Evaluation-By Jasmine

By Jasmine
In what ways does your media product choose, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Throughout this project I have learnt many concepts of how to design and make a music video. My initial thoughts before I had started this project were quite vague as I wasn't quite sure how to start planning for my music video. However, as soon our group started analysing music videos and seeing beneath what each video was all about, I had became intrigued. I had found that most of the videos I had researched contained certain elements about the structure of each video. These all had at least one of the following:
*Performance Based
*Narrative Based
*Concept Based
Looking back at our blog, I had studied a music video named 'Disturbia' by a famous artist named Rihanna. I had found that she mainly used performance in her video, possibly to create the effect of crowds of 'zombies'. I had noticed that in her video she performed with a group of dancers during the chorus. I believe that this dance linked very similar to the dance in a music video named 'Thriller', an all time classic by 'the king of pop' named Micheal Jackson. I believe that this was quite interesting as up to date artists are following his style and are influenced by his style.
This had helped us to decide on a song which we could use for our music video. But before we were to do this we needed to decide on the type of genre of music to base our video on, as there are a wide range of music genres in the world. In the end we had chosen to base our genre on rock/folk music, as this had interested us the most. As we would need copyright for our chosen music, we had decided to use the creative commons website. Creative commons website allows users to upload or download any media, including pictures,music and videos for free. We had chosen to use this website than any other as we thought that it would be quick and efficient for our use of creating a music video. Here is a link to this website>>>>http://www.jamendo.com/en/
Through hours of choosing songs we had finally made a decision and had chosen a song by a band called Spitfire with the song, 'Do You'. We had found that this song had particularly caught our attention, as the genre of music linked towards our idea of folk and rock music. The second time we had listened to this song I had noticed that it sounded a lot like 'The Beatles', another all time famous band which had became a huge success in the 60's . As I am a fan of the 60's alongside with Emma and Kat, we had thought that this style of music was ideal.
Planning on what to do for the music video was very stimulating as it allowed us to explore the potential elements we could include. We had gone through several ideas which we would think that would work, but we had finally come to a decision based upon one of Emma's ideas. This idea was to create the effect and basics of the film, 'The Factory Girl'.

This film is based on a true story of the life of Edie Sedgewick who met a famous artist named Andy Warhol. This film is about a girl named Edie who tries to succeed in art and fashion before bumping into Warhol. When Warhol turns Edies life around to make her famous, her lifestyle and her emotions change through the chaoticness and the pressure that Warhol has put her through. Warhol then decides to move on from his past and forms a new 'it' girl who he also admires, but not as much as Edie did. In the end Edie sadly past away at a young age of 28 through the use of drugs and over extended amounts of alcohol in her system. She was thought to have commited suicide.
So, for our music video we had decided to base our video on a narrative structure. Casting for our video was quite simple as most of the people we had asked were willing to play the roles of our characters. With a slight slip up with our Edie girl we had first chosen, we had found a new Edie character which we thought would be ideal for the part. Sarah Ellis, a previous A level drama student was willing to use up her own time in order to act out the part. As you can see from the final achievement to creating this video, I believe that she has done a pretty impressive job.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I believe that the combination of the music video and digipak have worked well together. This is because we have included a selection of images to the digipak from our music video. This is so that we can create a DVD which contains elements from Warhols factory and some selections of the band scenes. I believe that the front cover for our DVD links well to the video as the musician and the rest of the band look as if they are performing for a gig. As I was in charge of creating the design for the back cover of the DVD, I chose to use tin foil as part of the background. This is because I strongly thought that this would link towards the theme of the factory. The banana idea I had chose to use also related to this idea of the factory, however, I also included a silhoette of a person sitting on the banana to make this look even more unique and individual. This person sitting on the bannana could either be Warhol or the musicians the song is based on these two characters the most during our video.
The text that we have used for the title of the DVD relates to the band name itself. This is because we have used a text which is an red/orange colour which may resemble fire, and as our band is called 'Spitfire', I believe that this is particularly ideal.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?
I believe that our feedback from our first questionnaire was quite effective in its own way. It had given us the idea of developing our ideas further as many people had chosen to select pop/rock as their favourite genre music. This had inspired us to chose the song by Spitfire, which I have previously talked about. The questionnaires also allowed us to see what people would like to see for if we were to design and create 60's music video. The results that we were given were asstonishing as many people knew what 60's videos would contain, such as:
*Bright colours
*60's fashion
*Hippie/flower power vibe
*Big/crazy hair
*Drugs
*Dancing
*Psychedelia
*And over the top dancing
This had enabled us to explore our imaginations to create an idea of what our video might actually look like in terms of a 60's styled video. When we finally produced this video, we decided to use most of these elements in the video as we thought that most of the audience would like to watch it.
We decided to create a draft for our video, as we believed that if we were to get feedback from the audience, we could make alterations and make it more professional. We had produced a questionnaire asking questions about how they thought the video went and what they thought could be improved. The results from the questionnaire had proven to be quite successful, as many people had said that the way that we had put the video together was very good. However, some people had thought that the video could be improved on certain elements such as, "the sound of the crowds jump a bit" or "Maybe focus on the narrative a bit more. Some guitar miming could be more convincing". We had took this consideration and we tried our best to make alterations to the final video, to change the crowd noise, we tried to make it fade out a bit so that it would not be as noticeable. As someone wanted the guitarist to be more involved with this video, we decided to use him winking at the audience to suggest a sexy style to the band where the majority of the girls are in love with some of the band members. This is to create more of an audience perspective on the gig itself to make it even more effective.

