The document summarizes feedback received on a student group's music video and ancillary materials for a dancehall song. The group's video took a unconventional approach for the genre by not including large dance scenes or overly sexualizing the female dancer. Audience feedback was that the video was confusing but enjoyable. The group learned to plan shoots better and use proper equipment. Feedback on their print materials was positive, though different fonts were used. The group learned to work together more cohesively. New media technologies helped at all stages of production from research to planning to evaluation.

1. Evaluation
1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the
forms and conventions of real media products?
The song we used for our music video was ‘’Rum and Red bull’’. Our genre for our
music video was dancehall. We start of our music video by having a DJ in his DJ
booth announcing the start of the song. This is similar to the video ‘’Dude’’ by Beenie
Man as he also had the radio announcing the start of the song.
In most dancehall videos the women in the video are sexualised for the purpose of
the male gaze. In popular dancehall video’s such as ‘turn me on ‘– Kevin little and
‘gimme the light’- Sean Paul the girl in the video’s are dancing half naked around
the lead singer. We decided to use that form and convention in our video but put a
twist on it. Taking in to consideration of our target audience starting from 13 years
old we decided that it would be too inappropriate to show a half naked woman so
we dressed our dancer in a black lacy top which is still sexy and appealing to the
male gaze but still appropriate for the male gaze. We also decided to place the
male and females separate. We had the girl dancing in one scene with the rum and
redbull and the performer in the other scene singing to song in a studio by himself
this challenges the codes and conventions of a dancehall video as you would not
usually see this.
In most dancehall video’s you will find big groups of people dancing with the main
performer with a specific dance like the video ‘’ Willie bounce’’- Elephant Man.
However since we decided to concentrate on the concept side of the video rather
than the performance we decided to not add a big dance scene in there.

2. As the music begins we have a tracking shot of the messy pool table in the party
scene. This also works as an establishing shot of the scene showing of what to come.
The messy pool table is also a metaphor of our video as a whole as it shows that the
video is random, abstract and unique. A video that uses a tracking shot at the
beginning is ‘’Last Friday night’’- Katy Perry although this is not a dancehall song it is
still a party song that is similar to our narrative. Another shot we used was titling the
camera as if it has fallen. This is not typical to dancehall videos as they like to use
simple shots.
Whilst editing we added effects like the mirror effect and we also speeded up some
shots. Our shots were quick and snappy synchronising with the music which matches
most dancehall videos like ‘’Nuh Linga’’-Elephant Man.
Regarding intertextuality, our graveyard scene with Michael Jackson was very similar
to old black and white silent movies like Charlie Chaplin and laurel and hardy. The
slapstick chase scene were Michael drops his hat is amusing aiming to get cheap
laughs like the old silent movies. Intertexality is not a common thing in dancehall
video’s as they like to focus on the music and not the actual video as they like
people to dance along which is where the name ‘’dancehall’’ originated from.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary
texts?
I think the combination of our main product and ancillary texts is very effective
as we have a recurring theme in all of them and throughout our video. Seeing as
redbull is already a familiar brand and Bacardi is the rum we used in our video.
We decided to have to merge the two together to make a new brand for rum and
redbull. The 2 main colours that represent rum and redbull are blue and red. We
use these colours throughout our video. We have the main character (the Dj) in
a blue top, we have the writing at the beginning and end in red, the writing that
says’’ will dance for rum and redbull’’ in blue pen and more subtle items in blue

3. or red. We tried very hard to get the image of the redbull can and either a glass
or bottle of rum imprinted into our audiences mind. We decided to do it
sublimely by having different CU (close up) shots of the can and next to the
glass. We want the audience to think of that image every time they hear the
words rum and redbull this is our brand identity. One of the characters in our
party scene wore a hoodie that said ‘’Jamaica’’ we did this intentionally to show
and remind people where the roots of dancehall came from. The uses of the
colours of the Jamaican flag are used mostly in existing dancehall videos.
Whilst re-searching digipaks and thinking of our brand idea’s we came up with the
idea’s of the colours of the Jamaican flag for our background in our digipaks and
posters. We thought this would stand out from all the other ones in the shops as it
consists of bright, vibrant colours.
For our magazine advert we placed a big
picture of Michael Jackson in the centre. This is
to attract a wide variety of audiences not only
those who are a fan of dancehall but Michael
Jackson fans also. The picture draws audiences
in as Michael is gesturing to come closer. This is
effective as it gives the audiences a sense of
involvement. The 2 artist names are in the colour
of red and blue following the colour scheme of
our video. We have the 2 brand logo for rum
Magazine advert and for redbull. I think this poster is very effective
as it gives you a lot of information about the
video but yet leaving some elements to surprise
the audience.
Similarly the front and back
cover have the same
background colours. We
decided to keep the front and
back cover simple almost as a
teaser to our video. The writing
is in red, yellow and green
following the colours of the
Jamaican flag.
Front and back cover

