Hannah Slaney Evaluation Post

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

Throughout our music video we have used various techniques to portray different conventions. We researched generic conventions in which were primarily used within indie music videos and used this research to develop ideas which would influence ideas towards our final product.

 A convention in which we used was the costume that Joe wore. We found that when researching the indie genre, the costumes in which all the band members and artists wore were very similar in terms of style. I looked at bands such as The Kooks, The Script and individual artists including Jason Mraz and James Morrison. I found that nearly all of them wore very casual and relaxed clothes in their videos which frequently consisted of a patterned shirt, jeans and plimpsols. This could be to reflect the style of the indie genre as it is recognized as a laid back genre and therefore this is shown through the aesthetics of the video. We can also comment on the genre hybrid as this image portrayal is seen to have a very “country and western” style.

The costumes in which they wear can also determine the type of audience that is fond of this genre of music. Young men who like this style of fashion may aspire to these artists especially people who want to become musicians. We asked Joe to wear a detailed shirt, jeans and plimpsols as identified in the other indie videos. We designed this costume for Joe which corresponds with this as this was a convention in which we carried out successfully.

 Another convention in which we used was the alteration of colour correction. In our video we decreased the de-saturation of some of the shots to give the idea that these shots were memories. We did this to give an arty effect giving the deliberate implied meaning that these shots are memories. It is seen to be a recognized narrative code to use decreased saturated shots as the audience is expected to understand this cultural difference. In our video the only de-saturated shots are of the unidentified female. This implies to the audience that these shots are all memories to the artist and accompany the narrative as he reminisces about his ex-girlfriend. An example of using decreasing colour saturation is shown through Oasis “Little by Little”

A convention we developed was the idea of keeping cast members identity anonymous. In our video the narrative shows shot of the artist with his ex-girlfriend as a memory. As well as these shots decreasing in colour saturation we have kept the character unidentified and unnamed. This gives the narrative ambiguity and the audience question who the female is. This continues throughout the video as we don’t develop her as a key character. The codes of the character imply that even though she is in the background of the video she is important to the narrative. We can relate this to Katy Perry’s video “Hot and Cold.”

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY3CehyfUko

However the connotations of the sequence being at a wedding indicate the happy ending but on the other hand this is dissimilar to our video as we keep the female completely unspecified which points out the reason for the artists bitter expression.

Another convention that we developed was the element of performance. It is known for artists of the indie genre to pride themselves as musicians. This is done by acoustic performance to show the artists musical talents. In our video we have shown the artist playing a guitar in the countryside. The fact that he is alone shows the relationship that the artist has with his music as his position, arched over his guitar implies that he is absorbed in what he is playing. For the audience this is aesthetically pleasing as they expect to see the artist playing the guitar and doing what he is well known for. We have noticed that Jason Mraz in the “I’m Yours” video although the artist performance is based on the accessory of the guitar rather than the relationship between the artist and the instrument.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkHTsc9PU2A

 As well as using conventions we decided to challenge certain conventions to create individuality for the video and to attract a wider audience. One of these conventions we challenged was the use of only using 2 cast members throughout the whole video. It was essential for our narrative that we included shots of the female character so the audience were aware of who she was and her relationship towards the artist. The use of saturated shots indicates that she is a memory towards him which really amplifies the narrative of the video. From the shots in our video we can see that the female is the reason for the artist’s bitter tone which is shown through his expression. We can relate this to Jason Mraz “Lucky.” In this video the characters are never pictured together which also relates to conventions that we have developed with the anonymous cast as in this video her character is never develop in the same way as ours video.

Further to this we challenged the convention of where the video was filmed. We researched many different indie videos to look at the variations of location as we wanted to do something slightly different but still conveyed the basic generic conventions of the indie genre. Most of our shots show the countryside setting as we feel that this connects well with our song as it is quite a smooth melody which reflects the calm surroundings. We have shot some of the footage in a street setting to vary this and to keep the audience interested. The inter-textuality of using both settings integrates the genre of country and western as it is a classic convention to use countryside settings. By doing this we are breaking the convention of location and cross-referencing it with other genres.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jJf-p6RYvo

 How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
This video shows all of the digital technologies in which we used throughout our project. The most significant being the blog as we were able to update this with progress reports and research posts. The new range of media was useful as we were able tob use online software to research and use social networking sites for audience feedback.

What have you  learnt from your audience feedback?

 It was important to ask people about our video as we needed to find out from our target audience, what they wanted to see and why this was important in a video. We asked people in as many different places as we could including social networking sites and asking family and friends.

We found that facebook and youtube were good because the comments were from the general public, particularly youtube as we were able to gain demographic figures from the viewers of our video.  We leant that through all of our audience feedback it was hard to keep everyone satisfied and to challenge and develop conventions in a way that would be successful.

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

 

Our ancillary texts relate closely to our main product as we took images from the video and used this within the digipack. This shows continuous intertextuality and cross referencing which link the all the products together. I based the design of the digipack around the album from "The Script" who are an indie band in which I researched as my main stimulus. I took the idea from this of using a neutral colour scheme which corresponds with the natural location shown throughout the video. Connotations shown throughout the digipack also relate to the video as the artist displays a bitter expression during the video which closely relates to why the artist is facing away from the audience and the album name.