How Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products?

Digipak And Magazine Advert

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What have you learned from your audience feedback?

How did you use new Media Technology in the Construction & Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?

The website youtube.com allowed me to upload our video onto my profile so that it could be viewed at leisure by our audience. I chose this website as it was a popular video sharing website that was used globally, therefore feedback responses wouldn't be restricted to our local community. Once it was uploaded there was the option to set it as private so that we could have a small minority of people view the product before it was released. The audience were selected based on their interest and understanding of R&B videos, so that the feedback was accurate and could be used for improvements. The feedback we received included a comment from a youtube user called JRisky who commented ' I like the part where the screen splits in half, however the clock behind is too dark...' We were then able to improve this aspect along with others before uploading an updated version.

Another method of evaluation was uploading the final product onto the social network site - Facebook. I chose this website as a high volume of our target audience (16-24) use this provider. This was a dynamic way of receiving feedback as our viewers were able to interact with other responses, building upon points and solidifying them. We chose to upload our video onto the internet as this allows us to receive a high volume of feedback as opposed to personally going around with my laptop and getting people to view it. We used that method for our preliminary task and comparing the quantity and quality of feedback between the two methods I have noted that uploading it onto the internet gave us a greater quality of feedback, as users commented in their leisure time as opposed to those who watched it on my laptop and felt pressurized to give an answer therefore resulting in a weak response.

My mobiles MP4 capabilities allowed me to transfer and view the video stored on its 4gb flash drive. This size meant that I was able to maintain the quality of the video, as there was no need to compress the file, furthermore it saved disk space. Its portability allowed me to share the video with the people who may not have access to a computer, increasing my volume of feedback.

For the research and planning stages, the internet was a fast and effective way of analysing existing products. I used yahoo videos to research into R&B videos. By entering specific criteria such as the artist name 'Omarion' I was instantly given a list of Omarions music videos, this method is faster than waiting for the TV broadcast station MTV to show an Omarion video which may not have been schedule at the time of my viewing. I then used the 'Print Screen' function on Windows which allowed me to capture the conventions of a R&B video and copy it to a document for later reference. For example during the Ushers music video 'Burn' I print screen the moment when he was sitting in his bedroom , during the construction of the video we then looked back to our archive of print screens as thought about how we could incorporate them into the video, focusing on camera angles and body movement.

The research carried out for the magazine adverts were documented using a power point and the uploaded onto my blog via slideshare. Slideshare.net is a provider that allows you upload Word,PDF and Power Point documents to the internet, which can then be embedded into your chosen destination via coding, or maintained on the site for later viewing. This was effective as I was able to upload my research maintaining a good structured presentation as opposed to a straight blog which lacked some features of a Power point such as custom animations, and it was easier to design subject to the user friendly interface.

I was able to use the search engine Google to search for existing R&B magazine adverts, by entering keywords such as 'Ginuwine album advert' I was returned images of Ginuwines adverts. I was also shown images of accompanying artists such as Joe, which was beneficial as I was given a wider selection of adverts.

Initially we started with Google calander to schedule our filming times which also allowed us to attach the location of the event and set a time period, there was then the option to share the calendar with other Google account holders so I shared the calender with each member of the production which included the actress Tailah-Red.We then progressed to using our mobiles calender as there were frequent re-schedules due to unavoidable circumstances, and our mobiles had easier access to the calender.

During all stages of production my mobile phones capabilities were useful. I used its camera to take pictures of props , album adverts and recorded various dance moves that could be incoporated into the video. I was then able to share the images and footage with my partner via MMS, which was faster than having to wait for a camera film to develop, or having to upload and send images via email if I were using a digital camera.

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

How Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products?

Our chosen Song 'Carosel' is an R&B song by Young Truth. Instead of creating a pure R&B video, we developed and challenged some of the conventions we researched prior to construction.

Music Video

Structure:

We used the conventional fragmented structure R&B videos, we achieved this by juxtaposing the narrative with the artist sing the song and dancing. For example we broke up the narrative scene in kitchen by inserting the solo singing scenes at various points. Similar to Omarions Music video for 'Speedin', The camera cuts to him singing the song and dancing in two different locations at various times.

Solo Singing Part:

We developed the conventional solo singing parts, by adding special effects

to the dance scenes.

Conventionally you would have the artist dancing in an open open public place,like in the streets or an open planned space. We developed this by adding special effects making it seem as though the artist was dancing behind a clock.

Location:

• We challenged and developed the conventional locations of an R&B video. We achived this by using a bricked background for the solo parts as opposed to the solo parts being in an open environment or a being located within the vicinity of the narrative, for example in Omarions video 'O', the dance scene is located near the house.

• We looked at convetional dance scenes where the artist was dancing with a girl and chose to develop it. We used a train station platform that was wide enough for us to explore our choreography(similar to wide platforms used in R&B videos for example in Omarions Music video Touch) whilst developing the convetional location by using a train station.

Our Location

• We took the conventional approach of having part of the R&B located in the artists house. The artist is usually in their bedroom or their front room lying down, portraying their emotions towards the female or the situation. We chose this location as we too wanted our video to have a personal perspective.The mise-en-scene attributed to this perspective as in the video you can get a sense of the artists personality via the books on the shelves, the clean dinning room interior and the pictures on the front room wall all suggesting the artists interests. . This also allows the audience to relate to the video as it is located in an environment their are familiar as opposed to an obscure location.

Conventional Location: Our Location

Costume

The Artist

We wanted our artists to have a Sleek image, that of the conventional R&B artist. However we challenged the props as we omitted jewellery other than the Ring as that was our motif. We looked at the conventional attire in music videos and noted Hats, Customised Clothing Colour co-ordination and a clean groomed finish. We adopted this and designed our artist costumed based on our research. Whilst designing the costuming we thought it would be creative to have it reflect our motif - the Clock. So we when artist is alone with the girl, he would be wearing black and white to suggest that he is again being controlled by the her and to incorporate the motif to enhance narrative visually.

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The Girl

We looked at how featuring females are dressed in R&B music videos, and noticed that the usually wore slightly revealing clothing that enhanced their femininity but also reflected the weather as they were located in a sunny location predominately in America. We challenged the attire by having our female wear sophisticated clothing to portray her character whilst also showing her beauty which is conventional of and R&B video.

Applying Goodwin's Theory

Video Responses

Now that we have created the music video, it is important to obtain feedback for future improvements. We constructed a questionnaire for our audience, with the intention to record thier responses visually. We advised them to use the questions as a guidline to thier response as they were open questions and so that we could obtain an effective response.

Changes

Initial we were just going to split the screen in half to connotate the idea that even though the are physically close, their is still a barrier preventing the relationship to progress. This idea then progressed to include the motif and we wanted it to frequently appear in the video but with a purpose. This was a perfect opportunity to include the motif as it physically connected the two individuals together whilst suggesting that their relationship is not progressing as the time is still 3 o'clock.

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This change was for presentational purposes as opposed to connotion. The initial idea was to have the dance move shown using a medium shot. However we wanted to make the the video more dynamic so we re-filmed the dance move using a medium long shot and altered between the two on the video. This also enhanced the dance move and the artists image, by emphasising the finishing pose with a medium long shot.