Evaluation Question 4:How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

I used many different media technologies to construct, research, plan and during my evaluation stages. We used many familiar sites such as Slideshare, Wordle, Picnik, Google, Youtube, Unsigned and Photoshop.
Researching was one of the easiest parts of our construction as all we had to do was research for a band and find out things about them.

One of the sites that was used as part of our research was Unsigned.com, unsigned is a site where solo artists, bands etc can promote there music around the world, it is a short way of becoming a real artist. Unsigned was very useful for us because we were able to look at different types of genres and then pick a song which we thought would be appropriate for us to use. We then found our song Singer/Songwriter by The Silent Film Project. I used Msn hotmail to send an email to the band to ask if we could use there song as our A2 Music video. Msn was used for our video because we had to send an email to ask for permission to use the song. Youtube was another piece of technology used for our video, we used it to research on another bands that were similar to ours.  

Google was another site that helped us greatly, especially google images. We were able to find images that would help us with our Digipak and Magazine advert. 

After we found the song, we could start planning our video. There were a few new media technologies that helped us incredibly when doing this, we used Final cut express, HD cameras and still cameras. Final cut express allowed us to edit our lip-sync video and create something really good. We then used HD cameras to film our video, with them being HD we were able to get the best quality image. Still cameras were also used to take pictures of the filming process and of the band members. We also used the toggle clip overlays button to cut out bits by fading them away, this made the editing process look more creative. Final cut express was specifically used for our video because it is an editing program and we needed it to edit our Music video. Still cameras was another piece of technology that was used for our video, we used it to take photos of the band for our Digipak.  

For the construction we used many other technologies such as Imac's, Livetype, Final cut express, Photoshop and Picnik. The construction process includes editing, we used the new Final cut express software and Livetype to put together our Music video and create titles and names. The Imac computers were also important as they had all these softwares on it. Livetype was used to create the fancy titles of the band members names.  

During the construction we created our Digipak and Magazine advert, we used slightly different programs. These were Picnik.com and Photoshop, they are both image editing programs and were incredibly useful in the production of our Digipak and Advert. I used photoshop to create our magazine advert and add the images such as the image of the band at the background, the logos etc.

The media technologies that helped during the evaluation process were Slideshare, Survey monkey and Wordle. Each of these helped me during my evaluation. I used Slideshare to create various presentations across my blog, i also used slidehare for my evaluation.Survey monkey has helped me construct questionnaires and then gather the results for my Music video. I used Survey Monkey for my own use to get audience research and feedbck for our Music video. Wordle has then given me another way of presenting information on my blog. I used Wordle personally to create an image of different words that were feedbacks from my Survey Monkey.   

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

After uploading our video onto youtube, we got many views but not any comments.

In order to get comments on how good the video was i decided to create a questionaire on survey monkey. I put the questionaire on my blog and i asked my class mates and teachers to complete the questionaire.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Once the questionaire was completed i gathered the results and analysed them, these are the results:

More people over the age of 30+ took my survey, i was slighly surprised at the results due to the type of music being energetic and more for the younger age. However this was very useful because we gained information from a different type of audience.

From the result above more females took my survey, this helped us because we gained suggestions and information from a female point of view. This also suggests that the male boy bands are being seen as erotic desires to females, as more more females watched our music video and took my survey. 

From the survey above responses were good, there were a few excellent and also a positive note was that we didn't get any poor. Overall people liked our video.  

The question above was very vital because it helped us in knowing if the lip synching was accurate and in time with the video. More people said that the lip synching was accurate through out the video.

More people said that the performace of the band was excellent, this meant that they thought we performed to the best of our ability and that we didn't make any mistakes.

From the results above the responses we got were positive, the locations were appropriate for our music video. The locations were fun and eye catching. People also thought the locations were sometines appropriate during the video.

 

From the results above people enjoyed the editing of the video as it was fast pace, they were also having fun while listening to the song. Some also said the video was energetic.

The thing that made this question look good was that most responses said that nothing needed to be improved. There were a few things that people said needed to be improved, some said there should of been more camera angles whilst others said the girls clothnig was not up to standard with the type of song.

Once i got my audience feedback i wanted to create a picture of all there comments, i did this so that i can compare all the feedbacks and see if the video was a success or not.

Evaluation Question 2:How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts (DVD digipak, Magazine advert)?

I feel the combination of our music video, DVD, Digipak and Magazine advert is very effective. In order to get people's thoughts of the combinations we did a focus group where we asked a variety of people what their views were.



I was the first person to be interviewed, i commented on how i enjoyed the consistency of London and the modern images that were used. I also thought the font we used for our Magazine advert was effective as we have used a similar type for our Digipak, this shows that we are keeping with the theme of our Video, DVD, Digipak and Advert.

