Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
• Looking at our music video you can find many traits of a conventional Heavy metal music video, the
reliance of performance shots combined with conceptual or narrative shots are normally key
elements within a Heavy metal music video, some of the camera angels we chose to use, show a
direct correlation and influence of the conventions of a typical Heavy Metal music video; for
example some of the shots like close ups of the band members playing the instruments or close ups
of the lead singer preforming on the microphone. These types shots favour Richard Dyer’s theory of
a star image, which in context allows stars in this case Quad Damage to show case their talents.
Also like many Heavy metal music video’s inducing the idea of mystery behind the band through the
use of dark lighting and a special effects in which the band members are hidden behind, until 1:43
into the music video forcing the band in a sense of questioning and enigma of the identities of the
band members and also feeling a sense of reward for watching the music video allowing for the big
reveal of their faces. This has been done before with many other bands creating a sense of illusion
of their identities, bands like Slipknot who wear masks in their performance and Marlin Manson
who wears make-up are quite famous for the personas they have created.
• Unconventionally though our music video challenges the codes and conventions because of the
healthy balance between our conceptual story line and our performance which is unorthodox
because the majority of heavy metal music videos are largely based on the performance shots.

Lip Syncing and instrument
synchronizing
• Lip syncing was also a very important
aspect/convention to a music video
because if the music is out of sync
with performance it takes away from
the energy and excitement from the
performance shots, but seen as our
music video was a Heavy metal music
video we had to worry about
instruments being in sync as well as
the lead singer, luckily for us we had
the band playing their own song
which didn't’t cause to many worries
but they still had to embody the roles
as if they were really playing.

Red- having
connotations of
danger, violence and
anger, also reflecting the
mood of the overall
music
Darkly lit, again reflects the
nature and mood of the
music
High angle close up
signifies lack of
power, vulnerability
which is
unconventional in
heavy metal music
video’s because the
musicians are
normally view with
power and status
Out of focus
induces mystery
Shot analysis
Conventional mise en
scene for an indie
heavy metal band being
featured in someone's
room or attic

Lighting
• The lighting for our performance
shots was quite dark, we wanted to
create a dark environment so we
could highlight the shadows on the
wall using only three phone L.E.D’s to
light the whole room creating massive
shadows, allowing for the illusion of
that the room is surrounded demonic
creatures. Which configures to the
heavy metal code and conventions of
the music video having reference to
Satanism and Evil.
This lighting also had its
disadvantages, for example the lack of
variety, we couldn't’t do much with
the editing of the performance shots
because the lighting was to low.

Conceptual Vision
• The conceptual side of music video is inspired by the movie ‘They live’, which
is a social commentary on today’s capitalist society, when we were looking
through Quad Damage’s songs we found that their song ‘Dead side’ fitted our
Idea for the conceptual side perfectly, as the lyrics reference the idea of being
surrounded by industry; we chose this song because of the relationship
between the lyrics of the song and the visuals in which we had envisioned for
our conceptual part, which also relates to Andrew Goodwin’s theory of visuals
amplifying the lyric’s.
• Conceptual shots, are almost a recreation of the movie, finding inspiration for
most of the shots from the movie
Making reference to john Carpenters
‘They live’ although we made changes to
location, for example, Jakubs character
seeing the alien at the bank instead of a
news , making a link between money
and antagonist in our, Conceptual
narrative but also expressing some of
the bands view’s and making a
statement that people shouldn’t ‘follow
the money’ because it is immoral and
evil
Our Concept
setting
Actual movie
setting
Different
location’s

Intertextuality
• The intertextuality of the conceptual side of
our music video was mainly an
inspiration, allowing room for our own
creative vision; we still kept the key features
from the film for example the truth seeing
glasses and the other worldly beings
controlling us, even incorporating a scene
from the movie in our music video, but we
wanted to add our own twist to the storyline.
Instead of the protagonist finding out the
truth about how the world really works and
fighting the machine causing a rebellion, he
simply gives up and throws away the glasses
which in a sense adds a sense of realism to
the storyline but also our version of the story
fits in more comfortably with the sense of
pessimism within the music. We also make
direct references from the movie for example
on the box “open your eyes” is written on the
of the box foreshadowing to the audience
what is to take place.

