Evaluation Commentary

Alices evaluation

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

Our media product is a music video. For the idea, we drew inspiration from other music videos with the same genre - Dance-pop such as, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Beyonce and Jessie J. We reviewed these videos for a number of factors including styling, location, colour schemes and camera shots. We also viewed music through other media channels such as, MTV and magazines in order to get a feel of how a style could be extended across a whole integrated media promotional package. We thought this was important because any piece of music has to be promoted across a number of media platforms.

I was chosen to be the main character in the video, because I was felt to be the closest representation of today’s dance-pop icon. I was also an experienced dancer so could therefore give the best performance.

We originally decided to have a fragmented storyline. However, as we progressed,  we ended up having a linear narrative since our lyrics told a simple but compelling story. Most music videos in Dance-pop follow Goodwin’s theory of linking the visuals and lyrics throughout the video and tend to follow a strong storyline. For example Pixie Lott’ s ‘Boys and Girls’ video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7y1MdlXclM&ob=av2n.

 In our media product we used a lot of lip syncing to the camera as if she was singing directly to the audience. This was a major aspect we wanted to include as it is a convention of the majority of Dance-pop music videos and lots of other music genres too.

 Camera shots and special techniques

Similarities of videos in this same genre include a fast pace of camera shots and use of special effects to add to the colour and energy of the video.

A diverse range of different shots and camera angles were used,  from close-up’s to extreme close-up’s to long shots and wide shot’s, to show the audience the location and introduce the characters. Other shots includes Dutch angle, bird’s eye view shot, over the shoulder shots, two shot, eye level shots, high angle shots, low angle shots.

All other videos we reviewed spent much focus on close up portrait camera work to give the viewer a sense of intimacy with the lead character in the video.  

When watching the music video ‘The show’ by Girls aloud http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGUIE844hxk&ob=av2e, I saw they used split screen throughout the video. This is a convention of the genre Dance-pop and is commonly used such as in Michael Jackson’s video ‘Billie Jean’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi_XLOBDo_Y&ob=av2n. So therefore we decided to include a split screen in our video .  However, we took  it to the next level and split the screen 4 times whilst changing colour of each section to keep our theme of multi-colours, and add to the interest and pace of the video. It also makes the video appear very modern, and almost futuristic.

We used different transitions between shots within our music video as it is a good convention of other dance-pop music videos such as Rihanna and David Guettas ‘Whos that chick’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YIgfbn74qk&feature=fvst. Within this video there are transitions of a heart, or a star, or diamond. The use of transitions in this way allows the audience to see the next scene in a more effective and creative way. We used a transition of a clock in our video to get across to the audience that she is time has passed and she is waking up the next day.

Colours and styling

A very popular convention of Dance-pop is the colour themes. The majority of music videos within this genre include bright, bold multi-colours throughout such as Rihanna’s ‘Rude boy’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e82VE8UtW8A&ob=av2e. We took this into consideration when creating our music video and decided we would make this a main theme for our music video of having bold vibrant colours. This made our video look exciting and fun. We thought about the bright colours and applied them to things such as mise en scene. Firstly, the characters costume, hair and make up. They were unusual and bold such as her eyelashes, wild blonde hair and funky clothing eg leopard print belt. The locations of being in a child ball pit was perfect to fit in with our colourful theme as it is bright, fun, exciting and memorable. Another convention of Dance-Pop is the random and fun locations. We decided to incorporate this into our video by having our character being in a child’s playzone ball-pit, a tunnel and a party. The actual artists of our song Ke$ha, includes a tunnel in her music video ‘We R who we R’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXvmSaE0JXA&ob=av2e, and has a party in every video she has made. Ke$ha is well known for her Dance-pop music and uses lots of glitter in every music video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edP0L6LQzZE&feature=endscreen&NR=1). Other dance-pop artists who use glitter are Lady Gaga, Cascada and Britney spears. We therefore thought it would be a good idea to have glitter in our music   to really enhance the dance-pop convention.

We challenged conventions by instead of our central character being grown up and partying in an adult way the whole way through, we used childlike imagery for example in the ball pit and handprints of bedroom wall. By doing this, we felt you could get to know the lead character better and give her a warm personality rather than completely focus on the qwerky quick cut approach of most dance-pop videos.

Overall, we have taken many conventions from other Dance-pop music videos and incorporated them into our music video.

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

Together they form a really strong integrated campaign that works across the full spectrum of media. For example, we used the same bold and vibrant colours and lots of glitter. By being consistent across all media, it makes the package more memorable and has a greater impact than if everything was different. Also, by using common themes, we can ensure that we keep the interest of our target audience – we should not veer off into areas that might disengage them because they no longer feel that that it is relevant for them.  Consistent themes include using of the ballpit as a location, the colours from the ballpit form the basis of our colour scheme which are bright primary colours. Having this sort of theme would enable our products to stand out among others of the same genre, drawing attention to it and attracting the correct niche audience that we are aiming for; Women aged 13-20.

In our music video, we continuously refer back to our ‘heroine’ in the ball pit. This ensures the theme was kept constant, and when designing our magazine advert we used a photo of her with one of the balls on top of her head. To further keep the theme continuous, we used photo’s in our digipak which also include the multi-coloured balls. We thought that incorporating this theme throughout will ensure that our audience can easily relate one another to each other and therefore remind them of the playfulness and fun of our music video.

When connecting our Digi Pak and magazine advert together, we made sure we used a similar font for the writing, glitter, colourful and wearing the exact same costume, hair and makeup throughout the advert and album so the audience would immediately recognise the album after seeing the magazine advert. We also linked these 3 together by having a QR code on the Digi Pak and magazine advert which would connect you straight to the music video on Youtube.

Finally, it is important to include practical details that make buying our product easy, for example, website address, how to order it, picture of main artists.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

When receiving feedback from family members, class mates, media teacher and my stage school, we took their comments into serious consideration. It was important to us to constantly refer back to our audience during the production of our music video and take into consideration their thoughts on what worked well, what could be improved and what they thought was missing. To begin with we researched into the music genre and various artists within this genre and created a presentation which we then showed to our class mates and received feedback on what they thought.

