EVALUATIONBy Estella Ossei

Introduction In my evaluation I will discuss the production

process in which me and my team members went through, whilst making our music video to promote an up and coming artist called crucial. I am going to include the role in which I participated in as the editor and will also mention the different forms of media that we used whilst talking about the effectiveness of them. I will discuss whether we wanted to challenge or reinforce the idea of a conventional music video and other topics. I will talk about these issues whilst addressing the four main questions.

Estella Ossei

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP AND CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PROJECT?

Ways in which my media project uses conventional real media products.

During our planning process I researched information on to the background of hip-hop music and it’s video’s. I found out that graffiti was a popular thing in hip-hop culture and was used in videos, as a way of replacing physical violence with artistic musical expression.

As a group we thought it would be a good idea to use in our music video. I believe it was effective because the lyrics in ‘this is hip-hop’ talks about violence and terrorism, and the graffiti and pictures behind him whilst performing, expressed he’s emotions in an artistic way and would engage the audience, as he would not just be standing by a plain background.

Another way in which our product used the conventional ideas, was by using the power points in the background. During research into our indicative video’s we found out that a hip-hop artist Lowkey had also used this idea in he’s music video. I thought this was effective because it emphasised our artist emotions, and expressed he’s points across to the audience. It also was eye-catching and by having the images that related to the lyrics play at the same time allowed the audience to engage with the music and be able to relate to the lyrics. This also supports Goodwin’s theory of the visual relating to the lyrics.

Furthermore Uk hip-hop videos usually don’t have narrative within their music video (music video’s such as Devlin- brainwashed, Giggs- look what the cat dragged in and Tinchy Stryder- number one). We decided to stick to these conventional ideas and have it performance based throughout the whole music video. I believe this would be more effective as it places more emphasise on the artist facial expressions, hand gestures and he’s lyrics then what the meaning of the narrative is trying to convey. Which would allow our target audience to relate better to the lyrics.

An additional way in which we kept to the real media conventions, was by the use of mise-en scene. We had our artist dress in a way which we had seen in our indicative music video’s, so to keep to the typical character codes which are recognisable to our audience and allows them to indentify what type of genre our music video is.

Chris brown crucial

Costume we got our artist crucial to dress in. As we can see Chris brown (on the left) an US hip-hop artist is also wearing similar clothing. We had our artist come in Jeans, white shirt, hoodie and a jacket. The outfit is also associated with the hip-hop genre and follows the typical conventions. Our demographic of our target audience is aimed at male’s and females 13-19 year old, and these are the typical clothing a male of our target audience would wear, and it also attracts the female gaze to our artist. It allows them to relate better to the artist if they see conventional characteristic that our typical to their youth culture.

Furthermore another way in which we conformed to the conventional forms of hip-hop genre, was by monitoring the way our artist crucial performed he’s lyrics. When researching into our indicative music video’s and other hip-hop video’s, facial expression, hand gestures and body language were important for a strong performance base. As to make the artist look confident and to engage with the audience. This is important because if the audience do not feel engaged with the lyrics of the song they will not pay attention, and will not be influenced by the artist music.

Lil Wayne DrakeDevlin

Crucial

Estella Ossei

WAYS IN WHICH MY MEDIA PROJECT DEVELOPS CONVENTIONAL REAL MEDIA PROJECTS.

I will deconstruct our music video to explain ways in which we developed our idea’s and the connotations behind them

.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkLe8GK6z9c Link to our video

The lyrics ‘this is hip hop right here’ and the camera angle tilting up to a close up of the artist face has a connotation of the artist referring he’s music and himself as true hip-hop. It also Signifies that he’s songs speak meaning and reach out to the audience, and identify with the conventions of the hip-hop culture.

We incorporated graffiti into our music video at the background to reinforce conventional hip-hip music videos. To represent the idea of musical expression through art.

Goodwin believed that their is a relationship between the music and the visuals and the lyrics and the visuals. The beat of the song is quite fast and that is why we decided to have 5 second shots of many straight-cut of different camera angles, of our artist performing in front of the camera. This was effective because it keeps the audience engaged as, their will not be repetitive shots, and the beat matches the visuals, hand gestures and movements of the artist.

The use of hand gestures conform to the conventional hip-hop music video’s, As you can see from our indicative videos a lot of hand movements are used in performance based videos to keep to the pace of the music and to keep the audience entertained.

