My evaluation questions 1,2,3,4 for my media coursework

1. Q1.
In What way does your media
product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media
products.
By Eden Brooks

2. Video Evaluation

3. Clothing
When researching for our music video we came up with a list of clothing
items that we deemed to be related to the indie genre. We included this
list in our audience research. We also tried to wear these items of clothing
in our video. We made sure that all the band members wore Skinny jeans
and we all wore either v-necks or shirts with the buttons done up and
either smart shoes or vans as this is a convention of the indie genre.

4. Clean Camerawork and Editing
• Through indie music videos we watched during our research we
found that indie videos generally have lots of clean cut camera
shots and panning shot with occasional use of transition. Compared
with other videos of different genres you can see the difference
from indie to hip hop, e.g fish eye shot beastie boys. You would not
see such shots in an indie video, where special effects and
costumes are used. Indie videos have more a simple style to them.
• Our video follows the conventions of the simple clean cut style by
using still shots and panning techniques, with some examples of
tracking shots. We rarely used any special effects when it came to
editing techniques other than fade which we used in the
skateboarding shots to reflect the slow build up in the songs tempo.

5. Performance / Narrative
• Our video was mainly a performance, with the narrative
focusing on what the band like to do.
• A lot of indie genre music videos that we looked at in our
research had more focus on the performance aspect that the
narrative, so we repeated this in our own video to follow the
conventions of the indie genre. I feel we followed this
convention in our video, which we achieved through
storyboarding each shot so we could

6. Mise-En-Scene
• We used the narrative shots to show what an indie band
would get up to when they’re not performing. We came up
with activities that an indie band would do using our existing
knowledge of indie fans, we concluded on skateboarding, fixed
gear bicycle riding, going to the pub and waiting around. We
included these activities in our video.

7. Digi-pak Evaluation

8. The Font
• We decided to use the font (Cooper Black) for our digipak. In
the research we did on album adverts and digipaks we found
that indie bands try to make their products look as simple and
clean as they can while using contrasts to catch the eye of the
reader. So we followed this convention of the genre, as we
wanted the text on our digipak to be easy to read and stand
out. Below is an example of an album advert by Jamie T
which I analysed for my research. The use of colour and font
allow for the text to be easily seen and read.

9. The Images
• All but one image for the digipak were taken from our finished
music video. We used these images because it shows the audience
who is in the band and to create a motif of the bands profile but the
close up shots don’t give much away about our personalities and
what we are like apart from our dress sense, which we styled to
follow the forms of the indie genre. If we had another chance to go
back and change the digi-pak I would have included more mise-en-
scene which would show what the band does in it’s free time,
which is partly what we tried to show in our music video. The
image that we took ourselves at the train station is used to show
that the band is waiting to go somewhere, and the image of the
bench with no-one waiting can be looked at as a metaphor that the
band is on it’s way to where it wants to go.

10. The Colour
• We decided to put all the images in black and white as we felt
it was more simple and easy to look at, rather than lots of
uncoordinated colours that look tacky and unprofessional.
The black and white also represents the bands monotone
approach to life, with the one tone in their life being their
band and the indie genre.

11. Album Advert Evaluation
• For the album advert we decided to use an editing effect that
involved chopping up separate images and putting them
together to make one image using Photoshop. We decided to
use this as we felt it looked good and we were inspired to use
it as it was a style used in the Temper Trap music video for My
Sun.

12. Q2.
How effective is the combination of
the main product and all ancillary
products?

13. I feel the three products we produced combine effectively to sell the album. The music video focuses on selling the band;
who they are and what they do, it shows the band members doing activities that relate to the indie genre . The style of
clothing the band wears also help to sell the album, it allows the audience to connect with the band through their style of
clothing and are therefore able to relate to the band, hopefully making them more willing to buy the album.
The digipak takes still images from the music video for 5 of the 6 images. It helps to sell the album as it shows
images of the band which again, sells the style of the band and the style of music they play. It helps to reinforce the bands
image by showing images of each band member close up. It also shows clearly the age group of the band (17-19) which
allows the audience to connect more with the band. The other image that we took separately is used mainly as a filler
image although the empty bench also represents that the band had been waiting to go somewhere, and are now on their
way to getting to where they want to be now they have the album out.
The digi-pak and Album advert relate to each other as they both use images of the band in black and white
with bold coloured font to allow for easy reading and so that the text can be seen. The three products are easily
recognisable as being part of the same range of products as they all contain similar elements and styles such as the same
actors and clothing style.
The fact we have a used a completely different image in our album advert shows that the band are willing to do
things differently and do things that aren’t expected of them, for example a stereotypical band would use the front cover of
their digi-pak as their album advert but we didn’t. This allowed us to play around with different
effects on the album advert. Which were inspired by one of their other videos. We used the same
actors in our album advert so the people who have seen the video / or digi-pak
will be able to easily recognise them.

