Evaluation

Question 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Introduction

Convention plays on an important role in producing a media product we also had to fit this around the concept of our music video. This will be focusing on the different relations and connections we had when using and pushing a side elements from the genre of rock. I will be analysing how we had to do this to cater for our specific needs to make our music by comparing it with similar related genres we have now looked in to.

Used 

Instruments

When planning and researching into the creation of our music video we discovered that many rock related bands had footage of their instruments when performing (reference from posts here). We consulted with each other that it was vital that we did include this in our video in order to define them as the rock genre due to the fact that they are indeed new and need some hints to who they are as we were creating a concept of mystery. We could also fit this convention of the instruments into surroundings of  the location and set that we managed to arrange at MTV studios as they could be rehearsing for a gig of some sorts which could be related and realistic to the audience as you wouldn't expect a band to perform at a shop for example as they wouldn't fit in, it would therefore then be more believable.
Also taking into note what type of instruments most rock bands used and what most people thought or were given the impression of it being, we concluded that it was electric guitar, drums and base guitar, this as well could support our band being of the rock genre (reference from posts here). We looked into Guns and Roses Welcome to the jungle music video finding that in their music video they had shots of them using instruments displayed through footage of close ups to make aware of this something we also did, with this it could show that we were making our music video to be recognizable as rock.

Lip sync

Another base line we considered was the lip syncing side in both the performance and narrative. Many audiences want to see bands performing as it shows a connection with the audience as they can directly imply elements of secret signs from themselves to them, meaning in a way they are talking to the audience not always done but mainly to address the key issues they personally want to address so that they understand the concept.

As well as being able to communicate through the use of facial expressions that link in with the lyrics such as in our music video Secret Sin "make you smile" the lead singer smiles at the that specific part referring to the lyrics so audiences will also smile back for example

We optimised that audiences would still not pick up this and therefore tried to avoid this by using close up shots for these parts in order to make aware of this to the audience so that they would focus their attention on them. This could in fact be related to Foo fighter's Pretender as they use similar techniques, if you look above and compare the two images you can clearly see this. 

Developed


Performance

Performance is a important factor to the conventions of rock as audiences like the atmosphere and experience that the audiences in the videos display as they are happy and respond to the music by dancing, jumping and many more. This is as audiences therefore want to be in their postion as they are in person watching it live.
We suggested that action makes the music video more interesting as the artists are doing stuff around the stage such as swirling their body from one way to the other the audience therefore focuses and follows this.

However we changed the situation around in our music video compared to other products such as in this Bon Jovi Living on pray as we have reflected this most of all as they were in a studio for most of the time giving the illusion and impression that their practicing, we developed this as our band is new and are in the stages of being famous also there were no audiences in the background the viewer isn't distracted from watching the moves and actions of the performance and makes this more effective. However this perhaps let us down  as Bon Jovi uses these elements in his video to give the impression to the audience viewers of how good the experience is.

Colour

We most notably used a grayscale effect more preferably as being known as a black and white filter which was layed over the visuals we needed to point out. This helped as we could create a storyline and narrative to the side of our video. We therefore created a meaning to this as flashbacks of the band show them doing different events and enjoying the life.

Audiences who watch this can understand the relation into the story, they would also be more aware of this and suggest the reason and use of them as they are there for a reason and can be defined into relation

Def Leppard did this overall in their music video but had no meaning for the use of this we therefore developed on this to put it towards our advantage and centre it around our concept as the viewer needs something to grasp and follow in order to see the use between the visuals and lyrics.


Challenged 

Mise en scene - Location

We changed ourselves through shooting in a studio instead of a stage where audiences are put into the scene to see make the experience and atmosphere more effective.

We did this as it fitted in  with the story lines that we had came up as the Raided by waves artists were in a way going through the stages of becoming successful through reversing and being on tour to get recognised.

A number of reasons for challenging the conventions of the genre of rock in our case as we needed to find a way of standing out in order to be original and be definable to our audiences. If all products were the same what is the difference and purpose of the band addressing their music as audiences be bored for example as they would have seen it all before.

Nickelback portray this in their music video The killers as well as in many of their videos and other rock genre bands however they are in position to do this as they are famous and well known people are interested in the name and image of the band therefore having audiences who the type of support they have from their fans.

Artist and band image 

Another method of challenging the conventions and the impersonation of rock is that we displayed no logos, symbols or relate theories to the name and image of our band as well as others.

As the band our new and we have created them we wanted to stir mystery and tension into who they were specifically so the audience would watch and listen to future products of theirs to find out who they were. This in its self is creating a storyline or a journey that the audience member must wait to learn for example

We also have portrayals to show them having fun for some of their characteristics in order to make them approachable so that people can like them as people look up to them for guidance and help as they explain their issues and address the problem or solution to it.

Also a small aspect is the type of clothing we showed the bass guitarist Navid to be wearing having a scarf around his neck, we therefore challenged the conventions of rock images as you would not expect this. We did this to make ourselves stand out from other media products in the genre so that we are not entirely copying them, as well as making them them fashionable to relate to modern audiences in order to show the genre of rock evolving.

With Green day in the American idiot music video they use different elements in order to relate themselves with their image overall. They use green backgrounds through colours to relate themselves with the "Green day" name as well as having their symbol on the drums to show their meaning of their image or song perhaps.

Question 2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? 

Reference (post here)

Question 3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

When looking back at our audience feedback I have gathered that we received overall mainly positive replies and had very  little criticisms of the music video in any aspect or matter. One of the popular response and notices in our video is the use of applying the black and white effect visuals over the layer of the footage in the backstage shots, this allowed viewers to understand the concept we were trying to imply as we needed to differentiate the footage between performance and narrative. Audiences could then understand that the band were professional musicians and took their career and talent seriously in the coloured shots, with the the black and white shots it took them back to a time where they were enjoying the company of one another. We therefore managed to meet this requirement that we set out in order to create a narrative structure making the experience of our audience more enjoyable and relaxing as they didn't need to focus on this in order to pick it up. We also wanted to show the conventions of rock in order to make our music video referable to the genre and explain that we didn't know the genre before making this media product. Audiences already noticed that we indeed researched and planned for this project as they described to us that they did notice shots of the instruments and performance in the video some key elements of the conventions that we acknowledged (post here). Audiences then knew when they were watching it that it was of the rock genre implying that our image was correct.

Overall I am very pleased with the responses that the audiences wrote out and implied as it is very useful to see how the portrayal of our music video reacts to different types of audience members to understand their theories. However there were some issues that arose between the opinions of the audience as some thought the use of the shots performing were "boring" and dragged out the music video to show the artists performing. I personally agree to this as you start to lose interest due to the fact that there is no real storyline or journey the audience can follow to come to a final conclusion or bringing in tension or a twist into the mix, I would therefore apply this idea into it if we had a chance to change the concept of the narrative story.

Question 4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Here I filmed myself and uploaded it to youtube to talk about the different types of technologies I used including software application, interactive websites, devices and equipment that were involved during the overall production of this project.