Evaluation Text

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Evaluation 1 In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Cast Shela: interviewer/ presenter Harpreet: Guitarist (Dave) Manisha: Drummer (Jack) Palwasha: Lead singer (Tom) Script Shela: hello and welcome 99.9 fm! where I bring you the latest stars to discuss their new release. Today in the studio we have The Summer War (audience cheering)I have a crush! (Shela winks at the camera) anyway round of applause everyone here is The Summer war.. Shela: Hiyaa Tom, Dave and Jack and welcome i am so excited to have you here today. So tell us a little about your new release 'Discovery'? Manisha: Hey. yh i mean our music video is a narrative based video where these girls are really good friends and we show their relationship and how they have their ups and downs. It's a friendly video that most people can relate to. Shela: Oh that sounds interesting, okay in what way does your media product use forms and conventions of real media products? Harpreet: So one way we used the forms of a real media product is mise en scene. The LED lighting for the clubbing scene, the variety of camera angles and shots, props like the alcohol bottle and the pace of the editing. All these elements make it look like a genuine media product. Shela: mhmm Looking at your music video you do have a variety which is entertaining for the viewer. Palwasha: yh for example the pace of the editing matches the beat of the song, which is what we see in most music videos like Avril Laveen's videos 'Smile' where the drum editing fastens when the drum beat kicks in. and we have tried to match the lyrics to the narrative to make it clear. Like the dude Sven E Carlsson who says 'Lyrics and images interact creating meaning'. Manisha: And because our music is an alternative rock, the whole clubbing and dancing idea we have is usually in the rock genre a common convention. We have used this to bring a sense of excitement into our music video. theorist Micheal Shore mentions 'recycled styles' which means we are using the conventions that have been represented in other music videos.

Shela: What about the alternative rock genre itself? how does does this use conventions and forms? Harpreet: The Alternative Rock genre has descended from punk-rock. It's the idea that people can retreat from the norms of society and create their own subcultures where they rebel and be different. for our product we are showing teenage rebellion which links in with the genre. Shela: in what way does your media product challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Palwasha: Our whole purpose in this music video was to challenge conventions as we wanted to be original and do something different, which we as a group believe we have established. for example, the representation of women in the contemporary music is over sexualised. Female artists are now throwing themselves into it instead. for example, Rihanna's 'pour it up' music video is extremely provocative. Shela: Yh, i noticed that your music video has a bunch of blokes singing whilst female actors are playing. Manisha: we wanted to make it unexpected for viewers. We challenged the representation of women, like the whole perception on the 'male gaze theory' that Laura Mulvey concluded. Women are sexually objectified to attract a male audience. And this has been carried out for many years which makes society think it's acceptable. Hapreet: The music industry is male dominated and therefore they know what attracts a male audience (hypodermic needle theory) Whereas in our music video the cast is multicultural and we haven't represented women in any sexual way. Palwasha: We have tried to portray a positive image for women, by showing a friendship and fun relationship. We challenged the stereotype of Asian girls by showing that they are not restricted and conservative as the media portrays when they're actually free to do what they like, which we were inspired by female artist M.I.A (bad girls). Shela: Interesting, haven't thought about this. In what way does your media product develop forms and conventions of real media products? Harpreet: The whole editing process was a real challenge as we had to make sure the various shots looked like they were separate events in her mind, and that she is thinking about her past. therefore through editing we created this effect. Realistically, when you think about something it is not in order. This developed the form of real media products because we wanted to make the concept clear Manisha: we all enjoyed shooting this music video, because we were able to play around with conventions and try something new.

Palwasha: The different shots required a lot of shooting which was fun and we had a great laugh and time. Harpreet: I would love to do it again. Shela: Thank you for you time on 99.9 fm, and I hope your video is a real success. stay tuned for more interviews with special stars. -THE END_____________________________________________________________

Evaluation 2 How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? Palwasha: We wanted to create a clear link between the main product and ancillaries because it is easier for the audience to identify our products elsewhere but to also foreshadow whats to happen in the music video. We did this by matching the elements and style of the main product into our ancillaries. For example, the location is the background for the magazine ad. Harpreet: Similarly, The Script has a strong link between their music video and Digipak and we have recognized this from the same color and tone of beige between the video and digipak, it reflects a desert theme which is shown from the location on the digipak. And the performers that appear in the music video are also on the Digipak cover. The black costume, the hair & make-up and the black incorporated theme within the text and what looks like to be a worn photo. Overall, the Mise en scene was important in linking the main product and ancillaries. Manisha: We wanted to make a similar approach to the strong connection that the script had between the music video and digipak. In contrast, we wanted to include a sense of fun, color, party and an outdoor theme. This was strongly shown between our main product and ancillaries, which makes the combination effective because of the boldness. Palwasha: one of the ways in which we associated the main product and ancillaries was mainly through color and lighting. The street lighting reflects on the outdoor theme which links in with our music video whem the girls are having a nigh out. The script was not our only source of inspiration we had to look into other artists within a similar genre so we were able to gain a true understanding of the conventions and to also make it look a genuine piece for the audience to be familiar with. Harpreet: A piece which we were considerably influenced by was Christina Aguilera and her digipak 'Bionic'. Although, the genre differs the style of electro pop is comparable to alternative rock. The focus on her full face is

