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.