Our media product is a dancehall music video that follows conventions of the genre but also challenges them in some ways. We received positive feedback on our ancillary texts but mixed feedback on the music video, with some finding the storyline confusing. Audience research helped us target 13-25 year olds but some felt we could have simplified the narrative. New media technologies helped with research, production and evaluation.

1. Evaluation
1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our production, Rum and Redbull, is a dancehall music video. Our style of
presentation was developed from silent movies, almost like slapstick comedies, to
make the audience aware of the social / fun element of drinking Rum and Red Bull.
Everything is one long party.
However, our narrative format and structure follow the established forms and
conventions of concept driven music videos by largely ignoring the narrative
element, although our scenes are clearly related to the song lyrics. The only
deviation to this is that we have included a DJ to set up and link between all the
scenes. As a further deviation to concept driven music videos we have also included
some shots of a performer lip-syncing the lyrics, which is very typical of dance hall
and music video productions more generally. We have also adopted a voyeuristic
approach regarding one of our female actors, showing her legs and dancing to
attract the male gaze. (Mulvey 1975)
Atypically, our music video did not use a group of sexy, professional female dancers.
Instead, we focused on normal, everyday people getting intoxicated and high on
Rum & Redbull. The audience can connect with these characters because they are
the same as them and not celebrity or people of a higher status.
Throughout our video the main focus is not on the men but the girls and how drunk
they are becoming. This is a convention for our sub-genre because many dancehall
music videos concentrate on women rather than men, Tony Matterhorn’s – Dutty
Wine being a good example of this. Conventionally, in our video we use many close
ups, not only of the characters, but also the product, as well as set-piece sequences,
for example in the party room and at the graveyard.
Our camerawork follows conventional technical codes by using a variety of shots and
angles to portray a sense of personal connection between the audience and actors,
long shots establishing the scene and closer shots to feature the characters and their
enjoyment of the party. We achieved this by using many short takes to keep our

2. video fast paced and confusing, connoting that everyone is getting more and more
drunk. Our aim was to position the audience to identify with the main characters, as
well as keeping up the pace and intercutting of sequences (from the DJ to the party
to the street begging scenes) which allowed us to create a party-going atmosphere
for everyone. Some of our sequences draw the audience into the action, by using
point-of-view shots as below.
The editing we used follows the traditional style of music video editing, with
transitions being mostly straight cuts between the beats of the music as we felt that
this could allow the visuals to compliment the music. The whole of the track has a
fast rhythm and is really energetic so therefore we could not really use any slow
gentle transitions as this wouldn’t compliment the music. We wanted to establish
the mood of the music straight away by having the party scene as the opening to our
music video as this allows the audience to establish the main reason for the rest of
the music video.
2) How effective is the combination of your main product and
ancillary texts?
I feel that the combination of our music video and its ancillary texts worked well as we learnt
what the key elements of branding were and put them to good use to make our main
product look extra good. Our group put a lot of thought into how we would create a
good combination between all our products and how well our ancillary texts would
show off our main product. In our music video we tried to differentiate ourselves from
what already existed in the current trend of music videos. Therefore we wanted to do the
same with our ancillary texts. We decided to have the key theme of the Jamaican
flag colours (red, yellow, green) throughout all our ancillary texts as this made a clear
link between the Jamaican artist (Beenie Man) and our products. The use of this also
helps keep a clear relation between all products and so there is a continuation of the mood
from the music video to what the digipak and magazine advert have; the bright Jamaican
colours complement the fast paced and lively music video. Throughout all our products we
have used a key logo which is the bat as this represents rum. This is the logo of Bacardi rum.
By using this logo we have instantly put a stamp on all of our products so everyone knows
that they are all linked together. Having learnt a lot of the key elements of branding, we
were able to develop characteristics from the video into the digipak and magazine advert.

3. Our digipak follows several established forms and conventions of other digipaks for example
it has the name of the artist, the name of the song, a key theme, price and lyrics. Many
artists choose not to have their picture displayed on their digipak or album so we didn’t feel
like this would be an important factor to include. We wanted to concentrate more on selling
the song and our music video rather than selling the artist so this is why we came to the
decision to keep our digipaks sweet and simple yet eye catching. We decided to use the
black design on every side of our digipaks as we all agreed that it looked like someone had
just opened a can of Redbull and sprayed it everywhere. Personally I thought it looked like
someone had been sick which links to our key theme in the music video about being drunk.
Promotion was a very important part of our ideas regarding the magazine advert. We
decided that by using a snap shot of a character from our music video, people would be able
to make the connection between the image on the advert and the video. Therefore this
would attract a lot more people to watch our production. As a group we thought that having
“Michael Jackson” as the front cover would attract a lot of attention from our target
audience as he was very famous and easily recognisable. Accordingly this would catch the
public’s eye and they would be interested to see the music video. Our magazine
advertisement follows established forms and conventions by showing the name of the artist,
the title of the song and a release date. These are all important towards promotion as they
let the public know all the details which will lead them to the digipaks. We felt it
was important to maintain a sense of continuity so when the audience see magazine advert
and then the digipak, they will be able to recognise that the two ancillary texts come from
the same video.

