Q1 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The visual media product that I have created, which is a music video is very similar to any true media product. It uses some of the conventions, for example Andrew Goodwin’s theory, which states that there is a clear connection between the lyrics, visuals and the music. In my music video I stayed mostly true to this theory as I ensured that the editing went at the same speed as the beat, the visuals of the video linked to the lyrics and so on. Yet at the same time at some points of the video I did not adhere to this theory intentionally as I wanted to include intertextual references that are not mentioned in the lyrics and exclude some that are, for example “You’re the Obi Wan Kenobi’s” as I felt that a Star Wars reference was not needed.

As for the relationship between music and the visuals I intended for there to be a clear connection. The genre of my chosen song is dance. Dance music video conventions usually include dark spaces, bright costumes, and neon lights and so on. As well the conventions include fast paces, disorientating editing that seems to be very party-esque. Because of the said conventions in the actual video we had the main artist wearing bright clothing and makeup to make her stand out. The locations that we filmed at were dark to imply night and nightlife and parties. We also had a lot of colourful repeating special effects in the editing to make it so that our video hits very hard on the visual impact. Yet even though we focused on partying in our music video, as the conventions suggest, we did challenge one of them. Usually in dance music videos there is no performance. And if there is – it is the artist working a DJ booth. More often than not we only get a glance of the artist in the background as  a part of the crowd, or the artist doesn’t even appear in the music video. I wanted to challenge this sturdy convention therefore I had my artist be throughout the whole video as the main performer.

The way that we chose to represent our artist in the music video fits more to the pop music conventions. Not only do we have the artist performing throughout the video, the shots including the artist are mostly close up and mid shots which is a main feature in pop music video conventions. We still took this and made it work in our dance music video. Seeing as it would be the first single on an unknown artist, the use of the close up shots would be easily explainable. The artist already had a strong star image, but not appearing in a video would not let anyone see and memorize it. The mid and close up shots are used to let the audience connect to the artist, learn and memorize their face and form a bond.

Beyond close ups I have also used a variety of camera movements in my music video. Hand held camera movements we used and the clustered party scenes to indicate the claustrophobic effect of this many people in a small space. Panning and tracking were also used in the beginning of the video as a way to show the sterility and artificiality of the constant monitoring that is going on by and of the main artist. Still shots on a tripod helped the audience be launched between the narrative side and the performance side of the music video.

Coming back to the challenged conventions, I have challenged Laura Mulveys male gaze theory on voyeurism. Yes, indeed, at the beginning we did represent the main artist being watched but we did not represent her in a sexual way. Usually if dance music artists are female and they appear in music videos – they are scantily clad, dancing suggestively and there are close ups on overly sexualized parts of their bodies, like their breasts and posteriors. In our music video however, we had the artist fully dressed and actually barely shoring any skin. She had purpose in the video, greater than to be a visual aid as a decoration. And as follows there were no overly sexualized close ups and they would have been completely out of place.

We included an array of intertextual references in our music video as well. Seeing as intertextual references are quite a big convention in music videos we had to accommodate it in our media product. We had referenced Donnie Darko when using the relatively creepy bunny mask for one of the performers. We also had the main artist chasing and looking for the ‘bunny’ much as Donnie in the film. Also, in the same narrative spot we have a reference to Alice in Wonderland seeing as by following the ‘bunny’ the artist appears in a different world. We also referenced the alternatie universe theory which states that there is an unlimited variations in the many planes of the universe and we just happen to occupy and be conscious at this current one at the present. We made an intertextual reference to that by setting our music video at an alternative, quite dystopian reality which shifts and changes according to our main artists actions.

Q2 How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

During the research stage I used plenty of different technologies like, YouTube, Google, SurveyMonkey, Blogger, IMDB and so on. Because of Web2.0 which linked the whole interned, the use of search engines was much more effective. The linked to user generated content like music and videos and various different blogs in seconds. And all for free. It saved so much time end effort while searching for a song which to create a music video for, and a lot of money as well. Before if we had a task to choose a song to create a music video for we would have had to first do extensive research on where to find albums by unknown artists and then we would have had to buy album in order to listen to songs tp find and decide which one to represent. Another beautiful tool created by Web2.0 was online surveys. With the use of survey monkey we made online surveys with open and closed questions and posted them online. Not only people who we linked them to could answer, anyone on the internet to stumble upon the survey could answer them. This also saved us valuable time because otherwise we would have had to be n the streets with paper surveys looking for people who would be willing to even answer a single question, let alone only questioning our target audience.

In the planning stage I got a chance to create an animatic visual representation of our ideas of what I want my music video to look like. I used a hardware tool called a drawing tablet to create all images for my animatic. This tool allowed me to create my drawings directly in a computer on a program which supports drawing tableds, I used Paint Tool Sai. A tablet works by plugging it into a computer with a usb cord. It looks just like a thin square piece of plastic with nothing on it and it come with a wireless pen with a solid plastic tip. You used the pen by moving in on the tablet and the image which you are drawing appears in the computer screen in a program with a blank canvas. After drawing out all the images of the animatic I edited them together with Window Movie Maker. Because of different editing possibilities I made the transitions be seamless and the end result was a simplified, engaging, drawn out version of my future music video.

