Adams Evaluation (work in progress)

In What Ways Does Our Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products

Our media product develops and challenges conventions in real media products by following the classic indie rock band performance in a post modern ironic way. Many music video for this style of music show a band performance with a narrative to keep the video interesting and watchable.

Our music video uses traditional ideas from some established artists, from a whole history of classic rock

groups such as the Beatles, the Kinks through to modern groups The Horrors. For example the Horrors in their music video for their song "Who Can Say" the video shows the band performing with addition of an abstract narrative. We are

following this convention but making our narrative much more engaging, understandable and a lot less abstract. We achieved this by making the plot for our narrative simple and uncomplicated.

When we were casting for the parts in the video, we chose the two main parts from within the group, Sophie played "Stephanie" and I played the other main character. As for extras, we needed two different groups of people to play the rest of the band and the main characters friends. We asked some of our friends and they accepted. We then assigned them instruments and told them exactly what was demanded of them in the video.

Props were gathered from several sources. We used our own cars and we borrowed some instruments from friends and the music department in our school. We also brought some chocolate and a blank DVD to use in the scene when the lead singer gives the girl some gifts.

We are using techniques similar the music video "All The Small Things" by the band Blink-182. The techniques we have used from this video are the close ups on the band members and the 360 degree panning shots, I believe that th

is will make our music video aesthetically engaging, meaning that the video looks cleverly made, well put together and smooth flowing.

We adopt the theory of Sigmund Frued and his ideas about voyeurism. We use it throughout the narrative and partly in the performance as most of the band do not acknowledge the camera.

We are using the lighting from head lights of cars to provide back and fill lighting.The lighting of the band thus forms part of the scene. Also for the viewer with knowledge of cars they will notice that we have used a Mini Cooper and this is intertextuality because Mini Coopers have a stylish iconic image. The head lights provide excellent lighting and keep the band well lit. The headlights also work as mise en scene and assist with our choice of an urban setting. These additions relate to the theory of John Stewart. His theory is that a music video will have the aesthetics of a television commercial, with lots of lighting and close ups being used to focus on the stars face. The use of lighting and close ups on band members because of the point of focus is emphasized on the band members faces this makes the band members recognizable.

The theory by Steve Archer that there is a need for a strong and coherent relationship between narrative and performance in music promotions. We regularly alternate between narrative and performance in time with the lyrics, especially when we use the alternating shots for the lyrics "the lights, her face, the beat, the bass, my hear will race, faster in pace". We used the literal meanings for these lyrics, this also refers to Andrew Goodwin's theory that the visuals amplify the lyrics due to its literality.

In the narrative section we switched the video to black and white to show a clearer defenition between narrative and band performance. This technique works well as it made the video more interesting and easier.

The bands image is that of the typical indie rock band, we decided to follow these conventions because we wanted our video to be easy to watch and understand. The lead singer is wearing a leather jacket which creates a punk, bad boy attitude due to its connotations, the

singer is also wearing skinny jeans which connotates style and a fashionable image. The female character is wearing a smart coat and she has a sophisticated image, this gives the narrative more depth because the girl looks like a good girl and the narrative then references class. I can justify this statement as the main male looks poor and like a trouble maker and the main female looks as if she is from a higher class than him. The rest of the band wear casual shirts and jeans which connotates casual and demonstrates a stereotypical inide band image, an example of this would be the Arctic Monkeys, who wear similar clothing.

Our band fits into the indie rock subculture, The Hurricanes style of music would work well in the indie music magazine NME because we have aimed to fit our band into this subculture by methodically deciding their style of clothing and their general sound and band image. The band has a guitarist, a bassist, a drummer and a vocalist, this is a well known set up for a band of this style. The video sets the band in a classic configuration with guitarists to the left and right, a drummer at the back and a sing to the front. We organbised the band in this way so that it looked like a traditional indie video.

Our band relates to our target audience in that the bands appearance is similar to how our target audience dress. Followers of the indie rock subculture dress in a specific way and are at a similar age to the band. Our band aims to be relatable to the audience because the subject of our song about part of teenage life. Our narrative is about a boy liking a girl who is not interested in him, this is a common scenario which I feel the audience will be able to understand.

The main female characters presence in the video agrees with the theory by Laura Mulvey that the presence of women is often for the purposes of display. "Stephanie" is shown as an object of male desire because the male main character continually tries to impress her. "Stephanie" (as she is refered to in the song) is shown in a stereotypical way due to characters reluctance to be with our male character.

How Effective Is The Combination Of Our Main Product And Ancillary Texts

We have an effective combination between our main product and our ancillary texts for the reason that on our album cover we have the bands name written on the wall in a graffiti style, this agrees with our urban setting in the video because the album cover is the same wall that was used in the music video, this is intertextuality. This is also incorporated into our poster and on the T-shirt that the lead singer is wearing in the music video.

The T-shirt being in the music video is a way of referring to and advertising the band and their products. By doing this they are establishing their band image by displaying their own logo and products in their music video. However the CD cover also incorporates the name of the band. The T-shirt was included to encourage people to buy them and advertise our band as our image is trendy and stylish. As the lead singer is wearing the T-shirt this will boost the audiences desire to own a T-shirt. Males may want to be like the member of the band because he is cool. Females may want the T-shirt because they are attracted to the band member due to his appearance. The music video is free advertising because the T-shirt is being shown.

In the music video the main character gives the main female part the Hurricanes CD which is very post modern and obvious advertising, trying to get people to buy the CD. We have used the technique of displaying the bands name and image anywhere we can especially in our video, I have seen this technique used in the music video “Brimful of Asher” by the band Cornershop, they took this technique to the extreme.

