Evaluation- Justine

Evaluation.

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

Our music video both challenges and uses forms and conventions of real media products.

Firstly, when deciding on a theme and concept we branched out from what can be seen as the stereotypical choice for teenage girls. We didn’t go for something happy, pretty and preferably with some sort of love story, it could be said we looked to the dark side, in the same way of our artist. We chose a Rihanna song ‘G4L’ although we were influenced by a number of other artists, some similar and some diverse. Rihanna is typically known as an RnB artist, however we instinctively decided on a song that was not typical. The song we used was more dark and rock rather than RnB.

When deciding on our concept we came up with the idea of ‘good V evil’. As a group we all liked this and could see opportunity to develop it and really make a good music video including this theme. Wahiba was going to play the artist, Mariam was to play the character of the angel and I was going to play the devil. We also included a scene where two guards, who are women, are standing tall and strong beside a chained up Wahiba. We instinctively chose not to have the guards as men because that would be expected. Our video consists of only these characters and all of which are girls. No men are present in this video which could be seen as unusual. At the present time women are proving to be more empowered and in charge of themselves, rather than relying on men. However within music videos they are portrayed as merely sex objects. We wanted to challenge this and as a result this is one way in which we challenged forms and conventions.

A music video that really influenced us was Beyonce’s ‘Ring the alarm’. The video is based on the film ‘Basic Instinct’ and shows the strong female woman. It features guards and an almost hysterical woman, which we wanted to include in our video. Although Rihanna was our main influence, as the song we used belonged to her, Beyonce also played a big part. Watching ‘Ring the alarm’ helped our artist ‘Wahiba’ get into character. Beyonce’s expressions and body language is very extreme which works really well to portray a woman sort of going mad, which we needed to show in our video also.

However, although some aspects of our video challenge forms and conventions, others stick to them. While some of the characters we created are playing more masculine, strong roles, their sexuality is still highlighted and apparent. For example, our female guards aren’t wearing costumes that could disguise them as men, it is clear they are women with figure revealing outfits. The ‘Devil’, who I played, was to appear seductive both physically and through my behaviour. This is seen when I interact with ‘Wahiba’ and I am tempting to her come to the bad side.

Overall, our aim was to create a music video that was contemporary and somewhat conventional however with a unique appeal. We wanted to construct a dark and sinister world where a girl was trapped between the activities playing out in her mind. Her own conscience fighting over her. Good versus evil. Who will win?

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

I feel that the combination of our main product and also the ancillary texts work well and complement each other. We wanted the music video; digi-pack and advertising poster to all share the same sort of feel and co-ordinate with each other. As we knew what we wanted to represent, we made sure to keep to this throughout all of our products. We took the edgy, dark feeling from our music video and transformed our ancillary texts into products of this. My group member Wahiba is playing the Artist, the ‘Star’. We simply decided to name her ‘Wahiba’, sticking to her original name. We researched and found a lot of first albums to be self titled which we liked the idea of. As ‘Wahiba’ was the artist we chose to use a variety of black and white pictures of her for the digi-pack cover, inside, and also on the back. A similar black and white picture, yet not the exact replica, was used for our poster.

Within our music video, ‘Wahiba’ is being tormented by her conscience. Her bad side, the ‘devil’ is tempting her to transform into an evil version of herself, and the ‘angel’ who represents good, is trying to keep her from turning bad. This concept plays throughout our video and creates a mysterious and dark ambience. With our ancillary texts we felt that they should also hold this feeling and it should be clear to see that they are all coinciding with each other. The front cover of our digi-pack simply has ‘Wahiba’ vertically on the left hand side. The ‘W’ is emphasised in pink and is our logo for the artist. The picture on the cover is the ‘good’ Wahiba, angelic, calm and gentle. As you turn over, you are faced with the picture of evil. An obvious transformation has occurred, which we portrayed through use of hair, make-up, clothes and lighting. All of which were essential throughout the entire process.

While creating our ancillary texts we wanted to ensure that although they all looked similar, you could also see that each picture and each item was not identical. We wanted the buyer to feel as though they were being given something new each time, also a different ‘Wahiba’ to discover.

3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback was extremely essential in the creation of our music video, from the very beginning until the end. Before we began filming, questionnaires gave us valuable information on people’s likes and dislikes. We wanted to know whether people preferred conventional or unconventional music videos, whether they liked to see the artist, if they liked to see shots of the artist singing to the song and other questions. Feedback from our questionnaire helped a great deal in giving us a clearer idea of what we should aim to achieve. We found that the majority of those who answered the questionnaire would like to see the artist appear in the video, they also like to see performance shots and didn’t find a variety of locations that important. Taking all the results into account, we felt we had a better insight into what we should create and a greater direction for our music video.

During the process of editing, we played our incomplete video to a number of people. We received positive comments and also constructive criticism. People really liked the concept of ‘good and evil’, and found that the characters of ‘devil’ and ‘angel’ were obvious and they did not struggle to work out what was going on. We were really pleased with this as one of the things we wanted to avoid was the audience to feel confused with the story being played out. Some more encouraging feedback was that the chaotic, crazy atmosphere we aimed to portray had come across well. As our music video was yet to be completed, there were also constructive remarks which helped us. Some of these included that we should have a ‘wider contrast of shots’, for example some more close ups in certain areas to really show the audience detail. Also, some cuts from scene to scene seemed slightly too quick and wasn’t giving the audience enough time to digest what they were seeing. It was gone almost before they could register the image. These comments really aided us in altering such things and improving our video so that it could be a result of our very best efforts.

When we had fully completed our video, we had another set of people to view the finished piece and also those who had seen it half way through the making process. Those who had already commented previously were really impressed with the final product. They could see that we had changed anything that had been negatively remarked on and it had ‘really improved the overall quality of the music video’. Other viewers commented on aspects such as the lip-syncing which they thought was very good and were also impressed with costume and lighting.

Overall, our feedback was enormously helpful in the process of creating our video.

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

From the very beginning of our exciting task to create our own music video and ancillary texts, new media technologies played not only an essential role in assisting us, but also a vital one.

As we decided on the concept for our video, research on similar artists and also diverse ones was very helpful. Youtube aided us a great amount. We were able to view many other music videos and this gave us some great ideas to extend and develop. As we wanted to create a sort of miniature world that ‘Wahiba’ was trapped in, the surroundings and devil/angel being the contents of her mind, we needed to produce a crazy and frenzied impression. Youtube enabled us to take a close and repetitive look at videos such as Beyonce’s ‘Ring the Alarm’. This video influenced us quite a lot in regards to the attitude of the artist and also the concept.
During the filming process, cameras made it possible for us to capture the footage we needed. The quality of them was great and added to the extent to which we could aim to make our music video look and feel as real as possible. Throughout my media course I have become more accustomed to using equipment such as the cameras and so have my group members. Therefore by the time of filming we all felt confident with using them and knowing how to use them to their full extent and gain the best from them. Tripods assisted the cameras in holding still shots which we used quite a lot. Lighting was additionally very significant in our music video. Ours specifically needed to look dark and ominous and red filters over the lights helped in creating this. We used this for a few scenes within our video and were happy with the outcome.

At the editing stage we were fortunate to have access to ‘final cut pro’ which offered us all the features and effects to really complete our music video to its full potential. We were able to cut footage and dip in and out of scenes to create the fast paced, frantic tone. This program helped us to use super imposing in our video and play with colour, pace and a lot more.
Our digi-pack was created with the use of Photoshop. This allowed us to play around with pictures of the artist. We created a font and logo for ‘Wahiba’ and wanted our end result to be a digi-pack that was as credible as it could be.