Evaluation Questions

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

My media product was to create a music video for an existing song that didn’t already have one. In my group; myself and Libby Jeffery used a song called The Story by an artist named Karima Francis. This song falls into the acoustic soul/ indie genre as it is hybrid, meaning that it doesn’t fall into just one specific category of music genre. Throughout the video I have both used, developed and challenged forms and conventions that are typically in real products of my specific genre. Our target audience was aimed at young females aged 16-24. The video is about a girl and her story of the love she has for somebody, being a typical love story. My group decided that it would be naturally a more female fan base as the audience would be able to identify with the female protagonist artist that is constant throughout the video.

Karima Francis has never produced a music video so we weren’t able to analyse any particular conventions that she may have portrayed. However, we analysed similar artists to Karima Francis in order to get a general over view of forms and codes that can be used. Normally in an indie, soul genre of song there is generally a mix between performance and narrative based filming, but in our video we converted normal conventions and decided to use just a narrative based performance. The reason for doing this was because we wanted to portray ‘the story’ to the audience that was being told through image, which links to the song title. In the video we used a typical mise-en-scene that fits with the genre.

The majority of the video was filmed and set in a rural, outdoor area such as a park or a field. We chose to do this as the rural setting has connotations of being a romantic place in music videos, where couples spend time together. In my group we followed forms and conventions for this genre in terms of setting and mise-en-scene, unlike R’n’B songs where the video is generally set in a studio with a dance performance. Also, we used effects within the editing part of our coursework to portray conventions with similar genres. The use of a slow fade technique was used in between cuts and shots of the film. The effect worked well with a slow song, setting the conventional mood of a love story and making it understandable to the audience that there is a change of setting along with the change of beat or verse.

Not only did we use typical conventions of real products, but we also converted some as well. As the song was a love song, you would generally think of a boy and girl actors in music videos. Yet we converted these stereotypical social norms and used two female actresses instead as it followed with the lyrics and theme of the song. It wouldn’t be something that the audience would expect but by challenging the conventions which you’d usually see in a real product, it worked better in the song and also made the video a bit more eye catching to its viewer. Over all I would say that my group followed and used similar forms and conventions that an audience would expect to see and that would be comparable with a real media product.



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

The brief for my media coursework was to produce a main product, which was my music video and two ancillary tasks; a cd cover (front and back) and an advert for it. As the encoder, I produced the music video first which then went on to determine the style and look of the ancillary tasks. My three media texts are intertextually linked as I have used the main star actress as the key sign in my video which then permeates through to my other two texts. The reason I have used this sign as the cohesion between my texts is because she is the dominant sign and the main focus of the video and the song. By using the iconic sign to pervade through all three texts I am trying to enable the audience/decoders to acknowledge the artist and familiarise themselves with her. In doing this the audience will then be able to associate the actress from the video with the advert and the cd single, linking the three together. If the video gets a dominant reading from the decoders, they are more likely to buy the cd single as they have familiarised themselves with the star.

The ancillary tasks play a big role in supporting and promoting the main product. By intertextually linking the products together it enables the audience to recognise the relationship between the tasks. In my ancillary tasks I have used a close up image of the artist, which again promotes the video and combines the visual aspects of the video to the print productions.

In terms of effectiveness I would say that it is and also isn’t. The reason for this being that all three tasks work in cohesion as they are linked through the signifier of the iconic star. It was also effective due to all three being aimed at my target audience of young females, aged 16-24. It was a predominantly female song, a love story which is portrayed through my ancillary tasks by the use of the female actress as the main star, as well as the use of colours. In my cd I chose to use a soft green colour and in my advert I used bright colours, such as pink and yellow. These bright colours would usually have connotations of being a female based colour, being the reason why I used them.

However, I also felt that there were limitations to the project due to technology and budget. Being a secondary school student without a budget and with limited technology this altered the outcome of the product. For example a real product would have a big budget and an incredible amount of technology in which the encoder would use to make sure that it was perfect. Due to this fact I feel this had an effect partly and limited myself and my group, but under the circumstances I produced three texts which I feel is effective in catching the audiences’ eye.


3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?

When producing a media text, audience feedback is a vital part of the process. Being the media producer you have to imagine the ideal reader for the text; the imaginary entity. When creating the media product as the encoder I had to empathise with the imaginary entity and create pre-conceptions of what I thought the target audience would want from the text. In doing this I researched forms and conventions of real media products to get a real understanding of what the decoders expect to see and what is accepted when forming a dominant reading.

