The student created a music video for the song "3 Little Words" by Frankmusik using various filming and editing techniques. Green screening was used to film the actor against changing backgrounds to match the upbeat tempo of the song. Audience feedback was gathered through a questionnaire, which found that viewers enjoyed the green screen effect and thought the video matched the song well, but suggested improving lip syncing and removing a green glow. The black and green colors used for the album cover and poster were found to be eye-catching and appropriate for the dance pop genre. Various media technologies like Photoshop, InDesign, blogs, and PowerPoint were used at different stages of the project for construction, research, planning and evaluation.

1. A2 Media EvaluationMusic Video – ‘3 Little Words’ Frankmusik

2. In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?Question 1:

3. Answer:Our music video consists of a number of different techniques, camera angles and lighting. For the first part of our video we used green screening so that we could change the background. We then sped up the background footage to fit with the tempo of the music as it is an upbeat song. Using the green screen meant that we could film different parts of a city without having the actor there. Wethen could use the footage filmed in the city as the background, with the green screen cut out, to make it seem as if the actor was there, creating a distinctive effect. By cutting the footage into smaller parts it gave us the opportunity to have different lengths of shots and different camera angles within each shot, to create an exciting and upbeat atmosphere for the viewers. Then we wanted to add footage of different areas to give our video variety of places and shots. For this we went to our local nightclub to film people dancing. By slowing down and speeding up the shots we could relate back to Frankmusik’s original video as these elements were in that too. Also in the original, there is lots of colour and movement, which we also tried to recreate but with our own twist. Our video had to appeal to fans of electro/dance/pop, and we believe we have achieved this. We researched other music videos of the same genre to see what type of shots/scenes were used.

4. Question 2:How Effective Is The Combination Of Your Main Product And Ancillary Texts?

5. Answer: The main ancillary texts link well together; as a group we have used the same type of text and colour for the poster and for the CD album covers. We have used the same colour for the background and similar images. The images are all of our actor, but they are all black and white and on a black background. The combination of the film and the ancillary texts is effective. The poster and the CD album are eye catching as is the title or text as these are in a bright green that really stands out. Again we researched existing posters and album covers and examined their contents to inspire us and help us make our decisions in regard to design. The key points we found were that they had to be bold, eye-catching and clear to read. We then applied the same structure to our own work.

6. Question: 3What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?

7. Answer: For our audience feedback we created a questionnaire to find out what our target audience liked about the video and what they didn’t. We also asked them what they would choose to improve on in our video. The majority of people we asked were in the age range of 16 – 19; we used an audience of this age as we thought the song was best suited for a younger audience. Also we ensured they all watched music videos often or occasionally as we felt this would improve their evaluation skills having seen a variety. All of the viewers believed that the music video fitted the song well with the upbeat tempo, they also thought the video gave a fun and entertaining impression. The media technique they enjoyed the most was the use of the green screen as it had an exciting quick background behind it which suited the tempo of the upbeat song. Things which we picked up on to improve our music video was to match the lip syncing to the song more effectively and to get rid of the green glow around the boy’s body. When our audience looked at our tour poster and album cover most of them said the green and black colours chosen were effective as they portrayed the vibrant, dance pop genre. They also thought that we chose an appropriate font that was clear to read, but still kept in with the theme of the music and image. Overall the general feedback was positive, with some constructive criticism which will help us improve on future projects.

8. Question 4 :How Did You Use Media Technologies In The Construction And Research, Planning And Evaluation Stages?

9. Answer:For the construction and research : We used the internet frequently throughout our planning stage to look at album covers to analyze and to gather ideas, which led us on to doing our mood board. We did the mood board in In Design as this was really easy to use and the end result was really good.Weused Photoshop for the album cover, at first we found it difficult as we had not used it recently, but after having a recap of the programme, managed to work out some effective techniques. We have to show our work electronically, so we set up a Blog. This was easy to set up and it was simple to upload things. We tried to do the Album cover in Fireworks at first but really struggled as we found it hard to navigate around. Instead wewent back to Photoshop as it was more appropriate and we believed that it produced better quality work.For the Planning and evaluation: For the planning we used Microsoft Word to draw up the questionnaire andfound this very easy to do. We used the internet to look at the album covers that our artist has already produced and then gathered ideas of what our poster and album should look like. We also gathered text ideas so we could experiment with text as well as colour. For the evaluation we are using a power point as we all find it easy to use and we can set it out in question/answer format.