We firstly showed our class mates 2 music videos from the Dance-pop genre which gained  positive feedback as we found they liked the upbeat music and found the videos fun and interesting to watch. This feedback kept us positive about creating our music video and our ideas we had as it related to both these videos.

When doing our presentation, we also received a small amount of negative feedback. We discovered that our respondents were not clear on who the target audience was for our video.  We took this on board, and became more focused on who our core target should be – i.e girls 13-20. When finalising the video, we were really able to consider all the way through how in would appeal to our audience.  A questionnaire prior to the filming finally determined our niche audience.

After completing the background research we went on to create storyboards which then lead us to start filming our music video. Once we had a fair amount of footage we began the editing process. We edited the beginning part of our music video to create a rough cut. We put this rough cut onto our blog and received more feedback from our classmates and teacher. The rough cut feedback was essential as it enabled us to create the perfect music video which our audience would enjoy. Our camera work was firstly commented on. We were told that we used good sizing of camera angles however our zooming out in the first scene could be smoother as it jolts towards the end. We took this into consideration and wanted to change the shot to a retake we did, but we couldn’t do this as we found our lip syncing in this particular clip was spot on and it straight away introduces both characters. The cuts we used were said to fit in well with the song as the song jumps from time to time. Our use of short cuts showing flashing lights were liked by the other groups, we were told these fit in with our Dance-Pop genre. 


A second factor commented on from each group was our lip syncing. We were told that it was very accurate and in time with the words in the song. This was one of our worries before filming as we thought it would be hard to keep them in time when adding in different clips and shots but we overcame this by good editing. We are happy our lip syncing went well as communicating with the camera is common within our genre.


I went to my stage school and showed them our rough cut. Many of them commented that our mise en scene was ‘eye-catching’ and ‘made them in the mood for a fun party’. These are very positive comments our genre of Dance-pop includes lots of partying and crazy costumes.

Although we received much positive feedback, we also received little negative feedback from my honest family members. The zooming was commented on again that it was ‘jumpy’ and not ‘smooth’. I was also told that when her eyes are shown rolling, it lasts for too long and doesn’t fit in with the timing of the music which we also had established. It is good that we also received negative feedback as it means we can take these comments away and work on them to make them positive feedback. With our positive feedback, we can keep them in our heads and incorporate them in our video later on as our audience obviously like these aspects.

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

Throughout the production of our music video, we used many different media technologies. These include things such as the internet for research, websites, photoshop, final cut pro, high def canon camera, digital camera, apple mac computers, youtube, google, scanner, blogger, paint, computers for blogger, Microsoft word and quicktime converter.

The main use of technology was the internet. We used this from the very first stages from research into which genre to use, all the way through to the evaluation stage. We used Wikipedia to find out information about the artists herself (Ke$ha), we used google images to find examples of digi Paks, magazine adverts, different dance-pop artists and mise en scene ideas. We used Youtube to look into many many different music videos to analyse, compare them and get ideas on how to film our music video, and how to represent our artist. We used Blogger on the internet also, to put up and update our construction, research, planning and evaluation work within our music video project.

A very important media of technology we used was the high definition Canon cameras. We used these cameras to film all of our footage within our music video and our commentary. These cameras allowed us to film on our own tape, zoom in and out on characters and objects, stop and start filming when we wanted and let us upload all of our footage onto the next important media technology; the apple mac computers. These apple mac computers were key to our whole production of our music video as without these, we would not be able to see our footage or edit them with the programme they called ‘Final cut pro’. Final cut pro enabled us to edit our footage in many ways to create a good final music video. Final cut pro enabled us to fit together different footage, slow up or slow down the footage,  create different effects such as split screen and different colour effects and finally transitions in between clips such as fade in, fade out and a reverse shot. Without Final cut pro, I believe we would not have been able to create such a successful, creative and understandable music video.

After editing and finalising our music video, we used a programme called ‘Quicktime converter’ to convert our music video onto Youtube and finally onto blogger.

To create our digi pak and magazine advert, we wanted to include different pictures of the main character. To do this we used a digital camera to take pictures to then upload onto the computers to then upload onto blogger and Photoshop to create them. This was quick and easy to do. The challenging part then comes to using Photoshop to actually create the digi pak and magazine advert. Photoshop Is a very popular programme the computers have. Photoshop allowed us to edit our pictures with things such as colour, adding text and special effects to create an interesting and fun album cover and magazine advert. Photoshop was a challenge but we successfully got through it.

Before creating our digi pak and magazine advert, we drew out ideas onto paper as to what we will include in them and what they will look like. We wanted to put these on our blog, and in order to do this we needed to use another media technology of a picture scanner. We took our drawings to the Reprographics department and asked for them to be scanned onto our first class email accounts where we could access them. We then took these and uploaded them onto the blog. We also did this with our storyboards.

On the computers we used a programme called ‘Paint’ to save and resize pictures and create mood boards of things such as eye makeup ideas.

Whilst doing research, I used Microsoft word to type up what I wanted and then copy and pasting onto blogger. I found this easier to do rather than typing straight onto blogger as with Microsoft word, it checks for spelling and grammar mistakes.

Nearing the end of our project, we came back to use the Canon cameras to film each of our group members making a commentary. We will then go on to upload the footage onto the apple macs to edit the footage together using Final cut pro. To then use Quicktime converter to then upload it onto blogger.

My evaluation - Abi Shaw

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

My Media product predominantly uses a number of forms and conventions similar to those in other music videos of the same genre, (Dance-pop). Typically and quite commonly Dance Pop music video’s appeal to a younger target audience and usually have a narrative for example 'Christina Agularia - Aint No Other Man' which tells a story through the lyrics and visuals, although in quite recent new Dance Pop music video’s the narrative is fragmented but not always for example 'Lady gaga ft Colby O Donis' – 'Just Dance' . Dance Pop music video’s also display a teenager scenario for example having a crush, this scenario is shown in 'Katy Perry' – 'Teenage Dream' also in a quite recent song by 'JLO' – 'Papi' the scenario of all the guys being in love with her is shown throughout the video.

