Music Video Evaluation (Ancillary)

Now that we have completed our production of our music video. I am required and addditionally think it will be beneficial to evaluate it. I can already (and even during the proccess) think of things that I would implement if given a second chance to produce the music video. Not only will this section of my project demonstrate my understansding of conventions and effectiveness but the amount of my progression throughout this time period, from AS to A2, I have most definitely harnessed my skills throughout many aspects of media, including my comfortability with media related programs such as Photoshop, After Effects, Premier and many others.

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

Typically a post-hardcore music video follows similiar conventions to other more popular genres, like pop. For instance protrayal of love in the form of break ups and make ups is a common occurence throughout many of A Day To Remembers own productions. The diffference however occurs during other aspects than the storyline of the video itself. Dark and dissaturated colour schemes are a popular product of this genre, used amongst other elements to create imagery of the sinister sort and connotations to misbheaviour and a thug like nature. Our band shoot included a variety of spot, beam and strobe lighting, on the band themselves (primarily the lead singer) with a darkened surroundnig and closed studio blinds to cohede with this. However as a fan of A Day To Remember's music and their videos I and my colleauges were aware that they themselves challenge the conventions of the genre, both lyrically and therefore during their music videos also. As the songs lyrics are not directly displaying negative emotions to the narrator's ex/partner it made perfect sense for us to do the exact same thing, not only showing an understanding of how and when the convetions can be challenged but also contextual knowledge of the artist's situation. Within our video we challenged the conventions by including adding more shots of the stereotypical story 'break up' scenes, but included a wide range of lighting and scenarios with these to keep cohesion with the lighting that is used within the band shots of my (and others within the same genre.) This is evidence that our film develops like real media products, as we replect the same method use by an exisiting artist within the genre.

Furthermore the lyrical and visual cohesion which exists in the majority of music videos in all genres is the same with our video with changes in scenario adapting to the lyrics and the pace of the song. We even use certain cuts and effects to make further cohesion between the music and the visuals for instance a closeup on a drum snare in sync with music to show that the band is actually playing all the correct notes for the song and we are not just pretending to play the song, with random strumming, we made sure when we asked for volunteer actors that they could play the song necessary and addiitonally  looked the part, somethingt hat any official produciton team would commit to. This is further emphasized by the agression of our actors in particullar the lead singer, who is a real hardcore singer in real life, adapting to different parts of the song was able to use his knowledge and expeirence of 'flat' and 'scream' singing (terminology within post-hardcore music) to act accordingly and put energy in his actions to shows expression and emotion in his singing.

focus  on the protagonist and/or lead singer is also another noticeable aim for music videos of the genre. Use of close ups, extreme close ups, in to out pans, left to right and left to right diagonal pans are all used to reference the protagonist at different times of him singing the lyrics. We also centred him within the strucutre of the shoot to show his importance and used a section of our free hand film reel to adapt to his movement and energy on stage, something I feel personally worked really well as when comparing it to the 'Abandon All Ships' music video this same tehcnique was later found to be used.

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


For my choice of anicllary and preliminary tasks, I chose the combinaiton of the creation of a Jewel Case Digipak and a magazine advertisment promoting the Digipak, both relating to the production of the music video. 

The effectiveness of the digipak in itself, fits comfortably within the genre conventions, this can be highlighted when comparing the elements produced by myself to that evident in those shown within the research period for my preliminary ('See Research (Preliminary')) The use of the appaearance of the band members in particullar the lead singer being constant throughout both pieces gfives the audience something to relate to as the lead singer of a band is often the most recognizable and popular of the musical group. By keeping this continous throughout this became highlighted and it drew the audiences attention to this particullar character who they alreadya associate with the band and therefore know the artist just from any aspect of the tasks.

Additionally the inclusion of the Digipak in its full form, on the Advertisement itself was important as the audience need to see the product in the advertisement, this was seen in every advertisement analysed. Also coheding the colour scheme from one task to another was an important decision and kept the theme of the tasks the same between the two, so the album has its own feel. This worked particullarly well with the Elton John advertisment and I worked hard at replicating this with the continual use of grey and dark green, with effects on Photoshop, dimming and adjusting the light.

Lighting from the images is also a factor that I considered when producing botht tasks. The nautural light from the middle page image, helps contrast with the inudstrial 'fake' light added using Photoshop on the page where the lyrics are displayed, this for one reason, helps the text easier to read but also means the images are more in focus and draw the attention of the reader when there is less text and the other way round when there is more text. i achieved this very well and the images fade into the background of the piece simply.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

From the wide range of audience feeback we, as a group have recieved, the majority of responses focused on the relationship depicted in our film. The unstereotypical same sex male, friendship 'break up' did not seem a fitting choice for the genre, where stereotypical male/female relationships break up and the theme of love is much stronger. However I still agree that challenging this was a correct move considering the state of the band we were producing a music video to, and the lyrics of the song. In heinsight the use of a male/female break up could of fit nicely within the genre.

From feedback through Facebook, criticism on the composition of a few of the later shots was picked up, this was also mentioned by our Media teacher himself, and proper effective use of Tripods wa snot as good as it could of have been. The effectiveness of some of our shots, do not compare with the others which was dissapointing, as some of them, especially the ones within the subway were highly praised from all forms of feedback.

A positive note from many, was the mise en scene of the entire product with actors, dressed appropriately with correct insturments for the production of the song, and the correct note playing, and lyrics from our actors. This was something we planned and did not intend on pretending to play the song, avoiding a cheap imitation of the song. It was nice to see this was picked up on and we even recieved praise on the syncing of the music video from our A2 Media teacher. 

How did you use media technologies in the Construction and research, planning and evaluation stage?

The use of media technologies throughout all aspects of my A2 project was very usefull and important for the production. 

During planning the use of computer planning programs and internet access we were able to devise a mindmap with the appropriate conventions for a music video of our personal taste. This although taking some time was probably the most important part of our entire project and it really helped the rest of production run smoothly and achieve the reuslt we did. As we were constantly referring to the convetions and elements we wanted to achieve and how to achieve them, which made my tasks high grade material, hitting all assessment objectives. 

Advanced programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Premiere and After Effects were extremely usefull, being used to clip together the film taken with a classmates HD camera. My classmate had previous experience with the use Premiere, however both other programs I learnt how to use using online tutorials and through the plannning stage producing small edited images for my own benefit. During the choice of shot compisiton and editing all members of the group were present and putting forward ideas however Neelesh Joshi had the most experience with the program and used his laptop to edit the film whilst we were present formulating ideas together.

Photoshop was used to produce both preliminary and ancillary tasks, and my skills have most definitely improved since last years AS tasks, I was much more confident in experimenting with advanced tools such as multiple layer tooling and masking, not just magic wand cropping and pasting. After Effects also, although this had a minimal usage within my project as I only required it for two effects when creating my preliminary.   


During the evaluation stage media technologies were used alot, with the addition of blogger to blog my entire project, tumblr to upload series of images and slideshare, sharing information in a powerpoint form making it much more accessible and hitting the assessment objective of using tehcnology in presentation. Additionally a key importance when using blogspot was the make the presentation of the entire project much more accessible and easy to highlight different stages of my project. Feedback was much more evident when using web 2.0 to interact with me and my classmates with video feedback (See 'Feedback') and comments both on Youtube and Facebook. Additionally I have recieved a personal inbox from another A2 Media student asking how we achieved a particullar effect on the making of the music video. I was able to respond to this person with use of Youtube's capabilites in web 2.0 and this interaction with the audience allowed for greater feedback, evidenced by the excess of 50+ comments on the comments section of the uploaded video via Facebook.