Prentice Johnson A2 media evaluation

A 2 M E D I A E V A L UA T I O N
PRENTICE JOHNSON

IN WHAT WAY DOES YOUR PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR
CHALLENGE CONVENTIONS OF EXISTING MEDIA PRODUCTS?
• In my initial research I found music videos seem to have typical guide lines to follow were they use one
or combine multiple styles, these are known as narrative, performance, hybrid/cameo, animation and in
some cases animation and the actor or performance in one video simultaneously.
• Many of the videos I looked into where abstract and had a ominous tone to the video and attempted
to trigger some sort of emotion to the reader. I researched a very wide variety of music due to the
music video I was creating was for a form of hip hop that has been developed and inspired from many
other genres and has characteristics of the videos I researched and wanted to capture a similar stylized
video to future funk/vaporwave as the artist I created the music video for finds a lot of inspiration from
this genre.
• To get to this understanding I had to think about who my target audience where. The genre can be
classed as a derivative of hiphop but the jazzy ambiance and the looping does class it as a form of
vaporwave/hiphop which is an extremely niche audience. Due to this factor I firstly decided to have
skateboarding due to the genre to fit into that category, after experimenting with this I was able to see
the footage didn’t work as it was hard to portray the message within and it felt like two different music
videos clashing into one. I then decided to get into contact with artist and film him along with the
people in the scene of this music at a demo and have more dance footage along with displaying the
deconstruction in the tenants of capitalism. This message was easier to display and relate to the
audience more so and ran more chronologically with the music.
• This within it self allowed me to challenge a lot of codes and conventions and I had a CCTV stylized
edit to accompany the visuals to further put forwards this message, this allowed my video to feel less
superficial but at the same time create a paradoxal type effect and a loss of reality or in this case
connection with western society.

IN WHAT WAY DOES YOUR PRODUCTION USE, CHALLENGE OR
DEVELOP ONTO REAL MEDIA TEXTS?
• My product challenges real media texts due to the fact most real media texts if not all are
heavily scripted. Whereas mine was more from an artistic approach. The dancing visuals and
shots in McDonald's where all spontaneous and was meant to be able to display real life and a
flow. It was genuinely footage of some one buying McDonalds and eating it where as in real
media texts they would have had actors as the seller and the buyer of the product. Although
my video may be perceived as more of an artistic response it does develop on traditional
codes and conventions such as the use of Chroma key seen in videos such as “talking heads –
once in a lifetime” where the singer is seen lying down with the green screen and behind him is
colours and vhs style visuals much like I used to create the green wall of the stair case transition
over to the McDonald's store as a smooth yet glitch vhs stylized cctv type effect. This also
creates a feel of simulation along with the fact the previous short edit in the opening of the
music video being a boot up screen on an N64 to trigger a sense of simulation and the build up
of persona through your inner child and nostalgic factors.
• Another way I challenged conventions was the fact most clips where filmed on miniDV with the
exception of a few. This was to create the VHS style footage more manually with the help of
Adobe after effects. This created a vintage/nostalgic aesthetic more commonly seen in
vaporwave that is a genre that usually fully breaks all codes and conventions and uses
unoriginal footage edited in a way to be so postmodern its ironic and creates a joke out of
society in some instances showing the digital era in a satire way. I was happy with the way the
effects came out and I feel it really worked well with the music and created the effects of
memories with the intercutting of the high street and the “club”.

HOW DID I DEVELOP AND CHALLENGE
CONVENTIONS?
• Another way I have challenged conventions is the use of bricolage. This has been used
by remixing external footage. I did this to reference the meat industry and how fast food
meat is produced, with a large amount of people, especially in teens, with little
knowledge on what actually goes in the process of the food. I had this on the back of my
footage and by using Chroma key technology and cutting up the clip in synchronization
with the music I was able to create the effect.
• I challenged the codes and conventions of a narrative by having the opening shot as an
N64 to show simulation of the following events. Having a pov type effect of a CCTV
camera to show the views of an observer and not a character (with no character
development). This is usually fundamental in a narrative, however I excluded this to
create the aesthetics, through my visual imagery to raise a series of questions instead of
offering answers or any conclusive statement creating my video to be the extreme of a
postmodern piece.

