Evaluation

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

Our media product perpetuates conventions of real music videos, as it can be observed that we have edited the pace of the video, so it would match and go along with the rhythm of the song, in a way that makes the video complement the song. Consequently this makes the video fitting to the song, and much more attractive to the audience.  

Print screen of  changes made to the brightness and
contrast of the video.

Another aspect in which we have used conventions, is the fact that indie music videos are often random and colorful; we changed the brightness and the contrast of the video so it would look unrealistic, to intensify the colors so they would be vibrant and have that aspect of fantasy, after all our concept does play with the fantasies of beauty standards created by the media. 


As the video comes to an end, and our character rebels against these beauty standards, the colors go back to its original arrangement, this depicts the young woman going back to reality, and her urge to get out of - what the majority of modern society considers to be - the ideal lifestyle.

Glamorous depiction of the young model.

Turning point: The young model is fed up and breaks free from the media's manipulative ways.
It can be seen here the transition, from 'dreamlike state' which isn't really dreamy - vibrant colors,
 which  emphasizes that notion of fantasy - to reality.

Final depiction of the model who urges to go back to a ordinary reality.

Nevertheless, there are no such rules and precise conventions to follow in this particular genre of music, when comparing with other genres such as Pop, Rock and RnB. Therefore it can be argued that the convention for a indie music video is to simply be different than the conventional mainstream music video, to have no conventions at all; this was suitable as it allowed us to have more freedom in our project to film and edit, as we didn't have to worry so much about conventions.


Our project challenges conventions of music videos, as it is a truth that music videos in general do not convey important messages; the majority of them are used as a form of escapism, to entertain audiences and promote the artist's work. We challenged that convention to a certain extent, by including a serious message in our video - which is that women shouldn't be passive towards the media - through lively actions and playful, comic visuals, hence our media text still plays its role which is to entertain audiences and promote the artist's work, but it goes beyond its expectations as it carries a strong ideology behind, and in my personal opinion, this makes our music video unique and successful.


Usually - in indie music - the artist appears performing their songs in their music videos; however, we wanted to be different and challenge that convention, by creating a concept that reflects the band's beliefs, and consequently reflecting some of the band's identity. We put some thought into it and decided that this would be utterly effective as many bands have done this at least once, and the results were always successful. This option would bring enigma and it would evoke curiosity in the viewer, this would ultimately lead them to research the artist and make them want to watch their other music videos.

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts ?

I find the combination of our music video, with the digipack and magazine advert utterly effective, as the actress who plays the role of the model in our music video, also appears in both the digipack - front and back cover - and in the magazine advert; hence, there is a connection between our main product and our ancillary texts, which I personally believe is essential and fitting, as it enables the audience to relate one with the other. This method is used by many artists, that way the audience becomes aware that there is a link, that these products belong to the same artist - but more importantly - to the same album.


Another way in which the combination of the two is effective, is the fact that the themes found in our video are also found in the magazine advert, front and back cover of the digipack, these themes include eating disorders, beauty standards set by the media, celebrity's behavior, etc. 

Back cover of the digipack

It can be seen in this, that she has already been completely manipulated by the media, to the point of reaching degradation of herself. This particular picture, resembles the stereotypical polemic images of celebrities. It depicts the conventional negative behavior that celebrities usually have. It links perfectly with our video, as it is another repugnant depiction of the mass media. The main theme found in this back cover, is drugs, this allows another link with the video, as the scientist induces drugs on the model many times.

Scientist's checklist.

 

Front cover of the digipack.
The fact that she is tempted to eat
the plastic burger telephone, connotes
she is on a diet and is deprived from eating what she wants.

Like our music video, the front cover of the digipack is really striking. 
The message conveyed in our video is conspicuous, and even though the front cover emphasizes the concept, it is done in a rather subtle way, which contrasts with the manner in which we displayed the concept in the video. The connotations of eating disorders and beauty standards set by the mass media, are definitely there, but if one hasn't seen the video, there will be an element of mystery as the front cover only hints the themes explored in this album. This is highly desired, as the artist does not want the album art to give too much of the content away to the audience, otherwise it won't evoke the interest in them to purchase the product and listen to it. Therefore the album art has to evoke curiosity, it has to be delicate. 

