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

Music videos under the indie genre generally fall under three categories: performance based, narrative with elements of performance and narrative based. As our music is narrative with elements of performance based it could be said to conform and use the typical conventions associated with indie music.

The narrative to our video appears to be a boy-girl love story. This uses the conventions, ideas and themes within indie music as commonly the narrative is based on a love story with a problem and a happy resolution at the end. This shot introduces the audience to the couple having problems, so much so that the boy walks out. The facial expressions and the mise en scene show both characters’ emotions; the blue of the hoody begins to fade in, which develops upon the use of the emotion of sadness which is again typical of an indie style video.

In terms of Todorov’s five stages, in this video we develop on the stages as there is no stage one where a state of equilibrium is defined, but goes straight into the disruption to the equilibrium by an action or crisis. However the audience does not know what the action is, and so has no idea of the context of the situation apart from that they have had an argument. Throughout the video, the audience sees both characters recognising that there has been a disruption, and thinking about setting goals to resolve the problem, which is stage three. There is a medium shot of the boy lowering his hood and extracting his phone from his pocket, which then cuts to the girl holding her phone at an extreme close up, which then cuts again to an extreme close up of her phone which has just received a text saying ‘sorry’. This is stage four of the theory, where the character has attempted to repair the disruption. Finally, there is no stage five either as the audience does not see the reinstatement to the equilibrium.
In this shot, the character’s are around stage three of Todorov’s theory, where the character recognises that there has been a disruption, and linking to the narrative based on a love story, he is feeling regret and sadness for the argument. The hoody is still blue which conveys despair to the audience, and the background is faded out which also mirrors his emotions. The blurred cars in the background challenge the conventions of an indie music video as they are mostly simple and easy to understand without any kind of creative editing.

Performance shots use the conventions of an indie video of narrative with elements of performance. We have used mainly performance shots to sections of instrumental pieces and to the chorus’, which challenged the conventions of indie videos as such videos usually are only narrative based and often appear almost film-like. We put a spotlight on both of the performers as to show them in a better light and to emphasise their involvement in the video.

We decided to incorporate aspects of Goodwin’s theory by having a clear relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. During this part of the video the lyrics are ‘you’ve got something to hide’ and the character is put out of sight by the tree, giving the impression of ‘hiding’. This develops on music videos as it is easy for the audience to understand what is going on at the beginning of the narrative of the video. In Taylor Swift’s video ‘Fifteen’ the lyrics to this shot is ‘as you walk through the door’, a convention which we have used in our video.

Another common convention of real media products we used in our video was the use of extreme close ups of instruments in order to match the tempo and beat of the song. Even thought it is not an indie video, an example if this would be in the video ‘Somebody told me’ by the Killers, where at 0.16 there is a shot similar to the one we have used.

By making parts of the video black and white gives the impression of a memory which was what we were trying to put across. This develops on the conventions of music videos as many artists use it for different effects depending on the style of the song and video. As stated already, our music video uses black and white to incorporate a memory feel, whereas artists like Lady Gaga may use this convention to add individuality, interest and change to the video.

We challenged the convention of cutting the shots in relation to the music which does not occur in indie videos but generally of music videos, where the cutting of the video does not relate to the music. The shots cut in and out on the beat, but because the shots are short the audience has the chance to know what is happening. The performance shots remind the audience that she is still singing and involved in the video, and the narrative shots carry on the story and his loneliness.

Similarly to a digipak, magazine adverts either ‘sell’ the artist, or include images which relate to the album. This magazine article develops of the conventions which is illustrated in the Paolo Nutini magazine article below. Our article includes a picture from the video ‘back to the start’ and the digipak so that the audience can link all of them and can recognise who the artist is at once. We included quotes from different magazines and newspapers which gives the album and artist a good name and assures the audience of the excellent reputation which the album has. The colours relate to the digipak which the Paolo Nutini poster somewhat does, as his albums are laid back and has an image of him on the front. They are similar in the way both of them advertise ways to listen to this particular artist’s music.

The digipak either ‘sells’ the artist or has images relating to the music on the album. Our digipak does not sell the artist as there is no image of her anywhere on it, unlike album covers such as Taylor Swift and Paulo Nutini and so we have challenged the conventions of a digipak of this genre. The back panel consists of a medium long shot of the two character’s in the ‘back to the start’ video which tells the audience that the album is about love and break ups. This is evidenced by the front cover of a character standing on their own. Also on the back cover are the rest of the song names, the barcode, copyright details and the record label logo. The logo gives the audience the idea of the genre of the album, as they can research or already have an idea of the artists the record label already supports.
The front cover is simple, and the colours stand out and the blue relates to the hoody of the character in the ‘back to the start video’. The yellow is purely to stand out and catch the eye of the audience. The inside sleeves consist of a picturesque image and on the left is a quote from ‘back to the start’ which is the debut single.

Evaluation Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and the ancillary task?

This is the script for our question 2 where we talk about how the main product is related to the ancillary tasks.

R: Our target audience is both males and females in the 18-25 age gap, and from my questionnaire you can see that this age group enjoy a modern but different aspect to a music video and its accompanying products.

T: Our main product is fairly typical of a video associated with heartache, but with the effects and the camera angles, which was another need of the audience, we have achieved a unique feel to it. This is portrayed in my ancillary tasks, as the images show both loneliness and happiness without it being too overpowering and leaves the audience with some imagination to what goes on in the music video itself.

R: On the front of the CD cover, there is a shot which is similar to one in my music video where the boy is standing underneath a bridge on the right using a long shot. This again gives the reader an idea of what the song will be about as he is lonely which is apparent even though the audience cannot see his face. As we automatically read left to right, there is nothing to distract the audience on the left but it takes a longer amount of time for them to identify the character.

