Evaluation - Mustafa Duzel

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

We used the Internet for our research. We I looked into artists of the same genre, and we tried to find what type of clothes they wear, their editing style, and their choice of actors. I specifically looked at artists like ‘Calvin Harris’ and ‘Late of the Pier’. I looked for typical conventions of the Electro-pop/Indie genre, I found the 'band in a room' convention being used a lot, and I wanted to bring this to the next level with the use of clever editing. I planned the ‘Band in a Room’ to be a band with only one member playing all the instruments of a Indie band: Guitar, Drums, Bass etc. Another editing style that I wanted to use was ‘Stop-Motion’ when I fought of this idea I instantly remembered the music video ‘Strawberry Swing’ by Coldplay, the fast frame rate really made the stop motion look fluid, unfortunately with iMovie when found we could only increase the frame rate to 30fps so we didn’t use it for the whole video like Coldplay.

We also researched into the costumes that a Indie pop artist would wear, we found that they all wanted to hold a unique look, by doing this they all had ‘Iconographic’ costumes, Calvin Harris used Sunglasses, Late of the Pier used checked shirts and we wanted to capture this look.  I brought in a ‘Russian Hat’ that I would wear all throughout the video, and even in the Digipak and Magazine advert. By doing this we didn’t really subvert from the genre in anyway, we wanted to make our video instantly recognisable. However when we got some audience feedback they agreed in everything we planned to do, but they expected ‘Dancing Girls’ in the video. This we instantly disagreed with, we saw dancing girls as more of a R&B convention.

I was chosen as the actor as we believed that I met some of the generic conventions of this genre. I wore checked shirts, skinny jeans and a Russian Hat. We needed an actor with a serious look, we also asked our audience for some feedback on what type of style our artist needed, they said ‘funky, serious, skinny jeans, boots and dirty’ the dirty idea was discarded as we found it strays away to far from the generic conventions of our genre, but everything else was taken into account.

We also asked our audience what type of locations they would expect from this type of video, they said that they expected a giant white room, much like The White Stripes 'Little Room' music video and maybe even a street corner. We decided to use the white room idea and we developed the street corner idea into an urban skate park scene as it fit better with the generic conventions of the genre.

With the ancillary task we decided to use washed out colours, which added a serious tone to the picture. We also used black and white effectively because we wanted the cover to be instantly recognisable to people who are interested in the Indie-pop genre, it also isolated our actor because we tried to make the audience focus solely on the artist.

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

As I said before we tried to add this serious mystic around our artist in order to make him more appealing and interesting to the mainstream media. One of the techniques we used was iconography, the use if the big Russian hat was used throughout on purpose so that piece of clothing became part of the artist, so it became obvious that like Calvin Harris we had to use our iconographic clothing on our cover and magazine advert.

In regards to the digipak, it offers a lot more than the digital version of the song. Even though the digital version does have the ability to be downloaded right away, through research we found that people still love to buy the Digipaks because it can be collected and resold.  The Digipak also offers more exclusive content like posters. CDs can also hold more memory so the quality of the song is a lot better when compared to the digital version of the song.

The way in which we would expect people to come across our music video is though the QR codes that are on our magazine adverts. Most mobile phones today have the ability to process the QR code and take them to a specific website, ours being the music video itself. 

What have you leaned from your audience feedback?

The first time we got audience feedback was when we had just decided what song to use and we let them listen to it with no video, we asked them what genre they thought it was, what type of artist they expected, and what type of locations they would expect in the video. We used nearly all the information they gave to us, but some suggestions were just impossible, one of the audience members recommended a roof top scene with the band, since we didn’t have access to a green screen or an actual rooftop that was ruled out dude to technical reasons.

We also got feedback from the audience when we completed the first edit and final edit. After we showed them the first edit they recommended we slow down some of the jump cuts because it doesn’t give the viewer enough time to focus on what’s going on, even if there is no narrative in the music video.

To do with the artist I was going to wear my Nike trainers to the shoot, however the audience recommended converses as it fit into the generic conventions of the genre better.

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

For the most part we used the Internet, simply because of the videos, images and forums we could access. When we were researching into costumes we found out all the generic conventions of our particular genre, this enabled use to pick and chose which type of artist we wanted.