Because we decided to keep the video performance based, We used close-up shots of the artist. This is effective because it helps show of the artist to promote him and it engages the audience, as he is looking directly at the camera. The visuals also match the lyrics ‘don’t compare me to Lowkey I'm just doing me’, with an close-up image of crucial as the way he represents himself. This also reinforces the idea that he doesn’t conform to the conventional stereotypes of hip-hop culture, and has connation's to show the audience that they can also be who they want to be.

We liked the idea from our indicative video, (Devlin- brainwashed) and we thought it would be effective in our video. We decided to use differential focus in this scene where the artist is out of focus and the video on the screen is in focus. I thought this was effective because, the close up camera shot allows the audience to connect with the artist. It signifying the artist deep emotions of what he is thinking and the way he expresses it through he’s music. The visual also corresponds with the lyrics ‘arrogant, abbasinate the alphabet , always out to accumulate interactuate and leave dull minds aculeate.’ We chose this camera edit (differential focus) to represent the different views of people and to signify how arrogant people can not see as clearly as him.

Indicative video This idea was taking from

one of our indicative videos. We thought it would be effective to add it in as we had to many shots of the artist performing and the audience may start to feel bored. The message on the paper also correspond with the lyrics and this makes it effective because it emphasises his point more.

The two PowerPoint's within or music video were used to represent our artist emotions in the song. The images reinforced the lyrics of the music video. I thought this was effective because it allowed our artist to get he’s points in his lyrics across to the audience in a more effective way. Also because our video is targeted at a large audience the younger population of our target market may be more attracted to the visuals, then the lyrics. And this allows us to appeal to wider range of audiences. It was also entertaining and kept the audience engaged. We used a different range of camera shots such as long shots and medium close up shots, so the scene did not look repetitive, and we had a lot of straight cut in-betweens. As I saw in many hip-hop video’s their were continuous edits of straight-cuts. We also decided to use low level lighting at a low level angle so it would produce a shadow on the backdrop. This would be more effective as it will allow the artist to look more bigger and powerful.

Location used

We chose to use the TV studio, location because it had the big projector at the back so it would allow us to play our PowerPoint's whilst the artist was performing. The room had no windows so it blocked out sunlight and it allowed us to control the use of lighting. We used low key lighting, and 3 point lighting to create a shadow of the artist in the backdrop. This made the artist look more powerful and allowed him to express his lyrics in a way that would attract the audience. The idea was taking from an existing media product. We also took pictures and shot different graffiti walls by Liverpool street to add in to our music video. This was effective because the location is a generic and common type of location that the audience of our target market would associate UK hip-hop music videos to. This also creates intertextual links as when our audience look at the graffiti background in our music video they would be able to associate it with hip-hop, and this shows ways in which our media product conform to the hip-hop genre of music.

Ways in which my media project conforms to real media projects.

Ways in which my media product challenges the form of conventions in a real media product.

When doing research into music video I came across a theorist called Andrew Goodwin. Goodwin believed that music video’s demonstrate a genre characteristics. The typical characteristics for the hip-hop music videos include wealth and power, being shown through Iconographic images. Artist usual convey the stereotypical view that in order for you to be successful you must have money. Expensive jewellery, cars and girls. These can be seen in videos such as snoop dogg- drop it like it’s hot and 50 cent- candy shop.

We decided to challenge these conventional ideas and not conform to them, as our chosen target audience was aimed at 13-19 years old. I thought it was best to show wealth and power in another way in our video, as our artist is more of an role model, and for our target audience to relate to him more we should market him in a more positive way. We decided to challenge their stereotypical views of what a successful hip-hop artist should look like, we did this by the use of mise-en scene.

Ways in which we used mise-en scene was through costume. We kept our artist looking simple but still attractive to the audience view. We had him wear jeans, shirt and a jacket with no jewellery on. To signify that no everybody has to have expensive and materialistic things, in order to achieve their dreams. It shows he is off middle class, but is still trying to make a living and making he’s dreams come true. I thought this would be effective as if the artist could dress like our target audience, the audience would be able to connect better with him and relate to he’s music, making him more of an effective marketing tool. However Looking into record labels and the kind of artist that our signed up to them. They desire a specific look for artist to have, and our artist crucial may not appeal to big record labels such as island records, because he does not convey these typical conventions. Artist such as N-dubz were British artist they are now signed to Def jam records and the music videos consist of cars, girls and expensive things to represent their status in life. This shows that it may be harder for crucial to break out into the music industry.

