Tuesday, 15 April 2014

Evaluation Question 4 - Text

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

Construction stage
-Throughout the construction stage of creating the media products many different media technologies were used to aid the build up of all three media products. The most dominant of course being iMovie. iMovie allowed us to create the complete main product with this specific software enabling us to edit our raw footage and enhance these clips as well as change the speed, opacity and layering of the clips. Especially for the kaleidoscope effect, comparing the program's built-in kaleidoscope-creating effects in final cut Express helped us to utilise both editing softwares. However, by using iMovie to edit and create the kaleidoscope effect meant that this software offered the better suited effect for us as it allowed us to use our own footage which was more suited for our music video.

research stage
-For the research into creating the main product we were required to explore existing media texts and professional music videos. To do this we used the video sharing website YouTube which allowed us to view many different media texts to find inspiration and influences for our own music video. Other means of finding existing media products was through music channels such as MTV and Viva as well as radio stations websites which also allow you to view and share artists professional music videos. After finding these influences we were able to use Blogspot.co.uk to share these and document what we were inspired by in order to keep a note of videos we would be able to reference in the future. 


planning stage
-to plan my media products i used different media technologies. google. blogger. mac blogs.
-As you can see I have labelled all blog posts which I have created for inspiration purposes under the label 'Inspiration.' Throughout the planning stages this media technology was helpful as it allowed easy access to a filtered page of existing media content which i was able to refer back to for influences for my own media product.

evaluation stage
-In my evaluation many different media technologies were used in this process in order to bring together the planning research and of course the construction of the different questions i was required to answer. 

Friday, 11 April 2014

Evaluation Question 3 - Text

what did people like?
it is clear that the most well received aspect of the video was the sunrise and silhouette effect as the majority of the audience feedback from this question mentioned this effect and how interesting it was to see something different and unique. Also, from looking at the audience feedback it is evident that the laid-back, natural shots which show the element of happiness and contentedness were very 
well received by the audience. 

What could've improved?
-Some aspects which the audience thought could be improved were the
variety of shots. Although in technicality there were a variety of 
shots such as an establishing, side, low angle, handheld, panning and dutch
tilt ect. Perhaps the audience felt that a variety of locations to visually
indicate a change in the framing of the shots could have been more effective.
If we were to recreate this music video or create another we would definitely
take this on board and incorporate more locations and make this evident in the 
music video.

Relate to genre.
From what we can gather from the audience feedback the music video does
successfully conform to the indie rock genre and strongly relates to the genre
It is perhaps due to the use of existing media texts and the ability
to refer back to them that we were able to create a professional music video
which related to the genre successfully in the eyes of our audience.

no narrative
-The lack of narrative was received well and agreed with. This dominated reading from the audience has therefore given us the confirmation that it was the right choice to keep narrative to a minimum in order to enhance the creative
aspect of the video in terms of shot type and visual content in correspondence to the song itself. We have learnt that not every music video needs to have a narrative to be well received by the audience.

Emotions
again the element of happiness and contentedness received a dominant reading from the decoders of our music video. This also conformed to the indie rock genre as it created a liberating feeling throughout the music video. As encoders this dominant reading from the audience has proved that the emotions evoked form the music video were of happiness which we learnt from our audience feedbk

existing media prods.
From the feedback it is evident that the audnce did agree that the music video conformed to the conventions of existing media products. It is also interesting to note that the similarities in which the audience compared our own media product to was another haik music video. This is interesting as it is clear that the music video again, complies with the indie rock genre.

fitting for genre
the playful and upbeat aspect to the video was one of the main reasons for the music video successfully fitting the indie rock genre of the song. Overall what we learnt from the audience feedback was the most well received aspects of our own media product what we could have improved and how well our media product really conformed to the conventions of the indie rock genre. 

Friday, 28 March 2014

Evaluation Question 1 - Text

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
-Our music video uses real media texts to gain inspiration and ideas for themes and effects. Looking at existing media texts such as crystal fighters we were able to see a fitting effect for our own music video.
-The music video develops real media products from looking at the original music video. Although we were to create something completely different to the original, we took the laid-back atmosphere and rather serene setting from the original which we wanted to recreate in our own way for our music video. In the Haim music video the laid back atmosphere is created through the dimmed lighting, slow motion shot and perhaps even the costumes of the artists. Differently, we decided to create this relaxed atmosphere using a naturistic background running through the entire music video which hinted at the calmness of the music video. We also wanted to add a more upbeat layer to the music video which followed other existing texts such as 'One Day'
-We challenged the forms of existing media texts by creating a media product without a definitive narrative. We wanted to do this from the outset as this allowed us to be creative with the shots and the structure of the music video. From looking at existing media products such as Tom odell's 'Another Love' there is evidently a clear narritive of the male character searching for the missing female. It is clear that the variations of shots in music videos with narratives are possibly decreased for this reason. Therefore, the creative decision to produce a music video without a narrative was made in order to experiment and be creative with the shots types in the music video.
Although 'Another Love' represents the way in which we challenged existing media texts, it could also be considered that we conformed to some texts as there are equally as many media products which display a lack of narritve in music videos.
- Some music videos also do not have clear cut narratives such as Foxes 'Let Go For Tonight'
-Running theme throughout (nature) Similar perhaps to Katy Perry 'California Girls' Beach/Summer theme.
- Conform to lip-syncing convention.