Dance pop also present the artist using certain technical codes, for instance, the different camera angles and movements, particularly close-up’s and extreme-close-up’s used with the intention to express emotion and thoughts to the audience, in general most Dance-Pop music videos tend to be fun, and light hearted, colourfull and have a good mood which is partly due to the upbeat music but also the location; for example on a beach, at a friend’s house, driving in a car etc; the sort of location that gives a good feeling. Another technical code used in not only dance pop genres but any genre, and usually determines the genre and style of the music video is the Mis en scene which includes the lighting, the use of props, the artists hair and makeup, and the colours, and costume.

The artist and/or characters within the music video are also generally involved in dance routines, again which you can see in the two Dance Pop music videos I previously mentioned. Lady Gaga – just dance and JLO- Papi. To produce a successful, professional Dance Pop music video to the song Kesha- ‘N N N Neva Baby’ from the Dance-Pop genre we used nearly all of these techniques through planning, filming and editing and in some ways developed these conventions making our video creative and unique.

For instance, similarly to other Dance Pop music videos our music video is aimed at a niche audience who are teenager girls, Our video also has a narrative which is fragmented and like other dance pop music videos our one follows a simple teenage scenario of a boy having a crush on a girl, this idea developed primarily through looking at other videos, and recognizing that kesha, and Katy Perry, and Miley Cyrus for example also display a teenage scenario through their music videos. Our Music video has taken ideas from other videos, and has been changed and developed through planning and research, and editing.

In our music video, we use a number of different shots and camera angles from close-up’s to extreme close-up’s to long shots and wide shot’s, to show the audience the location and introduce the characters. Other shots includes Dutch angle, bird’s eye view shot, over the shoulder shots, two shot, eye level shots, high angle shots, low angle shots and a split screen of the same shot more than once used in particular parts of the video make our video effective and interesting to watch; which add to the creativity and final results, but also to keep the video fun and continuous. The shots we used are also very common within other dance pop music videos for example in 'Lady gaga ft Beyonce' - 'telephone'  you can see a variety of shots that we have used in our own.

Another area similar to other music videos in the same genre through editing is the different transisitions from one scene to the next. In our music video we used cheeky transitions of shapes, which you can see is similar to ‘Rihanna ft David Guetta’ – ‘Whos that chick’,   were the next scene comes in through a heart, or a star, or diamond. This is a very good technique in dance pop videos, as quite a few have a funny side to them, for example – ‘Katy Perry’ – ‘last Friday night’ and ‘lily Allen’ – ‘smile’, there is a funny element to it, which suggests the not so seriousness of the situation. The use of transitions in this way allows the audience to see the next scene in a more effective and creative way.

One element that we specifically developed in our music video was the use of colour to a shot, in particularly the split screen which consist of Alice dancing. One video that uses a similar colour technique is 'Rihanna' – ‘Man down’ in one particular scene where she is shown dancing in front of a brightly coloured red light and the figure and other parts of the shot are darkly shadowed. This is a good example of where we have used and developed the conventions of the artist being involved in dance routines and the bright use of colour to create a party effect that you would expect to see in Dance Pop music videos to create something similar but original. The split screen is also used in 'Lady Gaga’s' video – ‘Poker face’ in a similar way to ours was the same shot is used four times in one shot. This was one element that I specifically liked as it showed a number of conventions in one and was an area that we could develop well.

The lighting in our music video contains bright coloured flashing lights, for the party scenes, we used this throughout the video as it adds good effect and refers to the party that most dance pop genres include. The lights allow the audience to immediately recognize that it is a dance pop music video, and the lights come in sync with the beat. The lights we used our artificial strobe lights to emphasize the party scenes they are also bright green which again follows the conventions related to lighting within the genre dance pop, Not only does the use of bright lights and colour draw attention to the video but also tie in with the whole idea of dance/party that you’d usually expect to see in a dance pop genre.

Other ways our video links and connects to the dance pop genre, and share similar aspects with other dance pop music videos, is done through the use of costume, hair and makeup of the artist- we looked at many different artists similar to Kesha, and we wanted our artist to come across very fun, wild, and literally suit the female teenage audience.  Are chosen costume is similar to 'Miley Cyrus’s' outfit  in ‘party in the USA’ video and also 'Kesha' herself in this particular video ‘Tik-Tock’ this style refers to the relevant fashion of teenagers who like dance pop music, and therefore fits well with the genre and target audience It also refers to summer, which also we relate with happiness, and good feelings, this is usually  the style which dance pop music videos contain. When researching into hair and makeup, it was quite noticeable that dance pop artists tend to have bold eye makeup and big hair, for example artists like Lady-gaga and rihanna, we wanted our music video to continue to display this look as it would not only be recognizable for the genre but also relate to the audience the video is consumed at. The bold eyes in these artists has been created through the use of fake eye lashes, mascara and eye liner, and a good example of this is in 'Cascada’s' video ‘what hurts the most’ you can see the artist make up is bold, and fake eyelashes are used to enhance the eyes, this is very noticeable in close up’s, and shows the audience the particular style. We also wanted our character to wear fake eye lashes to reflect this appearance making the video relevant to teenagers. Choosing Alice was also relative, as her hair is bright blonde which emphasizes the hair already, we styled it down with some up which is also similar to ‘Cascada’ – in the video ‘what hurts the most’ Other artists with big hair and bold makeup in the genre also include ‘Christina Agularia’, ‘Britney spears’ and again ‘Rihanna’, who are all well known dance pop artists and all have a similar appearance, of bright hair and bold makeup. I think choosing Alice was successful in achieving this look, and was easy to work on.

