Evaluation (1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? When creating our music video it was important to research into existing music videos from the dance genre. We looked into artists such as Calvin Harris and Example to gain inspiration for the project as we felt they were the most apt and appropriate for our chosen track. Our music video consists of many of the typical codes and conventions of dance music videos in order to fit the stereotype. We intended to use fast paced editing to compliment the beat and lip-syncing in time with the lyrics, which is used in most music videos. We followed these conventions to create a distinguishable and sophisticated product that would hopefully appeal to a large audience. We began by analysing the lyrics to decifer the meaning and found relevance to attraction and also drugs. We found that dance music and clubbing that appeals to youths linked to drug culture and therefore we attempted to make a trippy and disturbing video, much like the conventional videos from Clubland music. We used editing techniques to greatly distort the film we had taken, using jump cuts and various effects layered to create a new dimension to a simplistic piece of filming. We attempted to create the vision of being under the influence of drugs, relating to the ecstasy culture that is so prevalent in modern times. We found this was common in many current music videos and was also an effect used in films, therefore we attempted to mimic this and also challenge it. Looking into existing products such as this was useful in developing ideas to create an effective and appealing video. (2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? When creating our main product and ancillary texts we attempted to link them all by using images for our advertisements that were relevant to the music video itself and using similar type face, colouring and images in our album cover and adverts. For instance, the imagery seen on the album covers and advertisement tie in with the theme of the music video. The bright and blurred colouring of the images enforces the idea of drug use, creating the vision of hallucinations. The image of the man holding the boom box – a recurring prop – creates the impression that he is under the influence of drugs, holding it to cover his face as if he has something to hide – perhaps visual clues that he is high. The boom box was repeatedly used to symbolise the music within the video and the ancillary texts; we chose a dull, grey coloured one to create a grungy and urban image for the artist. We attempted to maintain this theme throughout, making them evidently connected to the audience, although tried to change the images themselves to create differentiation between them. For example the album cover shows the artist holding up the boom box and this could suggest to the audience that he is listening to it under the influence and the advertisement shows him looking slightly subdued, perhaps coming down from the effects of the drugs. I feet that collectively each of the products are successful in creating an effective brand, enhancing each other’s worth to relate to the theme and aim of the genre and style. (3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?
When researching into existing products and preparing to make our own we created questionnaires offering examples to the audience and questioning them and attempting to understand what they liked and why. We found this useful when creating our own product as we had a stimulus as to what makes a successful music video as well as ancillary texts. The intent was to create a product that fit in closely with the expectations of the genre with the most successful outcome we could have on our budget. We found dance music listeners responded well to bright colours in font and imagery therefore it would be beneficial to use this in our product, for instance we superimposed bright neon colours into our video when editing and used the rainbow coloured image in our ancillary texts. It was also suggested that we needed to add a narrative to the video in order to create a purpose; as a result of this we created a section where the two infected characters meet. This was successful because the audience become intrigued by the two characters and can potentially relate to physical attraction that may have drawn audience members to someone. We learned to be reflective and to respond positively to audience feedback so as to create a product that has a place in the current music industry. (4) How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages The primary technology used in this project was my online blog. This became a part of my online identity, placing all my research and stages of the project on it and I found this extremely useful. As it is my own personal blog, I felt it gave me confidence to make my own assertions and therefore a creation of my own originality. During the research process, I used various forms of online technologies such as YouTube and Google in order to research into existing products of the genre. YouTube was used to search for dance music videos such as Calvin Harris’ ‘Acceptable in the 80’s’, from which we gained most inspiration. In order to present findings on the blog, ISSUU and Prezi were often used as they convey information effectively and simplistically. As technology is so vastly used, this made it accessible to the audience easy to gain fast feedback when necessary. When distributing our product we used YouTube. We felt this was the best way to release our work as it has such a vast amount of users and it is also free. In an ideal world we would have created a much more sophisticated and inventive music video, starring on MTV and television. Being realistic and taking our budget into account, YouTube was realistically the only way to share; it will still hopefully gain recognition but on a much smaller scale.