1. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
- Discuss how your music video follows conventions. You could give examples
from real media texts and discuss how these then influenced yours.
- Discuss how you developed conventions. Were the conventions you used
then developed further or adapted?
- Discuss how you challenged typical conventions of music videos within your
chosen genre. Did you attempt to include other elements to make your
product stand out from the rest?
- Consider music video theory to support your judgements about your work.
Answer: Hi my name is Alex, and this is my evaluation for my A2 media
coursework. I have decided to show this in the style of a documentary to
demonstrate different forms of media. The evaluation is structured through 4
questions that will explain how I have kept in mind things such as my brand
identity and audience feedback to see how I have thought about conventions
within my chosen genre of Indie. Firstly, before I started to think about initial
ideas for my own personal music video, I decided to research other artists and
products associated with my own. This would act upon improving my own
products, as it would show that I had thought about similar products in the
industry and adapted these similarities to my own work.
First of all, I looked at interesting music videos in the Indie genre to find a certain
pattern amongst them, which would give me a better insight to the typical
conventions you would relate with this specific genre of music. I posted these
onto my blog in the research part of the portfolio so that I could refer back to
them when answering this particular question. One convention I found that was
common across this genre was that Indie music rarely presents a star image, it is
more obscure and thought provoking and doesn’t always relate to the lyrics of
the song. Indie music videos can often be portrayed as a random story with no
particular reference to the real meaning of the song. For example, one of the
videos I used as part of my research tasks, the 9 frame analysis, was Foster the
People’s music video to ‘call it what you want’ [VIDEO]. This was particularly
hard to analyse as it had no link with the lyrics and was open to interpretations
from the audience. The video did include its artists, yet many other actors
appeared in the video, so it was still very different to a typical pop music video
such as Rihanna’s ‘Disturbia’ [VIDEO], where Rihanna is presented as the star
image all the way through the video. This supports Andrew Goodwin’s theory of
star image, where the artist often appears in their own work to create a
recognizable role model, and this makes the audience more aware of the artist
and helps them gain popularity, from starring in several of their own music
videos to being placed as the main image of their merchandise and print
advertisments. The thing I found with the indie genre is that the public often
doesn’t know what the artists look like or knows many facts about them. They
are often made famous by another method, for example rising band Alt-J is
instantly recognizable by a triangle sign, which has been put on their album
cover An Awesome Wave as well as merchandise and other forms of media
relating to their music. I took these conventions on board and decided to
challenge them with the idea in mind that with the indie genre, it is not
important to consistently show my artist in their own video as not all indie

2. bands use this technique. It does happen with some indie artists, such as Bombay
Bicycle Club appearing in several of their own videos such as ‘Dust on the
Ground’ [VIDEO], and Friendly Fires often appearing in their own work such as
lead singer Ed Macfarlane in ‘Hawaiian Air’ [VIDEO]. However these are the
more popular artists within the genre who do this to promote their star image,
whereas the smaller bands such as Alt-J who use their music and unique
fragmented music videos to attract their audience. With my music video, I
attempted to develop this convention of solely using music to make my products
recognizable, as the girl and boy that appeared in my video were in fact actors
and not the artists of the song. [INTERVIEW WITH RAMSAY/GRACE]:
How did you feel about your character within the video?
Do you think the way I have used actors and actresses will be more
successful than just portraying the band?
When you first heard the lyrics to the song, what ideas went through your
head? Did you have similar interpretation as how the final video looks?
Can you relate to your character in the video in any ways?
This video could be interpreted as a real life situation. Have you ever been
in a similar situation as to the narrative of the video?
Do you think the audience could relate to this video as part of their own
personal experiences and life events? (personal identity - Dennis McQuail)
The idea of my video using actors is similar to the original official video to Love
Lost by The Temper Trap [VIDEO]. The director of the video, Dougal Wilson,
used the idea of schoolboys and girls doing a cross-country P.E lesson in the
video, which is irrelevant to the true meaning of the song. This is in a way also
challenging the conventions as this is a rising technique used by many artists in
the modern day; they want to become famous using their music rather than by
starring in their own videos. By using their music as a way of gaining fans, this
will make people want to find out more about them online, as at the end of the
day, an artist is meant to be famous because of their music, not anything else,
although some artists in the pop genre are also famous for other things such as
Lady Gaga’s striking fashion numbers [IMAGES].