In relation to including and playing around with certain conventions not only did we use the link between lyrics and visuals, and carry out a bright multi coloured light and colours throughout the video, and express the teenage appearance through clothing and makeup but are choice of location was well suited to the genre, and similar to what you’d expect to see in any other dance pop music video. We chose to film in a modern house, and also at a party and in inventive areas for instance the play zone – This allowed the video to straight away be fun and easy to develop with. For instance in dance pop genres you tend to get a scene that is completely random, but not random as it has been chosen purposely. For example in ‘Rihanna’s’ video ‘rude boy’  she is shown on a fake horse in one scene and this scene is played numerous time in the video which is random, this is usually done when the video has a particular theme, like in ‘Gwen Stefani’s’ video ‘what you waiting for ‘ were its Alice and wonder land themed and she’s in a big house or ‘Katy Perry’s’ video ‘California girls’,were she makes the use of giant candy objects .However we wanted to interpret the idea and fitting it in with a narrative based theme, but making it fragmented and including random scenes for a purpose, it is very successful in making the music video imaginative, and feature different use of styles of dance pop in the video.

In relation to the music video, I think one thing that follows through quite a lot of dance pop music videos, which you can see particularly in the Rihanna videos – ‘rude boy’, and ‘who’s that chick’ is the use of cartoon animation, which is something we could have used more.

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

The combination is very successful as a group we worked hard to link the main product and the magazine ad and digi pack together. In relation to our digi pack, we looked at particularly the element of a theme, from our music video that we would like to peruse in our digi pack and magazine ad, we decided on a glitter/ bright coloured theme. One video that specifically influenced our decision to have a glitter/bright coloured theme was looking at different music videos within the same genre, and the idea of using bright colours and glitter really stood out to us. One video we looked at was Kesha - 'Take it off'' were glitter and coloured paint is thrown around. Another video that influenced our decision was a video from Rihanna 'Only girl in this world' the colours throughout the video are bright pink and multicoloured. These two videos both show creative ways of using colours, to make the video attractive and stand out, similarly to our music video were we used the play zone with multicoloured balls surrounding the artist, and the interrupts of bright flashing lights etc and were we used glitter blown at the camera, to emphasize the theme and style within the video.

I think this theme is very effective and can be displayed in many ways. I think one of the main elements you really notice in our music video is the use of bright colours and it has been very successful in following through the specific theme when producing the magazine ad, and the digi pack. Bright colours are something that is also definitely carried through other dance pop music videos, and so is suitable in not only identifying the genre, but also attracting the target audience teenagers.

The link between the Music video and the digi pack and the magazine add, all relate simply by using the main character on al 3, but also the way she appears, again by using bold make up and big hair, and the costume, which shows the audience the style and personality she is, and is also a great selling technique as it attracts the teenage market. One thing that we wanted to focus on and carry out through our digi pack and magazine ad was the use of glitter; in the digi pack and the magazine ad this was used effectively on Alice’s lips, however  we could have displayed more of this, and made it stand out more.

Another element that we specifically wanted to keep the identical was the font; this would allow the audience to see straight away that the three are linked. This idea of having bright colours and a glitter theme allows the audience to recognize the genre straight away, as it is a strong element that is obvious and can be noticed easily. The audience may also refer to the video as fun and lively and hopefully give the audience a happy and good feeling which we definitely aim to do. In relation to the three having a specific link the audience will be able to recognize that they are all connected, and see that the magazine ad is promoting the digi pack, and the video is related to the digi pack.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

One of the most important thing to realize before creating a music video and after creating a music video is to consider what the audience felt about not only the production but your ideas, as it allows you to gain information, and thoughts on the audience this is important do that so the video is successfully produced to suit the audience its aimed at.

One thing we did to make sure that could get enough audience feedback was make a questionnaire, when answered would allow me to understand the needs of the target audience and what they expect from my media production. Before asking my target audience as a group we had rough ideas of what we wanted to achieve, and after discussing our ideas with the group and other people we were able to tale some of their thoughts and perceptions and add it into our own, we did this through a feedback session.

This allowed us to improve on the initial ideas we had, working up a good rough idea of what the music video would be like. We originally had an idea to have a narrative, but had no real storyline in mind. This was one thing that we were able to improve with the group’s feedback. The media group shared ideas, and gave us some good ideas which we later developed. Other improvements that were suggested included the choice of locations as we briefly mentioned that we would base our narrative, at a party, and real thoughts would need to be considered, in choosing the right location that would be safe and appropriate – taking into consideration any approvals needed to film.

 After deciding on the narrative, of a boy having a crush on a girl and types of shots, and locations we would like to use, to display the narrative we were able to create story boards, and got a feel for what we were trying to achieve. From the result of the final music video, I think as a group we have definitely achieved a lot of the original desires, and produced a pretty successful and professional music video that was suitable for our target audience – teenage females.

Other feedback that we learned was from our rough cut, we were told our narrative was clear and understandable from the start; we were also told that we had a good technique with the use of the camera although zooming out could be smoother. The short cuts of the flashing strobe lights were one of the elements that were liked, and we were told it fitted well with our dance pop genre. We had strong lip syncing, that was accurate and in time, this was very positive as it is important when communicating to the camera. We had some strong positive feedback however the negative feedback was also positive as it allowed us to recognize were we needed to improve when filming for our main production. The camera steadiness being one of these, which we later achieved and used accurately.

From the outcome of our video, I wanted to find out what was good about the video and what wasn’t so good and if there were any improvements and what they might be. After producing a video it’s important to gain positive and negative feedback, for future reference but also so that if I were to produce this media production again I would be able to recognize the strong points and the weaker elements within the video. A lot of my feedback was pretty positive in particular the type of shots we used were very creative and well thought about and the quality of the shots and the variety of shots used was well done and of high quality.

Other elements that really stood was again the use of shots, but also the Lip syncing was in time, and the music video was continuous, one thing that was mentioned was the editing process, from the audience feedback they could see that a lot of time and effort was put in to create a interesting music video, and although my group wasn’t always there we worked well as a team to make the video look professional but most importantly match to the genre dance pop which included a lot of conventions that we could match and develop to make a unique production, specifically the transitions, and the use of colour and costume.

Critical negative feedback was very useful, and allowed for possible improvements and further developments; one thing that we could have improved was the choice of the actual narrative was achieving a lot more with the chosen story line that we put together, for example including more shots, and more to watch. One thing that my audience mentioned and I agreed was that we have used the geek more in numerous scenes to display the narrative more greatly.

