Q4 - How Did You Use Media Technologies In The Construction And Research, Planning And Evaluation Stages?

Research - This stage was essentially the most important stage as it would end up giving me a strong insight into what it is I would be out to achieve and how to do so. The research stage consisted of me having to watch various music videos from my chosen genre of Metal and discover what the conventions were and how I would try to incorporate them into my own music video. To complete this stage I used a handful of resources such as YouTube, Blogger, Screen Grabs, Television, Google Docs, etc... YouTube was a huge advantage as I was able to instantly search for music videos and watch them immediately. I could then pause or search for a specific frame in which I could then take a screen grab or  short snippet of the music video. Blogger was also an advantage as I was able to store my discoveries in the form of a blog and refer to them whenever I needed to. I was able to put up posts on stereotypical conventions, ideas and what other people from around my persona would like to see in a Metal music video.


Planning - When planning the music video I was able to use more higher tech resources such as iMovie, Photoshop, Still cameras and the internet to make visual aspects of my music video ideas. For example; I created an animatic in iMovie after taking photos of our drawn storyboard with still cameras. Because of this I was able to get a clear understanding of what my music video would end up looking like if I had kept to every shot that I had put in the storyboard. Yet again I used Blogger to post these ideas to refer to later on.


Construction - During this process I was able to use a lot of hardware and software to create the final product which was to be my music video. After all the research and planning, which I could refer back to using Blogger, I went out and began to film my music video using hardware such as still cameras, camcorders, tripods, fig rigs, staging, lighting and much more. After collecting all the footage that I needed I was then able to access software such as iMovie and Final Cut to piece together the music video. Not only did I use the software provided on the iMacs but I searched the internet for sites which would help me get the best out of my footage. I then stumbled across Da Font which allowed me to download new fonts in which I could apply to my music video or even my Digipack.


Evaluation - Whilst in the stages of the evaluation I used camcorders and YouTube and Blogger to capture the audience feedback of my final music product. By filming a various amount of people from different genders, ages and ethnicity groups I was able to collect information from them on the camcorder and upload it straight to YouTube where I was then able to embed it into my blog for future reference and evidence of first hand accounts from the audience of my music video.

Q3 - What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?

Whilst reviewing my audience feedback I was able to collect vital information about what it is that I had done successfully and the areas in which I need to improve on. I asked various people different questions so that I was able to gather the information that I needed. An example of a question that I asked was, 'Does this music video challenge or use the stereotypical conventions of a music video from our chosen genre?' The majority of the answers steered towards us using the conventions from our chosen genre which consist of dark colour scheme, eerie mise en-scene, fast paced shot transitions, tight lip-synching and band performance shots.

I made sure that I asked a variety of people so that the information I gathered was not biased. I did not stick to a certain gender, ethnicity, age or any other characteristic. By doing this I was able to get the best results from the people around me so that all of my information was sufficient and fair. What I found was that no matter who I asked I generally got the same answers from everyone. This shows that my music video has been successful because of the similarities of the answers. Everyone was able to recognise the genre of the music video and noticed the stereotypical convention within the video. These feedback results helped me to understand what it take to make a successful music video from the genre or Rock or Metal and what it is people notice when watching these music videos.

Q2 - How Effective Is The Combination Of Your Main Product And Ancillary Texts?

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The effectiveness of our main task and our ancillary task is powerful as both products create a strong compilation. Just from one glance the audience will be able to tell who the band is and what genre of music it is. This is obvious due to the fact that both have a similar colour scheme and all band members are in both the music video and poster. Many smaller bands do this or bands who are fairly new on the music scene. This is usually because not a lot of people would have heard of them or seen them so by showing them the band and their name, in the future the audience will recognise them. Bands such as Black Stone Cherry, Red Hot Chili Peppers and even more mainstream chart artists such as Akon and Usher have done this. We decided to do this because it kept to the conventions of our chosen genre of music and it is a strong stereotypical point for a new band which is the path in which we have decided to go down.

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Both of my ancillary texts compliment each other because of many stereotypical conventions that I have implemented. For example; the use of the dark colours such as black and grey represents the genre of the band and the album. This makes it easy for our target audience to see what genre the album is without needing to listen to it. Another concept I have used is the album name on both the album and the poster so that people will understand what the poster is advertising. This will also help the audience to recognise the album if they see in store.

Q1 - In What Way Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products

Our media product uses and develops the stereotypical conventions of a metal music video. A prime example of this would be our choice of colours throughout the video. An example of where this is used in real media texts would be found in Alter Bridge's music video for 'Watch Over You'. Throughout the entirety of the video the colours of blues and greys and blacks are prominent. Another common convention would be the fact that our mise en-scene and clothing are stereotypical for our chosen genre. Our use of dark clothing also compliments our chosen colour scheme for the video. In many Rock and Metal music videos dark clothing is also a common factor because of the colour scheme stereotype.

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On the other hand, some music videos such as many of the Foo Fighters videos consist of brighter colours and clothing therefore challenging the common stereotypes of a Rock and Metal music video. The locations that were decided are not at all a stranger to our genre of music. For example; there are a couple of live performance shots on stage throughout the music video, similar shots can be found in the music video for 'Paradise City' by Guns n' Roses. A forest or woodland location was also noticed in our music video, this idea was highly influenced from the music video of 'The Sadness Will Never End' by Bring Me The Horizon.

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Close-ups and extreme close-ups have been a major factor in our music video as we have noticed this in most music videos from our chosen genre. In the music video for 'Bleeding Mascara' by Atreyu there is a close-up of the drummer as he is playing and singing the song. This is a reason why we have chosen to do these specific shots when someone or something needs to become the main focus on the screen. The shots in our music are very fast paced due to the fact that the song is fairly fast most of the way through. We have decided to cut the shots on the beat and at sections where there is a unique beat or groove so that both the music and the video synch together. This can be seen in most music videos whether they are from the Rock genre or from a Hip-Hop genre. This can be seen in the music video for 'Tears Don't Fall' by Bullet For My Valentine.