In order to make sure that our video task (promotional music video for a song) looked professional and of a high standard we decided that it would be best to use mainly conventional features that we found appeared in music videos that we researched during the pre-production stage similar to the target audience that our own video would appeal to. We felt that the easiest way to display how we both used and challenged conventions was to select several videos to compare our own music video, these videos most importantly being of a similar genre of music & target audience (indie/grime/electronic rock & 16-25 year olds). The videos we chose to compare our video to are:
You Me at Six - Kiss and Tell
You Me at Six - Gossip
Travie McCoy - We'll Be Alright
Hadouken! - Liquid Lives
To compare our video with the above we selected clips from each video, focusing on camerawork/angles, mise en scene, lighting and editing to compare and contrast with clips from our own. These similarities and differences can be seen in the videos below.
Comparision of Camera Shots/Angles
Comparison of Mise en Scene
Comparison of Editing
As it was important to our group to challenge/use media conventions within the video aspect of our coursework, we took the same approach when it came to producing our printed tasks. Similar to our video, we decided to use and challenge media forms and conventions to ensure that our finished product would look professional and appealed to the correct target audience. However, due the fact we were producing a CD Digipak (album cover, inside sleeve, back cover) and a magazine advertisement we thought that this would also allow our products to maintain an element of consistency with each other. In order to effectively display how our printed tasks use and challenge media forms and conventions we have created presentations using website Prezi comparing our own products to professional ones.
2 - How effective is the product of your main product and ancillary tasks?
One of the main things we hoped to gain from ensuring that both our ancillary tasks and main task looked professional was that the products would be able to be easily related to each other - meaning that the target audience would be able to tell that the magazine advertisement was from the same people that produced the album artwork etc. This meant that we had maintain an element of consistency throughout the products to make them look professional. We achieved this by using the same font/theme/features in our video, magazine advertisement and CD digipak.
3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?
A key part in ensuring that our product appealed to the correct target audience, was collecting audience feedback and feedback from our lecturers. We decided that by collecting feedback throughout the production process, we would benefit more as simply getting feedback at the end of production may mean that a large number of changes would be needed to suit their tastes. Therefore, by collecting feedback after each draft it ensured that should any changes need to be made, they could be done in simple stages rather than in one big chunk at the end of production.
Feedback from our lecturer
Magazine Advertisement CD Cover (part of Digipak)
.jpg)
.jpg)
We also sought feedback from our peers once the music video had been produced which can be seen written on post-it notes below. Pink notes were used to indicate positive comments and things they liked about our video whilst yellow notes were used to indicate criticisms and things they thought we could have did better. From the feedback we found that one of the most common things they liked about the video was the reverse effect used - they considered it to be unique. We also found that they found the handheld camerawork added to the realism of the video and linked to the theme we hoped to portray through the video (a party similar to the likes of Skins tv drama). When we received this feedback we were pleased at it showed our music video appealed to the correct target audience and achieved the desired effects we were hoping for from the camerawork, music etc. However, we also received some common criticisms. These were mostly regarding the end of the video - people thought that the dialogue was unclear and the editing was not to the highest standard. We also found some people did not understand the plot completely which may have been due to the fact we had not been clear on this before we introduced the video. We also found that people thought that some scenes lasted too long. This was something in particular we agreed with. As we shot hours of footage, most of it was unusable, therefore we had to pick the best footage to fill out the video and simply use that due to time constraints and being unable to re-film the main part of the video as people were unavailable. The feedback notes can be seen below.
In the production of our Media Coursework we have used a variety of new technology in order to complete it. These technologies take the form of both software and hardware. For example, one of the most important pieces of hardware was a computer. As we needed it to access Blogger for the written aspect of our coursework and also to use the software Adobe Photoshop to complete our print tasks. The Videos and Prezi Presentations explain our usage in greater detail.
Blogger - Process of the entire project
Equipment - Computer, Camera and Tripod.
Construction of printed tasks and music video
Gaining Feedback on our work