14. Q3.
What’ve you learned from your
audience feedback?

15. • Here is our survey results from survey monkey that we posted on
Facebook and on our YouTube video and asked people who we knew
were fans of the indie genre to fill in. This feed back was gathered
after we had completed our video and ancillary products. Therefore
this is more of a rating of our video and feedback to what the
audience thought and so whatever we can learn from it we can’t
apply to our products as unfortunately we ran out of time, however
we can carry on the feedback to media products that we may
construct in the future.
• From the results you can see that no body who watched our video
thought that any aspect of our video that we asked about was rated
below a 3 out of 5. Which shows that our video is liked by viewers,
and is relevant to the indie genre. If the ratings had been lower we
would have known our video was unsuccessful in following the
conventions of the indie genre from a fans viewpoint.

16. Above is a comment that we received on survey monkey. They give us lots of positive feedback on
our video and what we did right in terms of the codes of the indie genre, such as the natural
narrative shots of the band members around the town centre. I think this is a good comment that I
agree with and that given more time on our project, and if we’d had the hindsight to bring another
battery for the camera I’m sure we would of been able incorporate into our video in order to
improve it.
This person also criticises our slow-motion skateboarding shots which I also agree with
which is partly my personal fault as I was holding the camera, we did try use a tripod when filming
these shots but we felt they didn’t give the right angle that we wanted and we agreed that the
handheld shots gave a better look. To improve this we should have taken more time on these shots
to get them perfect. This person also comments on the length of the shots.
Overall, this persons feedback was useful in that it told us they enjoyed our video and that
they felt it was “brilliant”; which I feel is a very good endorsement of our video. However looking at
some of the more specific positive and negative comments it becomes clear that this person enjoys
the video but they do not go into enough detail on why specifically they enjoy certain aspects and
so this hinders are ability to learn from it, for example if this person had told us why he thought the
location of our performance shots were perfect for the indie genre rather than just saying they
were perfect, it could help us to understand further how we followed the conventions of the genre.
Also, if the person had told us how we could improve our non-live shots, as they thought they were
“a bit hit-and-miss”, then this would put us in a much better position in order to learn from the
feedback for future purposes.

17. Audience Research
From our audience research we didn’t gather much new
information that we didn’t already know, it just helped
us to confirm what we knew about the forms of the
genre. If we had another chance to do the audience
research again we would have asked more open
questions that could have got us some information that
we could actually use, and miss out the questions
asking about gender and age, as they were pretty
irrelevant when it came to actually telling us anything,
it also didn’t help that the people who took the survey
often lied or made inappropriate comments in the
open comments boxes. We ignored these results.

18. Q4.
How did you use new media
technology in the construction,
research, planning and evaluation
stages?

19. Research Stage
• In this stage of my project, I used the internet
to find examples of existing media products
that I was asked to produce.
• I used YouTube to look at and analyse existing
music videos in my chosen genre.
• I also used BlogSpot to create a blog in which
to chronologically present our work.

20. Planning
• We used the application SlideShare to put our PowerPoint
presentations onto our blog so they could be easily accessed, we
also used slide share to put up scanned photos of our shot list and
storyboard so they could be displayed on our blog as evidence of
planning.
• HD Video camera We used a HD video camera to film evidence of
audience research with a fan of the indie genre as well as take
pictures of potential locations.
• Survey monkey online survey We used Survey monkey online to
gain primary research for our video and ideas of what to include
and to find out how the indie genre is seen by it’s fans.
• To find our audience to take the survey we used Facebook to ask
people to fill in our surveys, however this lead to a few
inappropriate responses.

21. Construction
• HD Video camera In constructing our music video we
used a HD video camera to achieve high quality video
recording.
• We used mobile phones to contact each other and
arrange when to meet. We also used mobile phones
to sort out our actors and props.
• We used the weather app to check ahead
of schedule what the weather was going to be like in
the run up to the construction of our music video.
• Portable Speakers were used with an Ipod in order to
make sure we were performing in time to the song.

22. Evaluation
• I used the Internet and Blogpot to go back and
look at my previous work in order to answer
the evaluation questions
• Power point was used in order to answer the
evaluation questions and so SlideShare could
be used to display the work in a tidy,
professional way.
• I also used screen shots to help emphasise
and illustrate my points