intriguing as its very direct towards the audience but also lays a mystery within the character on the cover and raises interest and questions for the audience. Manisha: similarly, we wanted to create this effect and made it more focused on the character to bring awareness to her and her existence on the digipak. Christina Aguilera has not been the only one to demonstrate this there has been may other artists too such as Rihanna 'loud'. But we had to make sure this linked with our main product. Palwasha: The actor that appears in the music video is also on the front cover of the album this interlinks greatly to make an effective duo between the main and digipak. However in our magazine advert we did not use the same actor rather we included the actual band and used mise en scene such as location and coloured lighting to make another sort of connection between the main and magazine ad. Harpreet: This vague but strong link is more effective for the audience as it stands out through mise en scene. The same simple font has been used between all the products to make it recognizable for the audience and so they are able to distinguish between them all. instead of a dramatic font we wanted it to be simple for a general understanding for the audience as the colors and images are more constructive. For example, the fonts we used at the start of the music video is the same fonts we used on the magazine advert as the main title. Manisha: The colors within the main product and ancillaries are bright and loud, Therefore, we chose a crisp white font to show the writing clearly so it doesn't blend in with the rest of the overcrowded colors, its effective because it stands out from a lot. Palwasha: Overall, there is an effective link between our main product and ancillaries because there is a clear connection for the audience to recognize but to also ensure we were able to keep to the conventions of a real media product. ______________________________________________________________ Evaluation 3 What have you learnt from your audience feedback? Feedback was crucial for us to know how to make the music video and ancillaries better; therefore we took in the feedback in different ways and responded to it by making changes that viewers suggested. Right from the beginning, here and there we posted the music video and ancillary edits as drafts on the blog, this shows how we reflected audience feedback in our work. Which shows how much we enhanced our media products because of what the audience recommended.

Harpreet took the responsibility to design questionnaires on Google Doc for the ancillaries and music video; to be honest this was not the greatest way of gaining feedback as not many people responded to it despite the fact we posted it on Facebook and sent it through email. Therefore we were unable to consume feedback to make any changes. However due to lack of responses from the surveys, we decided to take a directive approach towards the audience, by interviewing friends and family to give their opinions and ideas. Another direct approach we made was by creating a table of questions for people to give feedback on. For example, one of feed backers commented on how we could add a twist to make the music video a surprise. So we took this into mind, and did some additional shooting to make the fall out between the friends look like it was all a dream. Hence, we learnt that adding more shots made the narrative interesting like the audience suggested. Our class peers were a great help; they looked at our work thoroughly and gave us their opinions on how to improve. They believed that the our magazine advert did not link with or music video and told us what we could add and remove for a clearer link, and ways to make the intro for our music video shorter, so the music starts at soon as the character puts her headphones in. through peer assessment we were also told that the choice of images could be improved. This benefited us to see what images the audience preferred on the front cover of the Digipak. All this advice was reflected in the music video in some way. Therefore from our first draft to the final product audience feedback was considered in each stage. We learnt that people outside the process were able to identify our mistakes easily because we were so involved. Whereas for the elements that we didnt change was done purposely as we wanted to create an effect. For example the make-up on the boy band on the magazine ad was not changed because it links in with the notion of how its an all female production while the song is sung by guys, so the make-up implies that concept. We became more confident each time when we were drafting as the main and ancillaries got better. As the narrative was becoming much more clear, and we found out by asking the audience to view our final edit, as they stated the narrative was now clear. The audience feedback helped us make creative decisions through our production, and helped us make our video and ancillary look well. ______________________________________________________________ Evaluation 4 How did you use media technologies in the construction, research planning and evaluation stages?

Media technology was used in all stages of our coursework in many different ways. Firstly, Google Blogger was the main media technology we used. We created a shared group blog called Sound Shoot which allowed us to interact, gain and present our coursework together where we were able to update and blog all of our work such as research and planning, the music video, ancillaries and much more. The blogger allows us and others to notice the progression that we had made over the months. We arranged the blogger in six sections of research, planning, pre-production, production, feedback and evaluation. This helped us to show an organised and clean page with all of our work clearly labelled and made it clear for us to know if there was anything more to add. Overall, Google Blogger was a very useful and an easy tool to construct important parts of the portfolio. Another media technology we used to construct our portfolio was Final Cut Pro X. This was an editing software on the Apple Mac computer which we used to create various videos including the music video and evaluation podcast. The process of editing was crucial for us to create the music video the way we had envisioned as it required a lot of cuts, effects, fast and slow motion to make the narrative and the concept of a dream/flashback clear and understandable. It was difficult for us to get use to using Final cut pro as it was our first time. However, once we got the grip it made a great contribution to the construction of our coursework as it delivered a lot of tools and techniques for us to choose from to make videos how we wanted it. We also used final cut pro in the research and planning part to create discussion clips so we were able to present our work in a different form rather than just text base. Overall Final cut pro X helped us to successfully achieve the music video we had planned and allowed us to be creative in the way we presented our work. The camera we chose to use during our production was the Canon 600D to film the music video and numerous other clips for different sections of the coursework. Due to prior knowledge of the camera we were able to use it professionally for the filming and we were able to import the footage easily. This provided us with high standard footage, and allowed us to capture shots that matched the style and genre of the music. It allowed us to use the focus effectively, which was important, as we wanted some shots to be out of focus because of the purpose. Additionally, Photoshop was another media software that we used mainly for the ancillary products. For our research we tested Photoshop to discover its full features and effects, so we could familiarise ourselves with it before we started using Photoshop to create the Digipak and magazine advert The Internet was our source of information. We used this to research to into the conventions of real media products, by watching existing music videos on YouTube that matches the alternative rock genre we did this to gain ideas but also allowing us to develop and improvise our own version. Most of the

information and knowledge we gathered from the Internet were from sites like Google search for other alternative rock musicians and bands. To conclude, Media technologies were very useful in constructing our Advanced portfolio as it helped to organise our ideas before we tried to create realistic media products. !