Intertextuality
As you can see we also tried to recreate
some of the scenes shot by shot to also
help make direct reference to the
film, both being shot on busy high
streets, as well as both showing a
magazine through the truth seeing
glasses
Our music video
Actual movie
We also used some conventions from the
movie for example Black and white
representing the truth. Black and white, has
always had been perceived as a
deeper, more artistic expression of what
was happening either on the photograph or
in the film. The basic theory and justification
explaining why this famous effect is so
favourably seen in our eyes says that it is
simply because it is not the way in which
our vision perceives the world. Shorter
range of tones makes everything simpler
and easier to understand.

How effective is the combination of
your main product and ancillary texts?
• Quad Damage is a heavy metal band, but more specifically a Doom metal band, through our ancillary text we had to
show the genre of band through the use of colours, choice of images, but we also had to make it appealing to the
niche audience that bought into the genre, when we thought of the ways in which we could create our ancillary text, a
digipack to seduce its main audience, the main thing we all agreed on is that we had to be original about our idea, as
our target audience is very critical about anything that fail’s to differentiate from generic advertising as it is deemed
main stream and lack’s credibility to our audience.
• We chose to create a abstract style of art in which portrayed the mixture of emotion’s and also could be subjective to
the individual’s own interpretation, the album art work almost looks like a mixture of screaming faces, which implies
darkness and horror. The references of the evil ghost also add correlation to the music video which is a metaphor for
society evils of consumerism

Research into digipack
We also accumulated research on our
digipack to find out how other doom metal
bands marketed them selves and how they
presented their album art work. We found
a lot of reference to the horror genre, as
well as iconography towards Satanism
Text- The text and image are
contrasting- “electronic wizard”
styled in a “groovy” 60 sixty’s
font which looks fun and stylish
and the album name
Lighting & colour
design: the overall look
and design of the album
cover gives a retro feel
Location- The background setting seems to
be a hunted castle although the
background is vivid we understand the
reference of it which is made to be looked
like the setting of a classical horror movie.
The implications of the background has on
consumers is to give some idea to what the
music maybe about
Image- The album art-work reinforces
some of the conventions of doom
metal, being dark and having reference
of a satanic nature. An old man with
horns and beard smoking a pipe which is
believed to be a depiction of the devil

Digipack- Textography
• For the creation of our textography we
took inspiration from the album ‘Dope
Throne’ we liked the way it looked, the
video game style of the font really spoke
to us because of its retro look and
distinctive style and shape. We did
improve the design by adding spacing to
make it easier to read and distributed
the thickness quiet equally to make it
look more smooth
Retro game style font differs from the
style of the image which is very dark.
The text subverts conventions of doom
metal. The our intention is to show
ourselves in separation from the more
generic branding of the genre.

Digipack- Front album artwork
The mixture of the red and
black signifies connotations of
death and blood, which
displays the iconography of
violence.
We also added the
‘Advisory’ sign to
show this album if
for a mature
audience but also
adds an authentic
look to the advert.
Subliminal faces in the
abstract art connoting
horror and evil implying
some sort of reference to
Satanism which is a very
conventional of the doom
metal stylistic presentation
for example, Electric
Wizards album ‘Dope
Throne’ or Motorhead’s
album ‘another perfect
day’ both also having
reference to Satanism
Abstract style of
artwork, subjective
to individual
interpretation

Digipack: Inlay booklet and inside
cover
The inside cover features a similar theme, with
red and black but the images are different on
the inside again following the codes and
conventions of the doom stylistic
presentation, an abstract image of an old evil
ghost implying some innuendo to hell or satan
through the colours and image
The back image of the inlay booklet is a
little different as it has a little more
variety in colour to it but still
maintaining the dark scheme of colours
to conform to the conventions of the
heavy metal music genre. The black and
red theme being prominent in all of the
the ancillary text trying to create a
branding around the combination of
these two colours.

