Evaluation - The Use of New Media Technologies Within Our Project

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

The main impact of new media technologies, on our project, has been the internet. For our research we were able to use a search engine to quickly identify relevant fan websites and artist websites to collect data, and assess who our target audience was. We were also able to analysis artists similar to the one that was chose, using sites such as youtube and spotify, that suggest songs you may like. The use of the internet made it possible to find videos we wanted to watch, and we were able to watch them at our convinence, instead of relying on a radio or a television to possibly show the songs we wanted. Web 2.0 is interactive, because of these people are able to leave comments, talk about a product etc. This enabled us to look at what people thought and how they compared certain artists to others. Using youtube and the print screen function, during our research we were able to capture certain moments and analyse them, because of this, it was easier to notice different shot types, use of lighting, mis en scene, props, locations etc. This media technology allowed us to physically look at other videos and artists and helped us to decide what techniques to use, and how well they worked.

To edit our video, we used iMovie. As none of us in the group had ever used any video editing software, we decided that it was a good starting point for beginners, even if it isn't the most accurate editing software. used a digital camera to film with and then uploaded it to iMovie, because we used a digital camera we were able to change what we used easily, rather than using film which would have to be cut together. We filmed the majority of our video, and then came to the conclusion it wasn't what we wanted, and we were easily able to change our footage. It also gave us the opportunity to quickly cut together the parts of film that were needed, and then later refine the lengths on the shots, and easily sync up the music and action. For my ancillary task I used photoshop CS4, I'd only previously used photoshop for my AS task. As I wanted to create something similar to existing media texts, I downloaded relevant fonts. I also used masks for the background. For the photoshoot for the ancillary task, I used plain backgrounds, such as a black curtain, to make it easier to edit.

Using a blog to document all of the progress towards making our products was the most beneficial part of the available new media technologies. I used the website Scribd to embed powerpoints, without converting the powerpoint into another form. I was also able to upload pictures of screen shots, and add links to other relevant blog posts. Social networking site, Facebook, allowed us to directly recieve feedback, after uploading our work, making it easily accessable by our target audience.

Evaluation - Audience Feedback

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

The use of web 2.0 played a large part in our audience feedback. We created a rough cut of our original idea, the story line was a girl and a boy falling in and out of love, all leading to the prom. After showing this rough initial idea to some of our class mates, the feedback was largely negative. Due to this point we made the decision to completely change our narrative. We then sent out questionnaires through email and facebook to decide on a new story line. Then with the new completely video we posted it onto youtube and onto facebook. You can see the comments we recieved on facebook here. Here is a screen shot of our video on youtube, it also shows how many views we recieved and the likes and dislikes.



Out of the feedback that we recieved, it was mostly constructive. We also recieved alot of comments about the narrative storyline, questioning the relationship between the two girls, which isn't what we originally aimed for but is good as it differs from our genre. Alot of people also liked the heart warming hug and laugh at the end of the video, which is a bonus as we wanted the video to end on a high. Considering we'd never used the software iMovie before to create a video, the comments about editing and the techniques used were positive.

When looking at the questionnaire results, that can be viewed here. We noticed that people thought our performance shots were better than our narrative shots. We did this partly on purpose because most of the videos in our genre that we looked at had heavy performance shots, quite often during narrative sections. By recieving this feedback it shows that we achieved what we had set out to. However our narrative could've been stronger.

The majority of people said that we had used a variety of shot types, however 35% said we didn't. We understand this, because we only did about 3 different shot angles in each location. If we had more time we could've rectified this. However we feel that it was not hugely important, as long as we had a wide variety of locations.

Evaluation - The Effectiveness of Our Products as a Package

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

Comparing music videos with the relevant album and posters there is generally no real connection, unlike films and their promotional packages which are connected very closely. Our music video and the rest of our promotional package are not closely linked. Our music video connects with the lyrics of the song we chose, and the song we chose is a part of the album. We used the same location for the pictures in our ancillary task as the shots we took for the stage performance shots, we also used the same outfit. This is effective because it gives the impression that the ancillary products and the music video are part of the same product package. The idea of everything as one package, is to create an image of the artist and send out an impression to the public. By the video, album, and poster being slightly different, this creates a wider target audience for the artist.