IN WHAT WAY DOES YOUR PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP
OR CHALLENGE CONVENTIONS OF EXISTING MEDIA
PRODUCTS
• Although my poster breaks a lot of traditional codes and
conventions by having a somewhat clustered, abstract portrayal
of a poster the information that is used is of a minimalistic
approach which is typical in a music poster although the
composition is different. This type of abstract poster are being
seen a lot in newer music productions such as The Weekend who
used a similar layout. Due to my artists name being Sensei I
decided to use a Japanese style composition as reference to this
creating my poster to be postmodern, In Japanese music posters
they have a very similar composition from a more abstract
approach much like mine. I feel as if I accurately portrayed this
style within my response.
• Most of the posters I looked at had psychedelic influences. I
wanted to show this within mine but from a modern aspect. I did
this by using past technologies melting and morphing like
stereotypical psychedelic art has. This also helped me helped
me display a representation of a “digital river” which is a
producer who's working on the album.
• I created this image with Photoshop and the disk and melting
effects manually on a scanner which is explained within my blog
post.

IN WHAT WAY DOES YOUR PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR
CHALLENGE CONVENTIONS OF EXISTING MEDIA PRODUCTS
In my digipack I mixed photos of urban street shots with a psychedelic ‘glitch art’ effect
on inspired from vaporwave I had researched in my blog previously. This stylized
composition and effects where also influenced by talking heads video once in a life time
where very early experimentation with glitch art where introduced. The vhs look was also
something I wanted to portray due to show a cctv effect to symbolize the society we live
in today and the technology that surrounds us and how the lines between reality and
fiction are becoming blurred due to the world around us evolving at such a fast paste its
hard to understand what it all means. I also used these images to show how people are
influenced by what they are shown on there computer screens and what they have
grown up playing digitally. We begin to question authority and structures of our ‘reality(s)’
and thus are broken down and analyzed from a skeptic view.

HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR
MAIN AND ANCILLARY TEXTS?
• Within my main and ancillary tasks I wanted to create a urban feel to synergize with the
hip hop influence within my music genre chosen so it would be a stereotypical aesthetic
automatically related to the artist hence the street shots. I also wanted to include a
futuristic, psychedelic, digital era feel to connect to the vaporwave side of the style of
music within the genre. One of the ways I did this was through using after effects and
Photoshop to create glitches within my images. I created this feel by using DV tape to
create a CCTV feel due to DV having a warmer older feel to it in comparison to HD
footage with the use of some HD time lapses to be used as filler transitions to diplay
progression.
MINI DV
HD

• Looking at my final poster and my final digipak they work well
and suit the style of my main text. The use of glitch art,
graining footage and the use of an RBG split/psychedelic
colours to be prominent creates my 3 texts to link and have a
connection in the composition. I believe they tie in to each
other with the abstract concepts and have a “vaporwave”
feel to the to them.
• I think there could be some slight changes in the poster due to
negative space but over all I am happy with the outcome of
the texts as they all have connection with a similar aesthetic
and the iconic effects that are present in this style of work.
HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR
MAIN AND ANCILLARY TEXTS?

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK
• My survey starts off my asking the age and gender of who is taking part to see who my
video appealed to. I was mostly aiming at teens from London due to the icons and
message involved with the visuals and the genre of a newer developed hybrid of a genre
which is aimed at the teenage generation of this era. From doing this feed back I can
see I was success full in achieving to draw in the audience I wanted, I believe this is to the
style and composition of my music video and has a aesthetic that’s target at teens. I
found out a fairly even portion of females and males took part in the survey and I will
have a non bias view point from gender. The only issue with mostly teens answering my
feedback is the fact I wont get a universal response from all ages due to very little being
in the upper and lower age brackets. I believe this is due to my distribution of
questionnaires due to very little being handed out physically and most being posted on
social networking sires, where the majority of the people who would see the link would be
my age.

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK
• The following questions where about the classification of the text and to see if the
audience understood my edit, if it made sense to them and I accurately created a fitting
visual to the hybrid genre I was shooting for, I started of basic by asking if they enjoyed
the music video, I only asked to explain why if they said no,if they say yes they don’t have
to state a reason, maybe I could have bettered this by asking so. The next question was
about if they where able to classify the video into a genre. Most guessed correctly with
hip hop and vapor wave as it was a combination of the two with a few others saying rap,
electronic and dance which is understandable why they may have thought this as rap in
very similar to hip hop and electronic/dance are former pioneers to an extent of
vaporwave. I could have bettered this question by maybe a wider variety of genre
choices to see if it may have been confused with other genres due to my portray of the
music through the visuals and possibly with a hybrid option as I am unable to see who
ticket both hip hop and vaporwave.