We also used music forums to ask if people still preferred Digipaks over digital downloads, this helped immensely during our production process. We also put polls on our blog next to our first edit asking whether or not ‘the pace of the song fit the editing’ we also asked if they ‘feel shots used were repetitive’ and even if the ‘costumes and locations are appropriate to the genre?’ this really helped us in are second edit to reshoot anything we were not happy with and re-edit certain parts that had some problems.

We also found our song on Jamendo, which was a copyright free music website. I downloaded the song onto my phone, iPod and computer in order to learn the song for the shoot. On the shoot itself, the cameraman would play the song though his phone so I could hear it and lip sync and because the phone was close to the camera we were able to sync up my lips to the mp.4 file easily. 

Evaluation - Reshma

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Research into artists of the same genre (such as the Arctic Monkeys, particularly their 'Brainstorm' music video) revealed the typical conventions of Indie Rock genre were 'band in a room' scenes, often with a non-linear narrative structure which has been edited with fast cuts. When researching into the costumes of a Indie Rock artist we found that a majority tended to go for the same look (e.g. Alex Turner from the Arctic Monkeys, the Klaxons and Aberdeen City). We also conducted audience research which involved playing the audio only to other media sudents who then had to comment on what they'd expect from the music video of this audio track. In terms of costume, what they imagined mirrorred the costume of already existing artists - skinny jeans, lengthy hair and a scruffy look. In regard to location, they visualised street corners, dancing girls and the song being released from a band playing in a room.

However, we agreed to all responses apart from the one about having dancing girls in the video. We did not believe it would suit the slow paced track and it was not a typical convention of the Indie Rock genre. So, from the 'Brainstorm' video and audience research, we decided to use the 'band in a room' idea. The other locations we used were also based on typical conventions and audience research. Opposed to street corners, we used a skate park as our urban location which we thought was better suited. Our third location was a park.

We have not subverted the conventions in any way: we used a young male solo artist and considered and applied the generic conventions of the Indie Rock genre to the music video.

We found the use of black and white was common in the magazine adverts and digipaks of Indie Rock artists. Artists Tilly and the Wall use text in black and white only which was inspiring as it makes a real statement and the name of the band was centre of attention rather than having several features in one panel. Once we had produced a rough cut of our video and shared it with others, audience research showed that our artists hat had become iconic and the audience said they expected to see the hat in the ancillary tasks also. So we modified early versions of our ancillary tasks and added the hat in both.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The digipak, in opposition to digital music files offers consumers many benefits. Although digital files can be downloaded instantly and are smaller in size, we found that many people would still buy digipaks. This is due to a material item simply being more satisfactory. Digital files also risk corruption and can easily be lost. Supporting the musicians and better artwork and better sound quality are also reasons among numerous others.

QR (Quick Response) codes are specific two-dimensional barcodes, readable by QR readers. (QR readers can found on camera mobile phones). The code is formed by black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. They can be used to link directly to and therefore open URL pages. We have used a code in our magazine advert which links to our music video (on our blog). We expect our audience to come across the song after discovering the advert and maybe later purchasing the album.

What have you leaned from your audience feedback?
We gained audience feedback at various points of the production process. Once after we had completed a rough cut of our video, once halfway through the editing process and at a final point when we had completed the final edit and ancillary tasks. We also used the blog to set up polls and asked questions such as 'Are costumes and locations appropriate to the genre?'. The purpose of audience feedback is to look at the text from an audience perspective and tell us what fits and what doesnt work so well, as we as the producers cannot do so.
As a result of feedback, we made some alterations. As mentioned above, we applied the hat of our artist to our ancillary tasks after we recieved the audience feedback. We recieved some very helpful advice. When we were halfway through editing, we were told the cuts were too fast so we then slowed the pace down throughout the rest of the video. I feel the audiences suggestion of using the symbolic hat within our ancillary tasks helped us better attract our target audience. This is because the two were very closely connected. It also meant the artist was very easily recogniseable as both video and ancillary tasks followed a consistent style.  

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluations stages?
We used an assorted mix of media technologies. We used internet search engines to conduct our internet research. This gave us access to images when researching artist costumes, digipaks and magazine adverts. We then, by pasting the URL of the image, uploaded them onto our blogs, using Blogger. We downloaded the audio file via Jamendo (free music downloads) onto our laptops and then our phones.  On shoot, we used our mobile phones to play the audio so that when we came to editing, it would be obvious which part of the song it was.