Magazine advert
The Magazine advert we created to promote our
music video and album features many of the
conventions you would see on a conventional, Heavy
Metal, the textography is bold and sharp which
conveys the music, as well star ratings from trusted
Heavy metal Magazine and websites, allowing for
audience’s to have recommendation’s from a familiar
source. Also the again trying to build branding through
the use of the black and red as it is a relevant theme
through out the band marketing. Also the ‘Out Now’
text shows the advertises the availability of the
product making it more inciting. The use of the
performance shot also signifies the genre of music
allowing metal heads to recognise the advertisement
is for them. The sound cloud and facebook pages are
also stated at the bottom to allow consumers to take a
glimpse at the music before they buy into it and also
acts as another marketing feature.

What have you learnt from your
audience feedback?
• Audience feedback was very crucial in all aspects of the creation of our
production of a music video, for example set ‘Dead side’ apart from the
rest of the other tracks was because of we previewed the views In which
it received on Sound Cloud a music sharing social networking
website, which made ‘Dead side’ the most listened to track out of all of
the Quad Damage tracks, therefore we believed it wise to create a
music video for the most sought out track.

Research into our audience and their
feedback.
We also followed out many
questionnaire's to find out why our
niche of audience in which we were
marketing to watch music video so we
could appeal to them.
Through our research into our
specific target audience we found
that most of our audience
watched heavy metal music
videos because they like to see
the band members perform, so
this feed back helped us to decide
to include a healthy amount of
performance shots so we could
me meet our target audiences
demands.
We also gathered cumulative
information, on things like age and
gender to make our music video age
appropriate but also to see if had a
market in the female’s to appeal to that
audience as well

• We also had several test groups from our target audience
during the editing stages of our music video to make sure
they understood the concept and whether they thought it
worked with performance shots, the consensus was
generally positive but we also picked up on key feedback
on how to improve the music video, because some parts
were confusing to them, for example when my character
drops of the box they didn't’t understand why Jakubs
character would follow him into an alley so we had to go
out a reshoot this scene to make sure that my character
looked shifty enough that it would interest Jakub’s
character enough to investigate him.
After we had decided on our track and concept we had to create a pitch to
present to an audience introducing our idea to them, where the possible
locations for our music video would be. After we listened to their feedback, we
went back to the drawing board keeping in mind their feedback for example, our
audience asked whether they thought it would be practical to shoot on busy high
street’s and after the group and I discussed it we saw the holes inside that plan
so, the audience helped us see possible time consuming flaws, apart from that
they absolutely loved the idea of inspiring our music video on the film ‘they live’
they thought the idea was very well thought out and original.
Presenting
our Pitch
Audience feedback

• After are project was
finished we uploaded it
on to Youtube as well as
share it on social
networking websites
such a
Facebook, Twitter and
other Forums, we
looked at the
comment’s to see how
successful we had been
at meeting the
audiences demands and
what we had found is
that people really
enjoyed our music
video not receiving any
negative reviews online
as of such and the
music video hitting over
+1,000 views.
A compilation of some of the review
people gave our music video

• Our audience feedback was very important to us
it allowed for us to step back and have a fresh pair
of eyes look at our music video, and tell us what
to improve on. Taking on board our audience
feedback was one of the keys to the success for
our music video, which later went on to receive
recognition from ‘Observer’ Newspaper and were
given very positive reviews through out social
networking sites such as Facebook and Youtube.
Questionnaire used to build
cumulative research on our
key demographic
Article about our news paper in
the harrow, observer