By researching professional album magazine adverts, we found that the majority of them use the actual front cover of the band's album, in order to promote their work on their magazine. Therefore, we did the same, we only changed the dimensions and the contrast of the image, so it would resemble an actual magazine advert. We also decided it would be better to keep the front cover as the magazine advert, because that way the audience can relate one with the other. They see the advert on the magazine, and it not only promotes the product as it also makes it easier for them to actually find the product as they become aware of what the album art looks like.


The fact that these themes are found not only in the main product, but also in the and ancillary texts, makes the connection between these media texts even more poignant. Consequently, its promotion of the artist is stronger, as the ancillary texts emphasize the ideology already found in the music video.

3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback ?

From my audience feedback I have learnt that the artist's image is utterly important in the music industry, as young people find that their overall image is essential in order to evoke in them the desire to listen to the artist. I have also found out that music videos are more important than I originally thought, this is so because the majority of teenagers find them a crucial component in their everydaylives, as well as a necessary method for them to connect with their idol and to start listenning to new artists, as it is through music videos, that they can get a feel of what the artist's style is like.


Through the feedbacks gained, I have learnt that music videos are truly like commercials for songs, they are vital to an artist, as it helps them promote their song in a way that no other media text could do:
"I find music videos so important, that once I watch them, I never look at that song the same again, so if the video is really appealing to me, it makes me like the song more, and listen to it more often."


I also found out, that our concept is indeed evident in our video, and that it is a effective video, which conveys a important message through playful visuals, which makes the whole experience entertaining and different, as it was mentioned before, most music videos do not bring serious messages. Some people even compared our video to the notion of movies: "it brings a life lesson at the end, but it is very entertaining to watch as the visuals are attractive and humorous." 


We had problems when editing, as we could not change the green background, because we were unaware in the filming process, that we weren't supposed to move from the right spot. Therefore, we turned the video to black and white, but our audience was quite honest about this, they all agreed that the black and white effect did not work well with the vivacious visuals, so we got advices from our college staff, and later we changed the contrast and brightness of the video, which worked out better than the original version, as it gave the notion of dreamlike world, which fitted our concept entirely.

I have also learnt that Indie music is popular with both females and males, which goes against what I originally predicted. I reckoned at the start that males were the target audience of Indie music, but in fact, indie music can be compared to RnB as it attracts both genders equally.

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

Firstly, I have used Google throughout the whole process of research, planning and evaluation, this is due to its versatility. Every image, lyric, quote or information needed, I managed to find straightaway on Google without any problems or having to search elsewhere.

 Blogger was a really useful tool, it allowed me to post all my research online quickly; it also helped as it saved us from doing a lot of printing, it also prevented us from losing any paper work.  Apart from Google, Blogger was surely the easiest tool to use throughout this entire project. I used the Blogger as an online folder, every piece of research, planning, and even the process of the video production can be found in it.

Thirdly, I have used youtube as a source to find music videos that could give us inspiration and ideas to create our own music video.
Furthermore, I used this website in order to analyse music videos that were relevant to our chosen concept for our project, as a part of our research, and later embed the video on the blog along with the analysis.
I also used youtube to find videos that reflects on fandom, artist and video director research.

I used the software, Powerpoint, in order to create moodboards to depict the ideas, themes and the concept of our project. It is really easy to use as well as useful.

Later I used the website Slideshare in order to upload Powerpoint presentations unto the internet and ultimately embed them here.
I made a free account on this website, and found that it is a easy to use tool.

As it can be seen in the picture above, we have used a professional camera, a tripod, professional lights, and lastly, a green screen.

Unfortunately we had problems with changing the background of the green screen when editing our footage, hence we had to work with other techniques in order to embellish our music video in a way that would be relevant to its concept.

We were very fortunate to have mac computers in our college, which was utterly helpful, as they are indeed high technology that brings the ultimate softwares, it enabled us to get the best out of our project.

Final Cut Pro, a software which allowed us to easily edit our project, we learnt how to use the program quickly due to its versatility. I really enjoyed working in final cut pro since I had no experience in editing before, and I found that this particular program was easy to use, it wasn't complicated at all, so I quickly got a grip on how to use this software.

I also used a software called 'Microsoft Image Composer' which allowed me to put images together in a montage, to give a sense of what the music videos that I was analyzing, looked like.

We also used Adobe Photoshop Cs4 in oder to create our digipack covers and magazine advert.