However our song was short which influenced the time we had to work with and fitting in a storyline that would work with the song choice. We could have got a lot more scenes in the video to fulfill the storyline, and add to the creativeness and interest of the video but overall the final music video had a good story to it and matched the lyrics which we intended on doing. I have been able to gain a lot of feedback from my audience through planning and research but also along the process of editing and to the final piece. The feedback was very helpful, and also allowed me to view my idea from another person’s perception, and not just my own.

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

Throughout the research, planning, and evaluation stages we used various different media technologies for example in the construction we used the cannon camera equipment to film, and the apple macs to upload our film this was easy as I was already familiar with using the camera and apple macs, in AS Media to produce a film.

We used final cut pro, to create our music video and edit it. This software was not that easy to use at first, but once we got the hang of it was pretty simple. We used many different tools when editing the video and got to grips with the basic features. Most of our research was done through using the computers in and out of school and exploring the internet, in particular, we used YouTube to look at other types of music videos within the same genre, and this helped us to get a good idea of the conventions, and also ideas for how we’d like our video to be. We used various websites, for example; The Windsor media blog/ blogger to upload all our research and evaluation. Other media technologies that we used through the planning and research stages include scanners, this allowed us to scan on our digi pak designs, and other research that we did on paper for example spider diagrams, and our story boards. This was useful technology in transferring our written research onto the blog format easily.

In the process of designing our digi pak and magazine we used Photoshop, which was fairly easy to use, and was a creative programme that allowed us to create an imaginative, digi pak and magazine ad. I also used PowerPoint and slide share through my research, to produce a slide show on the conventions of music videos; this was one of the most helpful elements for me as it then enabled me to have a good understanding and knowledge of the conventions, and specifically dance pop. I was then able to write a detailed evaluation on word, to then upload onto my blog, referring to all the different techniques and conventions within our music video.Overall the media technologies that were able to use allowed us to produce successful professional looking pieces, and give us the experience, of using different technologies, when producing our work.

Evaluation

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

Beginning with the ancillary task, we used and developed the media conventions that were researched, the typical conventions for the dance pop genre within the album adverts and covers were abstract photo’s, taking a basic scene and twisting it, making it unusual and unique. The use of mis en scene was often very bold and exciting, costumes being unusual, with make up the opposite of bland, often running along a theme of stage make up, and hair having an edgy spin to it. We took this into strong consideration and based our magazine ad and digi-pak around this. Starting with the main attraction, the artists, we brought glitter into the picture, giving her silver, glittery lips, we then enhanced her eyes using long black fake eye lashes, when enhancing her skin tone we knew we could either go dark and tanned, which is what was normally done within this genre, or go pale and smooth, we ended up deciding to go with pale, although it was challenging the genre’s conventions we believed it would enable the digi-pak to stand out among others and would also direct more attention to the eyes and lips, which was what we thought would bring our target audience towards our album. Looking at the costume, we followed the same route, being the ‘out there’, show girl theme, wearing a corset and patterned leggings. The costume was mostly black and white, we done this to enable her to stand out against any coloured background that we chose to use, it also prevented the attention going to the clothes rather than the artist herself. The magazine ad used a city background, this was the basic scene that most artists from the dance pop genre would use, however we then took the photo and edited it so the colours were anything but normal for a city setting. This was our own way of taking a photo and twisting and tweaking it so it had the abstract edge to it that our particular genre uses.  Like other magazine adverts, we included the image of the artist, the artists name and important information about the album itself. Artists that inspired us for such mis en scene we artists such as Cascada, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Ke$sha herself.

Moving on to the final music video we produced, we aimed to fit in many of the dance pop genre conventions, we done this by researching a variety of other music video’s within this genre. We took note of the mis en scene and camera shots that had been used, we took all of this into consideration from the very beginning when completing our story boards. The shots that we noticed were repeated throughout many different videos were shots such as wide shot, low/high angle shot, mid shot, close up, and long shot, we therefore incorporated all of these into our music video where possible. This was one major convention that we followed well and knew that as long as we followed it with good consideration it would work well and add extra effects to the video. Different types of cuts were also used quite often within our genre, cuts such as fades, split screen and extremely fast cuts (milliseconds long) were commonly used, the fast cuts were what immediately caught our eyes on various video’s, these had an enormous effect on screen and looked awesome, this was therefore something we knew we would definitely use. The quick cuts were often of things that appeared to be random for the video, so, like other artists have done, our quick cuts were indeed, very random but seemed to fit very well. When it came to the other transitions, we knew we wanted to use them, but we had to be careful of where to place them, we knew we couldn’t use them anywhere, for example, we didn’t want to use the ‘fade’ at a point where the music was running very fast, so we found a suitable place for the transition to go and after working it into the correct time space it was found to be very successful in creating the correct atmosphere in the video that we aimed for. The split screen we used to make the chorus a little more exciting as we had already used the footage once previously in the video and didn’t want to simply repeat it, we therefore split the screen into four sections and edited each picture changing the colour scheme. This was one of our favorite transitions/cuts used. An example of a music video that has used split screen is LMFAO’s Sexy and I Know It.  

When talking about the main story line, we decided to follow a linear narrative, this was mainly due to the fact that our lyrics told a story. Most music video’s within our genre link the lyrics and visual a lot throughout the entire video, they also tend to follow a strong story line, for example, Katy Perry’s Last Friday Night. In the majority of music video’s in all genre’s, they contain lip syncing, this was a major aspect that we wanted to include. Lip syncing to the camera allows it to seem as if the artist is singing to the audience as well as having a great link between the visual and lyrics. This is a convention that is found in a high percentage of the dance pop videos, but also in many other, if not all other genres.

Most of the editing techniques, mis en scene and camera work completed conformed to the conventions of the dance-pop genre, there was the odd occasion where we went against the conventions and added our individual spin to it, but we decided that following the conventions would lead to a successful, creative music video.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

When taking feedback from an audience we considered each point they made, and took it into strong consideration. Throughout the production of our music video we consistently referred back to our audience to gain their thoughts on what worked well, what could be improved, and what they thought was missing. To begin our production we completed background research on the music genre of our video and various artists that are presented within the same genre. This research was then put forward to our peers, after explaining our findings, they gave us feedback on what they thought we considered well and what we had to research further into with greater depth.

