This evaluation summarizes the process of creating a music video, CD cover, and magazine advertisement for a rap artist. It addresses four questions: how the media products use or challenge conventions, how effective the combination of materials is, what was learned from audience feedback, and how new technologies were used. The music video challenges conventions by showing the artist alone at a photoshoot rather than in a group on the street. Feedback indicated most liked the video and CD cover while some felt they could be improved. Various technologies like cameras, editing software, and the internet were used at different stages of the process.

1. Evaluation

2. IntroductionThis evaluation will look at the process of completing the music video, CD cover and magazine advert. There are four questions I am going to be answering, these are;In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?What have you learnt from your audience feedback?How did you use new media technologies in construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

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

4. Marketing AimsIn order to create the best possible products we conducted research to find our desired target audience and what the audience wants. Through our research we deduced that our target consumer is aged between 15-22, the race of the target consumer is also mixed as well as the location but the main location is the UK and specifically London and they would be working class or below, but probably no higher than middle class.

5. Challenging the conventions of real media productsTypically in a UK Rap video, the video will be filmed on the street with a large group of people backing up the artist. This a street style and typical of the UK Rap genre. As you can see from the images below this video is filmed in this manner to intimidate and to show the force behind the artist. They are also dressed either black, dark clothing or green, possibly gang colours to match the bandanas.

6. Challenging the conventions of real media productsBelow, is two images from our music video. As you can see, it is totally different to the example video, challenging conventions. The artist is on his own, at a photo shoot, not in the street and he is wear a white blazer and dark jeans, not dark street style clothing. Clearly our artist and video are challenging conventions.

7. Conforming to conventionsI feel in some ways our video and artist do conform to conventions. For example, the song lyrics are very much stereotypical of the rap genre. Topics such as ‘money’, ‘models’, ‘cars’ and ‘clothing’ are mentioned throughout the song, therefore conforming to the stereotypical rap song. I also feel very much that the message of the video, a sort of rags to riches story, also conforms to rap videos as most rappers grew up in poor areas and are now very successful and wealthy.

8. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

9. Location and setting synergyThe lyrics of the song are about someone who has nothing becoming famous and a major star in the music scene. After conducting video research, we liked the idea depicted in the Jay Sean video – Maybe, and thought we could tell this rags to riches story using a photo shoot. The main idea being that the artist is now successful and he’s having a photo shoot as have everything he ever dreamed of. Jay Sean - MaybeOur video

10. PhotoshootsWe completed a number of photohoots with our artist. These basically entailed photographing the artist whilst he performed and we filmed that video to create a natural feel and show our artist in his element and this also helps promote the video. We also set up specifically for a photoshoot in order to get some promo shots for the CD cover and possibly the advert. We made sure that we got photos from as many different angles and styles as possible to give us the best possible range of images that we could use. I personally found that the performance images were best for the magazine advert as they give a glimpse of the artist and create interest. Whereas the other promo images work best for the CD as they are more professional and serious.

11. Some images

12. Synergy between productsI tried to create synergy between all the products. This means, the video, CD and advert. I used the same font and same style images for my CD designs and advert. There is synergy there. There is also synergy between all three as the setting is the same as in the video and the CD design and advert and of course the artist is the same. I also chose a very ‘fancy’ font for my advert and CD symbolising success and this creates synergy with the lyrics of the song.

13. SynergyAs you can see here, the fonts and clothing are the same, creating synergy for the products. You can also see that the advert has an image from live filming, creating synergy with the video. Also the font is creating synergy with the lyrics, creating a high roller feel.

14. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

15. Audience feedback – CD Cover

16. Audience feedback – CD CoverAs you can see from the pie chart in the previous slide, 69% of the people we showed the cover to, said yes, they liked it. However 31% of the people said they did not.Reasons for saying yes: Visually appealing

17. Simple yet effective

18. Suits the genre/album

19. Interesting/mysterious

20. Professional lookingReasons for saying no: Not attention grabbing enough

21. Too dark

22. Doesn’t stand outAudience feedback - Video

23. Audience feedback - VideoAgain, as you can see from the pie chart in the previous slide, 84% of the people that we showed the video to, said that they liked it. However, 16% did not. Reasons for saying yes: Flows well with the lyrics