Another convention I believe I followed yet adapted was the idea that my video
followed a relevant narrative that matched the lyrics to the song. In some indie
music videos, a typical convention we may see is of the band performing their
song, whether in a typical indie location such as a field or on stage at a gig, such
as Bombay Bicycle Club’s video to Shuffle which shows their journey together as
a band playing live and authentic home footage [VIDEO]. But in others they
sometimes tell their song as a story, like in the Arctic Monkey’s video ‘Leave
Before the Lights Come On’ [VIDEO]. I decided to go down the route of showing
my video in the form of a narrative rather than of the actual band as I thought
this would make the Temper Trap appear more intriguing to the audience and

3. would also challenge the future of indie music videos, as more and more bands
are moving away from the ‘performance’ style videos and focusing more on the
narrative style ones.
When researching my genre I noticed that few followed a fragmented narrative
structure. This may be because the video would be too difficult to follow,
however I liked the idea of using this technique, as by challenging this idea, it
would make my video memorable. For example, Alt-J’s video for Breezeblocks
[VIDEO] struck me the moment I watched it because it’s so different. There are
very few videos made in reverse and although this makes the video confusing, it
made me think about its concept for a long time after and will become
recognizable to the audience as ‘that video played in reverse’. This is partly why I
decided to make my video fragmented at times, such as mixing up the past with
the present. I wanted it to be more interesting, rather than a video with a easy to
understand narrative in a chronological order. The past is revealed more nearer
the end of my video and I feel as if this would keep my audience entertained, and
make them want to look out for future videos by this band. This is similar with
my love for Alt-J as each time they bring out a new video it is completely
different from the last, and this will continue to grab the audience’s attention and
make their music more popular to the world.
STUART HALL/OTHER THEORISTS: form of personal identity.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
- Consider the brand identity of your products.
- Deconstruct your ancillary texts and discuss how you used conventions.
- Discuss how your ancillary texts reflect the themes/narrative of your video.
As part of the course we not only had to produce our own ideas from scratch, but
we also had to imagine it all as part of our own brand. This task wasn’t just about
creating a music video, advert and digipak design, we had to treat it as if we were
the record label and in charge of everything, therefore little details mattered,
such as the record label logo on all merchandise so that it would be recognized to
the public easily. My record label was TTTA Records [LOGO], and I made sure
this logo currently on screen was imbedded onto every piece of work my
company produced to make the whole portfolio more realistic. The ancillary
texts consisted of a digipak and advert design, which would accompany the main
product being the music video. These were just as important as these would be
the pieces that would grab the audience’s attention the most. I had to think about
colours and images very carefully as if these were the wrong choices it could
mean my product would fail in the industry.
The digipak and advert designs for my portfolio were made using Photoshop
software. Firstly, I did a photoshoot in the photography studios[PHOTOS], as
this was the best place for a simple white background and effective lighting. I
took several photos, half on a DSLR camera from college and half on my mobile
phone. I used my mobile phone as I though it was better to capture some of the
shots in action on the digipak using the burst shot capture and best shot feature

4. [IMAGES]. However one of the issues I came across with using two different
cameras is that the lighting was different, so I had to change the colour
saturation in the photos on Photoshop so it didn’t look odd with the rest of the
images [SCREENR]. I then got a six paneldigipak template off Google and edited
my digipak design on Photoshop, downloading fonts from the site dafont.com
that I found in my font experimentation task. I had to pick the font style carefully
as the wrong one could give off the wrong impression. I thought that the indie
genre can often be looked upon as quite authentic and folky at times, so a more
handwriting style font would be better. The digipak also has to include some
essential features such as a barcode, copyright information, track listing and
record label to make sure it looked professional and a part of a real brand
identity. The advert was also quite similar to how I made the digipak, except I
didn’t use a template. I made one of my images from the photoshoot in A4 size
and added text and, again, some of the essential criteria for an advert to make it
look more real. I made up my own facebook page and put it at the bottom of the
page, as well as using shop logos from Google to show where my audience could
purchase the album. I kept the colour scheme the same as on the digipak so that
it was clear these two pieces matched and were advertising the same product.
