music video evaluation a2 media

1. EVALUATION
Music video

2. QUESTION 1- IN WHAT WAY DOES
YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE DEVELOPED
OR CHALLENGED FORMS AND
CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA?

3. In the early stages of the project I looked all different music genres and songs until I eventually came to
the decision to use J.Cole's 'Crooked Smile'. I decided to use this as the song has a very clear story and I
had ideas flowing straight away. The video is a hip hop song and so from this point I conducted
research in to the hip hop genre and what types of videos their music has.

4. Genre conventions- typical conventions in a hip hop music video are things like money cars
and girls this is largely due to the lyrical content of most hip-hop tracks. Hip-hop started with
the African American community in the Bronks, New York, with artists M Cing over
breakbeats, starting in the early 1970s with underground artist like Africa bombata and
eventually sugar hill gang being the first official release of a hip hop track (rappers delight),
its humble origins aside hip hop has become more about showing status and proving that
you’ve made it, hence the money cars and girls as they are three of the most widely
recognised symbols of success and power in today's materialistic society.

5. My music video doesn't comply with the hip hop genre most of us are familiar with as it follows a sort
of break away hip-hop that a lot of artist occasionally dip into and some hold true to throughout all
their work, it’s the idea that hip hop is an expression of self and a medium for story telling, This has
been expressed by artist like tribe called quest and outcast over the years amongst
various other artist. With Hip hop turning back more towards its roots in recent years
With my video I wanted to show how my main character doesn’t really get much attention. I tried to
show this through different camera shots. The close up at the beginning of the video shows her
emotion and how she doesn’t really want to go out or doesn’t feel part of what others are doing. I
wanted to show the smiles in an extreme close up to show the joy, an extreme closeup is the best shot
for this as it focuses on the viewer on the smile and helps pic up micro-expressions a wider angle shot
would otherwise miss. This contradicts with how the main character of the video is feeling. However
this links in with the song and lyrics during the chorus. I wanted to show the relationship between the
main character and the other character who makes her feel better about herself. I did this through an
over the shoulder shot reverse shot. Hip hop videos use this to tell a story between the people in the
video which is what I have tried to do. I've used a long shot to show her relationship with her friends.
They leave her behind and don’t associate with her much. I used a zoom to show that she appreciates
the boy that made her feel better. She looks round at him after she walks away from him which shows
she enjoys his company and likes him.

6. The video shows her after a shower in her towel and dressing gown. I did this to show
her exposed and vulnerable as a metaphor for her emotional state. Her putting on
makeup is representative of a change in her where she transitions from a shy and
insecure girl to a confident and secure woman. To express further the point that this is a
fake personality she has put on, in the following scenes I had her not wear any makeup
however when she got home she wiped away a full face of makeup to show she was
wiping away that personality. This provokes a question for the audience did she; take off
that personality because she now feeling more secure about herself due to the events of
the day or; is she just going to put the same face on again tomorrow and nothing's
changed.

7. Lighting- for lighting I went naturalistic to convey that a lot of girls feel this way.
This will make the audience connect better with the main character. When she is
putting make up on the lighting is different to when she is out and around
people. This was to highlight that she was only putting this fake personality on
and not showing her true self.
The hip hop genre usually uses flashy lighting. This contradicts with my video
because as I mentioned before I wanted my video to tell a story.
In a similar way I used my location of a bedroom to show that everyone can feel
this way. The location is something familiar with the audience. I used an outside
location for when she's around people because she feels the space around her
in the way that her friends aren't including her. This changes slightly when
meeting the boy through camera angles as every shot becomes a bit closer and
personal.

8. QUESTION 2-HOW EFFECTIVE IS
THE COMBINATION OF YOUR
MAIN PRODUCT
AND ANCILLARY TEXTS?

9. I have tried to create synergy across my products. I've done this by keeping to
a consistent layout and design. At the start and end of my music video I introduce the
song using stop frame animation of a rubbish ball unravelling to reveal the song title
and artist. I used this because she thinks of herself as rubbish. This is also the album
cover which I took inspiration from one of J.Coles album cover of 'for your eyes only'. I
have used a dark background on the posted as it makes the album cover, title and other
text stand out. This dark background works with the video and album cover as it looks
like a creased piece of black paper relating back to the crumpled paper at the
beginning of the video. The poster has a picture of the album cover on and similar
typography drawing all the products together.

