Media Evaluation

Rebecca Dempsey

1). In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real

media products?

• I think my music video was able to fit in with the codes and conventions of real media products effectively. The song was specifically chosen from the album track list to create a new story line for an already formulated narrative that became very helpful in regards to what kind of music video we intended to make.

• The song was taken from Plan B’s sophomore album “The Defamation of Strickland Banks.” By studying the content of the album we were given a clear indication of the background of it and we found that this song would fit in with the storyline perfectly.

• This story revolves around a fictional character named Strickland Banks, played by Plan B. It follows a consistent time frame from beginning to end, starting with the two opening tracks “Love Goes Down” and “Writing’s on the Wall” which are love songs performed by him about his girlfriend at his concert. His success as a musician is highlighted in the next track “Stay Too Long” which culminates in him having a one night stand with a woman. In “She Said” we learn that the woman has developed an obsession with him and his music and believes herself to be in love with him. When he rejects her she accuses him of rape and he is later arrested.

• The next track “Welcome to Hell” focuses on his arrest and the majority of the rest of the album is about the trials and tribulations that he faces in prison. The isolation and insecurities that Strickland begins to feel when struggling to adjust to his new life are shown throughout the next two tracks “Hard Times” and “The Recluse.” This results in him becoming the target of abuse from other prisoners and purchasing a “shiv” on the prison black market throughout the course of “Traded in my Cigarettes.” In “Prayin” he is confronted by another prisoner who attacks him, the fight results in him killing his attacker in self defence and his subsequent guilt is demonstrated in “Darkest Place.” Both “Free” and “I Know A Song” detail initially his anger and then his acceptance of life in prison. In the album’s last track “What You Gonna Do” Strickland is in court again and the album ends with the listener being unsure if he has been released or not.

The Defamation of Strickland Banks track list:1. Love Goes Down2. Writing’s On The Wall3. Stay Too Long4. She Said5. Welcome To Hell6. Hard Times7. Traded In My Cigarettes8. Prayin9. Darkest Place10. Free11. I Know A Song12. What You Gonna Do

Comparisons and similarities

• When deciding upon our actors we knew that to effectively create a music video that fitted to the codes and conventions of a typical Plan B style music video and with this in mind details such as clothing and locations all had a huge impact on our decision making.

• As shown here both our actor and Plan B are wearing similar clothing, a theme that remained consistent in our video.

• The portrayal of the girlfriend was also something we had to think about in detail, like with most artists Plan B tends to use attractive females to play his love interest in his videos. With this in mind, we knew we had to find someone with the versatility to play both the attractive love interest and invoke the emotions brought on by Plan B’s arrest.

• Examples of females from Plan B’s videos:

• From my music video:

Lip Syncing

• One of the most important conventions of a music video involves lip syncing. This is done in most music videos, especially those that have a narrative alongside it as ours does. During the editing, we realised how difficult it was to make sure everything was in perfect sync at all times, and how important it was. I think that we did achieve this in our music video and although this was a lengthy and time consuming process, we definitely learned a lot from it.

Mise en scene Mise en scene: a French term and originates in the theatre. It means,

literally, "put in the scene." For film, it has a broader meaning, and refers to almost everything that goes into the composition of the shot, including the composition itself: framing, movement of the camera and characters, lighting, set design and general visual environment.

In my music video, the Mise en scene played an important role in conforming to the codes and conventions of real media products. For example with the setting of the video takes place on stage, in a prison and in a home, so we were determined to have the correct props, outfits and locations during filming.

Camera angles and shots

I used a varied amount of camera shots and angles in my music video. These included:

• An over the shoulder shot of the actor (Jack) removing a picture from inside his cell wall.

• Many close ups of both Jack and Oyinda’s faces throughout the song, including one at the very end on Oyinda.

• A long shot of Jack leaving prison• A birds eye view of Jack looking up into the window from

prison. These shots were effective because not only did they show how

the actors felt at that particular moment, but I feel they also added a sense of realism to the video.

The Narrative

• Another main convention that I looked at was narrative theory. There are two main narratives, which are:

• Linear Narrative: A story from start, to middle to end. This is the most simple kind of narrative structure with a clear starting and ending point.

• Non-linear narrative: Does not progress or develop smoothly from one stage to the next in a logical way. Instead it makes sudden changes or seems to develop in different directions.

My music video follows a non-linear narrative format, as it involves a series of flashbacks from various time periods and has a cliff hanger ending, that can be open to interpretation.

Media Theorists: Todorov

The main theorist that I can relate to in my music video is Tzvetan Todorov. He simplified the narrative theory, and created his own that is still widely used in many forms of media today. His theory was:

• The fictional environment begins with a sense of equilibrium. • It then suffers disruption or “disequilibrium.”• New equilibrium is produced at the end of the narrative.

• In my music video, Todorov’s theory can be seen throughout, for example:

• The “Equilibrium” is shown through the flashbacks of the couple in happier times, before his arrest.

• The “Disequilibrium” is obviously caused by his arrest and the rape charge.

• The “New-Equilibrium” is seen at the end, when his girlfriend comes to meet him at the prison after his release.

Intertextuality in media

• Intertextuality: The relationship that exists between different texts, within media it is the different types of medias.

