Evaluation: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

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

With regards to my music video, I feel that the technical skills used were very contributory towards its success, aesthetically, emotively and creatively. Understanding that my music video would essentially appeal to young girls within the ages of 12-24, I adapted different ideas along the way to ensure that it would both attract and appeal to this target audience, and match their exact expectations of what's considered a 'good' Pop music video. Firstly, the concept of my video was well-thought out. I didn't just want to make a 'cliché love story', but a story of a girl who is lost in her own entrapment of heartbreak, allowing the audience to actually follow her journey as she is constantly reminded of props that trigger flashbacks in her mind. The audience are actually shown these flashbacks, and they are not just random flash backs either. Each prop she discovers along her journey is actually a figure of her imagination, and not only this, but each flashback is a stage of her past relationship with her ex, Matt. I planned out the stages before I began filming, and these were: Stage 1. Just-met/dating stage Stage 2. Comfortable/in love stage Stage 3. Distrust/arguments stage Stage 4. Break-up stage Stage 5. Acceptance/moving-on stage. I decided that the total five stages would allow an actual simple structure for my audience to understand, giving it depth, and an equilibrium/resolution. I felt this was successful because I knew that most young females would be able to relate with the concept of being cheated on or arguing with a guy they held 'close to their heart'. Therefore, they would be able to empathise with her and understand my video on a much deeper, emotional level, which I believe is important. This is amplified even more by the technical aspects of my video, where I have used short shots that I matched specifically to each beat of the song so that it flows fluently to the rhythm. I kept the pace of the shots at a consistent rhythm until the climax of the song, where I flicked back and forth from many shots of Matt and Georgina arguing, to amplify the pain and anger experienced in this stage of their relationship through extremely fast-paced shots. I felt that this would suitably capture the reckless emotion portrayed not just in the song, but aesthetically too. I believe that this is another successful aspect of my music video because I think it has the ability to actually affect the audience emotively, as we (as the audience) are taken on a nostalgic journey, almost witnessing the couple's happy moments together first hand, for it all to suddenly break apart in front of us. Furthermore,

Evaluation: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

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How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Initially, before any planning or research, I created a blog on www.blogger.com. This site allowed me to record every single element involved within the process of creating all three of my products. Luckily, I was familiar with this site already as I had used it in AS level Media studies. It was quite a simple concept to get a hold of so I found myself quickly adapting to it and posting different things every day. It proved to be extremely great in displaying my multimedia skills and portraying my work in a visually pleasing manner. It meant I could embed my tasks from different documents, whether it be Word, a video or Powerpoint, which was useful. I actually found myself enjoying using Blogger and beginning to post things I didn’t really need to, however I felt would help improve my grade. Blogger was essential to publishing my actual journey and how I improved on my producing process with every week. Additionally, Prezi is another site I was familiar with due to using it previously in AS. It is a web-based presentation application, which helped me present my work in perhaps more interesting and entertaining ways rather than just Powerpoint. This allowed me to actually vary the publishing techniques I used with my tasks, making them look more abstract and different. The embed tool on Prezi is what allowed me to copy my presentations on to my blog, so that it was easy to view every time anyone went on to my blog.

            Of course, to actually post videos to Blogger, I needed

Evaluation: How have you used, developed, or challenged Conventions of Real Media texts?

Evaluation: How Have you Developed, Used or Challenged Conventions of Real Media Texts?

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Evaluation: How have you used, developed, or challenged Conventions of Real Media texts?

Each media text adapts certain typical conventions according to its genre, such as pop, rock, R&B etc. If you watch a variation of music videos, you will realise that they all cater to certain genre conventions, which are repeated over and over until they eventually become familiar to an audience. However, you could argue that some artists like Gaga for example, essentially have their ‘own genre’, as Gaga is so unique in so many ways.

Music video

My music video uses a pop song, so when it came to producing it, I knew I needed to decide whether to conform to fixed pop conventions, develop them or challenge them. I ended up wanting to have a contrasting balance of both challenging and using pop conventions, which was very fun to do. Firstly, my video definitely conforms to Goodwin’s ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ theory, stating that there is a relationship between lyrics and visuals firstly. I definitely do this, as for example, when Ellie Goulding sings ‘I left my house, left my clothes’ I correlate this with footage of Georgina putting on her jacket and leaving her house. I made sure to repeat this aspect quite a few times to represent familiarity, but not too many times for it to become repetitive and predictable. Secondly, my music video really conforms to the idea that there’s a ‘relationship between the music and visuals’, as I made sure to match every single shot to each beat of the song with the ‘marking’ tool, so that the rhythm and pace was consistent and easy to watch. The second draft of my music video however, did not have this and watching it back/receiving feedback made me realise it really did need short, snappy cuts to match the song rhythm, so of course I changed this. The lighting on the “happy” shots of the couple’s first date and their comfortable/inlove stage are high key, to represent happiness and lightheartedness which is what many pop music videos replicate. However, when things start to go wrong and Georgina gets rejected, the lighting instantly becomes low key and shots fasten up to represent her frustration and overwhelming emotion. Also, as Goodwin stated,

Evaluation: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

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Evaluation: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Gathering audience feedback was a prime element of the production process of my music video, as it informed me on what sort of thing I need to improve on in order for me to reach the best grade possible. It also showed me the generally favoured elements about my music video, which highlighted to me what conventions my target audience appreciated as a whole. It also ensured that I was creating products that would appeal to my target audience successfully and be of a high professional quality.

The primary target audience I have chosen for my music video is mainly teenage and adult females between the ages of 14 and 30, as they will most likely have experienced or witnessed what my music video focuses on at least once in their life: heartbreak/relationships. Furthermore, due to Ellie Goulding being quite a young, angelic & popular artist that younger female audiences will most likely be aware of, a female target audience seemed appropriate. This is adding onto the fact that the Pop genre is more well-known within the younger generation. I represented all of these elements in my products by making them feminine and pretty/naturistic. Examples of this are the light star/twinkle effect I applied to a photo on my front cover digipak, or the narrative in my music video following a female on her journey – allowing audiences to personally identify with the character. The secondary audience of my music video would be males between the ages of 17 and 25. This is because I’d assume that less males would be interested in my music video because the concept is quite feminine.

I made sure to gather all the audience feedback I could, all the way through the production process of all my products. Before beginning the whole process of production, I created and handed out a questionnaire to my Media class mates which asked questions like “would you prefer a music video with narrative and performance? Or just performance?” This allowed me to collect both qualitative and quantitative data, which was really useful. As well as this,