Evaluation

- In what way does my media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
From analysing music video’s that have the same genre as ours and now comparing it to our final video I can see how we have developed a typical genre such as indie/rock itself. The music video that we produced is kind of divided into two sections having two different views of the actress/artist used. From research I have not seen this done. The way we have this is to go with the beat of the music. “Lorena” the actress in the video is seen to be troubled, distressed and hurt in the beginning, leading into the second verse of the song we see “Lorena” turn demonic, devilish, grudge like; completely changing her character from the beginning. The way we made this so effective is from the camera shots. We used loads of close up shots, showing full expression to the camera not leaving much to the imagination. In the second section of the song we used a tilted shot to show the actress to be inferior to the actor (Bradley). We tried to challenge the conventions as much as we could by using very low angled shots; we used these to emphasise parts of the song for example when in a part of the lyrics it says “You Throw Stones” we have a shot of her throwing the stones then a very low angle to give emphasis to the pain she is in in the song, showing the stones fall hard and rebound, this kind of represents her feelings. In comparison to a music video such as Black Parade by Green Day; they have mainly performance.

- How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
From my point of view I think that there is an obvious link to my main product and ancillary texts as I used a clear image showing full features of the actress from the video. Also on my ancillary text I used a black and white picture, the reason for this is that in the video the all the scenes are black and white; by me keeping this theme I think it allows the public to see a apparent link to the between the both. Since I have used the black and white I needed to make certain parts of the ancillary texts stand out which is why I have used a deep red and light grey to balance out the colours. Another reason I used red is so that it can show the side of her that we see in the video, the ruff, devilish type that she became. The combination of my main product and ancillary texts in my opinion work well together as there is a clear theme that has been used in both that connects them.

-What have you learned from your audience’s feedback?
Commencing to our audience feedback we has seen that they way we have constructed our video that it has given the effect as intended when we was planning. For our feedback we used a various amount of ways to get optimum reviews. First or all we used “YouTube” to get a wide range of view form everyone and anyone, some of the comments said “The video is awesome” by Jsuieurck;

this is a comment from someone from the world wide web and it shows us that he has actually sat there and watched our video and gave us a positive comment. I then forwarded the video from “YouTube” onto my “FaceBook” give it more recognition. Other ways in which we tried to get public views was to gather members from our school of which were different age ranges and sit them down in a room, show them the video and get them to write down there thoughts of the video. This was also a good way to do so as we could see full expression of the viewers. Some of the comments said “I thought it was very excellent, it was a bit scary but that’s what made it good, the song went well with the video. I did not think there was anything wrong with the video. I thought it was really good”. Another comment was “I think the video was good, it actually looked like a real music video, the storyline suited the song. It did not look sloppy at all. It was really good. It looks like you put a lot of effort into it and the results are brilliant.” These comments prove to me that I have achieved the result I wanted. Some comments were constructive as there criticism was that we used a lot of black and white shots and just use more diverse colours. the actual video represents alot of what i have displayed in my digi- pack and ancillary texts. the bold colours represent the roughness and harsh tone of the song. the construction; using the background i made was to show the dynamic look and not to distract you from the artist but to make the poster itself look advanced and stand out. in the background i used splatter, shapes, patterns all of which cannote the song and public image that the artis has.

-How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Throughout the stages of this coursework i have found it productive, it has made me more creative, comprehensible and enjoyable. For my research i used technologies such as the Internet Google Earth to search locations ans see what they looked like, directions and how quick it took to get there. In planning we used YouTube to research existing music videos to show me what techniques are used with conventions and different genres. When using the media technologies to assist me in making my work what is is i found it very easy to learn how to use packages such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illistartor and iMovie;these packages were the best possible to use as they let you do pretty much anything to make our video professional, look good and to have a high quality. Adobe Illistator is what i used to form my layout for my ancillary texts and Photoshop is where i edited images to perfect them to my needs. Blogging has helped to present our work online quick and easily, on this we could upload images, texts, videos and more so we can present our work to an optimum. When creating our music video we had the priveledge to use high quailty DV cameras which made our work look professional, with assitance of a typod. In the contsruction of the video i filmed a number of scenes of which we used in the draft of the video and in the actual video, i also used iMovie to edit most of the video alongside my other group member Lorena, where we deliberated and tried a numebr of different shots to make the video look at its best.