When we had finally created the final video I had decided to post it on facebook and youtube, so that I could get some more feedback on the final product. The comments that we had back were good as many people said that they liked the video. This feedback had overwhelmed us as our video had become a great success, and people were even asking for the song as they thought that it was rather catchy.
How did you use media technologies in the constructions and research,planning and evaluation stages?
We have used a wide range of media resources throughout this media project, and I believe that I have created a highy successful video. These media resources includes the use of 'Final cut express', camera equipment, lighting, 'Coral Shop Pro X' and the blog. Camera equipment was the most essential part of our video processing, this is because if we did not have any visual element then we would not have a music video. When we had filmed the band scenes we had thought that it would be quite simple and easy to accomplish. However, when we actually came to filming, it took us quite a while to figure out what sort of camera shots we should need for the band. So, we resolved the problem quickly by filming different sections of the room around where the band was playing, two of which were hand held to give an audience perspective. We had also used lighting around the setting of the room where the band were performing. This is so that the band could look more effective and give a more glamorous famous look. Near the very end of the video you can see the use of lighting has been used quite well. This scene is where the musician looks as if he has spotted Edie, but it ends up to be an Edie wannabe. The part where the wannabe has got the light shinig above her face indicates that the musician is feeling as if he is in a bit of a day dream. I believe that this has worked quite powerful as it works well with the storyline and the song itself. One of the most essential media resource we have used in order to create this music video is from the use of 'Final cut express'. This software enables users to design and create their own short films and clips and could possibly include other resources beneath it such as images, audio and footage. This software has allowed us to crop parts of the footage we have filmed and place it in the right order so that the music would suite the storyline. This software also includes a number of effects and transitions in order to suite your video to your own taste. In this case, as our video is based on the 60's, we had decided to use the band scenes in black and white. We had chosen to use a black and white effect for the band scenes as we thought that it would give it an old rustic feel to the video. I believe that people who enjoy 60's music or even rock music would enjoy watching this as we have created a funky storyline which may appeal to some people from around the world. Lastly, the resource that we have been using the most through the duration of this project is of course the blog. This blog enables you to post anything you desire whether its work or even some of your social life. For this project we have used this site non-stop to plan what to do for this video step by step. Our combined team effort has allowed us to give us a guideline of what we need to do in order to make our musc video successful. The blog has also enabled us to attach and add other media products such as videos,links, images and audio. For the digipak we had used the software, 'Coral Paint Shop Pro X', this is because this software specialises in creating string imagery from the images you place onto this source. Coral is a good way of editing images and creating strong effects so that the piece you have made looks professional. I believe that the didgipak that we have made is very strong and works well overall as a final piece.

As a result, I believe that this project has worked successfully and I have learnt that music videos are harder to master than you think,as they take a long time to plan and create. Through hours of work, we have worked together to produce a 4 minute music video, alongside with a digipak.

Here is our final video: