Evaluation Question 1 - Draft

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

- Our product uses the conventional ideas from previous music videos such as a plain white background and all played in a studio. But, it also develops the idea by having a band with straight faces all the way through the shot with no emotion and limited movement. Also, by putting the video in black and white to make it more dramatic and emotional.

- We have loosely based a lot of our video on the music video to the song we are doing with the same setting of a white studio and the whole band playing in the same place. We have also done similar shots such as the one shown below of the whole band together and the length of the shots are similar with long slow changing shots which speed up as the song gets going.

- There are lots of different songs that just use a studio with the band for their video. But, we have made ours different and gone against some mainstream conventions by developing ideas by making the music video focus solely on the music that is being played. Bands have done this by just showing the artists playing the song in a studio all with their instruments and getting shots of all of them playing, similarly to our video. However, we have developed the idea and by having no emotion in the video from the players by having limited movement and deadpan faces it focuses even more on the music and makes it stand out a lot more.
- Researching different ideas we thought that a simple yet affective way of doing a music video would be for the best as we feel as it makes the idea of the band and the impression the artists are trying to get is enhanced a lot more with just having the band. I feel this is because it is simply just the band and nothing else to look at so the audiences attention cannot be drawn away by any other thing happening on screen other than the band playing. This is also helpful as the audience would be watching the music video and also listening to the music a lot more as they can physically see all the instruments being played and there is a lot less to draw their attention away from the music as well.

- For my digipak I have also gone for a simple yet affective idea. This is because, after a lot of research and self opinion, I have found out and also think that the less that is on a digipak and advert, the better. This is because that here is not too much to look and for the audience so they can have a quick look or glance and straight away know what it is supposed to advertise as it is an easy read. This means that it can get across the information needed quickly and easily and the audience will not get disinterested after looking at the advert for too long.
 

Evaluation Question 2 - Draft

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

When creating my digipak and advert I wanted something that would represent my band in a really good way and to also sort of mirror their appearance and style. I decided to go with a black and white simple design with minimal features on them. The reason why it is so plain and simple and is also in black and white is because it perfectly corresponds to our final music video. This is because the music video is in black and white which shows that it has matched already and it also has minimal features as it is just the band playing in a plain white studio. The reason why this works so well is that it shows the band is all about the music with this and the minimal features gets you straight to the point of what is going on and gives the audience a straight idea of the band and their music as soon as possible. Also with the lack of features it really makes the audience listen to the music instead of being distracted by other things going on either on the digipak and advert or in the music video.

The extra panels of my digipak also are combined with my final product. The extra panels are the ones with the lyrics to all the songs that would be included to the album. This shows that the artists really want their audience to learn their songs as well as possible and really appreciate the music for what it is and now what they look like or do.

When first designing my digipak and advert I was thinking about bright colours to go onto them but after a lot of thought and different research I found that black and white not only worked best together as a colour combination but also worked best compared to my final product as I feel as it reflects the band and the video well. Also, in our video we have dead pan expressions on our faces so I had to go for a darker colour or the digipak would not fit in with the style and also mood of the members of the band. The similarity of the band and the digipak really helps the audience see what kind of band it is and the genre they not only play but also look and act like.

The combination of the minimal look on both my digipak and advert and also my video is that it creates a more professional look for the band and helps the artists to be taken more seriously and also it looks a lot better than something that is too much as it could bring in the wrong target audience, such as a younger one, instead of the target audience that we were going for which was mainly teenagers and young adults.

Evaluation Question 3 - Draft

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Our main feedback came from both of our A2 media teachers. This was some of the best feedback we received as they both have a very critical eye into looking at music videos and they can look out for what is good about them and also what is terrible. I feel as that the feedback from our teachers was the best as they know exactly what the exam board are looking for so we can get the best possible video with our audience and also the board liking it and looking professional. After having them viewed our draft video they had many opinions on it that helped us improve it as much as we possibly could to come up with our final product. For example in our first draft only one person in the band had a dead pan expression and the rest of the band looked very casual. They gave feedback that they thought that the dead pan idea was a good look. So after asking other peers that were in our target audience they all agreed that the dead pan expression was the best look. So to make our final product better we decided for the whole band to have the expression all the way through the music video. We decided to keep most other things the same as I had gotten feedback from people within and also not in our target audience who had seen our draft and they said that the shots were at good angles and the video really fit in well with the genre of the music and band. However, people did notice the shaking in some of the shots so that made us get the new recording equipment that we acquired for our final product, such as the shoulder attachment and the tri-pod so we could get extremely still and professional shots.

When I first designed a digipak and advert I received feedback from peers in and out of my target audience and also my teachers again. All of them said the exact same thing, that they did not fit in with my music video, artists or genre. This is because I had done minimalism but not the correct way. The colours were all wrong and also the fonts looked awful and all out of genre. So, when re designing my final digipak and advert I did a lot of research into what colours looked best myself and came up with black and white as they fit the best and also looked the best. However, when deciding on my font I asked many different people on their different opinions in what font they thought looked the best and also what they thought fit into my genre the best. I had come up with a lot of different fonts that I liked and came down to a final three fonts and I asked many different people including my teachers what they thought looked best, what they liked the most and which one fitted in with my genre the best. There was one that stood out the most out of all three of them for most people and was the one that was voted for the most. So, naturally that was the one I used for my final design.
Also, it was pointed out in my drafts that some critical parts were missing such as websites and also a record label to be on them both so I was able to put them both and also take off the 'iTunes' logo on the bottom of my draft advert as that is not normally put on the bottom of posters.