We then asked a class mate of ours Sam to tells us about his thoughts. He revelaed that he knew they were all from the same product and he liked how they were all modern. Sam also liked how the images related back to London  and he especially liked how the products reached out to people of his age group (16-21).

Next we asked myles, he enjoyed how the products linked together and how we got the images of London which is where the video is based. He also commeted on how he liked the pictures of band being used for the Magazine advert.

We then asked Naima, she liked how the 3 products linked well together and was also impressed on the still images used for our Digipak and Magazine advert.

Next was Billy, he revaleed how he like all 3 products as a whole, he especially mentioned how we foucused on London and the band showing a consistency throughout the video. He was also pleased of how the song keeps you relaxed and entertained with the different summer like backgrounds.

We then got a slighly older response from Mr Reece a teaching assistant in the Meida department. Sir liked how we used the same footage and pictures whcih worked very well. He particularly enjoyed the little comedy bits and how they matched nicely with the video. He also commented on how he liked the advert as it had the image of the band and the right information at the front of it e.g. Band name, iTunes, HMV etc. He also liked how we used the images of London on our Digipak which are also in the Music video.

Evaluation question 2

View more presentations from Babatomiwa.

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

I feel that that my music video uses conventions of real media products and challenges them. As our genre is Indie and fast pace we had to make sure that we used transitions such as fast editing, different angled shots and different effects to make the video look interesting. The following images are examples of real music videos that have the same scenes and ideas as we do in our music video.

As you can see in the image above both artists are smiling while singing, this shows they are having fun and they are enjoying themselves. We wanted to have the same mood as them cheerful and just enjoying themselves. 

I decided to use the band Alphabet - "Fascination" as an exmaple of a real video, this is because in there video they have a man and woman singing together with only one microphone, this is similar to my music video with the main singer and a female. With my video you can see both artists smiling and enjoying themselves, we wanted to keep this mood of happiness and fun throughout the video. We also got some ideas of how the song Alphabeat was presented, we decided to have one microphone for our video and use a long shot for this scene. We felt with our lead singer being with a female and only having one microphone we would be challenging the forms and conventions of real media products such as the Alphabet.

Another real music video that i used as an example was "Flatline" by Aphasia, this is because they have a sequence where all members are together

In the image above the band is set out with 2 guitarists and a lead singer.

As you can see with the two images we have tried to look professional and keep a formation of 2 at the back and 1 at the front. I did some research and i found out that most indie bands where casual clothing such as jeans and a top or jumper as you can see we have emulated 'Aphasia' with the way they are dressed. With the image above the camera shot is from a low angle, this makes the members look superior however with my video we took a straight cut to make it look like all members are equal and that they are equal with the audience.

The two images above are very similar as they are both close up and have microphones in them. The 1st image is from the video Tusk "Lloyd Fleet" i used this band because during there music video there is a scence of the main singer in a close up with glasses and a microphone. This is similar to my music video because my lead singer is at the beginning singing with glasses and a microphone, it is also a close up image.

Our A2 Music Video - Singer/Song Writer

After many filming and editing i am glad to say that we have finished our Music Video.

Our finished Magazine Advert

This is our finished Magazine Advert. As you can see we have included logos such as HMV and iTunes. We have also added a short phrase and the the band name, one thing we haven't included is the star ratings. 

Process of producing Magazine Advert

During the design of our magazine advert we had a little brainstorm of what will be on our advert. These are;

• The band name
• The name of the album
• The release Date
• Where it will be available (HMV, ITunes)
• Rating Stars

This is the image we used for the background of our advert. 

We then created a text box for the whole page so that we could add the writing and images. We added the ITunes logo, HMV and the band name. To get all those images we had to create another layer as they can't go onto the same layer where the image is.

Our finished Digi-Pak

This is our finished Digi-Pak, as you can see we have six panels a front cover, back cover, inside cover etc. We have used that type of font to match with the way our magazine advert advert looks, we wanted to keep a consistency of this font going on.  

Images for Our Digi Pak

In lesson we all sat down as a group and decided what images should be put on our Digi Pak. Once we had decided what images we were going to use we all went on the computers and started to collect the image, we also took pictures of the band as those images will also be on the Digi Pak.

Digi Pak and Magazine Advert

As we have finished our music video, we have decided to focus on our Digi pak and Magazine advert. Each one of us has decided to do something that will help with the Digi pak and Magazine advert. Billy is working on the Magazine advert whilst I and Myles are working on the Digi Pak.

For our Digi Pak we are having 6 panels including front and back covers and the middle panels.

