, as they thought they were getting in the way when we actually quite wanted them in the shot, to add realness to the film.

We filmed at night, which gave us problems with lighting, as we weren't able to take any lights with us.

CONSTRUCTION

When filming on site…

To edit the footage we filmed we used final cut pro, on a mac computer. This was the first time any of us had edited using this software, and did find it a challenging process. We encountered some problems with it, when saving the work, and did loose what we had done at times, and had to repeat the edit, which made editing longer than anticipated. To edit, we had to log and capture all our clips from filming, and also decide what shots to use and where to fit them in.

We made these decision by deciding where our visuals best match up with the lyrics of the song, so that the film made sense to the audience. Syncing the music with the film was the hardest part of the editing and took several hours, to get it just right.

Once we were comfortable with using the editing program we began to use fades, to fade in and out of different clips. We also sped up some of the footage in one particular clip, to show the busy streets of London.

In opening part of the song, we hear parts from news reports about the London riots, to keep relevance, we used news footage from the time of the riots and collaged them together for the opening of the music video.

CONSTRUCTION

When editing…

To create my CD booklet, I used the software, Photoshop. I have had a lot of previous experience with Photoshop, so I found this process quite simple. I manipulated the original photos colours to begin with, then added text, that I had got from a site called www.dafont.com , I used different types of fonts, and added them onto my work, after changing their size. I also used a parental advisory sign, that I saved from Google research, to add authenticity to the album, as rap music is generally known to have taboo words and subjects in them.

CONSTRUCTION

When creating CD booklet and Advert…