Evaluation

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

My target audience is people aged between 14 and 26. This is mainly because the artist himself is in this age bracket. Also I would say that the music video would appeal to both genders, as the male gender would admire him and just want to be like the artist and the female gender just like his good looks.

My aim has been to try and create a media product that follows the forms and conventions of a real media product, but at the same time appeal to my target audience. My chosen song is Lego House by Ed Sheeran. The genre of my music video is soul/acoustic. My music video is aimed to make people feel happy, chilled and relaxed, just like the music itself.

I want my music video to flow with the song, if this means that I have to slightly break the forms and conventions of a real media product I will. But I still want my audience to enjoy the music video.

I have also taken the opportunity to look at other music video by Ed Sheeran, I have chosen two that I really like, The A Team and Drunk, both these music videos are very well done, they seem to mainly follow the forms and conventions of a real media product. One thing I really like about both music videos is, they seem to have an amateur feel to them even though they look really good and appeal to their target audience. My main aim is to appeal to my target audience, the best way to do this will be to find out what they want and like to see in a music video.

This video is The A Team by Ed sheeran;

This video narrates the story of a girl who is addicted to drugs living on the streets in London. She tries selling magazines to earn money; the artist is the only one to buy a magazine from here. The girl was struggling so much that she decides to sell herself to get more money. She doesn’t seem to like it, but it provides her with money that she desperately needs. Later on it becomes too much and she decides that she want to end it all. The girl trades in the money for drugs, getting high, this bit is referenced by in the lyrics “and in the pipe she flies to the mother land.” This is intended to mean that she is using the drugs as a vehicle to enter her own world to escape reality. This video I very well crafted and I feel that it really tells the story well.    

Throughout the whole music video you can constantly see links between the lyric and the story told in the video.

The second music video is Drunk by Ed Sheeran; 

     

In this video it features a cat that takes Ed out to get him drunk to help distract him from his break-up. The video very much fits the feeling that you get from the song. I really like the way the artist is portrayed in the video and also how the video follow the lyrics.           

Many directors in the music industry choose not to follow the form and conventions of the genre of music there are doing, this is partly because directors are trying to make something a bit different and hope it turns into a hit.

I have been looking at other music videos of the same genre and have found common links between them. I have decided to use some of the ideas in my music video.  

       

How effective is the combination of your main product with ancillary texts?

I feel that the combination of my main product and ancillary texts are very good. Whist the process of creating my music video was going on I was coming up with idea for my ancillary texts that would fit the style of my music video. I ensured that I took time to find the right style/s that fit. After finishing my music video I found that a good I idea for my poster and digipak would be to take the main strand of my music video, this was the park scene. My aim was to take lots of different pictures of my artist in the park and use them for my ancillary tasks. This meant that I now had a strong link between my music video and my ancillary tasks.

For my poster I decided to use a font that looked a bit like handwriting, this was to make the customers feel like the artist himself had signed it, also it went well with the style. When I was taking the pictures my aim was for the artist to look chilled and relaxed to fit with the style.  

Have you learnt much from your audience feedback?

Throughout the whole process of making my main product and ancillary tasks I wanted feedback so that I could use the feedback to improve my pieces of work. To obtain my feedback for my music video I used YouTube, Facebook and twitter. By posting my video on these sites and asking people to comment I found that quite a lot of people responded. To gain feedback for my ancillary tasks I asked my teacher and classmates to give me there opinion on them. I also received some good comments.  

So through my own experience I have learnt that audience feedback can be very help in achieving a good piece of work. I have also learnt a great deal of thing through audience feedback, like, for my music video my teacher gave me the idea to use overlay somewhere in the video, so this is why I chose to put overlay in the basketball scene. Also for my poster some classmates suggested that I put in the same logos from my digipak as it would act as another link between the two.

Generally speaking the audience feedback I received was positive, like, this is an outstanding video, excellent camera angles. Good work, and this is brilliant, love it, especially when he’s on the stage.

In the audience feedback the thing that everyone seemed to love was the overlay part of the artist singing in the foreground and playing basketball in the background, one comment said “the overlay is best part as it looks very professional”.

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

In the construction and research stage of my coursework I used lots of different forms of technology to help me gather idea and thoughts. I mostly used the internet to obtain the information needed but I also look at TV channels, such as Viva to see what real music video where like.

The website I mainly used to gather ideas and thoughts was YouTube, as this had many different ideas to choose from. Through looking at the different music videos on this website I found common thing that seemed popular in them. It also gave me a clear understanding of the type of thing I needed to create for my genre of music to ensure a great target audience.

Throughout the planning stage I found that posting ideas on Facebook and Twitter became very useful as I received feedback to help me make decisions and as gain a wider audience.

For my filming section I used a Sony Handycam HDR-CX115 which worked very well and had many different features to use, like the spot focus. After getting all of my footage I uploaded to my computer. This was very easy to do as I had no problems with the format of the footage which meant that it was compatible with the software. To edit my video I used a piece of software called Adobe Photoshop Element 10, this software was very big so it took at lot to run it, this was the biggest problem I encountered as the program kept freezing and shutting down in the middle of doing work, but eventually I managed to get it working properly.

I used a Fujifilm camera to take pictures for my ancillary tasks, to edit the photos I used Adobe Photoshop. Like the video editing software this also caused problem for me as it also kept freezing up.    

The software I used gave me the ability to produce some good work, as I had many different editing tools at my disposal. The editing software meant I had the ability to add different effects and transitions to my music video to give it a more professional look.

The effects and transitions that I used in my music video work well as this is what my focus group and I felt.

My music video consisted of many different shot, Like, Low and high angle shots, close-ups, mid shots, long shots, hand held shots and many more shots. This was done to ensure that I used a full range of shots to give my music video a more professional look. The hand held shot idea was done on purpose to create a more important imagery. When I asked my focus group what they felt, they all said that you can see it was done deliberately because it was made apparent that the angle of the shot was impossible to do with a tripod. I was very pleased with the feedback as this was my intention.