During our music video our artist appears to be quite cheeky, and outspoken. I tried to convey this in the pictures chosen for my ancillary task, I did this by choosing a photograph for the front cover of her with a cheeky smile, the insert photograph she's in a performance position and looks very comfortable in who she is, and the back cover she's standing with her hand on her hip. All of these pictures show a connection to moments of self confident attitude which are also present in our music video.
Here is a screenshot of a similar position during the music video compared to one on my album cover.
The title of the album 'One of the boys' also fits with the self confidence attitude theme running through, as it gives the impression of being a tom boy.

I kept to the theme of stars for my album cover and insert. This was so it wasn't bitty and came together nicely. On the insert is the lyrics of the song we used, as in many album covers they list the lyrics of the songs. Click here to see my completed album artwork, and here to see my completed poster.

I think it's important to have some similarities between the poster and the album cover but also to give the fans a taste of something different. I used some of the same font and colours on the poster as on the album, I also put a picture of the album cover on the poster advertising it's release.

Evaluation - Challenging Codes and Conventions

In what ways does you media product use, develop or challenge the codes and conventions of real media products?

For our A2 media project we had to produce a music video, an album cover with inserts and a promotional poster, these would all form part of a promotional media package. All 3 products link together using and developing existing pop genre media techniques. We have also challenged many of these codes and conventions.

If you go here you can see our performance and narrative pitch. By looking at other music videos from our genre, we found that most narrative parts focused on romantic relationships between a man and a woman. We decided that we wanted to keep the feeling of a close relationship, to link in with the lyrics. instead of a romantic relationship we developed the normal codes and conventions and focused our narrative on a friendship between two girls. From feedback we received it was not always completely clear that we had created a friendship environment, but possibly a same sex romantic relationship. This still goes against the conventions of existing media texts, because most videos portray heterosexual relationships instead of same sex. We noticed that many shots in the original 'Hot 'n' Cold' music video, Katy Perry sings during narrative shots, this is very typical of the pop genre. We decided to incorporate this into our music video.

When it comes to the performance shots of our music video we were more traditional, and used techniques from videos we had looked at. From looking at 'Ellie Gouldings - Starry Eyed' used similar techniques for our on stage performance, the expression in her face and directly looking into the camera singing.During the video Ellie Goulding stays in one spot but dances with her arms and knees. We got Emma to do the same in our performance shots. By using a variety of different shots in the same location focusing on Emma, makes her the centre of attention, which is the case in many music videos from this genre. We also looked at 'Lily Allen - Smile' Throughout her music video she's in her own personal space in a bedroom, singing into the camera in different positions on the bed. We decided to do the same in our music video, as it connects the audience to our artist as she is seen as vulnerable.

For our ancillary task we decided to use the original name of the artist and the album. When looking at existing album covers we discovered that quite often there was a picture of the artist with a plain background, generally black, white or other dark colours, with the except of the original album cover for 'Katy Perry - One of the boys' which is a picture of Katy Perry on a sun lounger in a brightly coloured garden. However most of these album covers didn't relate to the album name. However I also looked at singles covers and found these to be more elaborate and generally related to the song title. I decided to try and use the codes and conventions of existing media texts, and chose a dark blue/black background with stars to add that little bit of excitement similar to Ellie Goulding's single cover and Katy Perry's album cover. I also used very similar font and font colours to the original album cover on mine.


When researching posters pretty much all of them in our genre had white backgrounds and use one colour font. When looking at Lily Allen's poster for her tour 'With Natalie Portman's shaved head' she has used an animation of her our face and colour it pink. I decided to use the same technique. However instead of only using one colour for the font on my poster I decided to use two colours, the same as the album cover. I also noticed that posters were quite often very similar to the album cover. Challenging this I decided to use a photograph of Emma with curly hair instead of straight like in our music video and on our album cover. However you can still see the album and the poster are related.