Audience Feedback - By Siham

For our audience feedback we used a number of online social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube. From this i have seen a that the majority of people find that our music video is "Professional looking" it also "has a clear storyline"and "works well with the song". some of our feedback was not all positive as some people said that "we could have used the beat of the music to our advantage and cut the clips so that it matches the beat" another viewer said that "it might of looked better with colour". These criticisms showed me to me aspects of the video that i did not see before. Another way in which we gained public feedback was to get members from our school and get them to watch it then write a review straight after. By doing this we could see there expressions and have there full attention; anotheradvantage to doing this is that we could monitor the age groups that were watching it and see how they percieved it. A watchers review was "i think it looks like a real music video. The way that the music and visuals were put together gave it a bit of a scary effect, this is not a negative thing though as this is what makes you want to keep on watching" sarah age 19. This review was exactly how i wanted our music video to be percieved and by having so many different reviews it showed me how diverse our video is as every age range that watched it found it to have good aspects. If i was to improve our video i would take the cristsms above and encorperate them in our video as i found them very constructive, by adding colour to it i think it would switch up the visuals alot but this might have a downside as you might get distracted from the song itself; but adding colour appropriatley to enhance the video would be on my list for improvement.

Analysis Of Existing Digi Pack

This Digi Pack shows the image itself is a long angle shot where we can see her hole body, the artist herself we can not see her face leaving the audience to be familiar of the artist without seeing the face. This is not a good idea; although the scenery is captivating, it may lead some buyers to not recognise the artist. The use of colours especially the dim colours that are used in the image allows the redness of the other parts of the Digi Pack to stand out.

The image on the front cover alomsot makes the artist distant from the buyer, the house style of colours make it plain and forgettable, the colour of the dress makes her seem innocent as white can represnt this, but the dull grey's of the water and the sky does works well with the picture but to me as a buyer it would not jump out to mr from a shelve of other digi packs.

The layout of this digi pack is so that it opens up like a CD cover.

On the back of the digi pack we have a list of songs that are in the CD this is common on digi packs, also a barcode, record lable and copryright features.

In the inside of the digi pack there is letter of thanks to people who made her Digi pack and producers and so forth. This digi pack has minmal features, very basic and clean cutt. Giveing the buyer to rely on the music alone, if they are a fan or not. This does not appeal to onlookers who will buy a digi pack randomly for the imagery, this is limiting there audience.

Final Version of Promotional Poster For Digi Pack

CD Cover - By Siham

My Final Version of Digi Pack - By Bradley and Siham

Background Theme - By Siham

This is the background theme that i used for my final design of my Digi pack and the promotional poster. I made this background using Adobe Photoshop and the brushes tool.

First Draft Of Digi Pack Cover Image - By Bradley

First Draft Of Music Promotions Poster - By Bradley

Edited Images - By Lorena

These images are edited to have different effects, so that i could choose the best one for my digi-pack.

Image chosen for the ancillary text - by Siham

These image's are the images that i have chosen from a load of differenet angled images. These image's is the original one taken. The reason why i chose these image's is because its appealing, it looks the buyer straight in the eye and is an alrounded good image's to use.
Image's taken by lorena montes

Final Version Of Music Video - Editied By Siham and Lorena Filmed By Siham and Bradley

Rough Cut Of Music Video - Edited By Siham and Lorena Filmed By Siham, Lorena and Bradley

Conventions Of Genre - By Bradley

The genre we have used is in between urban soul and rock. I say this because i feel that the song "heartbeat" begins slow and then midway of the song the bass of the beat then kicks in. Our song inflicts aspects of rock as it is remixed by chase and status. The genre rock is known for its heavy, over the top bass and instruments; in our video we hear this more towards midway of the song. Over the years Rock has changed it has gone from progressive rock to glam rock to soft, hard and heavy metal rock Our song lies between soft and progressive rock as it dose not have the profound bass of the instruments from the beginning. The urban side of the music comes from whats know as music that is radio fromat. The term was coined by the late New York DJ Frankie Crocker in the mid 1970s. Urban contemporary radio stations feature a play list made up entirely of hip/hop, rap, contemporary R&B, more urban-styled pop. Urban contemporary was developed through the characteristics of genres such as R&B and soul. Our artist Nneka herself is listed as a R&B, souland hip/hop singer.

Summary of Artist - By Siham

Nneka From Nigeria is a Hamburg resident, Singer/Songwriter Roots sensation Nneka is back following her highly acclaimed debut album 'Victim of Truth' which the Sunday Times in the United Kingdom described to be 'as good as The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill'. Even though Nneka sings more than raps, she names hip hop as her primary musical root and most important source of inspiration. Her lyrics reflect much of her history and life in Nigeria as well as her time spent in Western Europe. Her songs stress the issues of capitalism, poverty and war and are often loaded with moral and biblical messages and references. She admits she feels at home on stage performing whether to an army of fans at festivals or busking on the streets of London. Now armed with a growing reputation as a consummate live performer, she continues to tour and gig across Europe with the likes of fellow compatriot R&B group Styl-Plus, dancehall superstar Sean Paul, Seeed, Bilal and Gnarls Barkley at the same time working on the completion of her studies in Germany (Anthropology) whilst recording new songs.

Minutes from Meeting

no1. Feedback was: there weren't enough flashbacks to the parts with Bradley and Lorena. There isn't enough performance, there should be more close ups of the artists, more intertextual references such as 'The Grudge' when Lorena is stalking Bradley. Positive comments was that the story is clear and the editing is effective.

no2. We decided that we need to film more footage so Heather is going to book the camera today so that we can film this weekend. Filming will include locations like the theatre. Heather is going to book the theatre with Mr Hitchenson for Saturday from 10-2. Another location will be Bradley's house so we can get footage of Lorena going in through the window.

no3. Editing will take place on Monday and Lorena and Bradley will be in charge of this.

no4. Siham has selected images for the ancillary text and is going to post them to the blog. Bradley has designed the pages so Lorena just needs to edit the images for the 1st draft to be complete.

Group Meeting

AGENDA 3rd February 2010

no1. Get feedback from Mr Skinner and discuss outcomes
no2. Organise another shoot
no3. Organise editing
no4. Check progress on ancillary texts

Animatic Storyboard - by Siham

Summary Of Original Video - By Bradley

When watching the original video by Nneka i found it surprising as by listening to the song itself i imagined it to be different. The song is a song that talks about love and heartache, so i imagined to see in the video s broken romance of some sort. The was set in Africa and the majority of the scenes was Nneka performing in like a distraught area with random people walking around the streets like everyday life; some scenes included Nneka herself in her home or friends home laughing with a friend and doing her hair, other scenes was of children playing games like table tennis. These images that she hes left with the view don't actually make sense with the song. i didn't find this video to have many many conventions of the genre. The colours used in the video did not complement the tone and beat of the song as the colours that she used were dusty beige's, blacks, browns and khaki greens. her image itself plays a lot in the video as she does not really seem to have tried hard to make herself look good.
We already had an idea of what we wanted to be in our video just by listening to the song itself without watching this video. Our ideas are completely different and will hopefully challenge the conventions of the genre.

Lyric Annotation - By Bradley

Location 4 - Images taken by siham

These images are of the room that we will use in the music video.These images are taken by Danny. This is a good location for our music video as it full fills what we need to complete theses particular scenes and create a scence of reality.

Location 3 - By Siham

This location is the school theatre, situated in Bishop Challoner School E1 we used this for performance.

Synopsis - By Siham and Heather

This song is about the pain and heartache that a female goes through, in which this is shown in the video. At the beginning of our video we will see a female starting off the song singing in a park, showing her pain and reminiscing of the pain she was put through by her partner. in this we will have flashback images of them arguing. The following scene we have the boy at home trying to turn the TV on but i doesn't work until he hits it. after a while he goes off to sleep but keeps on having nightmares of his girlfriend who turns into having an obsession with him and generates an anger toward him which he see in his nightmare. throughout the video we see cut back clips of him tossing and turning constantly in his sleep; flashbacks of the couple together are seen in this stage. midway we see a complete different side to the artist (the girl) as she turns devilish and completely crazy to the point she follows him home and looks into his window while sleeping. Towards the end we see her crawling towards him up his bed whilst he is sleeping and then he wakes up to find her not there and it was all a nightmare.

By Siham Allali & Heather Jean Aromin

Location 2 - By Siham

This location is Albert Gardens Tower Hamlets, London E1, UK.

Locations - By Siham

This is one of the locations we used to shoot the music video.
This location is Arbour Square Tower Hamlets, London E1, UK.
we actually used this location for the first couple of scenes in our music video.



By Siham Allali