In the planning stage I also used social networking and instant messaging such as Twitter and FaceBook to get in touch and plan everything with my team for free. Social networking is essential now for people my age because it lets us be more connected than ever without actually having to go out and meet up to discuss things.

To film we used a Canon SLR digital professional camera. Even though it is meant for taking photographs – it also is capable of filming with the same professional quality of the image. We used the same camera in various different photo setting to take pictures for our digipak and poster. The different settings include portrait mode for example which brings out skin colour in the image to make it more healthy looking and provides a visual radiant warm glow to it

To construct our media products we used Final Cut ProX to edit our video clips to create the music video. The editing program is of a professional level which meant there the learning curve will be steep. To help us cope with the alien program we searched for tutorial videos online which greatly aided us.

For our digipak and advert images I used photohop to format everything to make my product look professional. I used a lot of different tool in photoshop like filters and hue-saturation to edit my images so they would look the best quality that they can.

Q3 What have you learned about the audience feedback?

The feedback which we received from our audience really helped in creating our media product. We wanted our product to the best it can be and it would have been impossible without communication between us and our audience. They gave us feedback and reviews and we improved our video accordingly to grant the audience the best experience possible.

In the planning stage we pitched our idea to the audience using a powerpoint and a preview out our animatic. The idea included our main themes, colour schemes, possible props and costumes to be used in our video, along with possible set locations as well. In our pitch we also mention that our main target audience is females aged 15-20 and our secondary target audience teenage boys of the same age. We had decided on this target audience because one of our goals was to portray a positive strong female image which is not overly sexualised. We then decided to include our secondary target audience as teenage boys because on of our intertextual references is a film Donnie Darko which is stereotypically more appreciated by males and we assumed that males would be more likely to notice the intertextual reference

After seeing our pitch and the aimatic preview our audience gave us positive feedback and suggested positive ways to imrove our work, for example one of them noted that there should be something that makes it clear that the music video is not set at the present reality time to which we then decided to include a montage of pictures to set the scene of the video.

In production stage we were monitored by the teachers who kept giving us feedback on ways to improve our work. One of the feeback sessions led to us completely re filming the bedroom scene as it looked much too out of place as it was light while opposed to the rest of the video which was dark.

In post-production we continued to receive feedback from our teachers to help us edit the video so it was more visually appealing. We also held focus groups with our target audience who reviewer our video and answered questions on what they liked and didn’t liked in turn also helping us improve.

Working with our audience helped me learn and understand how important this bond between producer and consumer is. Both parties need to be happy and understanding of each other to create a product that is worthwhile of consuming.

Q4 How effective is the combination of your main product & ancillary texts?

The representation of my fictional music artist is visible through the way I have constructed my music video along with my ancillary texts. Seeing as she is a dance artist I kept everything dark in my main product and yet I made her stand out with the bright artist image. In my ancillary text I continue that onion by having her pictures just appear as a bright outline against dark background. The fonts which I used were also colourful which made everything stand out even more.

To construct my visual star image I took special care into the costume hair and makeup of the artist. Head to toe I caked her in bright colours to in a way, recreate the Lady GaGa effect. Never before seen, therefore very memorable. For the hair I used a long blue wig, which was tied into two loose pigtails. I wanted her hair to display the charm and in a way childish persona of the artist. The makeup was bright and inspired by fantasy concepts. Red lipstick was included to ground the character to earth like an anchor ad deep red lipstick is often noted to be the most womanly piece of makeup possible. The costume was bright and made her seem less real and more doll like which only aided my wished to make her seem outlandish.

But even with all the bright and childish elements to the artist, in the video she is seen to be quite serious like she just came from another world where the contrast between looks and personality is normal. I continued to play with this notion in my digipak and advert my editing the pictures to look as if she is just a bright outline containing even more darkness.

For the colours we only used bright shades of pink, red, blue and green that all connote to cheer and joy and to which putting all of them onto a serious character we are going completely against the usual connotations of the colours.

I used a font with a shattered looking ripple effect in my digipak. I personally link the visuals of the font to the artist portraying dance music. For me the font looks a lot like water rippling from sound waves of really loud music which creates this ripple, shattering mirror effect. I used a light pink colour for it to make it stand out and to make the whole look of the album look softer and much more approachable and gentle.

For the advert I included a contrasting bold font that appeared to look rather blocky. This font played to the seriousness of the artists image in the music video. I continued with using pastel colours as I used yellow and green. They also helped the artist look more gentle and approachable as in her own image those colours are only used in their full intensity.

The combination on my main music video and the ancillary texts provided a great way to balance out my fictional artists star image. It helped me portray the artist a serious, yet still gentle and approachable. It personally helped me understand the importance of the representation of ancillary texts in relation to the video or anything that they might be advertising.