1. A2 MEDIA STUDIES UNIT G324 ADVANCED PORTFOLIO IN MEDIA EVALUATION

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Our music video has a glamorized theme, a common R&B convention, we aimed for the sophisticated stylistic imagery that is carried around in existing R&B videos. R n B music videos use lots of close ups of lip synching, to emphasise the confidence of the performance. Glamorized over the top make up, so that the performer doesn’t just look natural but instead they are aiming for perfection. In our music video we applied a reasonable amount of makeup.

3. Most R&B music video have choreographed dance routines and the performers can easily dance to the beat of the song, whilst others have less dancing and more singing, an example of this is Leona Lewis’s music videos they have less dance performances due to her songs. Editing is a major factor in music videos, the length of the shots emphasises the beat and promotes the song. When the pace of the song speeds up the length of the shots shortened. Having a variety of different shots made the pace of the shots match the pace of the song, (using them to build up pace). Due to our song, it is extremely difficult to form any dance routines that would match the song so you’ll find there is more lip synching storyline than dancing.

4. We originally planned to film our music video in a club, our stylistic influences matched our plans for our video. However as we couldn’t film in a club due to finding the suitable club and having full control. We then turned to the next best thing and filmed in a pub within a hotel. We wanted a busy shot to go with the rhythm of our song and enhance our socialising scenes. We also filmed in various other locations some of these include: a shopping centre, a pub, a park, a cinema, inside a house and a coffee bar.

5. Stereotypical R&B music videos have loose narratives but they are carefully thought out and have an organised structure which is not overt. We planned to make our video extremely busy and have lots of random quick cuts, but however further planning led us to have a loose structure but very carefully thought out and if analysed would show a carefully constructed storyline. As Bordwell and Thompson put it, our narrative is based on range, this being the amount of information available to the audience. We build up the story whilst hinting at ‘Future Love’ all the way through, by showing bride magazines, couples and a young couple as well as a teenage couple on a date. The depth then being, starting on the bed and finishing back on the bed suggests that she was contemplating this occurred events from her perspective. Everything is seen from her perspective.

6. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? Digi-Pak Magazine Advert Music Video The combination of our ancillary tasks and our main production are quite effective together, they carryout the same theme and they show a visible link together.

7. The purpose of our ancillary tasks to promote our music video. The intention being to not only draw attention to our music video but to also remind the audience who might have glimpsed and perhaps forgotten about it or who just require confirmation to look more into it. The magazine advert would help promote our music video as upon seeing it they would remember it when they are buying and would most likely buy it. The purpose of the imagery and digi-pak is to lure in customers and the target market. The colours are appealing and bright this will attract attention, this is suited for our target market, teenagers, as they listen to music frequently everyday. Converting our target market from being interested and into a buyer is particularly important and in order to do so, they would need to have seen it and able to make a link and lure them into being curious enough to discover the music video.

8. What have you learned from your audience feedback? Taking this into consideration was very important because we then learned that there were several other improvements we could work on and so we did. We had originally thought of ‘Mi Mes Remedes’ as you can see at the bottom left. However due to the feedback we received we realized that for our front cover to work we were going to need images of the performers on the front cover. Also the feedback pointed out that they were too many stars and it didn’t look as effective.

9. Once we received the feedback we began to work on changing the front cover, We experimented with different fonts as the feedback pointed out that reading the album name was difficult, and we found that changing the font also improved the appearance of our cover. The image which we chose to replace our earlier attempt to a front cover, proved more successful so listening to our feedback led us to a better image and cover. This also looked more professional than the first cover. We then started working on the background of the image whilst keeping the black background, the feedback we then received suggested that the image was good but the background was slightly plain.

10. We continued to work on our cover and we created a background that we liked and made the cover look more vibrant and full. We continued to work on fonts until we found a visibly readable one that suited our front cover. We spent so much time on the front cover because this is important and the first thing people look at. We learned that listening to feedback ultimately leads to a better product and allows room for improvement.

11. Our first magazine advert photo was a full sized photograph and the feedback we received indicated that it would be in our best interest to keep the image we had for our advert from the digi-pak cover. As you can see the first attempt has lot’s of text which appears unorganised and placing the digi-pak cover in the advert would make it look like it was floating, they also said that our title flutter was getting lost.

12. How did you use technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? We used several different media technologies throughout our project: For our pitch we used Microsoft PowerPoint. We have also used PowerPoint for our evaluation. Through the whole project we also used the internet on many occasions, especially throughout the research stages when we were looking for influences. We also used the internet to do our blog.

13. Throughout the making of our ancillary tasks, we used a variety of different technologies including a Digital Camera and Photoshop 7.0, to manipulate our images. We also again used PowerPoint when we were planning ancillary task 2. We filmed our animatic and some of our music video with a canon camcorder. We then decided to use a flip camera to film the rest of our music video, we also used it to collect our feedback for our ancillary tasks.

14. After we had filmed our footage we edited our music video and animatic on Adobe Premier. A software we had never used before, which meant that if we encountered any problems our teacher wasn’t familiar with the software. Unfortunately we walked into many problems with the software and ended up with no music video at all. Using Adobe premier enabled us to show off our editing skills, editing became more proficient and our cutting was neater. There were a wider range of video and audio transitions, enabling us to be able to adjust the video in more vast ways than the old premier did.