We used significant props, to represent it’s not all about wealth and expensive things. One prop we used was the camera within a camera in one of our scenes, this showed that the minimal amount of prop can still be effective in a music video.

Estella Ossei

HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY TEXT

I will discuss the synergetic products that I have created, this includes the music video, digi-pack and magazine advert. These are all forms of marketing and promotion for the artist, and I will asses how effective they were. I designed my CD cover and advert using Photoshop, I then posted it on facebook as I knew a majority of our target audience use a social networking site and it was the best way to gather a large amount of feedback from a range of different people. The aim of a CD cover and advert is to communicate with our audience effectively, to attract them to our product. It helps promote and establish our artist using mass media. I also looked into different CD covers and adverts of our chosen product genre hip-hop and other genre to establish the difference's, I looked at the graphic design colours used and different use of camera shots of the artist. Our music video as a whole is an marketing tool as it helps promotes the artist music, and image and can help the artist grow in the music industry.

Estella Ossei

Rock genre Hip-hop genre

We can see from the pictures the difference between the two different genres on the CD cover. The rock genre use dark colours and has a picture of the band with their instruments. Whereas the hip-hop genre used bright colour such as orange and the typography uses a graffiti style font , Their is a close up image of the artist and the background is in black and white to represent the life the artist is coming from, Whereas in the rock genre it uses a long shot picture of the band.

Estella Ossei

OUR CHOSEN CD COVER

Mid-close up Of artist, looking away from the camera.

Graffiti background

Bold black writing

Mid- close up of artist Not looking at the camera.

Colour scheme used light blue, dark blue, white and back. These are four effective colours which stand out against each other and will attract the audience attention in a magazine.

Bold white writing against black background, Easy to read and stands out to the audience

Logo of legal sites that you can download music on, and stores you can purchase their music from.

Image of CD cover at the bottom hand corner.

Close up shot of the artist looking at the camera. We thought this was more effective because it draws the audience in.

Bright colours of red, green yellow and white. To attract the audience.

Bold black writing stand out on the background and is easy to read.

Image of CD cover on front. Used to promote and advertise he’s CDLogo of HMV on

here. Helps promote HMV as well as advertise artist.

Our chosen advert

Group CD and advert

My CD cover and advert cover (chosen advert)

Ariba CD cover and inside cd (chosen design)

Estella Ossei

Warsan back CD cover (chosen design)

Estella Ossei

EFFECTIVENESS OF ANCILLARY PRODUCTS.

Our ancillary product are designed to market our music video product. They are aimed to communicate with the audience effectively to attract them to the artist music. It makes the audience aware of the artist and it’s music.

I designed a marketing aim tool to help me decide which look I wanted to achieve when design my digi-pack and advert, and to asses which one would be the best marketing tool.

In our chosen CD cover design we used an mid-long shot of the artist. I believe this was more effective as it showed his powerful status and image within society and the music industry, The use of graffiti images and bold writing also conformed to the typical hip-hop culture codes and conventions, This was effective and is why the audience felt more drawn to the CD cover.

It is effective because for a music video to be successful as well it relies on mass media and by creating a product such as a music advert it increases awareness and promotes the artist and attracts a wide population of audience to the artist, which in turn could lead to them watching the music video.

Estella Ossei

Although my advert was the most popular one from the audience feedback, we thought it was best as a group to go with Ariba’s advert as it corresponded with the CD cover and music video, As it kept to the same stylistic features within our music video to create an intertextual link between the advert and the music video,

We did this by the use of the graffiti background in the advert and CD cover. The picture was taking from when we were shooting different locations for our music video. The same typography was used within the CD cover and music advert. A mid close up of the artist was used on the front of the CD cover, and within our music video mid-close up shots are also used.

Bold colours such as red, yellow and white were used on the cd cover and music advert. Expressive images such as the picture of the skull were used on the front cover, and within our music video through our power points,

I believe this acts as an effective marketing tool as a whole because when the audience look at our adverts in the magazine, they would be able to make links between the pictures and use of colours used within the advert and our music video. Furthermore this attracts the audience to the artist and the music video which will help promote the artist and increase sales of albums.

Estella Ossei

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

After our music video was edited using final cut pro we posted it up on facebook and YouTube, to receive audience feedback.

From our feedback we were told that the audience liked the use of the graffiti background they were able to relate it to the hip-hop genre. The use of editing was good and the 10secs shots each of different camera angels was good as their was not many repetitive shots.