Evaluation plan

Now that we've finished our final video and our ancillary tasks, all we have left to do is the evaluation. We will have to evaluate our products and our pre-production work. The following questions will need to be answered in the evaluation.

- In what ways does you media product use, develop or challenge the codes and conventions of real media products?
- How effective is the combination of your main product and the ancillary texts?
- What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
- How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research planning and evaluation stages of your project?

Audience feedback

We uploaded our music video to facebook to gain some feedback. We then uploaded a quick questionnaire for people to fill out and let us know what they thought. 25 people answered the questionnaire for us.

How would you rate our music video out of 10?
1 - 0
2 - 0
3 - 0
4 - 0
5 - 4
6 - 5
7 - 11
8 - 2
9 - 3
10 - 0

How would you rate the performance out of 10?
1 - 0
2 - 0
3 - 0
4 - 0
5 - 0
6 - 7
7 - 8
8 - 9
9 - 1
10 - 0

How would you rate the narrative out of 10?
1 - 0
2 - 0
3 - 0
4 - 0
5 - 3
6 - 9
7 - 12
8 - 1
9 - 0
10 - 0

Does the narrative create an easy to follow story?
Yes - 19
No - 5
Don't know - 1

Does our video look like a pop video?
Yes - 22
No - 3

Have we used a variety of different shot types?
Yes - 18
No - 7


Here is a screen shot of when I initially posted our music video onto facebook.

Final version of our music video

Ancillary - Album artwork

Ancillary - Poster

CD cover development

As I want to create a professional looking CD cover and poster package, I used photoshop to do this. Using various layers of images and masking tools to create the desired effect.

Ancillary task photoshoot

Here are some of the photographs we took to use on our ancillary tasks. We decided to keep our artist in the same clothing as the performance shots in our music video. This is in keeping with the codes and conventions of our genre, as most album covers use photographs of artists in performance clothing.

Editing

We have started to edit our music video using iMovie. We started by roughly cutting the performance scenes together to form our basic storyboard frame for the performance. We will later add in the narrative scenes to complete the music video, and then upload the song and sync up the music and performance. We decided that by cutting between each shot quite rapidly to keep up with the pace of the song. Some of the shots are dark so we may need to lighten them using the editing software.

Shoot diary

Stacy uploaded our shoot diary.
Day 1.
Day 2.
Day 3.

Location planning

Now that we've decided on the main content of our music video and have thought about our locations, we can plan exactly where we're going to film. Some of the shots are mixed performance and narrative, and therefore will be listed as both.

Performance shots locations:
- Drama studio on stage. Use of lights and black curtain.
Emma's house
- Bedroom, on bed. Large and well lit.
- Bedroom, mirror.
- Garden, Bench. Attractive setting.
- Outside house.

Narrative shot locations:
- School canteen. Gives the impression of the performers age. Large area to work with.
Emma's house
- Garden, back door.
- Garden, Bench.
- Bedroom, on bed.
- Outside house.

Music video narrative and performance pitch

Narrative
The video opens with a girl lead on her bed in her dressing gown on a laptop, she picks up her phone and theres an over the shoulder shot of the message she has just recieved, it cuts back to the long shot of her lead on the bed and it is obvious that she clicks play on her laptop and this is when the song begins. There are several shots of her face. Then the video cuts to several long shots which change rapily of the girl in different outfits which fits the lyrics 'You change your mind, like a girl changes clothes.'

Performance
There is now a shot of the girl sat on her bed singing, the video then cuts between several shots of the girl on the bed, a series of long shots, extreme close ups, close ups and midshots. It is clear by her facial expressions that shes fed up and slighly annoyed by the situation. We cut to a close up of the artist on stage singing the chorus, she is dressed in a black dress and looks comfortable on stage. The video cuts between long shots, mid shots, close ups and extreme close ups of the girl on stage peforming. The video cuts back to the girl on the bed and she sings a short part then cuts back to her on stage.