I got the idea for my digipak and advert design after looking at some well-known
designs by popular indie artists. I gathered that the majority of the designs
linked with the videos where they didn’t have a particular reference to the songs
themselves. Most of the designs remained open to interpretations, and were
somewhat artistic and basic. For example, one of the adverts I analysed for part
of my research tasks at the beginning of the course was Oasis’ album promotion
for ‘Dig Out Your Soul’. As mentioned in the analysis, the images used are very
much open to interpretations and the advert itself is very eye catching and
immediately recognizable. In contrast, the digipak design for the XX’s debut
album was extremely simple. A black and white colour scheme and a thick black
‘X’, yet this album is recognized globally by their logo. I needed to apply these
techniques to my own ancillary products in order to have the same effect as
these successful designs. I started to think of something that would be
recognizable across the music industry, yet was still open to interpretations. This
is when I came up with the idea of a photoshoot of the game ‘Jenga’. Although
this game was not shown in any way in my music video itself (although I did
have an idea of a scene to include it in) I thought it was metaphorically relevant
to the true meaning of the video and its lyrics. The idea, explained also in one of
my posts on my blog, is that this tower block game can represent the stages of a
relationship, at first it can be built up strong and sturdy but then sometimes it
can go downhill, in the sense that the tower block can be knocked down. This is
the same as what my video is about. I would say the ancillary texts reflect upon
the ideas in my video but in a more suited way to my chosen genre. I decided I
wanted to keep my ancillary texts quite simple and plain, with just the images of
Jenga with a yellow cream colour scheme, because I wanted them to match other
ideas in the industry and to not be mistaken for a different type of genre. I think
this unusual design would grab people’s attention and make them more aware of
the album after watching the video. I do believe there is an issue with people not
completely understanding the concept of the Jenga but I think this will be
resolved when they watch the video, as once they see all products together they

5. will see the link between them. I do sometimes wish I had included a scene of
Ramsay my actor playing Jenga in the video itself so that the link between all
three products would be clearer, but I think that a lot of artists in the indie genre
use artistic and random designs for their ancillary texts, so the more thought
provoking the better. It is the music that matters the most as this is what will
originally attract the audience.
3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
- Gather audience feedback from various sources – eg. Social networking,
focus groups.
- Discuss the feedback you have received – what worked well? Were there any
areas that you need to focus on in the future?
- You could also link in some audience theory. Consider Stuart Hall
(encoding/decoding).
[AUDIENCE FEEDBACK]
Before I constructed any of my practical work in my coursework I created a list
of questions which I asked to people in my age group, which was the target
audience I was looking to aim my products at. [VIDEO]. I did take this research
on board, as previously mentioned I stuck by the idea of a fragmented narrative
to make the video more unique and for it to stick in people’s minds better as a
memorable music video. I also made sure I asked mainly those who were
interested in the same genre as I had decided to choose, but the theory of
[THEORIST] proves that in the modern day people are no longer stuck to one
particular genre, they are more open minded about music, therefore it was
interesting to see what those who had different music tastes had to say about
what they’d prefer to see in an alternative rock video.
After I had finished my products I used social networking sites such as Facebook,
Twitter and Youtube to gain audience feedback and see what people made of my
work. I chose this format to gain this information as I myself know that social
networking sites are extremely popular amongst young people, and the majority
would be likely to respond via comments and replies on their news feeds.
Youtube was also a good method to gain the information from, as this invited the
world to see and make judgements on my video, telling me what they specifically
liked and how they thought I could improve. [SCREENR]. As you can see, the
majority of people…………
Not only did I gain feedback from people in my target market group, I also
thought it would be interesting to see what people out of this age range thought
of my work. They may not have belonged in the target audience group I was
aiming for, yet it would be interesting for them to give their opinions too as it
could widen my audience group and increase sales of my product. For this I
asked family members and teachers. This is the feedback I received about the
video [VIDEO].
One of the main things people liked about the video was………… [EXPLAIN]

6. However, I was prepared for criticism, as this is the best way to find out how to
do better next time round and make my video better than before. One of the
things people questioned was…………. [EXPLAIN]
If I were to do the same music video project again next year, I would definitely
take on board this feedback to help me improve. I could improve on the points
that people brought up by………… [FURTHER RESEARCH, EDITING, ETC]
[PEER ASSESSMENT VIDEO]
[THEORISTS]
4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research,
planning and evaluation stages?
- Consider all of the technologies you have used for all aspects of your
production.
- Detail the exact features of the software you used and give an example as to
where you used these in your products.
