The document provides an evaluation of a music video project. It discusses how the video used conventions of real music videos by focusing on a UK rap genre and themes of money and possessions. It also discusses how a photo shoot was conducted to create promotional materials like a magazine ad and CD cover that would help market the video and artist. Audience feedback on the video and materials suggested they fit mainstream conventions. The project made use of software like Final Cut Pro for video editing, Adobe InDesign for graphic design, and the internet for research. Time constraints and lost files impacted the quality of the final products.

1. Evaluation

2. IntroIn my evaluation, I will be discussing the key points of the music video project. I will be answering a few questions about my music video, and the processes that went into it. These questions 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 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. Research For my music video, we had to put together some research behind the artists and the genre’s in order to get the best effects and design of the video we could. This meant looking at;What style our artist is, andWhat audience our artist is conventionally forAfter some background checking, we put together a plan that the video was going to be targeted at a consumer age of approximately 15-22 year old people, of mixed race, but generally from the London, UK area.

5. Development or Challenges?Our video is based around a genre of UK rap, so it has to have a few conventions which would fit that genre. Our original plan was to film part of the video inside a studio, and then some of it outside to give it a bit of contrast and difference. But unfortunately, due to time and previous artists letting us down, we didn’t manage to complete the video to the best we could. Our video was meant to develop on the Idea of Rap artists from the UK, where most of it is about the money they earn.

6. Video AnalysisOur video as mainly based around mainstream conventions of UK rap artists. This is based around some of the lyrics of the song, including things like “money” or “cars” within, where it is all about possesions.

7. How effective is the combination of your main products and ancillary texts?

8. Photo shoot and Synergy For our video and our additional work, we decided that doing a photo shoot would be the best choice to create our magazine advert and CD cover. The magazine advert would promote our video and our CD that we would produce. The CD would obviously represent not only the artist and his brand, but also the brand of UK rap for everyone to grasp at the mainstream idea. The other reason why both aspects are mainstream is because this allows targeting the audiences simpler because thats what they are looking for.

9. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

10. Audience feedbackFor our research, we had to gather some information from targeted individuals picked out to rate and comment on our video and covers to see how it would fair against mainstream, conventional products. To do this, we simply took about 10 people at random and asked them about their views of the cover and video. Unfortunately, due to the circumstances, I am unable to post up my CD cover as it was corrupted whilst transferring through computers, and the original file had been deleted to make space for the Video.

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

12. TechnologiesWith the Video, we mainly used a program called Final Cut Pro, which is an Apple based computer program mainly targeted for video and movie editing. This was a new technology which I adapted to rather quickly, though with some more time, I could have worked on my skills more and made the final video better, and finish it properly. With the CD cover and Magazine advert, we were using a program called Adobe InDesign. This is a program based on manipulating objects onto a page with greater ease than standard Microsoft programs. Also, I used a Adobe Photoshop as my image Manipulator for the pictures as its very simple and easy to use, along with being well equipped for almost everything I wanted to do with the image.

13. Tech in planning and research.For the research aspect of my project, the main technology I used was the Internet. This allowed me to access places like Facebook, A social network site, which had information about our artist, and allowed us to talk to him about his background and style, adding to our research. Another reason for the internet was because of the vast search engines available allowed us to access information about mainstream bands and artists which we are looking for which is easy, simple and fast. YouTube is the last major site we used which is where our video was uploaded to show to anyone and everyone, allowing us to share it, and allow others to comment on it and tell us what they think.

14. ConclusionIn my opinion, I think I could have done a better project, but unfortunately I had computer troubles which lead to a lot of work being lost and un-recoverable. If my project was to go the way I wanted it to and I had all my information, I do believe that we had created a very successful, and appealing video to our target audience and possibly others as well. If I was to re-do this project, I would make sure that the back ups I kept were safe, and I had a few of them, to prevent loss or data corruption. I would also manage the time better, and take into account a loss of time with anyone letting me or the group down. We felt rushed towards the end due to our artists at the start backing out, so next time, I will make sure they are fully dedicated before continuing with it, and also make sure I have at least 2 back up groups/artists ready to take over just in case something went wrong.