4. 3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Our initial target audience were male and females aged 13 – 25yrs. This was decided
because Dancehall hasn’t been around for as long as other genre music and has only been
receiving mainstream success since the late 80’s. We therefore felt that it would more likely
appeal to people of this age range as they usually keep up to date with the newer artists and
latest music. We felt that targeting particular ethnicities would be irrelevant as the sound is
suitable for all listeners and they could make up their own minds if they don’t like the genre
music. However I expected to get a lot of good feedback from Caribbean people as Beenie
man comes from Jamaica and Dancehall originates from there as well. Our target audience
research showed us what kind of music they enjoyed and what they liked about music
videos. For example we found out that their favourite genre of music is RnB and they prefer
fast paced songs.
From our target audience research we then tried to create a music video that would appeal
to our target age range judging from the information we had gathered about their
preferences in music. To achieve a good production that our target audience could relate to,
we used a mix of actors that were in the same target age group and also different ethnicity
so it would appeal to everyone. This allowed us to form a link between the target audience
and characters and also gave our music video a comical side as we aimed to try and get the
audience to laugh at the fact that similar crazy things happen when they are drunk. In our
script development, we included the use of particular camera techniques. For example, close
up shots and point of view shots to position the audience within the situation. This was
helpful as it allowed us to incorporate actions of the characters with particular camera
techniques to emphasise a particular mood that we wanted to focus on.
The audience feedback we gathered was really positive but at the same time, people still
pointed out ways in which we maybe could off improved our main product. Everyone was

5. really impressed with our ancillary products and we generally got the same reaction from
everyone. They really liked how we had made a clear link between all our products and
would definitely be interested to purchase the final product after seeing our professional
magazine advert and digipaks. One person had told me that they liked my front and back
cover for the digipak as it is straightforward and looks professional and many artists
nowadays keep to a simple design. Regarding our main product a lot of people have said
that our storyline was a bit too confusing and that they didn’t understand what was going on
until we explained it to them. This was quite disappointing as this is what our target
audience felt was a really important convention of a music video yet we were unable to
properly fulfil this.
Professional digipak
However we did receive a good amount of positive feedback regarding our music video. One
person says that they really liked the editing we had used on our video for example the
speeding up of some scenes and also the slow motion. A lot of people have commented
saying that they think Beenie man would be proud of this production. One person suggested
to “simplify the video by maybe removing one or two scenes for example, the begging
scene; and instead make the party scene longer so it is simpler rather than jumping from
one scene to another as this is what confuses people.” I find this to be a good piece of
audience feedback as if I was to start all over again with this production I defiantly wouldn’t
try to cram as much in and actually stick to maybe two or three different scenes as this
might make it seem amateur quality.
We feel that our end products successfully met the OCR brief as we were able to
comprehensively follow and challenge the codes and conventions of music videos, whilst
maintaining creativity and innovation. We were also able to demonstrate excellence in
technical skills like holding steady shots and editing with a meaning that is obvious to the
audience. This makes me feel like our music video could actually stand up well against
professional products.
4) How did you use new media technologies in the research,
planning, construction and evaluation stages?
The majority of our planning and research was achieved by gathering information via the
internet and search directories. We found out that using search directories like Yahoo as
opposed to search engines like Google gave us a lot more relevant information as the
websites given are actually analysed and categorised by humans whereas the results given

6. by Google are collected by a computer programme called robots which just gives people
results from a match off any website that has the same words typed in the search box.
Google still has provided us with relevant images and some useful information. Another
extremely good new media technology that we used was Youtube (www.youtube.com)
which especially helped me with my textual analysis. I selected a music video that I wanted
to analysis on Youtube because of its wide variety and easy access. The use of facebook also
really helped me during the target audience research because I was able to gain a large
sample size as people seem to be more lenient about giving up their time whilst on their
computer as oppose to in person. I think this is because they can be doing other things
whilst taking a survey on a computer.
For the construction of the music video, we used the Canon GL-2 Camcorder. To get the best
out of this camera, we needed to know how to set up several controls like how to insert a
tape and adjust the white balance so our recordings would be clear. Redhead lights and
lilyputs were available to us at college but we didn’t think we would actually need them as
we were filming outside most of the time. We used manual focus, which allowed us to
capture clear shots from different distances and I also learnt how to use the playback
feature on the camera so that when we were filming, we could always look back at it and
see if we had got the right shots. However at some shoots we did not remember to use this
technique which meant we had to reshoot certain things again at a later date.
During the stage of editing, my group used Apple’s Final Cut Pro. Most of the techniques that
were required had already been learnt during AS. When importing our clips into Final Cut
Pro, we had to use the log and capture feature whilst playing back our tape though the
external video tape player. This was a very long process that required us to watch all of our
clips to see which ones were best to use out of the several we had taken. Another new
technology I used was Adobe Photoshop which wasn’t new to me because I also study
photography and use the programme a lot. We had to upload our work and evaluations on
to blogger. I used Slideshare most of the time as this was a lot easier and quicker to upload
documents and pictures all at one go.