1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products ?
My video media production follows the traditional codes and conventions in the following aspects; my music video is a narrative video, there are three types of music video which are narrative, abstract and performance. The narrative video (even though there's a little bit of performance as the girl is miming the words.) works well with the song as its about a girl that cannot get over her past relationship with her ex boyfriend even though he has moved on.
I made sure that the Name of the artist, Title of the song and Name of the album were in the left hand corner, and visible on the music video. I also happened to use a number of effects; such as 'cross fades' and 'luminance map' that are available via Final Cut Pro, which is a software that is used for a lot of today’s music video's within their editing section. The effects used are similar to the videos that are seen on music channels such as MTV.
The album cover also follows the codes and conventions by using a photograph of the artist which is featured in the video that I created. I also put the name of the artist bigger than the title of the album, which is necessary so the title is not mistaken for the artist name. However the name of the artist breaks the codes and conventions as it is on the left hand side of the album cover and it is vertically positioned, as this helps the audience to see the name of the artist a lot clearer. The back of the album cover includes the list of tracks that are included on the album, which also follows the conventions of a regular album cover. I have also included the parental guidance label as the album has a few songs with expose the listener to explicit language. The album's record label logo is at the back positioned above a copyright. Every existing album cover to date has the record label and copyright policy at the back of the album.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
My main production alongside the ancillary texts are very effective, as the poster is a build up to the main production, and the album covers are almost a conclusion to the video, as its the 'official' album. The poster however is a contrast to the video, as the poster is quite bright and the video is very dull and melanchol the album cover also follows the same theme as the production. However the poster was used as a promotion to help engage the auidence to the products, which was the album.
3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
During a media session our productions and ancillary texts were shown. The audience/class members that reviewed the print artefact's were given a slip which had the following questions on there; “How has the student used pre existing codes and conventions in making their particular artefact's?” “Has the student developed (added to) traditional codes and conventions of real media products or challenged (broke conventions) of established codes and conventions of their print products?” “What are the strengths of the students print artefact's (what have they done well)?” and lastly “What are the weaknesses of the print artefact's (what could they improve)?” These questions were answered and then they were given back to the owner of the ancillary texts which were critiqued. Feedback that I had received from my feedback sheets were to make the writing on my back cover of the album a different colour so it is easier to read, to use the same fonts and different colours. I was also advised to use the magic marker tool to show the ‘HMV’ logo better on my poster.
There was then a second feedback session which was for the productions in this session the audience analysed the video productions and gave me feedback on what they thought needed to be improved in order for me to gain a higher mark. There was also a feedback sheet for this session which included the following questions ‘How would you rate the success of the production in terms of following codes and conventions of a music video?’ ‘From the evidence you have seen on the blog, how well planned was the production?’ ‘What would you say the productions showed evidence of?’ ect.
My audience feedback was overall very positive. The points that were made on the sheets were taken into consideration and acted upon. The feedback included filling in the gaps that were in my music video, alongside adding more performance to the video. Once I amended these errors, I started to notice that those little tweaks actually made a very big difference to the projects and gave them a very positive outcome. From my audience feedback I learnt that no matter how great I think that my project may be, a second, third or fourth opinion can always make my work that little bit better. And earn a couple of extra marks that could be the difference from a C to a B.
4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
At first we had to create a blogging page on www.blogspot.com. We had to make sure that the blog was attractive and interesting to look at, by using patterned and designed backgrounds to make it look more appealing, and also by using a variety of colours and fonts. I analysed a number of music videos, a short film and a documentary and uploaded them onto my blog as proof to show that I had researched into existing products, and understood how and why they were created in the ways that they are. To support some of the analysis that I had made, I embedded the trailer to the Tyson documentary that I had analysed, I also embedded a few of the music videos from Youtube which I had also analysed. I also print screened shots of the video to capture the specific shot that I mentioned and positioned the images close to the section they were mentioned.
In constructing my production I used a Mini DV Camera and Mini DV tapes to film. Once filming was finished I had to upload the footage onto the computers via a Mini DV tape deck, which allowed me to add the footage for my production to Final Cut Pro and enabled me to ‘Log and Capture’ the exact clips that I wanted so I was able to construct them in a sufficient manner and allow me to construct a sequence which eventually ends up becoming a music video. Once our productions were expanded we were able to add Effects; like ‘Stop Motion Blur’ which blends frames in the clip. by adjusting the time, steps, opacity, and type of blend, Transitions; such as ‘Cross Dissolve’ and ‘Cross Fading’ which helps the clips to skip to one another without the sharp cut which takes your directly into another clip and Filters such as ‘Colour Correction’ which enables you to make the clip black and white or give the clip a sepia tint.
I had taken the images that were used for my Album case on my digital camera. I had to take the images of the camera’s SD card and upload them onto my memory stick in order to use Adobe Photoshop to manipulate the images. I used a variety of tools such as the ‘dodge tool’ and ‘sharpening edges’ and also ‘posterising edges’ to change the images and make them look more appealing and extra ordinary. I also used a graffiti font which I had discovered on www.1001fonts.com. Once I had finished my print artifacts, I then had to convert and saved the images as JPEG files in order for me to upload them into a new post on my blog.
For my evaluation I had typed up what I wanted to post onto my blog on Microsoft word, as I can read through the work easier and it’s also easier to make any corrections that need to be made. I then pasted the contents of Word into a new post on my blog. I incorporated a number of screen shots to illustrate some of the points that I have made in my evaluation, as it helps the reader to actually view what I am trying expressing through the images.
