The document discusses how the music video challenges conventions by portraying the negative effects of drug abuse through costumes, props, colors, and camera angles. It aims to balance other media that glamorize drug use and educate teenagers on the harms of drug abuse. Audience feedback praised the imaginative use of props to depict hallucinations and effective camera work in showing how drugs impact mental state. The filmmakers learned the audience responded well to conceptual elements and increasing tempo near the end.

1. Evaluation

2. I believe that there aren’t many comparable music videos to ours by this I mean our music video doesn't endorse the use of drugs it condones it. So I think our music videos challenges other media products by telling teenagers the harmful effects of drug abuse. However I’m not saying that all rock bands endorse the use of drugs I’m just saying that when you read interviews of famous rock stars such as slash in Q magazine he talks about how he used to snort cocaine everyday or when they watch skins and they see them doing drugs at parties. Some impressionable teenagers will read this and think its perfectly acceptable to snort cocaine on a daily basis so we made this video to educate teenagers of the harmful effects drug abuse can cause. However teenagers believe that being in a music video is all sex and drugs because that is how the music industry portrays it by making videos articles printing articles such as the interview with slash that portrays drug use as this glamorise activity that all rock stars indulge in. this is why we decided to make a video on the negative effects of drug use to balance the scales in a sense by making teenagers aware that drugs are not glamorous because they can cause serious physical and mental health issues. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms of convention of real media products?

3. I think my ancillary task was very effective as there are several features that highlight some key features that my music video raises. Firstly take a look at my model I asked he to perform a range of poses until we found the ones that made her look as though she was suffering from the effects of LSD. If you look at the front cover I made Amy push her self up against the wall and look back this makes her look paranoid or that she is crawling up the wall. I think this particularly picture highlights the negative effects of drug abuse that my video raises this is because this drug makes you paranoid which can lead to cardiac arrest or a mental break down. I have also specifically used props and costumes that make the audience think my singer has take drugs. First I made my singer where sunglasses, to some members of the audience this looks like she is just wearing sunglasses like most rock stars would however the connotations of this decision are that she is wearing sunglasses to hide her eyes because they are bloodshot and dilated this makes her look high and shows the audience how easy it would be to spot someone on drugs. In our video we didn't make her wear sunglasses but we did make her rub her eyes and wash her face making the audience think that something was wrong with her eyes and that she was trying to wake herself up from the hallucinations she was having. When I photographed Amy for my ancillary task I asked her to dress plainly this was to make the audience think that she didn’t care about her appearance like most drug users. By using props and costumes in this way I was trying to make the audience aware that if you take drugs you can be easily spotted because of you eyes and that you stop care about you hygiene and appearance. The colours I used also link to the issues raised in my video. This is because when you take LSD you start to see people’s emotion’s as colours, on my digi pack covers I have used the colours red, blue, yellow and orange because these are the most common colours people see when they take LSD. I have also used this in my video however I have given it a twist rather than have one of my actors covered in one colour I choose to colour my male leads eyes with black paint this makes the audience think he is crying black tears, I decided to do it this way because visually it looks more interesting and it shows colours as emotions in a more artistic way. By adding these effects to my work I am showing the audience that if you take LSD you start losing your grip on reality which could then lead to a sever mental break down. How effective is the combination of your main products and your ancillary task?

4. The setting I used can also show the negative effects of drug abuse. I chose to use this sheet because I knew that once I added effects to it would look like a sixties psychedelic monochrome rainbow. This then links back to the drug itself as many songs and effects such as these psychedelic spirals when created by artists taking drugs like LSD. This effect also acts as another hallucination like the ones scene in my video such as the mask scene because it makes the audience think that parts of the wall are falling off. Again I have added touches like these to show the audience how easily you can lose your grip on reality if you take this drug. I have also added a quote from the artist on one of my inside cover. Upon first glance you would think that we are endorsing the use of drugs by her saying that she is making it homage to the Beatles but the connotations of this is quote are that she is saying she’s a fan of the Beatles but she is trying to make the audience aware of the bands that have glamorised the use of drugs by writing songs like the strawberry fields and yellow submarine. So by making this album she is trying to show the negative effects of drugs which is the theme that runs entirely threw our video. Finally I also tried to link the song titles to how drugs are taken and how they effect you for example the song title “rusty needle” brings up connotations of someone injecting heroine into their bodies. I also tried to show how other drugs are taken in my video I chose to show how cocaine was taken. By doing this I tried to put the audience of taken drugs by showing them the horrible ways drugs are taken. The album name “ready set go “ also brings up connotations of someone who has taken cocaine and is ready to go and do anything.

5. From my audience feedback I have gathered a lot of useful information about my music video. Firstly they said we had used a good range of props in particular most of the audience liked the mask that we used one person stated that the mask was a very imaginative way of showing the audience the main characters hallucinations. They also liked the camera angle we used for the mask scene they said it was effective in showing the audience how the drug is changing her metal state by this I mean her looking into the mirror and seeing her face change. One audience member also liked the ghost and blackout effects. They said we used this effects effectively because it showed the audience the different symptoms of drug abuse. The audience also liked the way we mixed conceptual clips into our drug themed narrative. Specifically the thought of repeating the clips of our main protagonist gave the video a very creepy, scary and conceptual vibe which is what me and my partner wanted to show. They also liked how these laughing clips linked together to create a dream like sequence. They also liked the repetition of the male protagonists face as they said it made them think that the two characters were linked in some way. Our audience also liked how towards the end of the video the tempo picked up. They enjoyed this because it made them think that because the clips the were moving quicker that the drug was taking more of an effect over the female protagonist. Finally they said sets that we used seem genuine. They said it seemed as though the characters fit in well with the sets and scenery. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

6. During the construction we used two camera’s this helped us produce our video twice as fast because it allowed us to film two different shots at the same time. During the construction we also used mobile phones and e-mail to decide what times we were free to film and to send each other pieces of work that we used to help film our video i.e. equipment lists, storyboards, costume lists etc. throughout all of my coursework I constantly used computers. We mainly used the editing software (adobe premier element 8) to edit our video clips, we used Microsoft applications such as PowerPoint, word and excel so that we could present our work in an electronic form plus it also allowed us to make eye catching presentations and allowed us to take our results from our questionnaires and turn them into pie charts that are easier to read. Also instead of printing out our work and stick it into a folder we were allowed to create a blog where the examiner can look at and mark our work in an electronic format. Finally we also used PowerPoint to answer the evaluation questions and me and my partner also made a director’s commentary because we thought that this would be an interesting way to tell the audience what we thinking and why we used certain shots. To do this we used a Dictaphone and we then imported the sound clips into our video. How did you use new media technology in the construction, research, planning and evaluation?