In the process of this portfolio, I used many different media technologies to construct
my practical work. I also had to use more simple technologies for some of my pre-
practical work, such as the research and planning stages. For this I mainly used
Microsoft Powerpoint, Prezi and Microsoft Word. I think these were good methods to
present my work on, as they are clear formats, such as Powerpoint where I could
show my work on several different slides rather than an essay answer on a word
document. Prezi is also a good method to show work. I used Prezi for my audience
profile task [TASK].
I also used an online planning feature called Timetoast that I also used in last year’s
coursework. I think it is a really good way to record all your tasks complete and stick
by your schedule for your coursework, it would contribute well to the planning side of
the coursework and avoid me getting off track with my work. You simply make a
timeline and add dates and details of tasks you have complete that day.
My entire portfolio is in the form of a blog, which also contributes to media
technologies. This is more practical for my work rather than having everything on
paper, especially as the main products are constructed digitally and need to be
viewed on a screen.
Final Cut Express HD was the media technology that I used to make my music video.
This is software that we also used in first year for our coursework unit. Obviously, as
this years coursework was much more detailed and advanced than first year, I used
more features on Final Cut compared to when I used it last year. The main features I
had to use were inserting my footage that I filmed on the college camcorders
(Panasonic handheld). To do this you had to drag your footage from folders and
place them onto your timeline, then adjust them to match the song and the moments
where the artist was singing. There was also the razor tool which I had to use a few
times, which cut a piece of footage where desired to erase a certain section that
wasn’t needed. Cropping the footage at the ends of the section could also do this,
but the razor tool was more useful if there was a part that wasn’t needed in the
middle.
Another feature I used in Final Cut, which was quite unique to my video, was the use
of overlays. I decided that for the parts demonstrating the past in my video I would
use an old effect and overlay it onto the original footage so that it is more clear to the
audience which stage of the narrative this part was in. Final Cut did already have
some of its own effects, but I decided to search for my own online to be a bit more

7. creative. This is when I found the website http://www.digitalcinemafoundry.com which had
several old films burns that you could download and then insert into your final cut project.
There was 5 different ones to choose from, and after choosing the best one I overlayed it onto
the parts where I needed. The film burn didn’t last very long and would sometimes cut off
shorter than the footage itself, so to solve this I simply copied and pasted the film burn again
and made it repeat – there was no need to download it again. This is the effect the film burn
had on my video [VIDEO BEFORE AND AFTER]. As you can see, the film burn makes it
much more interesting to watch, and supports the indie genre with the idea of vintage in mind.
This idea was partly taken from the movie 500 Days Of Summer, where expectations and
reality are shown in a split screen with framing and an old effect. I also wanted to insert a
frame around this footage to make it represent a home movie, a bit like the effect Bombay
Bicycle used in their video Always Like This [VIDEO]. This I found on Google images and
simply overlayed it again so the footage appeared through the screen. However, if I did not
crop the original footage down to the size of the framing, this would happen [VIDEO] and
would ruin the concept. So to crop the original footage I went through these stages [VIDEO].
In addition to these effects, the speed up technique was also a feature I used in final cut. This
allowed me to speed up or slow down certain footage, mainly to reflect the pace of the music
in that specific part of the song. For example, the moment the chorus starts in the video here
[VIDEO] I used the speed up tool to represent the instrumental fast paced part. In contrast, for
a slower section of the chorus I used the slow down tool to make the fountain match the
thought beats in the song [VIDEO].
Photoshop was also a media technology I relied on to produce my ancillary texts. This was a
part of the coursework that I was not very confident on, mainly because I do not take
photography as an A Level and am not very experienced with this software. However, before
starting the ancillary tasks we did go through a class tutorial in Photoshop, following step-by-
step instructions in Photoshop magazines to produce effects. [BLOG POST]. This made me
more confident about Photoshop, but I did still need some help so I gained help from my
friends in my class who took photography. I first took my photos in college that I would use
and then imported these into Photoshop. For the digipak, I found a digipak template on
Google images that helped me with the layout of the design. I then inserted all of my images
that I was using over the top of the panels, and added text and other images using
Photoshops layers feature.
[FINAL CUT]
[PHOTOSHOP]
[BLOGSPOT]
[POWERPOINT]
[PREZI]
[VIDEO]
[PHOTOS]
[TIMETOAST]
[FILM BURN OVERLAYS]