Evaluation- Mariam

A2 Media Evaluation
Mariam Adesanya

1. in what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The music video we created definitely challenged forms of other media products. But also restores stereotypical conventions already used. My group and I wanted our music video to be unique and stand out by giving it a very dark and eerie feeling throughout the video. We also wanted to address the audience directly through the use of camera. There was several medium and extreme close ups of our artist Wahiba where she was pointing, playing around and being very aggressive towards the camera. This was our way of trying to create a sense of involvement with the audience as well as given the impression that they too were trapped in this madhouse. The song that we all agreed upon was “G4L” by the popular and recently edgy artist Rihanna. Our group was very familiar with her music and her sense of style and this particular song had that raw edge that worked well with our idea. The way in which our music video challenged typical conventions was through the genre of music. Rihanna is mostly known for being an RnB artist, however this song lends itself to a more Rock and Grime genre accompanied with hardcore Hip Hop beats. In addition, it made me think about how female artists are perceived in the music industry, which are either as sweet innocent wholesome girls or as sex objects. However we made sure that our artist was conveyed as a very strong, powerful female who does not care about being pretty and soft all time and has a very care free attitude. She does in the video use her femininity and sexuality as a way to attract audiences, however she does it in a way that is empowering and not demoralizing to women.
After playing this song continuously the idea of our main Wahiba being trapped in a mental institution constantly haunted by her good and evil conscience came to mind. There was a definite portrayal of a conflicted character through the use of good and evil, we had both angels persistently appearing and reappearing to show that our main was confused. In one specific scene we have both angels literally pulling Wahiba from one side to another persuading her to follow their way of life.

Costume was another way of developing media conventions that already existed. We used the stereotypical idea of presenting good and bad through colour, white was for the good angel and red for the bad angel. This was our way of showing the audience the clear difference between the two characters. Moreover this also affected the way both angels acted towards each other and the main. As the good angel I had to act very pure and soft which at first I found very difficult, but once I became comfortable with my character I was able to use facial expressions and body language as a way to show this. The bad angel came across very sexual and superior, she is constantly touching Wahiba whispering things in her ears and trying to intimidate the good angel. Our artist had three wardrobe changes to give the audience a variety of costume to look out and also to reflect her different moods. For instance, the opening shot of Wahiba sitting tied up in a chair with guards on opposite sides of her shows her in a leather number with heavy makeup, we wanted her character at that point to be very strong and in your face. As the video develops her vulnerability is revealed with extreme close up shots of her in just a white long shirt and smudged makeup looking very self conscious and distraught. We got this idea from the film Basic instinct. The all black outfit for the guards really complemented the whole idea of being in an institution. I and another member of my group took the role of the guards; this meant that we had to be very still but still assertive.

Another way that my group and I challenged existing media products is by making all the characters female. I believe that this gave a sense of female empowerment. Especially with the song being titled “G4L” which stands for Gangsters for Life, gangsters are stereotypically linked with men and not women. We wanted to show that this was not the case for us and that women could be just as strong and dangerous as men could. We also used lighting and props to enhance our mise-en-scene and to make it look more visually appealing to the audience. Red lighting was used quite a lot as this gave connotations of danger and fear. We replicated this idea from Beyonce’s music video “Ring the Alarm.” We also experimented with strobe lighting and used it to inter-cut into certain scenes. My group and I loved the strobe light and thought it made our media product more exciting and broke up the scenes nicely. Props were used to add atmosphere to the mise-en scene. We wanted to give an impression that the institution had been abandoned by having rubbish all over the ground, broken tables, chairs everywhere and just random items tossed around. Overall this helped to make our final media product more individual and original.