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK
• The next two question where about genre and the visual effects. Here I was trying to find
out if my audience and viewers found be breaking so many codes and conventions due
to the stylized footage work to create this hybrid of music video. I found out from this all
of the candidates asked said it did work in its favor. From reading the comments I can
see most believe this to be so due to edginess of the edited footage and the use of tape
creating a digital, “trippy” effect which create a intriguing/philosophical aspect with
arisen questions due to the merged ideas of existing products to create this style.
• The following question after this was to see if the actual editing and effects of the clip
created enjoyment due to the glitch art style. Again all candidates asked said yes. Most
of the responses on this say its due to the innovative stylization of the editing and the
questions raised on the meat industry with the McDonalds burger chroma key along with
the synchronization of the music with the visuals to portray and style the message in a
new way for hip hop due to its hybridization of genre.

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK
• The next question to follow on my questionnaire where asking if the music video was
something that seemed professional looking, most people said yes. Interestingly the
comments on this say the use of breaking the codes and conventions of traditional hip
hop videos is what does this. The presentation creates it to fit more so and created a feel
of synchronization with the beat and lyrics but in a abstract way. This is exactly what I
was aiming to accomplish and im overwhelmed that my ideas and style is valued and
seen in the same light I view it. Although my question does state see from a signed artist
within this genre, this is limiting my audience and asking them to only compare with this
genre, maybe a wider array of comparisons may have given me different results.

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK
• The next question asked was to see if the viewers found my music video
engaging. 100% of the viewers said yes. I had no gave them no more ot
elaborate on and I wish I had of included an extra box to ask why they
found it engaging to see what points created them to be drawn in and if
similar views could be linked. After this I asked how it made the viewer
feel. I wanted to create a sense on nostalgia and a eerie tone but raising
socio-political questions while leaving them unanswered for the reader to
dwell on/research into. I found most where able to see and got the
nostalgia part and simulation ideas and many agreeing it made them
think of the fast food industry in a different way but not many picked up
on socio-political idea although a few did and only three people where
able to see the questions raised by my production. This has proven to me
that maybe I may have lost the messages being produced through the
aesthetic creating nostalgic feelings and trippy effects and I didn't’t have
a even enough ratio. This is helpful to me to understand not all viewers
will see first time watching which maybe isn't a bad thing and could
make viewers watch the video twice due to not being able to grasp the
message correctly first time around.
• The images to this answer will be included on the next slide:

RESPONSES FOR LAST QUESTIONNAIRE
QUESTION

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK
• To conclude on my audience survey. I have learned that you can indeed
challenge codes and conventions to create a production that still is enjoyable and
pleasing to the audience. With that in mind some audiences may be confused by
the visuals and idea raised through the continuity of the text.
• I included both female and males in my production to have equality on gender so I
could have non bias responses and to draw in both genre from this age group and
community due to there being no segregation of genre in this group of people but
I believe a narrative in my production could have created more so a sense of
understanding for other age groups and minds alike.
• Although I feel confident that most of the people watching felt the style and
composition I have done worked well and created the message I wanted to put
across. I feel that my ancillary tasks also fit well and match my video and I am
happy with the responses I got.
• I am happy with the ratio of stylization and message but I do believe that maybe it
began to become more superficial during the ending of the production and a lack
of me myself, during post production, understanding how to display these
ideologies to someone who has no idea what it is trying to display and have to
decode it through the audio and visuals but as I a whole I am happy with the turn
out of my final text.

HOW DID YOU USE NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN
THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING
AND EVALUATION STAGES?
• I used blogger to keep track of my work and upload research for me
to go back to so I could apply new styles and inspirations to my
piece. This site I used in AS and is a fairly simple blog to use. It was
also an area I was able to upload my analysis’ of music videos for me
to go back to quickly and with ease for me to look over and revisit.

• Throughout my development I checked YouTube for old and
new music videos within the genre of hip hop and vaporwave
to find new inspiration, from this I came across multiple new
inspirations from old and new styles of music that are linked
into the genre of my artist.
• The main issue I had with this was the fact I was limiting my self
to one site. For a wider variety and new pieces of inspiration I
could have found I could have improved this by using sites
such as Vimeo to find a wider variety of music videos. Another
site I used to help me was social networks sites. I mainly used
Facebook as it was easy to create a group chat and find
events to film at, we did trips out to film on location and went
to events to film the dance shots in sensei's’ demo.

