Chloe's evaluation

1) What ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The genre of our product is retro/80's with lots of colour and excitment. We looked at music videos such 'Midnight beast- Booty call' this consists of colourful themes, textual lyrics and a impressive performance from the artists. They also used mise en scene such as telephones and props to fit the lyrics. Although the genre of music was differant compared to our 'Chromeo- Call me up' we still wanted our video to look visually similar. We also looked at bands such as Alphabeat who have a very consistand mood and theme across all their products. Things like tapes and record players and even balloons to acheive a happy and cheerful approuch to music. Another product we were inspired by was 'Little commits- One night in October' where their lyricss are shown on a blackboard with chalk while the artist lip syncs, we liked this effect as it made it more intresting. When it came to editing our music video we used certain effects to make our product more exciting. By mirroring some of our images, adding filters and effects to some clips to add colour and cutting up our clips so they can be repeated to match with the beat of our song. We noticed that various famous arists have used these features in their videos like Beyonce, they turn a potentually boring clip into something more entertaining and intresting to watch as an audience.

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

When producing our magazine advert and digipack we wanted both of them to match the theme of our video and track. For the magazine we used a screen shot from the video (image of us four girls) and edited it to make it funky and fresh with vibrant pinks and yellows. The title on the magazine was in the same font as the CD cover (a bit) we wanted to keep things consistant and noticable to our audience by using things like luminious colours, bold writing and vibrant images. Our digipack consists of a pop art theme (Maralin monroe/Madonna) front cover of Ella holding a retro plastic phone while winking to add a little cheese to things. We kept the back cover simple of just a speaker with the track names down the side. The inside covers were also simple with a colourful image and tour dated in bold writing.

3) What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

I have learnt that a little more planning would go a long way. And to be realistic when it comes to ideas. As we had a limited time and budget we should of originally stuck with college phacilities like the green and dark room and shouldnt of spent a whole evening shooting pointless footage. We also should of learnt the song more as the lip syncing wasnt perfect. Our rough cut feedback was relitivly negative as we didnt have all our footage on final cut however our final feedback was alot more positive as they liked the jump cuts, costumes, props, performance and the use of colours as they all fit with the theme and genre of our music.

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

While using programmes such as final cut exspress and photoshop I learnt many tricks and tips such as changing the colour of the background on the green screen, changing the effect and filters on photoshop and how to mirror an image. The blogger was also useful because it kept us organised and helped us when looking back on our posts for inspiration when we needed it. The HD cameras were brilliant when it came to shooting, they were high quality and easy to use. By using a tripod this helped us film footage without worrying about shacking and unproffesional footage. For our music video filming we used a battery powered speaker system which produced a load and clear audio for us to film, this also helped to motivate the performers to make them get stuck into it instead of a standard performance. One evening we did want to film outside infront of a wall of grafiti on Newmarket road however the conditions were dark and cold by 4.00pm and our only source of lighting was only available with a plug. Things like weather and lighting did limit our filming times and locations and so we stuck to inside venues so we could rely heavily on editing skills. Overall I beleive our end product was sucessful considering the time and budget and I do beleive we kept a consistant theme and mood throughout our video and digipack.