A2 Media

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

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?    

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

'In what ways does my music video use, challenge or develop forms or conventions of real media products.'             1) Narrative or Artist Performance? - At the beginning of the project we had a choice to include narrative or artist performance in our video. Though my idea has changed a lot I have always been definite that the video would have a narrative with some sort of storyline. My first idea to have a ballerina and boxer had a lot more of an in depth storyline than the final video, however it still has a narrative behind it. I would say over recent years music videos have moved away from artist performance and more towards a combination of the two but this tends to vary depending on genre or whether it's an artist or band. Solo artists tend to star in their videos while bands rarely do or just have the lead member. Though this is the case for the genre of music, a lot of Rudimental's music video do just have a narrative because...

This video was really good, he's used a lot of artistic shots to help with transitions between the live action and then singing. This is assisted by the very good quality of the camera which makes the video appear more professional overall. As well as that, he's selected successful actors to fit the serious roles where their clear emotions help make it seem more realistic. At the beginning of the music video there's longer shot duration's that fit with the pace of the song and as the song reaches it's chorus and the fight begins, the shot length's get's shorter to speed up the pace of the video to synchronise with the song. This video features a mixture of lip syncing, 'live performance' and narrative which are all very easy to understand and look really effective.

We used multiple different media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluating stage. Firstly in the research stage we used mainly laptops/computers and the internet (specifically youtube and google images). We used this to firstly listen to the son and learn the lyrics, this was to try and spark an idea that could link to the song and its lyrics. We also used youtube to watch various other music videos from the same genre as the dafter dance so that we got a realistic idea of what real media products similar to ours looked like. We also used the internet to research possible areas in Norwich that we could use to create our media product. For the planning stage we all used the internet and laptops to finalise research our locations. We also used phones to contact our actors and arrange filming times. We also used cameras to take photos of our final locations once we had been to see them. In the construction stage we used video cameras to film our actual film...

What Have You Learnt From Your Audience Feedback? We received audience feedback from multiple students who we played or music video to.  The main thing we received in terms of feedback was that once the main character had transported to the different planet there wasn't much clear direction in terms of what was happening. Another big piece of feedback we received was that certain shots lasted too long. From the audience feedback me and my group have learnt that my shots should be much more varied to ensure that shots aren't to long and don't get boring for the audience. We would also need to include more camera techniques, such as whip pans, to make it more interesting. Also we would need to make sure there was more of a clear narrative to the video to ensure the audience didn't get confused. This would give the video more direction and story. We could do this by re filming the second half of the video and giving clear indications to the audience as to what is hap...

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary text (CD cover)? We feel that our CD cover links very well to our video as it shares the same name as our song for the music video. Not only this, but we chose to use a picture of our actor in costume with the tent used in the music video. This obviously directly links the two products to each other. We also chose to use text that was not necessarily formal-looking; more child-like and fun. This is quite an effective link as we imagine that the whole album would follow suit with the sound of The Safety Dance - this sound being upbeat and lighthearted. Therefore, it makes sense that the album cover be just as fun and bright. We matched the text colour to the colours used frequently in the video and the costume; for example, red. This also went some way to effectively linking the two products. Having said this, in retrospect, it may be more effective to create a more subtle link between the final product and the alb...

In what ways does your media product use develop or challenge the forms and conventions of real media products? In most real media products a child is presented as vulnerable, naïve and ignorant to the real world; a classic example would be Kevin from Home Alone. Our music video really takes advantage of and enhances this view. We use a lot of close ups to show the emotions on his face whether he's confused or scared. Also the fact that his emotions are really exaggerated and clear to see means that the audience is able to connect with the character more than others. For the first minute or so the shots are relatively close up making the viewer feel as if they are part of this characters journey, this is also done with the video transitions when there is a change of location. All these techniques are to present the child as innocent and free. Another convention we used was the representation of a child's imagination which is normally portrayed as illogical and sometimes...