Narrative
There is a long shot of the girl opening her wardrobe, we then cut to a matching action shot of her opening a door into her back garden. She looks confused, goes back through the door then comes out again in a different outfit, and looks pleased with herself. The video then cuts to a midshot of the girl in the outfit that she just changed into sat on a bench with another girl playing slapping games. Both girls look very happy go lucky, laughing.

Performance
Same shot of the girls sat on the bench. This time the friend is sat looking bored. The artist is sat next to her also looking bored and annoyed, but singing into the camera. The girl also sings to the friend next to her, the friend will not notice her singing, she is very still as if frozen. There is then a close up of the girl singing into the camera. Back to the midshot of the two girls on the bench, this time the artist is sat on the back of the bench singing at the friend, the artist looks very angry and appears to be shouting at the friend.

Narrative
There is another shot of the two girls on the bench, they are mirroring each others body language, and both look annoyed and fed up.

Performance
There is a midshot of the girl now sat outside of her house in a different outfit, she is still singing to the camera. This time she looks as if she is waiting for someone. The video cuts between a selection of shots such as longshot, mid shot and close ups of the girl sat outside of the house during this verse.

Narrative
There is a shot from behind the girl of her looking up and down the road, to see if anyones coming. There is a then a shot above her head, again showing her looking around for anybody.

Performance
There a few more shots of the girl singing into the camera outside of a house.

Narrative
There is an over the shoulder shot of the friend walking towards the girl, there are more shots showing the girl waving at the friend but being ignored. There is then a mid shot of the girl looking upset that she has been ignored by her friend.

Performance
For the bridge of the song, we chose a shot of the girl singing into a hair brush looking into her mirror and singing into the camera. There will be a shot of her from the side singing, and then cutting between that and an over the shoulder shot so her reflection is visible in the mirror of her singing. Both of these shots are close ups. We then cut back to the shot of the girl performing on stage, this shot will be a close up to match the shots just taken in the mirror. The video will then cut between all of the previous shots used in each locaion.

Narrative
Several of the shots on the bench, where the girl and the friend are not talking will be in amongst that of the performance shots during the end chorus. Once the song has ended, the video will cut back to the girls on the bench laughing at hugging.

Artistic inspiration

As the ancillary task for this project is to create an album cover, inlays, and a poster, I looked for inspiration for my artwork. Most album covers from our genre have plain background, generally black or white. I wanted to try and keep with this convention, however wanted to look at other covers that challenged it slightly. Looking at Ellie Gouldings single cover for Starry eyed, there is still a quite plain background used but this time using a dark blue with a few stars. I like this idea and wish to use it in my ancillary task later. However unlike Ellie Gouldings cover, I would like to use brightly coloured lettering similar to Katy Perrys teenage dream album cover.

Music video inspiration

After deciding on the initial ideas for the narrative and performance of our music video, we looked at other media texts that already exist to give us some more inspiration and ideas about the codes and conventions of our genre and how to challenge them.

Ellie Goulding - Starry eyed

This video is good inspiration for the performance element of our music video. There is no narrative, which will not be the case for ours. There are only about 5 different shot locations, we intend to limit our shot locations to a small number like this. The shots used are all of Ellie Goulding in a static position singing into the camera, they are mostly mid shots and close ups and a few long shots and cut between all of these quite raidly. We want to recreate these types of shots in our own music video and also try and create our video to be as fast paced as Ellie Goulding's. Ellie Goulding is singing through out all of these performance shots. We are going to have our artist sing through out the majority of our video even during some of the narrative as is in keeping with our genre. The video starts in one location for the first verse and changes to another in the first chorus. By the end of the video the shots are cutting between each location. We would like to use this technique in our video to tie up all the locations together.