There are also others things that will be included in our Digi Pak; they are 

• Track List
• Disk Impression
• Membership Postcard
• Band informations
• Image of band
• Barcode

This is our barcode, i decided to use our candidate numbers for the barcode numbers.

Institutions and Genres

Producers of generic narratives depend on a certain amount of immediate communication with the audience. They want the narrative to be easily comprehensible. Genres that use key components that are easily recognisable are particularly important. Audiences know what to expect from a genre but at the same time want some variations to prevent dissatisfaction and even boredom. Any text in a genre is a combination between familiar and the unexpected. 

Key Components of Genre

• Stock Characters (Propp)
• Stock plots, situations, issues and themes (e.g. McGuffin) 
• Stock locations and backdrops
• Stock Props and signifiers
• Music and sounds
• Generic Convention

Commodification - Used and Consumed

Different genres appeal to certain target audiences, for example soap operas (TV, Eastenders, Coronation St) and Rom-Com (Sex and the City). 

Genres tend to become 'tired' over time, with audiences becoming less interested e.g. Western. Christian Metz identified four phases: 

1. The Initial Phase
2. The Classical Phase
3. The Declining Phase
4. The Parody Phase

An example of Metz's four phases is The Disaster movie genre;

• Initial - Airport
• Classical - The Towering Inferno
• Declining - Airport 80: The Concorde
• Parody - Airplane

Other clear examples are in the Horror and Western genres.

Soaps e.g. Eastenders because people like to be entertained to the edge of there seats, this is targeted at the working class. Genres are popular because without them there wouldn't be any movies. 

Genre

Genre means a kind or type for example a Horror, Romance, Comedy, Thriller, Action etc. Genres have characteristic features that are known to and recognised by audieces. This formula is reproduces again and again. For example in a Western we see similar characters (Clint Eastwood), situations and settings.

Audiences and Genres
Why do audiences find genres satisfying?

Audiences develop an understanding that certain expectations may be fulfilled and they may find pleasure in predicting what will happen next. Audiences recognise the key elements or conventions of a genre and respond accordingly, these key elements are called paradigms.

Two types of Paradigms have been identified:

1. Iconographic - Signs and symbols (e.g. the costume, props, settings in a Western). 
2. Structural: How structures in the text deal with issues such as ideology and gender (e.g. how gender is represented in a Rom-Com). 

Magazine Advert Analysis

Here i did another magazine advert of my choice. I analysed it and looked for the key things needed to make a magazine advert successful. These are the band name, where the album will be available etc.

Magazine Advert Analysis

Magazine advert analysis on Prezi

The Three Act Structure

In Hollywood films the narrative tends to be organised in what is called the "Three act structure". The writer Sid Field has identified what he calls 'the ideal paradigm', three act structure. In this structure, a film must be set up within the first twenty to thirty minutes before the main character or protagonist experiences a 'plot point' that give him or her a goal that must be achieved. Half of movie running time must be taken up with the characters struggle, to achieve his or her goal: this is the 'Confrontation' period.
Sid Field also refers, sometimes to the midpoint a more subtle turning point hat happens in Act II - the confrontation which often has an apparently devastating reversal of the main characters fortune.
The final quarter of the film( the third act) depicts a climatic struggle by the protagonist to finally achieve his or her goal and the aftermath of his struggle.

Vladimir Propp

Vladimir Propp identified 8 key character roles in these stories:

1. The Hero - Someone who saves the day. 
2. The Villain - The person who struggles against the hero.
3. The Donor - The provider
4. The Helper - The assistant to the hero.
5. The Father - The person who acts like a father to everyone and gives advice. 
6. The Dispatcher - The person who sends the hero off on his mission. 
7. The Princess - The hero usually marries the princess at the end of his journey. 
8. The False Hero - The person takes credit for the hero's actions or tries to marry the princess.

Propp argued that characters could fulfil more than one of these roles and that there can be more than one of each character type. 

Roland Barthes

Barthes described all texts as complex 'bundles' of meaning which can be unravelled to create a whole range of different meanings.
According to Barthes texts can be :

• Open - with numerous 'threads to pull' 
• Closed - with only one obvious thread to grasp

Texts that can be read in a number of ways are known as polysemic texts. These 'threads' that Barthes referred to are known as narrative codes. The most significant of these codes is the Enigma code. This is constructed to attract and hold the attention of the audience, normally by creating a mystery or puzzle that the audience want to see solved.

The Enigma code is usually introduced in the disruption phase of Todorov's model. Enigma codes are designed to attract audiences and hold their attention e.g. consider how they are used in Reality television  such as X Factor.

Narrative

This relates to the analysis section of the music video coursework blog. It is also relevant to Question 1(a) of the G325 critical perceptions in media examination.

What is Narrative?