During the start of the project my group screened some early footage of our music video to our peers in our media class as well as our two teachers. By doing this it helped us to gain insight on what they thought was effective and what wasn’t. Our fellow students commented on the product, mostly due to the montage and mise-en-scene. They felt that the montage worked well within the song but that a couple of places in which a scene was shot could be changed as they felt the setting didn’t quite work. They also suggested that it could be made more obvious in the video which were the memories and what parts were the present, by adding a haze or a glow to the memories. By getting feedback from an audience it allowed us to gain insight on improvements that we may not have necessarily noticed. My group took on the suggestions and changed the memories to have a soft glow in order to make it more noticeable, as well as re-filming a couple of scenes with a different setting.

Once we had completed the production of the video we screened it to another audience. We also created an audience feedback questionnaire, in which some questions were structured in attempt to operationalise the encoder/decoder model. Once the video was watched we asked our audience to fill out the questionnaire that included questions such as whether the liked or disliked it, and if they understood the video. The questionnaire sought to find correlations between social stratifications and to get an insight on the reaction to the video. The questionnaire would show my group whether the second audience got an aberrant or dominant view from the audience. However, all signs are polysemic and people react to media texts in many different ways. For example a member of my target audience may get an aberrant reading from my media text as they have different cultural views and beliefs, which in turn would cause them to react differently than I would have expected.

From screening our footage early on in the production stage and at the final finished stage, it has allowed me to distinguish different audience reactions to my pre-conceptions of what they would want from a text. I have also learned that feedback helps a text improve in the early stages of production, which improves the chances of it getting a dominant reading at the final finished stage.


4) How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

During the whole process of my A2 level media coursework, I have used a variety of technologies to facilitate me in producing my media products; a music video, a cd cover (front and back) as well as a advertisement for the cd.

During the research and planning stages of my coursework, I used a variety of technologies including the internet and Microsoft PowerPoint. When researching my artist, Karima Francis I used the internet a lot in order to get background knowledge on her. Once I’d established that she didn’t have any released songs as of yet, I had to then research artists that were similar to her in order to view the different forms and conventions they used in their music videos. For this I used an internet site called YouTube, which allowed me to view videos of both Karima Francis performing live and music videos of similar artists. From researching these artists it then gave me initial ideas for the planning stage of my project, on what to include in my video. Once researching the artists I then analysed some of their videos and put my findings into a power point presentation which would later go on my blog enabling a visually aesthetic look to it. When it came to researching and planning our ancillary tasks; the cd cover and cd advert, I again used the internet in order to view similar artist’s products.

In the construction stage of the project, my group and I used a digital video camera for the filming of our music video. This was pretty easy to use and no complications arose from it. However, when it came to the putting together and editing part of our film we used software called Pinnacle Studio 12; this wasn’t as easy to use. We found it difficult to use at the beginning of our project as it was slow and sometimes unresponsive. Not only this but it was also difficult, we found, to slot various film clips in between others as this made the film jump about on the timeline, causing the shots and music to be out of sync. Nevertheless, it took time to get used to the software and once I was I found it easier to work with, which made editing unproblematic.

Once constructed our main product, being the video we then went on to constructing our ancillary tasks. For this the technologies I used was a digital camera in order to take the photographs for the product. After using the internet to research real products, I had a few ideas in mind so I took a number of photographs in order for me to chose what I thought was the most effective. Constructing my Cd cover and advert I used two types of software called Adobe Photoshop and Corel Draw. I had no difficulties with either of these technologies as I had used them in AS media for the construction of my magazine. Adobe Photoshop allowed me to enhance and edit the photographs to give the right effect that I was looking for. After editing my photos I opened them up onto Corel Draw. This software made it possible for me to play around with colours, format and layout of the text I was producing.

Throughout the whole project I had to write up each stage; research, planning, construction and evaluation. I decided to display my work on a blog using blogspot.com. I found this particular technology effective as it had a clear and simple layout which made it easy to easy. I started my project using EDU blog but found this difficult to use so I changed to blogspot. I used various technologies within my blog in order to make it look as professional as possible. By doing this I included links to YouTube pages of music videos, I also created slideshows and power points which I put up on my blog through the use of an internet site called Slideboom.com. At the end of the project my group screened our music video to an audience in order to get feedback and an insight to their reaction of our product. By doing this we used an interactive whiteboard to show the video so that everybody in the audience could see it.

By using technologies throughout my project I feel that the aid of each has helped the planning and construction of my project a lot. There have been some problems along the way but I feel it has allowed my creativity to develop. By learning and using new technology, these factors have helped enhance my creativity by the many techniques available to use for the encoder (myself) to create a specific product for the decoder to be able to relate to.