Kelly Clarkson - My life would suck without you

In this video I mainly focused on the narrative. The narrative in this video shows a traditional romantic reltionship with difficulities. The narrative only appears during the verses of the song, which we would like to happen in our video. The artist who is a female in this video is represented as the more dominant one, which goes against traditional representation. Although we will not be creating a romantic relationship between a man and a woman, but a friendship between two females we would like to portray the artist as the dominant character. I looked slightly at the performance shots in this video, Kelly Clarkson is on a stage performing but no audience is visible, we think that this is a good idea, as it gives the impression that the viewer of the video is the audience of the on stage performance.

Initial video ideas

With our music video we want to try and recreate the emotions that the lyric's imply. With a serious upset emotion, angry and also revengeful and then happy. However, instead of using the theme of a romantic relationship, we have decided to do a friendship, the break down and the formation of a new friendship, we have chosen to do this because of the environment we have available to us, a school. The video will take place in natural settings, similar to Lily Allen's video for the fear. We have decided on a all female cast because of the female artist singing. We want to main focus to be our leading female character/'artist', who will be played by the same person for performance and for narrative. We will try and use different shots to create an interesting video to watch. The performance will take place in the settings of the narrative, but will also take place on a stage.

Hot 'n' Cold - Lyrical Analysis

These are the lyrics for the song we are using, Hot 'n' Cold by Katy Perry. The song is basically, a girl singing about how her love interest can't make his mind up about how he feels about her. One moment he's all over her and the next he's gone off of her, and this frustrates her. The lyrics give off an angry and annoyed vibe, this is a big contrast to the overall 'pop' light hearted feel to the song. The video is playful but still slows the lyrical aggravation quite well. As a result we will keep our video quite excitable with a dark narrative.

You change your mind
Like a girl changes clothes
Yeah you, PMS
Like a bitch
I would know

And you over think
Always speak
Cryptically

I should know
That you're no good for me

Cause you're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in then you're out
You're up then you're down
You're wrong when it's right
It's black and it's white
We fight, we break up
We kiss, we make up
(you) You don't really want to stay, no
(but you) But you don't really want to go-o
You're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in then you're out
You're up then you're down

We used to be
Just like twins
So in sync
The same energy
Now's a dead battery
Used to laugh bout nothing
Now you're plain boring

I should know that
You're not gonna change

Cause you're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in then you're out
You're up then you're down
You're wrong when it's right
It's black and it's white
We fight, we break up
We kiss, we make up
(you) You don't really want to stay, no
(but you) But you don't really want to go-o
You're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in then you're out
You're up then you're down

Someone call the doctor
Got a case of a love bi-polar
Stuck on a roller coaster
Can't get off this ride

You change your mind
Like a girl changes clothes

Cause you're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in then you're out
You're up then you're down
You're wrong when it's right
It's black and it's white
We fight, we break up
We kiss, we make up
You're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in then you're out
You're up then you're down
You're wrong when it's right
It's black and it's white
We fight, we break up
We kiss, we make up
(you) You don't really want to stay, no
(but you) But you don't really want to go-o
You're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in then you're out
You're up then you're down, down...

Poster Analysis

I also looked at the posters that advertised the tour promoting the relevant albums for Lily Allen and Lady Gaga.

This is Lily Allen's poster for her tour 'Lily Allen with Natalie Portman's shaved head' where she performed the album 'It's not me, it's you' Similarly to the album cover the background is plain but this time it's white. There is a close up shot of Lily Allen's face but this has been animated and make completely pink, which matches the colour of the font on the rest of the poster, and also matches the theme of the album cover, however the image is completely different to that of the album cover. The writing is very minimal and just says the name of the tour, the date and the venue. This is simple and effective because it's to the point.


Lady Gaga's poster also has a white background with black font and with Lady Gaga wearing the same black outfit as on the album. Once again the information on the poster is straight to the point, the artist's name, the date and the venue. With one small difference to Lily Allen's poster, there is an advertisement for her album. The Photograph of lady Gaga is on the right the same as the picture of Lily Allen on her poster. However this time the whole body of Lady Gaga can be seen. The photograph is different to any on the album, but is in the same style.