We gained positive feedback about our knowledge on our target audience, we covered our niche audience well, however when explaining this to our peers we were not specific enough, although we knew where we were heading, our audience did not, we therefore took this into consideration and wrote out chosen audience up with more detail and precision. One aspect where we gained plenty of positive feedback was our understanding of a variety of shots, when researching we constructed a list of possible shots we could use within our music video and reasons for why they would work well with our chosen genre. Due to our explanations of these shots our peers were able to understand where we were coming from and picture images in their mind as we were speaking. On the other hand, our peers gave us some critical points, one being on our story line. Although we had a range of idea’s of what our story could be based on, it wasn’t appropriate for our audience when explaining the range of ideas. We were told we needed one story line and to expand on it to enable our audience to receive a good picture of what we had in mind. These are just some examples of how our audience feedback enabled us to progress and add upon what we had already completed, they gave us suggestions on how to improve and stopped us from going on about one aspect for too long.

After completing the background research went ahead and drew up the storyboards then prepared ourselves and went ahead with filming our music video. Once we had appropriate footage we began the editing process. A rough cut was first produced, being only the first few seconds of the music video, this was then uploaded to our blogs and again, we received feedback on this from our peers. The rough cut feedback was essential as it enabled us to create the perfect music video which our audience would enjoy. Our feedback told us that some of our zooming was a little jumpy and could be smoother and the duration of one or two shots needs to be shortened as they keep the audience waiting for too long, however we also gained positive feedback, such as, we used good angles and framing when using a variety of camera shots, the quick cuts of flashing lights worked well with our chosen genre, and we used ‘fun, bold’ and ‘eye-catching’ mis en scene which also came into connection with the genre of our music genre. From the mixed response of good and bad feedback, we were able to work upon the negatives and improve these aspects, as well as understand what the audience liked. Finding out what they liked was extremely helpful, we were able to repeat some of this, for example, the editing techniques, and ensure that these positive points stood out for the audience, resulting in a music video that enticed an audience and followed media conventions.

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

When beginning the research stage, we used the most common and obvious, but also the most helpful media technology, the internet. The internet enabled us to research media conventions, our music genre, various artists and much more at a very good speed, it was not only useful for its speed, but it also gave us more information than we needed, more than we would have received if we had of researched from books etc. Research is what some would say is the most crucial and important stage out of the entire production, without the research we would have minimal knowledge on the conventions we needed to follow, the stereotypical aspects of our music genre and information on other music video’s/artists.

After the research was completed we went ahead and began our filming, this involved another form of media technology, the video camera. We were already familiar with the video camera as we used the same camera when filming our AS coursework. The camera’s had a great picture and picked up on every detail when filming, along with the camera was the tripod, this prevented any unsteady filming and enabled us to turn the camera smoothly when following actions on screen. The camera contained a play and pause button so we were able to stop filming easily when changing location or bringing in new props etc., it was also easily connected to the apple macs when uploading the footage.

The editing stage was possibly where the provided media technology came in the most useful, we used an editing program named ‘Final Cut’. This particular program allowed us to add in shots where wanted, remove unwanted/unneeded shots, use ‘qwerky’ and eye-catching transitions and enhance colour schemes where necessary. The editing techniques that could have been used were endless, some working with our music video/genre better than others. We were consistently changing and adding upon editing that we had already completed and new footage that needed a fun, edgy spin to it.

Photoshop was yet another major media technology used within our A2 coursework. This was brought into action during our ancillary task; the production of our magazine advert and digi-pak. We used your standard every day digital camera to take the photos for the digi-pak and mag advert, we then uploaded these photo’s onto the apple macs and began editing. Like the film editing, the options we had were endless, we were able to change the background of our image, edit the brightness and contrast of our photo’s, add texts and symbols, characterize the images, change the colour schemes completely and so much more. We played around on this for a while, trying to figure out what worked best whilst fitting into our music genre which would also catch someone’s eye and stand out among other similar adverts. Without Photoshop we would have ended up with a very bland, and simple digi-pak/magazine advert, this would not have been ideal, therefore having such media technologies, we were able to produce professional looking pieces for the ancillary task.

A final media technology that cannot be forgotten is blogger.com, this has been used to track all of our work and enables each member of the group to keep up with what is being researched, analysed, produced etc., by other members of the group. It is also how members of the public, and the examiner can look at our individual and group work, as well as watch our final music video. The website offers many things, we are able to edit our page to our own liking, tag ourselves in posts so we can see who completed certain research etc., and also offers ease of use. Understanding how the web page works is very simple and quick. 

As you can see, various pieces of media technology have been used right from the very beginning of the production of our music video, right up until finalizing the last aspects. Each one of the above, with exception of Photoshop will also be used when researching/filming/editing our evaluation.

How effective is the combination of your media product and your ancillary task?

When designing our magazine advert and digi-pak we knew that we wanted to keep the theme of the music video continuous, this meant that our ancillary tasks had to follow this same theme. The chosen theme was simple, but effective. It involved bright, bold colours and unusual props along with an abstract dress code. Having this sort of theme would enable our products to stand out among others of the same genre, drawing attention to it.

The repeated setting that we chose was the fun zone (ball pit), this was chosen as it creates a fun, bubbly atmosphere full of colours and is an immediate eye catching scene. This was used within our music video and where the majority of our photos were taken for our advertising. We continued the mis en scene by ensuring that our artist was still wearing revealing clothes, having big, bold hair and ‘in your face’ make up. Both of these elements allowed our audience to easily relate the music video to the advertising we created.

When connecting the magazine advert to the digi-pak, we ensured that they were very similar so our audience would immediately recognize the album after seeing the advert. This was done by using the same font for the writing, and the artist herself was dressed exactly the same with the same hair and make-up, just striking various different poses throughout the advert and album artwork. The digi-pak itself has much more information than the advert as it needed to included featuring songs, sponsors etc., however we did keep the exact same font, a font that would be kept the same throughout all of Ke$sha’s advertising campaigns.  

