Evaluative Questions (STEVE)

1) In what ways does you media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
In our music video we used a lot of conventions that would be used in professional media products. We tried to use a lot of Goodwin's theory throughout out our music video. We used a lot of 'visuals matching lyrics' and this is probably the strongest aspect of our product. Similarly, we edited the video to fit the music, for example: when a distinctive beat or sound effect occurs, we change the shot etc. When we started creating our product we did a lot of research into other professional music videos of the same or similar genre to ours. In the music videos we researched, we found that they were quite fast paced because the rapping and lyrics were at such a quick tempo. We were inspired by these professional media products, so we tried to create a fast paced music video too. Although our song was probably slower than most rap songs, it still needed to be fast paced to fit the genre. The locations we used in our music video fit the genre well also. We tried to shoot in urban areas, such as a basketball court, skate park and a car park. In the professional music videos we researched the locations were pretty similar to the ones we used.

2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I feel that our promotional package; music video, digipak and magazine advert, work very well together. The main theme we tried to convey through our products was basketball. It's apparent in our music video, on our digipak and magazine advert. There were other sub-themes such as the iconic red jersey that Kyle Rapps (the artist) wears throughout the products and just red as a themed colour.

The concept we were trying to communicate comes from the song name 'Hard Knock Children'. The concept of our music video was school and what 'hard knock' children do after school, for example: go to the basketball court, skate park or just hanging around the streets. He also describes his school experience throughout the song, for example: "First grade, second grade third grade.... walk out that door" referring to the daily anticipation of school ending. He also vents his frustration about school in the song. "Everything I know now I learnt back in Kindergarten." "Teach fake facts in my third grade class." So this is why we chose to base our concept on an anti-school teenager's life style. In the music video we tried to create an image of someone who is laid back, cool, and dislikes any form of social control, (e.g. school) like most rappers.

Most males from the age of 12-16 dislike school and like rap/hip hop music so this was our choice of target audience. I feel that the image of the artist, the song, and the three products will definitely attract a lot of attention from teenage males, because Kyle Rapps is the type of person they aspire to be, purely because he's cool.

3) What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Most of the people we shared our initial concept with liked our idea of shooting in typical areas that school boys may hang out, so we went ahead with it. We got the basics of the music video sorted for our rough cut (e.g. lip syncing and transitions), took on board peoples thoughts and feedback and then started the more advanced editing. One of the most common feedback from our rough cut was that the first part of the video was good but then it drifted off and became quite sloppy as the the song progressed. So we had to focus a lot of work on the second part of the song for a couple of editing days. Some positives our peers liked were the good lip syncing throughout the music video, good variety and selection of types of shots, nice change in locations, good 'visuals matching lyrics' and the fast paced nature of the the video. It was said that it was clear we put a lot of thought and planning into the locations, shot placement and costumes. The main criticism from both teachers and peers was that we didn't have enough cut-aways, for example: shots of  playing basketball rather than just rapping. I feel this is definitely true and could have been improved on. However, I feel that the large amount of lip syncing introduces the artist and makes him familiar amongst the audience. After all, this is his debut album.

4) How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
Obviously, we were familiar with using Final Cut Pro, but only because of our previous media assignments. We found it very easy to edit the film and get the video in sync with the music because of our practice music video we created last year. However, software that I was unfamiliar with was Photoshop. I had never really used Photoshop before, but i made the digipak - a DVD front cover, back and spine. I found it quite challenging using a pretty advanced piece of software for the first time. But I would definitely feel confident using it now if I was asked to make another digipak. We used Blogger to post our research so that everyone can see it and give feedback on whatever they liked.

We had used the HD camera's before and so our group was pretty comfortable using them. Clearly I didn't use the camera's too much, because I was in the shot most of the time. But I had to shoot a few shots when Reece was performing his parts.

With Final Cut you can make shots look more creative than they originally were, for example: if we feel a panning shot was needed, instead of re-shooting we can just zoom in and move the shot from side to side. So there is lots of freedom from mistakes to become more creative whilst using the technology we did for our three products. I don't think the technology ever got in the way of our creativity. because even though we were uploading everything through word document-style blog posts, if we wanted to draw something we could just use the still camera's to take a picture of the drawing, and then upload it to the computer.