2. In what ways does your media
product use, develop or
challenge forms and
conventions of real media
products?
3. When a music video has to be made, it is very important
that it sticks to some sort of conventions. In the case of
this particular media area; theorist like Andrew Goodwin,
made the six guidelines to follow, to make it easy for the
audience to understand and learn to recognise. When I
came to studying these rules and patterns, I become
engrossed and fascinated at the similarities that all
videos had. This influenced my decisions, choosing the
genre that I did. I wanted to be different, when
constructing my music video and other materials, so I
could experiment with other forms of the same media
that did not fall into the set rules. This is the solitary
reason I chose the genre of dance music. I was the only
genre that combated the rules and has influenced some
of the best music videos to date. This choice was also
made because I wanted to make something that was
fun and new, that would make people think about the
music industry and how it operated. To ensure that my
opinion had the depth of meaning it needed to succeed,
I needed to make sure I had valuable research behind
me. Looking as similar artist and directors help me
understand the conventions but also how to successful
break them. The most influential artist I looked at in my
research was „Fatboy Slim‟ who had created some the
best dance music and videos to accompany them, the
industry had ever seen. This is the sort of impact I
wanted my video and various materials to do and to
make my audience have the same view. The brief I
decided to choose the easiest one I had to do, „DJ
BooSH‟ was now are artist. From this decision I had to
4. Once me and my had the song, my ideas for what I wanted to accomplished start to pore out,
constructing different ways I could tackle the task of going against the conventions of music videos.
Our most obvious chose was spoofing, as it was an already proven hit by artists like; Eminem, Blink
182 and Fatboy Slim, which made it the top idea to follow. The initial concept that we began with
seemed to be a triumph, spoofing the most ironic music genre, „cheesy-pop‟. With this genre
become increasingly more popular with artist like PSY with Gangnam Style and the dances that
come with them, it seemed to be the perfect basis for a dance music video. The ironic fact that
cheesy pops are constantly being made, the dominate line in our song was “One more time, we
gonna celebrate” sort of reflected what this song where made for and doing to our music industry.
The idea was spoofing, which actually meant coping in a sense, so we had the task of replicating
some of the current year‟s most famous pop songs and there dances. This provided the lines “Oh
yeah, all right, don‟t stop the dancing” to fit nicely in our music video. The only real convention that
we have followed during the process of making our video is intertexualising, with references to
some of the industry‟s biggest artists and videos. Dance videos can be argued to have no
boundaries but I feel that spoofing has a big place in the conventions in this particular genre. I feel
that I have followed the correct conventions of real media products.
5. How effective is the
combination of your
main product and
ancillary texts ?
6. The digipak I wanted to make for my artist „BooSH‟ had to give him an identity that would be recognizable
across the music industry and also the audiences. As I was a lot freer with the conventions of this ancillary
text, I could create something that was striking, sophisticated and unique. This made me look back on
other previous artist who used these texts to build their identities. These included artists like Lloyd Banks,
who created a gangster image for himself through his album art and music videos. This is what I wanted
my products to do for my artist, build an image that his fans could look up to, love and buy his records. I
wanted my artist to be shown as a club DJ that has a deep passion for dance music. For this I used a lot
of references and designs featuring clubs in my digipak and also my video. You could say it is a
convention, but I feel it not that specific. When made my first draft of my album cover, it had various
positive comments, but the audience did not feel it linked at all with the other media texts, which was a
serious problem. To solve this issue I used shots from the music video in the designs which work very
well, and improved my work.
REVERSE: Digipak Design
7. I then had to create a poster that would sell
the album and most importantly the artist. I
made sure that I did detailed research in to
other artist to get an idea of what the typical
conventions where before I started to create
my poster. I found that in today media world,
downloading music is the most popular way
of buying music, therefore I made sure that I
featured iTunes and mp3 download options
on the poster to fit these new conventions. I
also had to follow the convention that the
poster had a strong link with the album itself.
Therefore I used the albums title font on my
poster, hence making it clear for the target
audience the link between the two medias.
Some of the other conventions included
release date, images relating to the digipak
and also singles name to act as U.S.P‟s, all of
which where used in my poster.
Poster Design
8. I consider that the combination of my main product and ancillary texts is very successful
as all of the majority of the images used for my ancillary texts have been taken from the
music video. I also find it effective due to ‘One More Time’ being the main song of the
album. This means that it not only it introduces the album but the main song also. I am
also pleased with the fact of giving away the current genre, for people who are
interested and ‘into’ this type of genre both my poster and my digipak would be familiar
and easy to spot. Overall, all three of my texts work really well together.
Combination
10. Screening
FeedbackWe also where given the chance to show our music
video to a selected group of people who fit our target
audience. This helped us get a first hand opinion of
what they actually thought about our music video.
The first piece of positive feedback was that they
like the concept of the video. This meant that the
idea we had was solid as it was easily interpreted.