The poster we have made does not match the conventions for this syle of band. Most bands of this style have an image of the band standing by a wall posing. We decided to be different by only using pictures of the instruments we used for the album cover and excluding the band. This gives the impression that our band are more focused on the music and serious about what they play. On the poster we have important information, for example, we have the record company and information concerning when the bands album comes out. The poster follows the theme of the CD cover by display in an image of a guitar instead of the band.

What Have I Learnt From Audience Feedback?

Our target audience is quite broad because it does not have a a niche appeal to just one type of person. Our rough estimate of the age of the majority of our audience was 16-30, this is due to the traditional themes and sound of the song and that it is a relatable video. When we collected our audience feedback the people we asked were aged 17 - 18, sixth form college students from Newport Free Grammar School.

From our audience feedback I can interpret that when questioned about the features of our video and how it relates to conventional Indie Rock music videos the sample answered differently depending on gender. The males we asked generally noticed setting and mise en scene and commented on the urban feel we put across in our video. The females we questioned were more aware of the band members and costume, this is because they regularly brought up costume and commented on how the outfits worn by the band matched the genre we had aimed for. We can extract data that says there is a difference between the genders and how they view music videos.

When we asked our audience to explain the narrative of our music video, all of them apart from one exception could understand and describe what we had shown them. We showed the one exception the video again and they understood it the second time. For this question there was little difference between the genders and both seemed to understand fully. We can conclude that our video is simple to understand and makes logical sense, this is very helpful because we had aimed for our video to be like this and we are pleased that we have succeeded.

For the question concerning genre and ideal music video channel we received useful answers, all of our audience understood that they were watching an indie rock music video and this agrees with our previous planning. When we asked what music channels our music video would make most sense on, our audience replied by saying:FME, Kerrang and MTV2. I am pleased with the answers received from this question because it means that our video follows the right conventions.

We received positive feedback when we inquired if the audience liked our music video and what they thought of it. The general opinion was that we had a good narrative and a professional looking band performance. The audience appreciated the black and white we used for the narrative sections, because it was used to highlight which section was being watched, narrative or performance.

We only received one complaint of fault, the fault being one incidence of failed lip syncing. Fortunately it was just a mistake and the fault can be explained due to the lead singer over acting. However, aside from the fault with lip syncing there were no other complaints and the rest of the test audience enjoyed our video and felt entertained.

When asked what emotion were felt when watching our video, the majority of the answers described their feelings as excitement. A connection with the lead character was established by members of the audience, our audience empathized with him and understood his character.

Overall, I have learnt from our audience feedback that our video has been well received, there are few faults with it and we have succeeded in making our indie rock music video conventional.

How Did You Use Media Technologies In Your Music Video
Technologies we used in the production of our music video consisted of many different types. When researching we used the website Myspace Music to find the band and ask them for permission for use of their song. Myspace Music was a big help because it aided us in finding the band and the song and the site let us contact the band and ask for permission. We watched their music video for the song on Youtube and gathered some audience research from the statistics section. The statistics section on Youtube was a good source of audience research as one of its features is to show a bar graph of the amount of views and their genders. Youtube was also used for reference to other music videos that we used techniques from.

A Compact Digital Camera was used for the album covers and the poster. This was useful because from the camera we can put it straight onto the computer and then edit it. We did this instead of creating the images graphically which would have been very difficult and too time consuming and the images we took fitted our ideas for what we wanted.

For the album digi-pack, I edited the photos that Sophie took on Adobe Photoshop to turn them into the album cover, inner section, the back of the cover and the poster. I used the variations tool to change the colour of the images to darken the middle cover because we overlayed the lyrics on top of these images to provide an extra for anyone who owns the CD. For the poster I used the lasso selection tool to cut around the guitar, I then inverted the selection and desaturated the background, this was very effective because it made the colours on the guitar stand out and made the yellow guitar strap seem brighter, this technique made the the poster interesting to look at than if the poster was entirely black and white. I added in text displaying the bands name and album name and release date. I used a font that was in the style of scruffy handwriting, this matches our bands image of been urban. You can see graffiti in the image which also adds an urban feel to the cover. I took the Compact Disk logo from google images and put it in the corner of the album cover to create realism and this makes the cover look more official and professional.

Originally we used the Mini DV Camera to film our band performance in the motorway tunnel performance, however the footage that we filmed was unsatisfactory due to lack of lighting and the low quality of the Mini DV Camera. We decided as a group to re-film the motorway tunnel performance with the High Definition Camera and with better lighting. The second attempt at filming with the better High Definition Camera was a success because the filming quality was greatly improved and there were fewer problems encountered with lighting. We originally attempted use of reflector boards to angle light onto the band members however, it failed to help us create what we had planned as the reflected light was far too messy and imprecise. We countered this problem by turning the lights on the cars on to full beam.

We used Apple Macs to do our editing and used the programme Final Cut Express. We used the black and white function for the narrative and we had to brighten a few of the band performance shots. Final Cut Express was relatively easy to use as we have had previous experience with the programme on past projects. We used it as it is as simple and still contain various different functions. A reason for using the Apple Macs is that they are more reliable than PCs and there is little chance of losing any completed work.

In this shot we followed the original storyboard exactly, i drew most of the storyboard and it was my idea to have the long shot of the band followed quickly by the close up of the singer, from the side.

This shot was the one that was inspired by the "all the small things", music video by blink 182, because of the 360 degree pan around the drummer.

This shot i am proud of because it flows smoothly and is perfectly in time with the music. The shot looks very professional and is a good closeup on our drummer.