• Google docs was another site I used to help me not only in my
research but also within my evaluation. This site helped me
due to the fact I was able to create questionnaires within the
site and distribute them to the public to gather responses on
the questions given. This was beneficial to me as I was able to
choose exactly what I wanted to ask and see the opinions
and views of others and have a wider understanding of what
the audience want and not just my ideas on what's good.
Through this I could see a non bias views on certain ideologies
and could plan my video with more accuracy and ease with
an open view. From the results I could see them in forms of
graphs and charts to compare and contrast people opinions
and ideas. This also helped me with my evaluation due to me
being able to gather in-depth responses about my music
video and to see if the purpose of the video worked and how
well it do so.

• Photoshop and scanners.
I used Photoshop to create my ancillary texts. I t
was used in the construction of my poster, my
album cover and my digipak. I'm familiar with
Photoshop and use it a lot so creating these
products where fun to do and using previous
techniques learnt from AS where brought
across. I also used manual photo manipulation
by creating the melting effects of my pictures
but wiggling them about in a scanner. I was so
pleased with the out come of these and believe
the effect worked really well. With the use of
liquefy on Photoshop allowed me to clean up
the scanned images and create more of a
melting glitched effect to the pictures.

• Use of MiniDV.
The use of mini dv allowed me to
create a grainy, old school, retro
effect but still with the a digital
futuristic aspect without it looking
like bad quality footage and
keeping a professional looking
edge. I also used MiniDV as it has
a certain feel to it that lack in HD.
I felt by using this I was able to
create the nostalgic emotion
more so and having being able to
display chiaroscuro within my
footage with DV created an
ominous mysterious tone within
my media text
Another aspect of miniDV that
worked well in my footage is the
fact I wanted a CCTV look to my
clips and by using dv it was
made possible to create this
effect and effectivly create a
good looking RGB splits and
glitchy effects that would look to
clean if I used HD.

• Use of fisheye and long lens.
Within my media text I used a
combination of long lens and
fisheye. The reason for this is
with a fish eye you can get up
close to the subject without
chopping heads or missing out
parts of the shot. It gives a
wider degree of view
compared to long lens. With
this lens also created a sense
of distortion and helped me
show simulation within my
production.
The use of long lens (not using a
lens) was for me to collect my other
angles and camera techniques. I
am happy with the overall out come
of my fisheye shots and believe it
helped create the emotion within
my text and showed a more of a
POV style footage to display the
observer.

• The use of LED lights.
Due to a large percentage of
my footage being shot within
night time I needed to use an
LED light to pick up the subject I
was filming. My first attempts of
filming I did not use an LED light
and the footage was too grainy
to the point of it looking drained
out with a too high exposer.
This allowed me to get light of
the subject and let me lower
my exposer so the footage
didn't’t become lacking of
colour.

• The use of HD (DSLR).
The main reason of using HD
footage in my music video was
purely for the time lapses as Mini
DV can be quite expensive and
time lapses take up a lot of time of
tape. Also on MiniDV time lapses
seem to loose quality where with
using HD the footage stays crisp
and looks a lot smoother.
With some colour correction on
premiere and the use of after
effects I was able to match the
colours of the HD clips with the SD
but a difference is spotted
I believe this is something that
could have been executed
better if I had the funding to do
so but overall I was happy with
the look of the footage used.

• The use of editing software
I used many parts of Adobe
Creative suite within my
coursework and for editing my
final text I used premiere to cut
edit and colour correct my
footage and added simple
effects such as text and time
lapses and some harder
effects such as chroma key. I
used after effects to create
more complex effects such as
the RGB splits and shakes
within my edit, the glitching out
of the clips and the glitched
transitions from clip to clip.
Using this software I believe to be my
strong points within the construction of
my media products. I enjoyed using the
software and experimenting with
different effects and accurately getting
the colours correct. I show how I used
these techinques in more detail in the
editing pages within my blog.

DID I USE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES
EFFECTIVELY?
• I believe all in all I have used media technologies effectively within my
media texts. I feel as if I used media technologies to the best of my
abilities in a practical sense. Not only do I feel this is my strength I enjoy
this area of work the most and had fun creating my pieces and I am
pleased with the our comes. If I was given the option to redo my project I
would change little apart from a few small changes to format of cameras
and my poster.
• I could have also improved the theory side of this in the way I distributed
my surveys as social networks are very limiting audience wise.
• To conclude I feel as if the music video production I created displays a
multitude of examples breaking, developing and using codes and
conventions to create a stylized piece of work with its own edge and
synergy within the audio and visuals. All of this required me to develop
on my AS skills by experimenting with new formats of film. Using lighting,
new area of adobe creative suite such and After Effects and the use of
lens’. This learning experience has benefited me in many way and I feel
a lot more confident in creating my own media texts.

Prentice Johnson A2 media evaluation

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