When analyzing the music video, magazine advert and digi-pak it is clear that we have kept the same theme throughout, this was purposely done in order for the audience to relate each to one and another, and improves the ability to recognize the album among others surrounding it.

Collette- Evaluation

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

Our media product contains a number of similarities among other dance pop music videos, I knew the use of shots such as close-ups and mid shots would help the audience establish our genre so we focused on what conventions of mise en sene are used by artists from the same genre. I thought the use of mise en sene would benefit in our genre being recognised, we put a lot of thought into the costumes that our characters would wear along with things such as lighting, props and make-up. We related these to ones we had seen in videos by artists such as P!nk, Cascada and Kesha herself.

When looking at music videos from artists such as Lady Gaga and Katy Perry I found numerous shots such as mid, long and establishing shots that we would like to include within our video. Fast cuts were common within many of Lady Gaga’s videos especially her single ‘Just Dance’ , so we knew including them would follow her conventions along with other well known Dance-Pop artist’s music videos. In including these fast cuts it meant that our music video would contain a strong link between other Dance-Pop videos as when doing my research and planning. I found that fast cuts were also used in Kesha’s video ‘Tik Tok’ and a video by Pitbull ft. Ne-Yo, Afrojack and Nayer, called ‘Give Me Everything’. Fast cuts are something we created and used twice when editing our footage as it conformed to the conventions from our Dance-Pop genre.

When I was watching a music video called ‘Sexy and I Know It’ created by LMFAO they use a split screen for about 30 seconds within their video, it helps show two different scenes and is very common within the Dance-Pop genre as I have also seen this in Michael Jackson’s music video ‘Billie Jean’. I thought that including a split screen would relate to the Dance-Pop genre, so instead of an ordinary 2 way split screen we developed this and included a 4 way split screen, adding different colourful effects whilst editing.
We used artificial lighting throughout most of our video, this is until it came to the scene with Alice in the tunnel. The light we can see shinning in from the outside of the tunnel is natural sunlight, this is one of the few scenes where artificial lighting was not used. Other scenes were that of our fast cuts and an over the shoulder shot of Sophie when she was stood outside.

Having our character represent the artist allowed us to show her lip syncing to the music, most of the videos I have seen from our genre shows the artist singing to the camera so we knew that this would be a key element to include within our video. A video in particular that has the artist singing and dancing to the camera is ‘What hurts the most’ by Cascada, the scenes of her singing are shown numerous times throughout the video.  Many videos from our Dance-Pop genre also include a link between lyrics and visuals our song repeats the words ‘N N N Neva Baby’ so we thought that showing the audience links towards this will increase our video conforming to Dance-Pop Conventions.

When watching 'California King Bed' a music video by Rihanna, I noticed the different editing techniques she would use throughout the video. On several occasions she used a fade to cut from one scene to another, I thought this added a great effect and kept the video flowing smoothly. When planning our music video we knew it would not be soft and graceful as this is not what our Dance-Pop genre represents. So when looking at Rihanna’s transitions I thought that including a fade could also benefit our video as it will prevent our video from looking as if it jumps from one scene to another.

When planning for our storyline we initially agreed on following a fragmented narrative, although when editing we realised that like many other Dance-pop storylines our music video follows a linear narrative. Throughout the video we are shown what our main character Alice does during the day and then her night life at a party. Following this linear narrative uses the conventions that are also seen in many other Dance-Pop videos.

When looking at the aspects of challenging an ordinary Dance-pop music video we noticed that most did not include a constant prop where as our video did. If ever the camera showed Sophie 'the geek' she would be holding a fake flower. We found the use of the flower allowed us to keep with our storyline as it showed the 'Geek' trying to win over Alice.

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

Throughout the creation of our main product and Ancillary tasks we have continued a bold and vibrant theme. When studying other Digi Paks and Magazine Adverts from other Dance-Pop artists I found that keeping a constant theme within the advertisements will attract people as it will allow the advertisements to be appealing to their audience.

I looked in detail at a Digi Pak by Britney Spears; the front cover gave us the idea of having a close up photo of our character as the front cover. It also showed me that our use of scenes such as the Windsor Leisure Centre play zone would need to be continued from our music video to our Digi Pak and Magazine Advert. From this we chose to take photos for the Magazine Advert in this environment so we maintained a continuous theme. I feel that keeping these themes will allow our magazine advert to stand out against other genres as it will be very bright and intriguing.

We knew that our main character should be the main picture in our Magazine Advert and Digi Pak so Abi and I decided to use a photo of Alice. The photo we used included feathers and a ball on top of Alice’s head, the feathers related to our Dance-Pop genre as the genre is based around the difference it has from other music genres. This photo in particular stood out to me as it also showed Alice’s bold eyelashes and lip glitter, these are both commonly seen adverts from our genre. The ball on top of Alice’s head in the photo for our Magazine Advert relates to the scenes of Alice in the ball pit, we thought that including this would keep with the scenes within our music video.

The colour scheme throughout our music video is very bright and bold colours, so when creating our Magazine Advert and Digi Pak we included these in the picture but also the background images. We used a bright glittering background to relate to the conventions of our genre as we had seen this in numerous magazine adverts.

The layout of our Magazine Advert and the front cover of our Digi Pak show Alice in the centre of the page, this is so that she will stand out as in a normal Digi Pak & Magazine Advert the artist will always attract your attention. We have placed lettering such as the artist’s name, featuring songs and the albums name around Alice on the Magazine Advert. We have also done the same for the Digi Pak but included more detail of things such as other songs featured on the album along with more photos of Alice around the Digi Pak. We maintained a constant font for the words throughout both of these so they can relate to each other.

Ensuring that our theme was kept throughout our main product and ancillary texts allowed our work to keep a constant relation to each other.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Throughout my planning and research we were able to gain feedback from classmates and our teacher. The first element we were given feedback on was for a presentation that we showed to our class to help them gain an idea of what we would like our music video too look like.

We showed the class two music videos from artists of the Dance-Pop genre, this gained us very positive feedback as the class found these videos amusing and interesting to watch. We were told that due to the information we provided the class from these videos, we showed a detailed explanation of our Dance-Pop genre, in doing so we also showed good evidence of research into this genre. This feedback allowed us to remain positive about the ideas we had for our video as it related to both these videos.