4. The inside sleeve is double
sided. It has our brand identity
of the can of redbull with a
glass of rum and a heart over
it. We decided to keep this
simple .It also has the same
Jamaican flag colour for the
background. The other side
has the Bacardi rum logo and
the redbull logo. This was
simple as well and is easily
recognisable as rum and
Inside sleeve redbull.
The digipak slip contains the
lyrics of the song so you can
sing along. It matches the other
ancillary texts with the
Jamaican background and it
has the redbull logo in the
centre. This is effective because
when you’re reading the lyrics
you still get the sense of the
Digipak slip
redbull.
3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
After showing people our final cut of our music video, the most common feedback
we got that it was confusing but very funny and enjoyable nonetheless. I learnt that
maybe a crazy concept to match the crazy upbeat song was not such a good idea
to a simple target audience. After explaining to the audience that the intentional
effect the video had on them was the same effect they would get whilst drinking
rum and redbull they agreed that this was a very clever concept and very unique
also. I learnt that the main characters were very funny and relatable to the our
target audience as they where round about the same age group and they also get
up to the same kind of things. Showing our video to a fellow film maker he pointed
out that some of the camera shots were not still this was due to a lack of a tripod in
some shoots. From this i learnt to always carry the correct equipment to a shoot.
We posted the video on a social networking site
and this is the response we got.

5. The response we got after showing people our digpaks and magazine add was
mainly positive. They loved the bright colours ‘’ it reminds me of my home time
Jamaica. I would defiantly buy it just by looking at the cover’’- Nelly Camberwell’s.
The only critique we got was that the fonts in the different materials did not match. I
learnt that when we are designing products such as those we should all work
together and go with one set idea rather than working separately as we will end
with completely different products which don’t match.
Overall the feedback was very positive and i am very happy with it. However i feel
as though if we had taken more time to plan the shoots we would have had more
time for the print production. I have also learnt how to compromise. Seeing as i was
the editor in the group i was very worried that the shots the producer and director
would give me would not be enough. So i would constantly remind them of what
they need to do. This aggravated them and soon enough there was a divide in the
group. I learnt to have a little faith in my team members.
4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and
research, planning and evaluation stages?
Using new media technologies was a big help in throughout the whole process.
During the early stages of the project we used new media technologies for research.
We scoured YouTube for a song to do a music video to. After finding the perfect
song we then continued to use search engines and websites such as Wikipedia to
find research for the codes and conventions of our genre. We then went on social
networking sites and also a website where you can upload questioners to in search
of our target audience.
Whilst filming we used a Cannon XM2 digital camera with automatic or manual
focus / exposure and widescreen capability, plus on-camera mic. This was a very
good camera as it was easy to carry and was very good quality. We used a tripod in
most scenes and also a Lilliput and redhead in the party scene to create a warm
ambience feel as though our camera woman mastered the camera very well and
was able to improvise new shots such as the tipping shot and also film in some crazy
angles. A problem we faced whilst filming with equipment was a broken tripod, due
to this we had to set the camera on tables and chairs to get still shots or try and hold
the camera as steady as we could. The equipment enhanced our ideas by helping

6. us create new dynamic and abstract shots matching the theme of quirkiness
throughout our video. The camera also had a play back button. This helped us alot
as we could see the errors in the shots whilst we were still at the scene shooting so
we could quickly re-shoot instead of having to wait till we got to the edit suite to
then realise we did not have the right shots.
Having used final cut pro before i feel as though editing was the easiest part of the
task. Final cut pro is very simple to use and has very good effects. The main issue i
had whilst editing was the fact that we did not have the right shots i needed to edit
with so i had to improvise some shots and also re-shoot some shots.
Photoshop proved to be very difficult whilst doing the print production as i was not
very familiar with it. After doing a workshop with one of our lectures i soon began to
get the hang of it making it easier to do and producing exceptional digipacks.
Whilst doing this evaluation i found that websites such as YouTube, twitter and
facebook where most helpful as we could post our video on there and get
audience feedback.