The document discusses how the media product challenges conventions of real music videos. It focuses on the conceptual category of music videos rather than narrative or performance to allow multiple interpretations. It also challenges the "hypodermic needle theory" by using ambiguity rather than giving a single meaning. Some of Andrew Goodwin's features of music videos are followed, like synchronizing lyrics and visuals, though the editing could be faster in one section. Audience feedback noted a desire for a conclusion, faster editing in one section, and that visuals/editing fit the song well overall. New media like YouTube, Photoshop and movie editing software were used in construction, research, planning and evaluation.

1. Eval

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

3. • We closely followed the three categories of music videos that were originally
created by Firth, as he has set out the categories of Narrative, Concept and
Performance. We focused on the conceptual category of these, this is because we
wanted to encourage the audience to find their own meaning in the video and
instead of being confined to the “standardised” steps of the other two categories
and wanted to explore further than those confines. Similarly to this we used this
type of video mainly because of the genre of the music video, as with the
electronicore and metal music genres the lyrics of them are closely related to
emotions and feelings, so they are most accurately represented in the media text
by not a sense of journeying as with narrative music videos or shown in a
performance video. Looking back on this I believe that we made the right choice
in closely following this category with very little overlap into other categories, as
it was the one that gave us the most freedom when exploring the emotions and
meaning behind the song as its message is very powerful in itself.

4. • Another theory that we have challenged is the hypodermic needle
theory. This is because we wanted to encourage the audience to
explore deeper into the video by using ambiguity and straying from
the conventions of usual music videos, therefore they must create
their own meaning from this. Whereas the hypodermic needle theory
suggests that when you are given are meaning that meaning becomes
an absolute to the audience. The result of us contradicting this theory
means that we have created a video that has a great effect on the
audience but by making them look further into the video and doesn’t
take away from the emotional value of the song.

5. • Finally Andrew Goodwin’s 6 features of music videos, we have also
followed some of these categories, the lyrics are closely related to the
visuals with lines like “like breathing without the air” then shows visuals
relating to breathing etc., as seen at 38 seconds into the video. We have at
some points used the relation between music and videos, there are two
“drops” in this song, which the music speeds up and then the editing does
two. However during the second drop the editing should be quicker
however due to the sheer speed of the song and intensity the editing
doesn’t quite keep up. Therefore if I was to change anything from our video
it would be the editing during the second “drop”. However Andrew
Goodwin’s features helped a lot when creating our video as it aided us
when creating the video and what the conventions are.

6. How and why is having a “house style” or “brand
identity” important when creating multiple media
products?

7. • It is vastly important that when someone is creating a media product
that they focus on the way that it looks and how it impacts the
audience. For example if someone was creating a pop album they
wouldn’t have the video filled with sandy beaches and the singers
having fun, then when advertising they have dark colours and the
artist looking dark and brooding. This means that within the music
industry the way in which the artist is perceived is one of the most
important aspects, as it creates the appropriate image that the artist
and the record label wish to sell. Therefore meaning that when
developing a “brand” or “image” for an artist it is key to focus on the
synergy of the products that you are creating, as that synergy is what
develops and sustains the image of the artist.

8. We have used several
techniques in order to create
a range of synergistic
products for the video. This
can be explained in the
diagram

9. What have I learned from audience feedback?

10. • From audience feedback we have found that people when watching
the music video wanted a definite conclusion, for example when
receiving verbal feedback, one comment was that it needed a “death”
at the end. And they said that the ending was anticlimactic. These
comments were given to us after the first draft of the video, however
we decided that if we did put something like a death at the end of the
video, it would have removed our original intentions of leaving the
ending ambiguous and making the audience look for a meaning.
Whereas with the death it would be giving the audience a desired
meaning. Therefore I would not have changed anything due to it
contradicting the ending and I do not agree with these comments.

11. • Faster editing was another point that we were told could be improved
upon, this we due to the second “drop” in the song, this was because
the shot that we had used was a long shot that lingered slightly on
the screen instead of cutting away from that one image. I do believe
that this was a weakness in our video as it did not fit with music and
therefore doesn’t really fit with our video as a whole. Therefore if I
could I would change this as it would make the video flow better and
keep with the style of the production as a whole.

12. • Liked the editing and visuals other than second drop as outlined
above, however the visuals and the editing was described as “fitting”
with the song and it gave the correct feel that we wanted the
audience to take from this. I agree with these points because when
watching the video back, the lighting and general mise en scene of
the video have differed very little from our initial ideas and
approaches that we were going to use from choosing the song until
the end product.

13. • One of the most crucial piece of feedback that we received on our
music video was from the lead singer of the band who watched the
first draft of the video, these were his comments:

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

15. • The Camera and tripod we used was a canon 600D and a standard
camera tripod. This was because of the manoeuvrability of the canon,
as it is a DSLR camera, so it was easy to transport and film during the
filming process, and with its use of a SD card, the footage was easily
transferable. We used the tripod because of its ease of use when
panning and its small size so was again easily transportable, due to
our locations being travelled to by bus, rather than car etc.

16. • We used YouTube because of its accessibility and large selection of
videos to look at for our research. We also used this website to post
our video because YouTube gets billions of visitors every day so we
used that to our advantage by allowing a lot more of our target
audience to see it from all over the world, improving our audience
feedback.

17. • Tumblr was the blogging platform we used to document our progress.
We chose this platform simply because it is easy to use and it allowed
us to post using other platforms as well.

18. • Photoshop was used frequently throughout the creation of our
digipak and advert. We chose this software because it’s one that we
are already familiar with and one that had all the tools we needed to
create or products easily and professionally.

19. • Pixlr is on online simplified version of Photoshop that I used to edit
images from time to time – it was useful for the days that I was
working on images for my products on a home computer without
Photoshop.

20. • To edit our video we used ‘Serif Movie Maker Plus’. We could have
potentially chosen any other software but we went with this one
because it was more accessible, (it was available on most school
computers) it was easy to use and it had all the features we required
for the making of our video without being overly complicated.

21. • Slideshare and Prezi became extremely useful during the planning
and research phase because it allowed up to post the power points
we had made on to our blog in a tidy, easy to use format.