T: The colours of the font are blue and yellow; blue to relate to the main character and his mise-en-scene of his jumper; having the feeling of despair and loneliness, and yellow to show that there is a happy ending and also that it is eye-catching and gains the attention of the audience.

R: In our opinion, the font itself is slightly childish for the intended target audience, an opinion which has also been expressed from the audience since the completion of it. This is a part of the ancillary task which I think is not successful, however, the colours are a concept which is still connected to the music video itself.

T: Both the video and the ancillary tasks are not genre specific, and this is shown through the use of having the boy as the main character of a woman’s song. Both genders are evident within both the video and the products, but to draw in a male audience aswell as a female one, we put an image of the boy on the front cover instead of the artist.

R: This is also for reasons to do with completing all of my own work by taking pictures and taking screenshots of what I have completed to use in the ancillary task. The black and white aspect of the video shows the emotion of sadness and loss, with the colour pop of the blue to again show despair.

T: The institution is Island Records who use similar artists to Polly Paulusma including Colbie Caillat, Bombay Bicycle Club, Gabriella Cilmi and John Martyn as they all have the Indie genre associated to their music.

R: We believe that this artist and video will match Island Record’s needs, as they are a diverse record company who include such genres and artists such as the one I have used.

T: Overall, I believe that the combination of the ancillary task and my main product is sufficient in terms of being connected and containing the same theme throughout, especially on the poster aswell. However as I have mentioned, I do not believe the font is suitable for my target audience which is an unsuccessful element of the task.

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

We asked people in our target audience age range to watch our video and comment giving their own opinions. As shown in the YouTube video, we had positive responses and others included:

After watching the music video, it kind of lived up to my expectations. The mood was mellow like the song which suited it. The editing was fantastic in some places and the lip syncing worked really well.


I had previously seen the original video which Rachel and Tom made, and they have made a massive improvement. This video is much more entertaining and the band shots definitely give it a more interesting aspect, as the video before was slightly dull in the sense that it only told a story and didn't really go anywhere. The editing is really in time with the song and the lip syncing is perfect.

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

The main evidence of my research is my individual blog, where I have shown all of my research and planning to make my music video and the ancillary tasks the best they can possibly be. This is a new technology as all of our work is now being presented electronically and none of the work is completed on paper and sent to the exam board. This new technology is much easier for students as we can add information into old posts instead of starting again, and is more convenient for everyone as it can be accessed at any time of the day.

The use of YouTube was valuable as it meant that I could research different videos and gain ideas from existing videos which I could access quickly and easily and I could look for specific videos that I wanted.

The equipment that we used included a DV camera and an Apple Mac computer including Final Cut Express and Adobe Photoshop programmes already installed. These programmes allowed me to create effects such as transitions between shots and cutting clips using the ‘cut’ tool which permitted me to cut sections of my footage which I did not want to use or to move. I would not have been able to colour pop my character’s hoody if the colour corrector tool did not exist, which would have changed the whole theme and feel of my video, and the overlapping and fading effects would not have been used and would have had a serious effect on the outcome of my video.
Adobe Photoshop is a new technology which I have used as I have manipulated still images of elements of my work using this. I used this for the construction of my ancillary tasks to make sure that the images were suitable for my target audience.

Even though I did not use a HD camera which would have given the video a much higher quality effect, the grainy image quality adds to the feel of despair and hurt in the video, and so turned to my advantage. The DV camera still uses an SD card, which needed to be uploaded through isquint which wouldn’t have been able to happen if this programme again did not exist.

As a prosumer, I have added my own content onto Youtube, embedded the video onto my blog to create media 2.0 which makes me an active viewer to the site. The video was created to entertain, put on a shared site and streamed it back. I am now able to broadcast my work to a wider audience instead of a local one.

The questionnaire was created on surveymonkey which was distributed to members of my target audience through email. This enabled me to receive feedback from my target audience electronically which is an example of a new technology as it is more convenient and faster to receive the results of my questionnaire.

Final Magazine Advert

This is our final advert, which shows the same image that on the front of the digipak. This is to show the audience that the digipak and the poster are related and the artist will be clear in the audience's mind when they see the image.

Final digipak

This is the net of our digipak. The featured images are all taken from the locations in which we filmed our products and they also feature in the main film. The arch is an iconic part of the film as it depicts his loneliness and the colours really contrast against each other. The nature of the scene shows isolation and lonliness of the protagonist.

Magazine poster

This music advert from Taylor Swift uses some conventions which we will use when we design our poster. The main eye-catching image is that of the artist so that the audience can identify the music with the artist.

Conventions of a digipak

These are all conventions which are typical of a digipak. I will incorporate them as they are of standard use.

On the back:

Inside:

Front:

Digipak plan

This is a rough plan which I have drawn up for our digipak. I thought an image from the our video would be suitable for the front and the back of the pack as it would be different to typical digipaks like the ones I researched. As the colours are black and white and show happiness and sadness, it gives the audience an idea of what the album will prodominantly be about.

Digipak research

This front cover of Taylor Swift's digipak shows the artist on the front. This is an idea which we could incorporate into our digipak. All digipaks are different, some use pictures either relating or not to the music or artist, or some artists use pictures of themselves so that the audience can identify the singer and their songs. An example of this is all of Rhianna's albums, and the above image.

Ancillary Task - Digipak

Digipaks typically consist of a gatefold (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD attached to the inside. Since Digipaks were among the first alternatives to jewel cases to be used by major record companies, and because there is no other common name for Digipak-style packaging made by other companies, the term digipak or Digi-Pak is often used generically, even when the media holder is a hub or "Soft Spot" rather than a full plastic tray.

Final Video

This is the final edit of our video. With the improvements made, I am very proud of it especially as we have produced a good quality film in the shorter amount of time than everyone else.