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

Our main product and ancillary texts was very effective and definitely complemented each other. Our initial idea was to show the struggle between good and bad, about knowing the difference between right and wrong. This was running a theme that we kept in our music video, magazine advert and digi-pack. Since Wahiba was our artist in the music video it only made sense that she would be represented in our ancillary texts as she is the face of the brand. We wanted the audience to identify with our artist and every time they saw anything titled Wahiba they could put a face to the name. In terms of the Digi-pack we went with the theme of good vs. evil. On the front cover we showed the good sweet side of our artist and on the back cover we showed that edgy, dark, scary side of her. Inside the Digi-pack we would have two more photos of the artist as either good or evil as well as lyrics for the song “G4L” and the music video to this song and interview with the artist herself. This gives the audience the best of both worlds and allows them to see our artist when she is good and bad. We used medium close up shots from her shoulder upwards as we mainly wanted to capture our artist’s facial expressions. We also used lighting for the images in the digi-pack. The image for the front cover had to be filtered so that the artist and the mise-en-scene looked lighter. All the images were in black and white but we wanted an audience to look at the front cover and immediately think of all things pure and innocent. The back cover was made to look darker through the use of filtering again. Wahiba looked completely different with a lot more makeup and very dark lipstick, she is also pulling a very harsh face and looks as though she is shouting at the audience. Whereas in the front cover she looks very calm and serene, and her makeup is more subtle. The back cover has a pitch black background, the effect of this is that is makes the audience focus primarily on the artist and goes the evil theme.
The magazine advert had the same theme of good against evil but we decided to show only one of these emotions. The audience can see a medium close up shot of our artist Wahiba in a plain black top and very heavy eye makeup and black lipstick. She does not seem to be looking at anything in particular and looks like she is lost in her own world. This goes with the whole idea of Wahiba character is not entirely sane. Also that she is even in this magazine ad battling between good and evil because the mise- en- scene and costume say one thing and her facial expression says another. All of our media products relate back to the idea of good vs. evil. I think that my group and I made a good choice in linking them together. And even though there is the same theme in the main product and the ancillary texts we brought something new and fresh to every product.


3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

My group and I gained a lot from the audience feedback. We received some constructive criticism about possibly adding more variety to our shots. For example having more extreme close ups, medium close ups, long shots etc, this would show that we were versatile. We took this into consideration and immediately began adding various shots and saw that it did in fact make a difference and made our music video look of a higher quality. In general the comments were really positive and people felt entertained and intrigued. We also realized that our music video appealed to both sexes, we thought that mainly females would be attracted because all the characters were female and it is almost like a female anthem. However our male audiences were just as interested and thought that the video was very exciting and unpredictable. Other comments we received was that our costumes were very effective and helped to show our different characters. Other feedback we got back was that some scenes needed to be longer especially the ones with the angel and devil. People suggested that even having both characters on screen for a couple of minutes would help to establish character and develop the narrative.
Overall all the feedback was very helpful and positive. People understood our theme of good vs. evil which was very important and enjoyed our music video.

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

We did use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages. One piece of technology we used the most was obviously the cameras. The cameras were very simple to use and allowed us to film our work to a very good standard. We also used a tripod to keep our shots as still as possible, for example when we did extreme close up shots of the scene where Wahiba is sitting in big white t-shirt it was important that the camera did not shake at any moment all the entire scene would have been ruined. The software that we used was “Final Cut pro”. Editing is definitely not one of my strong points but I felt that I learnt a lot from this software and was able to do a little bit of editing. Even though I was not the editor in my group I observed and saw how editing is done which was a great opportunity for me. It is incredible what certain effects did to our music video in terms of making our themes and ideas a reality. One of the effects we used in our music video was playing around with pace. At times we speed it up or really slowed it down depending on what we were going for. We mostly used slow motion as a way of enhancing our artist’s emotions. We speed up our characters actions to make them look more exaggerated and exciting to watch.

We also experimented with colour a lot in our music video. In one scene we have our main doing all of her actions directly into the camera; we added a red/yellow hue to this scene in order to make it more dramatic. I think it worked well because it made that scene more colourful; as most of our other scenes are in black and white. It made our music video look surreal and very animated. Another effect we used was super imposing. We used this quite a lot in our music video because it was a good way of putting two scenes together. It added creativity to our video and made our shots more attractive to watch.

My group and I used Photoshop to create our Digi-Pak and magazine advert. We used black and white filters to go with our good vs. evil theme. We liked the idea of both media products being in black and white and thought it went well with our theme. We also played with various fonts on different websites, it was vital that we found a font style that really represented our artist. We did some research into artists with albums out and looked at the font style they used. Certain artists had a particular font that represented them; wherever you saw their face you saw this font style. This was what we decided to do with our artist Wahiba, we ended up using simple a font style in bold. The “W” of our artist’s name Wahiba was big and bold and coloured pink, the rest of her name was written smaller in black for the magazine advert. The “W” is our trademark for our artist; you can also see it on our Digi-pak. Whatever product we put out for our artist would have the “W” on it.


Other technology we used was in form of a blog. This was our way of noting all our ideas whether we used them or not. I think it was very helpful and a good way of showing the progress that made since the beginning of the project. This was also chance give background information on our artist and what she represents. We also showed other artists that influenced us and how we incorporated certain things into our final media product. Lastly it was an opportunity for our audience to get to know us as group members. Our blog has a lot of personality and is a reflection of my group and me.