They also made remarks to our camera work and
how they liked some of the camera movements.
They also commented on the editing and use of
green screen technologies as it made the video very
fun and easily relatable. The areas that the audience
thought we could improve included the pacing of the
video, as some of the shots didn‟t quite match the
music. There was also lip-syncing issues and
structure problems. This allowed us to go away and
amend these problems, which make our video
become more of a success. Overall this way of
feedback is excellent for getting a first hand opinion
from our target audience. I have learnt that my
target audience have understood the references and
spoofs we where trying to put across which in my
eyes is an epic success. All we had to do was
complete the small minor changes.
11. Our main source of audience feedback came for posting our video
online via Facebook and YouTube. This allowed use to get
genuine feedback from our chosen demographic so we are getting
the right points for development. From the feedback I learnt that
our audience appreciated the inter-textual references, which meant
we were successful in spoofing the chosen videos. Another
positive aspect that our audience commented on was the mise-en-
scene used throughout the video was of a high standard, and
things like costumes help them understand the references to the
other music videos. One thing that people said could be improved
on is that it could have a smoother ending, but at the point of
posting the video it was not fully complete. We did take this
comment on board when we editing the end for the final video.
With regards to the other text feedback online I posted it on all
major social networking sites. I felt that if I wanted to reach my
target audience, I had to used a medium that would appeal to
them. I also did the same on Facebook to try and get the most
amount of people commenting on my designs. This method is a
easy way to get results as it doesn't take a long time to get the
necessary information. I collected all the data and tally up the
totals. This method proved successful so now all have to do is to
continue to develop the idea that was chosen. The first idea that I
made proved to be a hit with my audience as it had the most votes
with comments like; 'stylish, I like it!' and 'I really love the design'
which is the response that I wanted. There was also a lot of people
who liked the second design which was noted as 'fun' and 'comic
book style'. Although these are positive comments, this is not the
image I am look to target my artist at. I want to attract the more
stylised people (who generally have more money) than slight
'geekish' people who would be attract to the bubbly comic book
design.
Online Feedback
12. How did you use media
technologies in the
construction and research,
planning and evaluation
stages?
13. The main source of my moving image research in this task was predominately
via the Internet. This gave me access to websites like YouTube and Vimeo,
mainly for the research into other music videos. Google was my main port of call,
when it comes to researching into theorists as it had a wide range of useful
information that I could share on my blog (another media technology). New
technologies, for me, work to my advantage with things like Twitter and
Facebook. These sites allowed me to present my texts and get feedback from a
large group of my target audience. It help me collect lots of feedback that I could
then put back into my music video, poster and digipak to make it better.
Research
14. The predominate use of media technologies was
during construction side as different aspect had to be
used in order to make our video work. Our video,
from the start relied on the used of a chrome key set
up, which allows use to use a green screen to add
different backgrounds to our shots. Using the green
screen brought us the chance to us the broadcast
cameras „Sony HXR‟, which is very high standard
equipment. Due to the fact we where using this
professional equipment we where able to shot on a
16.9 wide aspect ratio, making the shot very high
resolution and clearer. Because we had such a an
ambitious task when making our video look good, we
made sure we had the best lighting that we could so
that non of the shots where wasted and look all the
same. We used umbrella lighting, on set, when
shooting with the green screen, as it is very essential
to have no shadows on the background. The idea that
we had for our video was; “it would be a high quality
spoof” and not one that shots looked amateur. This is
another reason why we opted to use the best
equipment we could. Using the dolly and tripod made
it very easy to accomplish some very sophisticated
shots in the hall scenes. Tracking and panning where
Constructi n
15. Postproduction
The second most important stage of the process with regards to the use of
media technologies was our use of postproduction software‟s. For the main
editing we decided to use Final Cut Pro, as it was the most professional software
that we could get our hands on, that could offer some clever editing techniques
that where handy when compiling our music video. Because we decided to use
the green screen, we had to learn how to use Adobe After Effects, which allows
you to make high quality Chroma key effects. This was vital to the success of the
shots, because if that green does not work the shot is lost. We and to use
selected backgrounds for each of our shots because we had to input
backgrounds that referenced our spoofing videos. This allows the audience to
make strong links with our video and the ones we are „mick-taking‟.
16. Tech-specs for Ancillary
Texts
When designing the digipaks and posters, I chose to use Adobe Photoshop as it
was again reliable and professional software, but also I am studying graphic
design, so it was the natural way to make these texts. With this creative
background, I was able to use this software to the advance, making sure that the
pixels where right and the size of each of my products was the best it could be. I
was very dependent on my use of the internet at this stage two for things like
font hunting, as I needing interesting typeface to use in my designs. Websites
like dafont allowed me to access a library of different font to choose from for my
work. I wanted to make sure that the poster look professional as this is going to
be scene by the public first and it will be the first judgment the public make on
my artist. Overall I am very happy with my technical development through the
