The student created a pop dance music video that challenged conventions by never showing the main characters together. They researched mainstream and indie artists to inform their work. While the video used conventions like lip syncing, it did not follow a clear storyline. The ancillary materials like CD covers and posters maintained continuity with the video through consistent use of images, fonts, and colors. Audience feedback helped improve shots that were off balance. The student used online resources, TV, radio, and campus equipment and software at various stages of research, planning, filming, and evaluation.

1. Advanced Production Evaluation

2. In what ways does your media product use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

3. My Music video genre would be classed as pop dance, in the group I worked in we went for the conventional idea of using a male and female as the main characters in the video, however we twisted it by never having them appear in the same shot at one point. The song we chose was not copyrighted song and so it was unknown we found the song on http://www.overplay.com/. Before choosing the song I did some of my own research away from the group I mainly researched mainstream groups like the Noisettes and Maximo park these are mainstream bands but have an indie twist I then contrasted this by researching solo artists like Beyonce and Pixie lott. My video challenges pop music videos out there as it does not have a clear storyline and so adopts more of the dance theme as many of them do not follow storylines such as the Chemical brothers- star guitar http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssJutXkpSlY . My music video uses the conventions of music videos when our female actress lip syncs we felt this was appropiate to encurparate in as we had actors in the video, howver we decided we didnt want the whole video to revolve around this and so we used it only in one part which was when she was on the floor.

4. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts

5. The key thing that I wanted to come across when we created our ancillary products and our video was continuity. I feel I have achieved this very well as everything flows and relates to the video. We decided that four two of our four c.d covers we wanted to use a photo of the artist as when we researched other videos many of them had the artist as the front cover. When we came to film we changed the location and so are Original photos had to be changed mainly due to there quality which was poor because of lighting issues. These are the two images we chose not to use we initially wanted to go for a black and white theme but changed this after altering this product.

6. These are the two photos that we took on the second location that we chose to use for our ancillary products as the lighting lights up our actress’s features and reflects off the car giving it a clear clarity.

7. This is the front cover of the c.d we altered the contrast and brightness to highlight the Black and white as in or video many parts our dark. We have also kept the continuity by using the recorder in the photo. The use of text is used the whole way through the ancillary products. The video has frequent shots of the car and so we decided to use her in the car as the front cover of the c.d. Also her facial expression in this shot was how we wanted her to look passive but with attitude.

8. We chose this as our inside cover where the c.d will sit. This can also been seen in the video in the snapshot below the photo. We chose the change the Kenwood to miss déjà vu for individuality. The shape of the speaker also we thought worked well because of the c.d being round.

9. This is the inside cover we created using Corel like all the other shots. We were unsure what we wanted to do for this cover and so we decided on a collage effect of the artists name mainly because we see her as a somewhat self obsessed person and a page full of her names fitted well which I believe contrasts with the video because we see this attribute in her character in the video.

10. We decided that we wanted this c.d cover to be just simple like other c.d covers like James Lloyds back under ours. We kept the continuity with the black and white, however we altered the font so the buyer can easily read it easily.

11. This is the poster we created, we again kept the continuity with the font, colour, and the recorder. We used the artist on the front as like other band and solo posters most had the artist on them.

12. When deciding on the ancillary products it was crucial that both the c.d cover and the band poster linked not just for continuity but for the audience to see the connection, if the audience are quickly able to see what the poster is like they are more likely to read it as there attention has been caught. We decided to use photo images from the video for ancillary products because we thought if we were in the position of the artist and we believed that she would like the route we went for ancillary and video project.

13. What have you learned from your audience feedback.

14. I have continually used audience feedback through out my planning filming and of my finished product. Before even beginning to plan we asked ten people what they thought of when they heard the song. This is the first audience feedback that we got. When we had finished the video I set up a link to my blog where the video was so that people could leave there comments here are some of what they left. “This video works well as the shots fit with the track however some shots are slightly off balance” “very good video the lip syncing looks good and the choice of transitions” We also used feedback for ancillary products which many people thought were very good as they all flowed well against one another.

15. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning evaluation stages.

16. The media technologies I used for research was mainly the internet the TV and the radio. I Found you tube particularly useful as this gave me full access to music videos and with the ability to leave comments I was able to see what people thought about the videos which helped in my own planning. I was able to use the TV because of the many music channels that available on free view and Sky. Many of these channels also have text in spots where the public can say what they think about the videos which is useful to use. I also found the radio one a very useful media resource as the live lounge enables the audience to leave feedback and although it was not relative to videos it helped in my choice of song.

17. When planning I used the blog website BlogSpot to keep all of my planning on this allowed people to leave comments who wanted to and was very simple and easy way to put my planning on the internet. It was also very easy for me to upload videos and all of my ancillary products etc. BlogSpot also allowed me to evaluate my work far easily as it is all listed by dates and a clear easy way to see it.

18. To film my video I had to use the hand held cameras that were at my college as we had no budget and so had to use the ones provided. I found that the cameras were not great quality and one main problem we had was that when we came to upload the footage to imovie some shots that when looked at on the camera were not wonky but on imovie were. I had to use a new package of imovie this year as our college had had a software update it took a while to get around the new software but was of a better quality for a amateur style editing package. When creating my ancillary products I used the professional cameras at college and then used the package Corel This was my first attempt using Corel I found Corel hard to use at first however by the end I was far more comfortable with it.

19. I also had to use garage band as my song was slightly too long for the amount of the footage I had so I cut part of the song at the end I could of faded the song however I found cutting through garage band was more effective. I also experimented with Green screen at college however I found that it was very time consuming and did not give and effect that I wanted for my Music video. For my evaluation I chose to do a slide show as I feel it is a clear way to evaluate my work you can clearly see my work and the text allows it to be explained clearly which I may have had problems with if I has used an audio approach.