• The ways in which I was able to incorporate this into my music video was through the use of the radio at the beginning of the music video, the magazine photos on the prison wall and the music channel in the background from the living room scene.

2) How effective is the combination of your media product and ancillary texts?

• The Digipack: A form of jewel case• which can hold one or more CD’s or DVD’s in which the outer cover is made up of card rather than of plastic. In my digipack, I was able to combine both the album cover

and it’s back as well as the coin design.

Album Cover

• Once I had decided upon a name for my album, “Being Janus” the idea for the album cover became clearer. As Janus is the name of the Roman God of beginnings, I was able to combine this with the theme of prison and the stage, with the actor shown with two different persona’s.

Does the digipack fulfil it’s purpose?• I feel that the digipack was able to fit to the codes and

conventions of a typical media product and effectively represented my artist through the name “Being Janus” which helped us to implicate symbols such as the Roman Coins in a very original and effective way.

Would it be appropriate for your target audience?• The target audience of 14-25 year olds, which are the group

that our music video is aimed at are the most likely to buy digi-packs, so I believe that both the digi-pack and the concept behind it would be intriguing enough for our target audience to buy it.

Overall reflection

• Overall I am very happy with the way my media product has turned out as well as the ancillary tasks. Comparing this to my previous first portfolio, which is where I gained my first real experience I feel I have learned a lot more and can now take into account the importance of camera angles, mise en scene and editing.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

• I knew that to have a wide range of audience feedback that gave reliable results I would have to ask various questions to find out the kind of audience that would be watching, including their gender and age.

• The questions they were asked were:• Are you male or female?• What is your preferred genre of music?• On a scale of 1-10 how effective was A) The narrative? B) The

camera angles? C) The editing?• Is the music video successfully target for 14-25 year olds?• Does the video reflect the genre associated with Plan B?• What improvements would you make to the video?

• The results that I received were generally positive. We found that we had a great number of both males and females participating in the feedback questions, however there were more females than males, however this was not by much.

• With the genre of music I found that R&B was the most popular, by a considerable amount. This was beneficial to us, as Plan B’s music is mainly associated with R&B.

• A lot of the positive feedback we received commented on the narrative, with many pointing out that they enjoyed the original concept of it.

• The majority of the participants in the survey also agreed that the video successfully targeted it’s target audience.

• We found that those had circled that their preferred genre of music as R&B tended to agree that the video reflected the genre associated with Plan B, which emphasises that those who were more likely to listen to this kind of music anyway already had a basic idea of what to expect from a Plan B video, and luckily they thought positively.

• The responses that were given on the improvements to the video included setting, lighting, lip syncing, clearer camera and more angles. I found this feedback very useful as it gave an insight to the video from completely different viewpoints and although these things that were pointed out could not be changed, it was still good to have an idea of the types of criticism we were likely to recieve at a later date.

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

stages?

• Construction of the music video:• When making the music video, as a group we decided to use the same

video camera that we had from our portfolio the year before. We decided that by doing this, we would be able to familiarise ourselves with the camera easily and this would make the process less time consuming and costly. However, we found later that this camera did not have the high standard that we had hoped for, and so this did unfortunately effect the quality of our video. Nevertheless, I believe that the music video was impressive enough, considering the limited equipment that we had.

We also used a tripod for our music video. This obviously had a huge impact on the camera angles and shots. I believe that having previous experience from the year before was hugely important for this as it enabled us to quickly adapt to our locations and be able to use such equipment efficiently.

Other than the camera and the tripod, the only other form of technology that we had when filming our video was a mobile phone that enabled us to listen to the song whilst filming. This was very useful, as we were able to find out exactly what part of the song we were filming from and also in other aspects, such as the lip syncing.

• Mac’s and iMovie: Once we had completed our music video, we began editing at

the CLC centre in Edmonton. We knew from last years experience that this can often be a lengthy and stressful process and with only two days to complete it all, we knew that we would have to put a considerable amount of effort into our finished product and also plan our time wisely. The IMac’s were often difficult to come to grips with but we soon managed to come to terms with this. Our editing was done on the IMac’s using IMovie. Again having had previous experience with this definitely made the experience easier.

Blogger

• I have been using blogger to keep an update on my music video and the progress that we have made. I find this very useful as the site is relatively straightforward and it is something that I have never done before.

My Blog

Photoshop

• One of the most difficult tasks we faced as a group was Photoshop. As none of us were familiar with Photoshop we had the task of having to make our album cover again and again until we got it right. Although this was stressful we learned a lot of skills that could help us in later life and we were able to come up with a great design eventually.

YouTube

• Technology such as YouTube played an important role in the planning and research stages of my portfolio. For example, when choosing our genre, we looked at a range of different artists before deciding upon Plan B. These artists included those in a similar genre and style, including Example, Professor Green and Eminem. Before deciding on our song, we researched iconic music video’s to help give us a better understanding and background of music videos as a whole, these included Michael Jackson and Queen.

Facebook

• Facebook helped considerably when we wanted feedback on our music video. Facebook made it possible to gain feedback in a much faster and reliable way than handing out questionnaires. It also gave us perhaps more time to look at and respond to feedback than we would have had otherwise.