However when we did our camera within a camera scene the background was pink, and the audience believed that it wasn't as effective as it did not relate to the song of our music genre. If we had a chance to do it again I would use a different location to shoot that scene and I would not use so many continuous shots throughout the music video as I believe it may become boring to the audience.

Also from our feedback I learnt that the use of PowerPoint within our music video was very effective with the audience because it was unique and challenge the idea’s of conventional hip-hop music, As we did not include cars, money or objectifying women in our music video. In essence I believe this gave out product a USP and was popular with our target audience because they could relate to the song better.

The use of close-up camera shots were effective because it felt like the artist was speaking to the audience directly, and our audience were able to connect better to the lyrics of the song.

As the editor if given more time I could asses our music video fully to check that it was lip synced better and to make sure that next time we shoot longer takes so that we will have more to experiment with when capturing and logging.

If given more time to edit the video I would consider the ethical issues also associated with creating our music video. Some of the swear words and lyrics may not be acceptable for our younger audience, and our target audience was aimed at 13-19 year olds. Next time I would consider censoring out the rude words. However a parental advisory sign was also put up on our CD cover so it allowed the consumer’s parents, to decide whether they believed it was suitable enough.

Estella Ossei

Estella Ossei

I posted my CD cover and advert on to facebook as I knew I could gain feedback from a wide variety of audience.

From my feedback I learnt that the audience liked my CD cover and advert and found it effective in marketing the music video. A majority of them said that if they saw the CD cover it might prompt them to buy the album as the bright bold colours attracted them to it, and the advert would prompt them to see the music video. This shows me that my ancillary product has acted as a useful marketing tool in promoting our artist and his music.

However if I could design my CD and advert again I would change the colour of the font on the CD cover as some of the audience found it hard to read. Also the background of the wall on my advert did not relate to the music video and a minority of our audience said that they could not make the relationship between the CD cover and the advert, but they liked the use of design. I would take this into consideration if I was to design a new one,

Estella Ossei

When we all had individually finished designing our own digi-pack, we went around college with the four different designs and the participants were asked two questions.

‘When looking at the adverts which one do you think is the most effective and would persuade you to buy the album’.

40 people were asked 70% chose my advert as the most effective one and commented that it drew their attention, and they would consider purchasing the CD.

‘When looking at the CD designs which one do you think is the most attractive and why, and would it persuade you to purchase the product.

40 people were asked and 68% chose Ariba front cover and commented that the writing and the picture stood out, and they would consider purchasing the CD.

Estella Ossei

Below I have included a copy of our questionnaire that we created and handed out to a focus group to give us their feedback on our chosen CD cover and advert design and music video.

Estella Ossei1) From the advert and CD cover do you think the music video will be mainly performance or

narrative based? Circle one. Performance Narrative 2) What do you like most about the CD cover and advert? Circle one. Colour Picture 3) Was the link between the CD cover and advert and the music video easy to establish?

Yes No 4) Do you usually listen to this genre of music? Yes No 5) Can you guess the Genre of the music video ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) If yes what features did you like about the music video? Please write here. ................................................................................................................................. ............................................................................................................................... 7) Did you like the colours used in advert and CD cover? Yes No 8) What kind of TV program do you think you would see this video on? MTV base 9) What improvements could you suggest to make our ancillary texts more attractive? Please

write here. ……………………………………………………………………………………….. ………………………………………………………………………………………..10) would you watch the music video after seeing the advert or CD cover? Yes No11) What were your thoughts on the music video you have just seen

12) Can u think of any improvements we might add to our music video.

From the advert and CD cover do you think the music video will be mainly performance or narrative based?

Performance

Narrative

The response of this question is that the majority of the people in the focal group said before they watched the music video, they predicted it would be a performance. This is because the target audience mainly watch Hip-Hop videos so they know what to expect.

The majority of the people in the target audience we surveyed said that they could establish the link between the ancillary texts and the music video. They explained that it was because they had similar features like colour, artist performance skill and location.

To the second question, the majority of people said that they preferred the picture more than the colour. Some people also went on to explain that it was because the artist was attractive (mainly by the females) and the background was appealing.

Estella Ossei

Did you like the colours used in the CD cover and advert?

Yes

No

Finally, would you watch the music video after seeing the

advert or CD cover?

