Evaluation question four

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

The internet has been by far the most important technology that I have used, without it I would have been unable to post my progress in this format on my blog as an online portfolio, I would have not had access to any of the visual software that I used to present a lot of my work. I got a lot of my information and research from the internet which I would not otherwise have access to, throughout the entire process of research, production and evaluation, I would not have been able to get this far without access to the internet.

Blogger was used to present all of my work and the progress I have made throughout this project. Blogger allowed me to present my work to my peers to get feedback on my work and was a good place to base all of my work from, so that it was all in one place.

Final Cut Pro was the software I used to edit my music video, without this software I would not have been able to add the effects or to cut down shots where I did, it would have taken me a lot longer to try and film each shot to the perfect length and the music video would be of a much lower quality without it. I had little to no experience with Final Cut Pro when I begun this and now I have developed my skills whilst using this software.

I used an online software called Prezi for a number of my more important posts for my research so I was able to easily navigate around it to see my research findings when I needed to recap on things.

Evaluation question three

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

My audience feedback helped me from the start, it allowed me to be able to refine my product and make it fit with the audiences wants and expectations rather than my own.

The stages that I collected audience feedback are listed below:

• My potential ideas
• Draft shooting script feedback
• 1st cut (the real one that I could not upload)
• Final cut

I think that it was vital to get feedback on all of these stages as these were the main stages where changes could be made. I have never had any experience creating a music video before and feedback was my main source of information and helped to keep me on track to the level of quality I hoped my video would be. I needed to get as much feedback as I could in the early stages so that I could figure out which of my ideas were good and what ideas needed changing or removing. If I had gathered feedback later and found that I had a poor song choice with a less developed idea I would either have to start again or work with a product that wasn't as good as it could have been.

Each time I collected feedback I was able to focus myself more down a particular route of ideas, this helped me because in the beginning I had very little idea of what I was going to do and if I hadn't gathered audience feedback I would be using a song which the feedback told me not to use.

I chose to gain feedback from both my fellow media students as well as friends and family who had not taken media so I was able to receive feedback from people who could spot media language and those who saw it just as a music video, this was effective as I was able to gain two different types of feedback.

Overall my feedback has helped me to develop my ideas and to tailor my product for the audience rather than for myself.

I could have benefited more from my feedback if I had asked for more feedback at different points, going back I would have been more concise with my questioning rather than asking vague open answer questions.

My audience feedback has helped me to learn to focus on other peoples wants from a product rather than my own, I have learnt where I could have developed ideas more as my draft shooting script was very vague and rather empty of detail.

Evaluation question one

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

Before I can answer this question I first need to recap what the genre I chose to use and what were the conventions of the genre were.

I chose to use the rock genre for my product because I believed that I would be able to input my knowledge on the genre and that I would therefore be able to create a better product if I used this genre.

I found when researching the genre that one of the main conventions is that performance is focused on more than narrative, with some rock music videos not having a narrative at all and instead having a live performance) or footage of a live performance which is then edited). It is also a convention in the genre for the video to be dark and have low key lighting, this can be either with lighting during filming or by using effects in editing. Another convention also includes clothing, such as leather jackets and black or ripped clothing. These are very common and are the style of the genre.

The other conventions I found are listed below:

• Links between lyrics and visuals
• References to looking, the artist often looks at the audience as if they are talking to them directly
• Voyeurism of the female body
• Violence, anger and hate are common topics
• Love and relationships are also common topics
• Close ups of the artist singing or of members of the band playing instruments

After researching the rock genre I also looked into Andrew Goodwin's theory on music videos, his theory is that music videos are a genre themselves and have their own conventions which are separate from the other genres. The six main conventions of music videos according to Goodwin are:

• The video demonstrates the characteristics of the genre of music
• Links between lyrics and visuals
• There is, or there is links to, intertextual references
• Voyeuristic treatment of the female body
• References to looking
• Lots of close ups of the artist

These conventions are very similar to those of the rock genre, so it was relatively easy to incorporate conventions into my product for the audience to gain a greater level of communication from the video.

Conventions I chose to follow

I chose to follow the main convention of the rock genre and have most of my product consisting of the performance element rather than the narrative element. This was not only because it was the convention but also because the song I chose had large gaps between each verse and it would have been hard to make a coherent narrative that matches the lyrics when there is no lyrics for a large part of the song. I wanted my product to convey the story as well as it could and I chose to add in more performance elements so that it 'showed off' the guitar parts to the audience.

I also chose to use low key lighting in my product, I thought that it was appropriate as the song was about betrayal, robbery and murder. The use of low key lighting is to emphasise the negative emotions of the song, so that the audience will have a greater insight into the singers state of mind when he is telling the story. This type of light effect also fits in with the genre and would distinguish it from other genres such as glam rock or progressive rock.

Throughout the whole video the visuals followed the lyrics, as the lyrics were telling a story and I made the visuals follow this so that they could express the emotions and have a accurate interpretation of the story.

Another convention I used was the topics of the song. The main topics of the rock genre, violence, love and relationships are present in the song I chose. So I chose to emphasis them and make them as evident as I could to the audience when I shot the scenes for the video.

When it came to clothing for my actors, I used both clothes that fitted the conventions and clothes that went against it, this was to show the two opposing sides in the story. The main character had torn black jeans, a rock t-shirt, and a shirt that spent most of the time tied around his waist. Whilst the antagonist wears a tweed jacket and a neat red shirt.

