Calum Leach

Evaluation notes

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

Codes and conventions

-We used a mixture of performance and narrative like you would see in a traditional music video of a variety of genres. We showed this by using fades when cutting to the narrative to show the contrast between the two. We also made the narrative black and white to show which parts were narrative, making it clear

- We also stuck to the idea that the rock / indie genre is considered perhaps quite ‘rebellious’ and ‘free spirited’ and we reflected this in our piece by having the narrative character drinking alcohol.

-We had a problem when we wanted to show the main character of the narrative considering suicide because we didn’t want to promote suicide or cross any boundaries. To avoid, the fades and the black and white effects used on the narrative section helped because it made t seem that he was in a dream state. This is a technique that was used in Evanescence’s song ‘Bring me to life’. (Start of narrative helped for this also, showing the character falling to sleep)

-Also we used lots of short cuts as the music picks up and gets more fast paced which is a technique used in a lot of rock / indie music videos because it attains the speed of the song, making it exciting and entertaining.

-We used close ups on the singers to establish them as leading members of the band which also is commonly used in rock / indie music videos. This helps promote the band as artists. Also this is what Hollywood undead’s fans would want to see because they would be interested in the band and would want to see their skill with instruments.

-We filmed the performance part in a garage which is quite a typical location for some indie genre videos.

- We demonstrate the artists skill by doing close ups of the instruments.

- The band members in the narrative keep the theme of wearing a white shirt to help with continuity and help to make it clear for the viewer.

-We challenged some codes and conventions aswell because ost bands perhaps have one lead singer, and the video makes that obvious by placing them at the front, representing the whole band. However in ours we had three singers that were equally represented in the video. However one singer perhaps was more emphasised during the chorus as it was focused on him alot more.

How effective is the combination of the main task and ancillary texts?
The ancillary is black and white which links to the narrative part of the music video. The Digipak shows the 4 members of the band. The digipak views the band as all equal (no lead singer, which challenges some codes and conventions) which is how the band is presented in the video. The usage of the silhouettes on the digipak was also effective because it made the band seem mysterious and viewers will want to find out more about them.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?
We got audience feedback on the 2 ideas of the magazine advert and the audience preferred the simpler design with the similar image on the album front cover because they felt it fitted better. Also we compared the idea of the silhouettes with the album name written down the band members against the idea of having the band members in each corner with the album name in the middle. The audience feedback was useful because it provided us with opinions that were fresh and unbiased.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Technologies used: Photoshop, Sony Vegas 8.0, Gimp 2.0Used them to edit photos and edit the videoUsed blogger to upload the courseworkUsed YouTube to upload the video then embed it into blogger. The camera that we used was a Sony Cmos HD video recorder
During the research stage, I collected data from the public (Questionnaire). I used Microsoft word to import the data into tables making the information clear, showing what it means.In the planning stage I used Lewis’s tablet with his PC to draw out designs for the storyboard, I then used Sony Vegas 8.0 to put all the storyboard images together in synch with the song, to construct the first animatronics video draft.

We used YouTube to upload the final piece so that we could then embed it into blogger so that it was easy to view.
The initial pictures that we took for the digipak (the pictures of the ‘gin’ and ‘pills) I edited in gimp2.0 because it was a useful program that allowed me to edit how the photo looked and also allowed me to add effects (such as black and white, some fading, cropping, and gamma adjustment)

Blogger was helpful because it allowed us to upload our work and access it wherever we were. It allowed us to view others profiles and open up the chance to get audience feedback which was very helpful. Using blogger, we could also use the ‘labelling’ technology on our posts, making it much easier to find bits of work in the side bar.
We used a laptop for editing because we found it useful that we could edit both at home and at school so that we get as much time as possible for the editing process. The laptop was also useful because it had high performance so that rendering times were cut down to a minimum.

Music videos that are similar:
Nickleback – Burn it to the ground (because during the performance part it has close ups of the instruments.
Avenged sevenfold – Seize the day
Slipknot psychosocial – performance
Avenged Sevenfold – Beast and the harlot- The mixture of performance and narrative
Effectiveness of main product + Ancillary task
Linkin Park - Crawling - Because of the close-ups of the singer