10. I made the back of the cd relate to the front by making the font of the
song list look like it was scratched into the table like graffiti. I also did
this with the artist name on the front of the cover. This relates to the
video as the age group in the video is still the kind of age that would be
in school. This also would draw in the right target market.
For the house colours I tried to stick to 3 main colours which are dark
red, which I pulled from the females coat but also matches the colour in
the lips. I also used black or dark grey which I pulled from the picture in
the digi-pack. I then used white as it makes the text stand out on the
dark backgrounds. I used these colours as a way to pull everything
together.

11. I think my ancillary products work well together and have things to bring them all together while
them still being unique separate things. They all work well with my video for different reasons.

12. QUESTION 3-WHAT HAVE
YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR
AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

13. When asking for feedback I decided I would try get it from different demographics to
get opinions from all ages and genders. I started with my target audience which are
people between the age of 13 and 25. This is due to them being able to relate with the
video about trouble with insecturities and being left out.
Initial audience feedback was very positive with people commenting on the use of stop
frame animation and close ups on the face as a very clear representation of a "crooked
smile" and my intention that there's beauty in diversity. One issue I've had pointed out
by audience feedback is that the latter half of the story isn't exactly clear when it comes
to the subtext of the screen. the way I would fix this if I was to repeat the process would
be to have more actors participating to make it clear the characters are at a party and
someone is trying to pull them apart.

14. One piece of feedback I got was that my lighting could have been a little more
adventurous. I would agree with this because different lighting might have helped the
story come across and set an atmosphere that fits the video. Some other feedback that I
got was that my video could have had better locations as there are only two. I could
have had more locations which might have portrayed their journey together or the
journey of her becoming comfortable. This might have lead to the conclusion that
the girl no longer needed the mask however my ending meant that it
was ambiguous and it was up to the audience to decide what happened.
When looking over the feedback I got the sense that females related to the video more
than males which I expected. I think this is due to it being about a girl and her
insecurities.

15. QUESTION 4-HOW DID YOU USE
MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN
THE CONSTRUCTION AND
RESEARCH, PLANNING AND
EVALUATION STAGES?

16. Blogger- I have used this to keep track of my progress and also display my research.
This was helpful because I could look back on what I had done and see what else
needed to be done.
Blogger is easy to set up and straight forward to use. Blogger allowed me to embed
videos, presentations and insert pictures for research purposes.

17. I started out filming with my iphone 6s which I then decided not to use
due the the quality of the footage being poor. One positive to this
though was that it was quick and easy to shoot footage.
After deciding not to use my phone the camera I used was a standard
video camera that the school provided. This camera was very good
quality.

18. Social media- I used social media to collect opinions
from people on things like whether a font suits the
album. I also used to get feedback on the overall
video as seen previously in the evaluation.
I used social media like snapchat, whatsapp and
facebook messenger.
PowerPoint- For my evaluation I have used
PowerPoint as I can easily transfer it into
slideshare to put onto my blog.

19. The software I used to edit my video is called Serif MoviePlus. This was easy to
understand and not difficult to use. MoviePlus allowed me to view my footage easily
and find the right piece to put in without any trouble. Cropping and moving the
footage was very simple and also removing the background noise was no hassle.
One problem I had was finding different effects to make my video more interesting. I
found that you can flip the video so that is plays backwards which I took advantage of
however I would have liked to be able to use different effects.

20. For my ancillary products I used a mix of paint.net and Serif PagePlus. The reason I used both of
these programmes is because the offer different things. I used paint.net because I find that
cropping and removing backgrounds is a lot easier than using Pageplus' cutout studio. PagePlus
is good for setting out the initial product. However both programmes have their downfalls as I
figured out last year. Paint.net uses layers more than PagePlus this causes hassle when trying to
move things around. I have gotten more comfortable with PagePlus after working with it from last
year. My skills with the programme have developed since last year as I can work on it quicker and
know what things I need to do to make something look at its best.