Feedback we gained from our presentation told us that we did not focus too much on our niche audience; this is something that we had not considered. From gaining this feedback it allowed us to understand that we will need to do some separate research into our target audience.

A main element that we gained very positive feedback from was the type of shots we had planned to use. We mentioned to the class that we wished to include fast cuts when it came to editing, the class thought this would add a great effect to our music video so we decided as a group this would defiantly be something we wished to include. Other shots such as low/high angled shots, mid shots and close ups were also something the class picked up on and thought we should include. Although as a group we had thought about using these, gaining advice from the class it helped us to come to the decisions of what would be appealing as the age of our class mates relates to the age group we had considered our video to be aimed at.

Some of negative feedback that we gained made us realise that we did not have a solid storyline, we had not put too much consideration into this and it showed when we done our presentation. From this feedback it allowed us a group to know that we needed to sit down and think about the storyline that we would wish to follow.

The class gave us some advice on what outfits and make-up they think would look good for our character in the video, many of which, from what we have seen related to our Dance-Pop genre. Although this presentation was at the beginning of our music video project, the negative and positive feedback helped us to know what else we would need to consider before creating our video.

When we next received feedback, we had published our rough cut onto our blog page. In gaining feedback from this it allowed us to consider what could need changing and what we should keep in our final piece. It also helped us to understand what our classmates thought looked good in the video.

From 3 different groups we were told that our lip syncing was extremely accurate throughout the short video, this is something that we knew we had to concentrate on as it is a key element within our video. In knowing that our lip syncing was in time it allowed us to add in more scenes of lip syncing throughout the video. Feedback we gained from our mise en sene was very positive we were told that it was ‘eye-catching’ and ‘keeps with the fun of the song’. This is something that we were very happy with as we had put a lot of effort into thinking about how our character would look.

Some negative criticism we gained from our rough cut was that the zooming out at the beginning of the video could have been smoother. We took this into consideration but this shot was the first one that would be shown with lip syncing so we decided to keep this in as it is something that as a group we all thought benefited to the video.

Our use of quick flashing lights had a mixed feedback; one group did not understand the meaning to these random flashes. We knew that until the whole music video would have been seen these would not make sense. We were also told by another group that these fast flashing lights fitted in well with our Dance-Pop genre. From this feedback it proved to us that we would need to show a clear involvement of the party during the video.

Also when we received feedback for the questionnaire that I created, it helped us to establish our target audience and make sure we were producing a music video that would attract our audience. As we had been told we did not make our target audience clear during the presentation we wanted to make sure we were aiming our video towards the right audience. That is why these questionnaires were created so we knew exactly who to aim our video towards.

From the questionnaire we were able to understand what teenage girls would expect from a Dance-Pop video, this came back with things such as bold colours and a wild imagination. These two aspects would help in keeping our audience drawn to the video and allow them to want to watch it again.

One question that I asked in particular is something that we wanted to understand, when the students were asked ‘Do you think connecting with the audience is good in a music video?’ many came back with saying yes. As we wanted to include continuous lip syncing and having our character appear to be singing to the camera, the results to this question helped us when deciding what to add to our video.

All girls agreed that having comedy in a Dance-Pop video will encourage them to keep watching it, this is something we had already considered including and due to these results we knew it would be a very good idea.

Overall from all the feedback we gained we took a lot into consideration and included numerous shots, mise en sene and conventions of the Dance-Pop genre within our music video. Event though we gained some negative feedback we did not take this as an insult but rather a way to improve our video.

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

Throughout the duration of planning and creating our music video we used a number of technologies to help with the research into our genre.

A main use of technology that we used was the internet; we used this when first establishing our music genre and then continued to use this all the way up until our evaluation stages. When doing further research into our genre for things such as the Digi Pak, Magazine Advert and mise en sene ideas the internet was our main source of information. As we needed photos for many of these I used Google images a number of times to find what we needed. Another use for the internet we used was youtube; this helped us when planning our music video, by watching other music videos by other artists from our Dance-Pop genre we were able to know what we should be including in ours.  

Also when doing research into our genre, I used a programme called ‘paint’ to be able to create a collage of photos for our mood board and initial eye make-up ideas. This allowed me to re-size photos and place them where ever I wanted on a small background.

When filming for our rough cut and final piece we used a cannon camera, this camera allowed us to focus in and out of specific images within the scene. It also allowed us to zoom in and out on characters within the images; this is something we used frequently throughout the video.

Whilst editing our rough cut and final piece we used the Apple Mac computers. On these computers they had a programme called ‘Final Cut Pro’ this programme allowed us to create a number of different effects throughout our videos. Transitions that we included such as fades, split screens and colouring were created when we used this programme. It also allowed us to include a reverse shot; this is something we were really keen on including in our video.

After using Final Cut Pro we used a programme called 'Quick Time Conversion' to convert our music video, this allowed us to put the video onto youtube and then place it onto blogger.

While doing blog work we would need to have access to a computer along with Microsoft Word, in using Microsoft Word we were able to check our spelling and grammar before posting our work onto the blog.

We had basic drawings of images we used when considering what our Digi Pak would look like, when putting these onto a computer we took them to the Repro Graphics department and asked them to scan them in for us. They then sent these images to us by First Class which is an email account all students have to communicate with each other; I then took these and uploaded them onto the blog.

When it came to taking pictures for our Digi Pak and Magazine Advert we used a digital camera, we would then need to upload these pictures onto the Apple Mac computers to be able to edit them on Photo Shop. Photo Shop is a programme that allows us to edit almost every aspect of our picture, including its saturation, background and special effects. We used this programme when creating our final Digi Pak and Magazine Advert. It also allowed us to add writing on top of the picture.

The cannon cameras, computers and final cut pro were also used when creating and then filming our evaluations. We first typed up all of our answers and then filmed each other as a group answering these. Once we had done this we then had to upload the footage onto final cut pro and begin editing it, later to upload it onto blogger.