Conventions I chose to challenge

I chose not to follow the convention of the artist looking at the audience because the audience is not involved in the story, and if the artist or actors looked into the camera at the actors it would break the effect of the story. I did this so that the story would have more of an effect on the audience.

Final Cut

What will I do for my ancillary product?

After analysing a number of artist's CD covers/magazine adverts, I have found that the Metal genre focuses on artwork and the Folk genre focuses on picture image and/or the artist.
With this information I have an idea to mix the two conventions, on my CD cover I plan to not have the artists but also not have artwork, whilst retaining conventions of both genres. I will have a picture from the last moment of the music video as the front cover of the CD, as it links to the song and keeps with the conventions of both the genres. 

Ancillary Product Research - Magazine Advert Analysis (Joe Bugg)

The artist is the main focus in the shot, a convention in the folk genre. The background shows a row of old terrace houses and a narrow empty road, 

In the top right corner is the artists name, it is a very simple design - common with folk musicians as they rarely have extravagant artwork and prefer simpler designs.
On the poster is the album cover, this shows what the album looks like so people can clearly recognise it.

Ancillary Product Research - Magazine Advert Analysis (Metallica)

The advert shows the set list of the album on either side of the main artwork, this means that if anyone had heard a song at a live performance then they would be able to see that it is on the album.
The advert uses the artwork of the album, which will make it easier for the audience to find the CD when it is released, as well as being visually striking.
The bands name is shown in green to contrast to the background of the advert, this makes it stand out and easy to see.
The advert is entirely artwork and has no picture image or band members on it, this is a convention of the genre to focus more on artwork than picture image.

Ancillary Product Research - CD Cover Analysis (Seth Lakeman)

The artist is the focus of the CD cover, this is a common theme with a lot of folk music to have the artist or band on the cover. Another convention of the genre is to have countryside landscapes in the background or sometimes to be the main focus, this is shown in the cover above. The artists name and the title of the CD are in a simple font and in the corner, this contrasts with other genres which often have bold titles that take up a large amount of space and have more focus on them.

Ancillary Product Research - CD Cover Analysis (Metallica)

The dark colours used are a convention of the heavy metal genre. This is supported by the focus on the crosses, which have a strong connotation of death: another convention of heavy metal genre.

The common theme of white between the crosses and the band name suggest that they have religious themes in their music, as well as themes of death. These are both conventions of heavy metal.

The background could either be a sunrise or sunset, a beginning or an end. This could have a link to the lyrics in the title song, and would be aimed at the target audience (the fans of the band) who would pick up on this detail.

Ancillary Product Research - Rule of Thirds

The Rule of Thirds is a rule which states that an off-centre point of interest is more pleasing to the eye than if it was in the middle of the field of view. This is done by placing two horizontal lines and two vertical lines across the frame, creating nine equal size boxes. The rule states that if a point of interest is on one of the lines then it is more pleasing to the eye than if it was elsewhere, for example:

In the picture above the statue of liberty is lined up over the right side vertical line and the horizon is lined up over the lower horizontal line.

Positioning of information on a poster advert or magazine page can be aided by the Rule of Thirds. The place where the lines cross is called hotspots. Hotspots are areas where the audience looks more than most other areas, so these are the areas to put the most important information or images.

A good example of a poster using the rule of thirds is shown below.

It has positioned the main focus (in this case the firing target) over all of the four hotspots, with the centre of the main focus being in the middle of all of the hotspots. The red line indicates the general path of view of the audience. This can be important when placing important information such as titles, names, or in the case of my ancillary products, the title song.

Ancillary Product Plan

Before I start to create my ancillary products I am going to research what real artists have done for their album covers and their magazine adverts to find conventions of the genre and to get a general idea of what I will be aiming for.

Because my chosen song is a heavy metal cover of a traditional folk song I will look at examples from each genre for each ancillary product. This will hopefully allow me to create a hybrid album cover and a magazine advert that have conventions of both genres. 

First cut

Because of issues with exporting my first cut I will post my final cut and mention areas that where not completed or that I changed in my first cut.

• The shot of the guitar right at the end of the video was added after because I was not able to use the footage I had already filmed and I had to fill in the 5 second gap.
• The first cut was 5:05 and there was large gaps between shots, to make a better video with the footage and time I had at my disposal I chose to cut the video down to 3:23 instead.
• The solo section was incomplete because the guitarist who I was filming could not learn it in time so I used footage of the main character hitting Molly.
• I changed the effect from black and white on top of cool steel, to just cold steel, because on the scene at the start where the main character is walking up the hill the scene behind him in the shot was bright white and it was not possible to see the hills or the houses.

Editing Update 1

Filming Update 2

Filming Update

Risk Assessment

Here is my risk assessment for the filming of my A2 media project, there are only four incidents that have a reasonable chance to occur when filming my music video.

In the first section the risk priority is medium, because being hit by a car can result in death. However, we have specifically chosen a quiet road and have chosen to film during school hours. The road we will use is the road into the school and we had clear view all of the way down both roads for at least fifty metres, this would allow ample time to move out of the way safely if a car approaches us.

Detailed Planning - Location

Detailed Planning - Actors, Costume and Props

Final Song Choice

My final choice for the song I will use will be Metallica's version of ''Whiskey In The Jar''. I have chosen this because Metallica's music video had no reference to the lyrics of the song (Metallica's video below):

Because of this I believe it will be easy to avoid copying or seeming similar to their video, as my music video will have a strong link between the lyrics and the visuals.

Draft Shooting Script Feedback

This is the feedback I received for my draft shooting script, I will improve my final shooting script by using as much of the suggestions in my feedback as possible.