Yes

Finally, we asked if they would consider watching our music video if they saw the advert or CD cover. The majority of the focal group answered yes and we were so pleased with that end result. Therefore, I have realised that our ancillary texts have marketed and promoted our music video successfully to the extent that our target audience would watch our video and raise its popularity. In the previous question, we asked do

you like the colour or the picture, and the majority said picture. So we enhanced the colours that I used in my CD cover and advert and I posed the question again. This time I got a better response because I got a picture with the background having a variety of different colours.

HOW DID YOU USE NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION, RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGE.

In the research stages I used the internet to access music generated content such as YouTube to research into hip-hop and other genre's music video’s to see whether they had narrative or performance base. This helped us to decide which genre we wanted to do, and to use performance based in our music video. YouTube was also used to watch our indicative video’s to collect some idea’s on what to incorporate into our music video.

I used Google images to research for different music magazine adverts, and CD covers, It helped me to see the typical conventions and character codes used in attracting the audience. This helped me take pictures of our artist at a precise camera angle of a close-up shot and edit them using Photoshop to a way that will attract our audience attention.

I also used the internet to access a variety of different information into the background of hip-hop genre. I used Wikipedia and other websites to find out what typical conventions and meanings were conveyed throughout hip-hop music video’s.

I used hotmail to keep in contact with our artist and to email him the treatment and production schedule. This was also used as a form of communication within our group to sned pictures and things to each other for our blogs.

Our mobile phones were also used as a form of communication between the group members and our artist, This was the most efficient way to contact each other

Microsoft word was used to draw up a treatment production schedule and risk assessments. This allowed us to organise well and prioritise our schedule.

BlogSpot was used to create a blog. It allowed us to post everything we have done on their for everyone to see, it also enables me to keep an weekly account of what we had achieved with our music video planning, research and construction so far

Photoshop allowed me to manipulate the photos I had taking to create a digi-pack. It allowed me to use different colours and designs to create an effective media text that would attract our audience to our music product. I found it quite easy using Photoshop as I had practice before when creating an music magazine last year.

The cannons cam recorder allowed us to capture footage for our music video. I practiced using the camera around college filming different camera shots from different angles. This helped the group to learn how to use the camera and decide what type of shots we thought were best for our music video.

Final cut pro was used to capture and log footage as well as edit footage and add in affects to produce a final music video, As my role as the editor I practiced using this software so I could get used to editing and adding in different transitions into our music video.

YouTube was also used to post up our final music video product so we could collect feedback from a wide variety of audiences,

Social networking sites such as Facebook was also used to post up our video and digi-pack to advertise our product as well as collect feedback from our target audience.

Power point was used to create a slideshow for my evaluation. It allowed me to explain the reasons why we used some techniques in our music video

SCREEN SHOTS OF ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS AND THE CD COVER I CREATED USING PHOTOSHOP.

Estella Ossei

Screenshots of me editing using final cut pro

WHY NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGY IS IMPORTANT

New media technology is important to us nowadays it allows us to research, plan and construct our music video in a more effective way. The use of internet has allowed us to advertise and promote our product as a marketing tool in many different formats. Using YouTube allowed us to post up our music videos in order to reach an audience of a wide variety. It provided the consumers an opportunity to voice their opinions on our product, as well as giving them the chance to express any form of constructive criticism of ways in which our video could be improved.

The are many benefits of using YouTube , these include the facts that their are no gate keepers. It allows people to upload any content of their choice to be broadcasted across the internet. The use of technological convergence has allowed consumers to time shift between different formats of new media technology, enabling them to have a variety of options on ways to watch a media product. This benefits us as our target population for our music video was aimed at 13-19 year olds, and a majority of them own ipods, wii console or mobile devices which allows them to stream YouTube from their device. This improves our chances of our video being viewed by a wide range of people.

Estella Ossei

The use of modern technology such as digital video camera’s and final cut pro allows us to capture a range of footage at high quality and transfer them on to a software, where I am able to manipulate the shots and add in special effects to attract the audience attention. For example the lighting and different shots and compositions used on the foot and the artist at the end of our music video. Final cut pro also allows us to transfer our final product onto a portable hardware such as a CD. The proliferation of hardware also enables consumers different ways to consume a product such as a DVD player and social networking sites. Social networking sites create an marketing tool for our product, as well as promotes our product as you are able to upload your video’s and share with everybody on Facebook, this increases the number of people that our product is able to reach.

In conclusion the use of modern technology has aided me to create a product of high standards which replicates real media products. It has enabled me to gain new skills whilst excising all the skills which were gained from last year. Modern technology has allowed me to upload my product as a marketing and distribution tool.