• Story
• Plot
• Narrative is the way the story is organised.

Elements of Narrative?

• Time
• Closure - Wrapping up loose ends
• Enigma - Ends with a mystery and theres a problem.

Classical Hollywood Narratives:

• Linear
• Few, if any, sub-plots

Theories of Narrative

1. Tzvetan Todorov

• Equilibrium
• Disruption
• Resolution
• New Equilibrium

The Gaze

'The Gaze' of the camera is the male 'gaze', the male gaze is active whilst the female is passive. Within the narrative male characters direct their gaze towards femlae characters. The spectator is made to identify with the male gaze becaause the camera films from the optical, as well as libidinal point of view of the male character. Thus three levels of the cinematic gaze-camera, character and spectator that objectify the female character this is known as the triple gaze.

One example of this can be seen in James Bond: Dr No



In this clip, the woman is viewed by the male, the camera and then the audience but as an object of erotic desire. This occurs through the process of suture. 

Agency

• In the Classical Hollywood cinema the male protagonist has agency - he is active and powerful.
• He is the agent around whom the dramatic action unfolds.
• The female character is passive and powerless - she is the object of desire for protagonist and audience.

Erotic Desire

Laura Mulvey argues that women have two roles in a film:-

1. As an object of erotic desire for the characters.
2. As an object of erotic desire for the audience.

Feminist Film Theory and Audiences

Laura Mulvey is a British film theory feminist, she wrote an essay in 1975 called "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema". Her theory was that cinema reflects our society and thereofore cinema reflects a patriachal society. Her question was How does a patriachal society manifest itself in cinema. Her work considered three methods of interpretation:

• The Gaze
• Agency
• Erotic Desire

 

Audiences and Audience Theory

1. Suture
2. Feminist film theory and audiences

Suture

• Classical Hollywood narrative, editing, sound and Mise -En-Scene 'sutures' or positions the audience in certain ways making only one preferred reading possible, however unconscious the audience is of that position.

Editing

Today we found out that we had to do more editing to our video to make it slighly better. We had to change some clips around so that they match with the beat of the song.

Audience Decodes meaning/message

Stuart Hall

Stuart Hall identified three types of audience readings of the text. These are

1. Dominant
2. Negotiated
3. Oppositional

• Dominant

The audience decodes the message as the producer wants them to do and broadly agrees with it. An example of this is watching a political speech and agreeing with it. 

• Negotiated   

The audience accepts, rejects or refines elements of the text in light of previously held views. E.g. Neither agreeing or disagreeing with the political speech or being disinterested. 

• Oppositional

The dominant meaning is recognised but rejected for cultural, political or ideological reasons. E.g. Total rejection of the political speech and active opposition. 

Reception Theory

Since the Effects model and the Uses and Gratification's have their problems and limitations, a different approach to audiences was developed by the academic Stuart Hall at Birmingham University in the 1970s.

This consider how texts were encoded with meaning by producers and then decoded by audiences. 

The theory suggests that:

• When a producer constructs a text it is encoded with a meaning or message that the producer wishes to convey to the audience. 
• In some instances audiences will correctly decode the message or meaning and understand what the producer was trying to stay. 
• In some instances the audience will either reject or fail to correctly understand the message. 

More filming

Today we had to film the bits where a female was singing. This meant we had to find a female very quickly who wasn't shy and was available. However we were able to find a female and we got those scenes done. We also decided to take pictures of the filming process and the two main singers together.

The Uses and Gratification Model

• The uses and gratification model is the opposite of the effects model. 
• The audience is active
• The audience uses the text and is not used by it. 
• The audience uses the text for its ow gratification or pleasure.

Here, power lies with the audience not the producers. This theory emphasises what audiences do with media texts- how and why they use them. Far from being duped by the media, the audience is free to reject, use or play with media meaning as they see fit.

• Audiences therefore use media texts to gratify needs for:- 

1. Diversion 
2. Escapism
3. Information
4. Pleasure
5. Comparing relationships and lifestyles with one's own.
6. Sexual stimulation 

• The audience is in control and consumption of the media helps with issues such as:

1. Learning
2. Emotional satisfaction
3. Relaxation
4. Help with issues of personal identity
5. Help with issues of social identify
6. Help with issues of aggression and violence

Controversially the theory suggests the consumption of violent images can be helpful rather than harmful. The theory suggests that audiences act out their violent impulses through the consumption of media violence. The audiences inclination towards violence is therefore sublimated, and they are less likely to commit violent acts.    

Survey Monkey results

Below are some of the responses i got from my Survey Monkey to see what people wanted from our music video?
These are the questions i asked them and these were the results;

What's your favourite music video?

What's your favourite type of music?

What do you look for in a music video?