A2 Media Evaluation Questions

Ben Millard-GreenCandidate Number: 9294

Centre Number: 62249

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?Codes and Conventions of Music Videos: When producing any form of media production, you have to follow certain forms and conventions

that are associated with existing media products of that type. My production was a music video and therefore I had to ensure that all aspects of my final piece followed the existing music videos. I ensured this was the case through researching existing music videos and analysing them. I found out the following things:

The main element to a music video is the music itself. It is also the main reason that people watch a music video. The music has to reflect the mood of the music video so that the storyline of the music video makes sense and so that it keeps the viewer interested. As my music choice is a slightly upbeat acoustic song, I needed to try and create a music video that was quite tame and did not have any sharp or quick camera shots until the end. The lyrics to the music video were more depressing than happy which meant I had to try and implement a sad storyline to the music video in order to compliment these lyrics. The song is titled “Something you need” which gives the idea that the storyline should be about the regret of leaving someone and I tried to implement this idea through the concept of an argument at the start and then the male character chasing the female character all the way through the town centre.

One thing I didn’t have in my music video which is sometimes used in existing music videos is a performance of some sort. A lot of music videos have a storyline for half of the duration and for the other half they would have either the bad or singer performing the song. Some music videos even go for just a performance. This is something that the band who sung my chosen song tend to do. The reason for not choosing to do any form of performance aspect is because the song is relatively short and I just wanted to try and get a relatively long chase through the city. If I was to incorporate any performance aspects to the music video, I would not have been able to give the effect that I wanted.

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? I tried to keep the editing to a minimum as I wanted to give the production a more

realistic effect to it. For this reason, I did not use a large amount of colour treatment, which can be used in a lot of music videos in order to change them from colour to black and white. An example of my colour treatment compared to a heavily treated music video can be seen in the screenshot below. The lighting in the shot on the left (my production) is all natural and there has been no treatment to this shot whereas the shot on the right has been treated to a point where it gives off a black and white effect to it.

My original song idea was somewhat different to the one I chose to use in the final production. This is because I had originally planned to do a music video with a happier feeling to it but I decided to change the idea as some of the locations were not easily accessible. This then meant I had to change the song to make it reflect a more depressed mood and to ensure the lyrics fitted the actions that were being conducted by the actors in the film.

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? The last convention of a typical romantic music video I tried to ensure I incorporated

into my production is the fact that the whole story revolves round a male and a female character. I tried to ensure they were dressed as typical males and females of their ages do (teenagers) and this would then help me to give the video a realistic appeal to it and therefore make it more successful and of a better quality. I dressed the male character in dark clothing to try and ensure the audience knew he was the more troublesome of the two characters and the one who was going to cause the problem in the storyline. I also tried to ensure the female character was dressed in such a way that she didn’t stand out too much. This gives the feeling as though she does not seem “special” or “desired” by the male character and this would then have an effect when he chases her but cannot seem to find her until it is too late. Pictures of the two main characters can be seen below:

Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?Main Production and Magazine Article: The first ancillary text that I made was a magazine

article reviewing the music video and stating things about the production, the music and other general information relating to my music video as a whole.

The production and the magazine article compliment each other very well. I used two screenshots from my production in the article to show different clips from the music video and so I could relate some of my text to these screenshots.

I used the combination of red and black for the texts to try and bring it to the attention of the reader and make it more attractive to read. I also used a grey background to try and be different from standard white backgrounds.

I also had a small section on the band who produced the music video and I tried to make it into a more factual magazine article by adding information about the band and creating a scenario of them coming to me for ideas about making their music video.

Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?Music Video and Poster: Similar to the magazine article but this time I

wanted to try and create a poster that would attract the attention of people who were just walking down the street. I took some screenshots from my production and altered the colouring and the contrast to give it a more dramatic effect to it. This change of colour also allowed for it to compliment the background colour of the poster. I used the same reviews as the ones from the magazine article but gave them some quotes to try and attract the people who are viewing the poster even more. The bold red colour stands out from the black and grey background to try and catch the eye of anyone who may be walking past it in the street. I used the same mix of colours as from the magazine article to try and ensure that they both go together and both give off the same vibe and feeling that I am trying to get through from my music video.

Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback? In order to gain any feedback from my audience, I had to conduct a questionnaire which

I would give to my audience once they had watched my production. This questionnaire had a group of multiple questions on them which were not multiple choice so I gave the respondents some time to think about how they might respond the questions before collecting in the answers. The questions that I asked were as follows:

1. Did you understand the storyline? If not please say why2. Do you feel the music reflected the mood of the video and if so why?3. Where there any parts that interested you? Please state which parts4. Is there anything you think could be improved?

From the responses I was able to see that all of my respondents understood the storyline and they all felt the music choice reflected the mood of the video and complimented it well. Some of the respondents said that it seemed a little bit happy because it was upbeat but stated that the lyrics definitely complimented the mood of the video.

My respondents tended to compliment the use of slow motion in the video and how the shots faded into one another. They also stated that the fact the shots were not very fast paced and went on for relatively long periods of time gave the effect that time was passing slowly. This was then matched with the slow motion clips.

Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback? There were varied opinions on what my respondents thought I could improve my final

production with. Most of the respondents stated that I could have done some more work with the lighting as some of the shots were very bright compared to darker ones. This meant that the continuity of the video was not quite right and would therefore mean the video lacked a bit in terms of quality. Other people said that there could have been more work put into trying to time certain beats and parts of the song with clips. This meant that the audience obviously were not too sure about the way the song fitted to the music video which could mislead them.

Other Forms of Audience Research: Another way in which I could have conducted some more audience research is

through posting y video online and allowing people to comment their opinions after watching it. this would have been done through the use of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. This would have allowed me to gain even more opinions which would have then allowed me to determine the success of my production even clearer, whilst also seeing if there were any other areas in which I would be able to improve it in order to make it an even bigger success.

Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?Construction and Research: In the research stages of my production, I used YouTube to find out what sorts of

videos went with songs that were similar to my chosen one. I looked at acoustic music videos but a lot of these were just performances without a storyline video as most acoustic songs are done by artists who are not signed to big record labels and therefore do not have the funding to make big music videos. I also looked at reviews on places such as blogger for music videos to see how people view music videos and how they feel certain songs reflect their corresponding videos.

In terms of constructing my production, I needed key pieces of equipment which would allow for me to actually make and produce my music video for the public to see. I needed a camera and a tripod as my main two items for construction (obviously with the camera comes an SD card and a battery). This would allow me to shoot the clips I wanted and the tripod allowed for to do different camera movements and to get shots from different angles with more accuracy and with a more professional look to it. After this I will have had to edit my film using the Serif Movie Plus software we have at the disposal of us students. This will allow me to put all of my clips together before cutting them down an ensuring they can all fit together to make the music video look like I want it to.

Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?Planning: When I was planning my music video, I used the internet far much more than any other

media technology to find out certain information. I used YouTube to try and find some music videos that I know where similar to the idea I wanted to try and portray in my music video. I originally wanted to try and have a first person video which corresponded into a romantic date scenery. I found a video that I thought would be very good to base my production on and this will be shown at the bottom left of the planning section. I also wanted to try and find one that would have the idea of memories between a couple that are no longer together. I did find this as well and this can be seen at the bottom right of the planning section. Using YouTube also allowed me to look for songs to use as it allows for a much wider variety of people who are not signed to big record labels and are therefore not promoted frequently in the charts and on TV or radio.

I also used Google Maps in the planning stages of my production so that I could find out where the best locations would be for me. I already had the idea that I wanted to use the train station as a main location but I also wanted to use some form of hotel. Due to an unforeseen circumstance, I was not able to use the hotel I had planned and therefore had to change location to some form of coffee shop. The main location ideas I needed to find was the route in which both characters would be using to get from the coffee shop to the train station. The route did not have to necessarily go from place to place but I needed to find areas that would be quite enough for me to film without any form of disturbance.

Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?Evaluation: The media technologies I have used for my evaluation have been very limited as I

have not had the time to be very creative with my evaluation questions and have therefore had to put all of them into this PowerPoint presentation. This has meant that I have not been able to use the filming tools and editing software any more than I have already in my production but I have still been able to use some media technologies.

The main one I have been using is a website called Slideshare (web address at the bottom of the slide). This has allowed me to see some of the work that has been done by other people who have done the same coursework as me and this has allowed me to see what ways they have gone about presenting their evaluation questions.

As well as this I have also used different screenshots and clips which have allowed me to display certain examples of music videos and of other technologies which have helped me to produce my music video.

www.Slideshare.net