How did you use media technologies in the construction and
research, planning and evaluation stages? Intro and
Technologies used in our Research and planning
• Media technology has been essential in all parts of the
construction, research, planning and evaluation stages of our a2 media
project.
Web 2.0 and its participation in our Research
• The integration of web 2.0 was essential to pin point our target
audience, especially keeping in mind the fact that our music video or band did
not cater to a general pop loving audience. We had to research our key
demographic, through the use of networking websites like Facebook, Sound
cloud and various different forum website to understand our target
audience, we accumulated research to pin point things like the variation of
age and gender with these media media technologies
Information we
gathered from
Facebook to
understand our
audiences age and
gender

Research and Planning
• Facebook was a very key Media technology to understanding our
audience in detail, Quad damage had a Facebook fan page in which people
could visit and like, to show their support for the band. It gave us chance
to understand the audience in deeper detail instead of just staring at
statistics and building our research from that information only.
• Given the advantage that we could visit their profiles and find deeper
understanding who they were, as well as set up a live performance events
in which me and Jakub went to see Daniel preform with his band to talk to
our demographic audience to understand why they listened to the genre
of music and what they like about the band in particular so we could
amplify that in our music video.
Quad Damage
Facebook fan
page
The group and I speaking to
some of the quad damage
fans.

Research and planning
• We had to use the internet on various part of our planning for example the use of
Google and Youtube websites to build up knowledge on how we could shoot and edit
scenes, for example we watched a lot of tutorials Youtube to better understand how to
edit so we could make our music video look as professional as possible, as well as
watch various different heavy metal music videos so we could find inspiration for shot
ideas.
• Blogger was also essential to us because it showed all the different stages of our work
from picking a genre to planning out days go shooting, ideas for our concept, on
blogger I have recorded all my research and planning.
• Prezi was a program that we used to help make some of our presentations more visual
and creative. Prezi is also easily integrated with web 2.0 website like blogger which
made it very easy to share our presentations.
• We also used technologies like Microsoft PowerPoint and Word for presentations we
showed to our audience as well as setting up planning for Shot lists, possible location
and showing various parts of our research.

Construction- Hardware
• We used a lot hardware media technologies for construction of our project for example using the c camera in which
was given to us by the collage was an essential piece of equipment to film everything, as well as a tripod to stabilize
our shots, and a micro SD card to save all of our footage. The camera was also useful for vlog parts of our filming to
show the process of how we created our music video as well a vlogging parts of our editing. We also had to use
features like manual focus on the camera when wanted to capture the audiences eye on specific things.
• Lighting was also a hardware technology in which we used L.E.D lighting in circumstances of minimal light so our
image didn't’t suffer from darkness, unless this was intentional.
• We had to use music instruments in our performance shot to depict a real life performance.
• We also used Macintosh computer systems for our editing process.
Shooting parts
of our music
video.

Construction: Software
• Final Cut express was a crucial software in the editing stages
of our music video, this was the sowing needle that stitched
all of our footage together as well as add effects. The variety
of effects on final cut pro was very useful to use as for the first
couple of days we played around with most of the features
building idea into our heads on what would potentially work
and what wouldn’t. We used many of the features on the
program for example different filters like distortion which
shook up the image. to different transition like fades and cut
aways which smoothed the transitions of the scene making it
more watchable
• Paint was also a key software in the creation of our ancillary
text, we did use programs such as photo shop and illustrator
to also create the textography
Editing our piece
on Final Cut Pro

Evaluation
• I used a lot of different media technologies in the evaluation
process for example using Safari internet browser to gather
information for my evaluation e.g. looking at the codes and
conventions of a typical Heavy metal music video, Blogger
was also useful because it allowed me to reflect on the work
I had already completed to see If had missed anything in the
evaluation stages of my project. I also used a Macintosh
feature called print screen to take pictures of any relevant
information that applied to my evaluation, a well as
PowerPoint to present the whole thing.

Evaluation

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