Evaluation

QUESTION ONE:
IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
The genre of the song that is included in my music promo video is: Heavy Metal.

The music video conventions of heavy metal, as well as possibly hard rock include:
Cinematography - Shots of the band members playing their respective instruments are included; these are usually low angle medium shots, close ups or full body shots that are put together simultaneously in a fast pace, reflecting the tempo of the music.
Editing: Performance-wise, videos include a match on action of the band playing, and cross cutting between possible narrative of the video (to support the themes/message of the song) and performance.
Mise en scene: the instruments used by the band members (traditionally, electric guitars, bass guitars and drums, and a portable microphone when the singer performs on stage, allowing him to move freely, increasing visual appeal)
Flashing lights, fireworks on stage etc. reflect the mood and tempo of the song, and creates an enthusiastic atmosphere.
Conventional heavy metal clothes including leather jackets and denim. This is a trend which has been characteristic of the genre since the 80s. Body language includes the enthusiastic singer jumping around making dramatized gestures whilst singing.
Sound: the studio recording of the song, live on some occasions, with the band playing along to it to make it look as though they’re playing it during the events of the video (intended synchronous diagetic)
Form: musicians syncing to studio recording of song to make it seem as though they’re playing it during the music video.
Narrative: assorted clips to fit the lyrical themes/messages.
The history of Heavy Metal:
This genre developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and in the United States. With roots in blues rock and psychedelic rock, the bands that created heavy metal have developed a thick, massive sound, characterized by highly amplified distortion, extended guitar solos, emphatic beats, and overall loudness. Heavy metal lyrics and performance styles are generally associated with masculinity and machismo.

Iron Maiden - The Trooper

Featuring:
Poetry inserted as the opening title - this is relevant to the song's lyrics/themes.
Low angle medium shots of the band members playing their respective instruments
Flashing lights on the stage.
Occasional close ups, and quick zoom shots of band members.
Clips of horse riders (from the time period the song is about)

Judas Priest - Breaking The Law

Featuring:
Shots of a store with regular occurences (Equillibrium)
A narrative involving the band members seemingly robbing a store whilst still playing their instruments. This disrupts the equillibrium.
There is no solution that deals with the band robbing the store. The band is the main focus of the video and therefore the video fits with the message of the song.

Heavy metal music conventions by s0014235 on GoAnimate

Animation Software - Powered by GoAnimate.

I felt it was vital to take these codes and conventions into consideration whilst planning, filming and editing my music video. There were a number of ways that I set about doing this. First, I created a questionnaire on my blog with the aim of finding out what age groups were dominant in my audience, what the most popular music genres were, and what kind of music videos they prefer. Rock music was one of the most popular answers, with metal gaining almost as many votes. As I was planning on creating a music video for a heavy metal song, this proved to me that there are many people who would be willing to watch my music video.

Below are pie charts I created to showcase the results:
Gender:

 

Age:

 

 Location:

Social class:

 

Genre preference:

 Music video preference:

The next procedure in finding out what music listeners expect in heavy metal songs and music videos was to gather a few existing influential music videos from the genre, and conduct interviews with other music listeners to discover their thoughts and opinions on what the music video consisted of. I carried out one interview and uploaded it to my blog. The person interviewed, Dan, has a rather diverse music taste; as well as listening to heavy metal, he is also a fan of pop punk and hardcore bands. Therefore, he likely understands the conventions for those genres too and how they differ to that of the metal genre. For this reason I felt he was a useful person to interview. He gave ratings out of 10 for the videos as well as detailing what he liked and disliked about each video.

As well as using Breaking the Law and The Trooper, which can both be viewed above, I also used Public Enemy No. 1 by Megadeth:

When putting my storyboard together I listened to my chosen song several times in order to generate ideas. This process took around a week, if not longer, as I wanted to be able to come up with some good, unique ideas, and produce a music video with a variety of different shots rather than relying on just one type e.g. using only performance or only narrative.

Many heavy metal music videos are centered mostly around performance. There are some that feature narrative, but upon exploring beyond the example videos I have given above, it appears that the majority of music videos that feature narrative usually also contain performance, with very few featuring narrative alone e.g. A Little Piece of Heaven by Avenged Sevenfold. Therefore, my music video uses the convention of some heavy metal music videos of featuring both performance and narrative. Like with my music video, this is often done in existing videos by cross cutting between performance shots and other shots that make up the narrative. Often, the character(s) within the narrative, whether they are the band members are not, will often be seen lip syncing to the lyrics. However, this is still an example of performance, and therefore these videos are not entirely narrative.

I do, however, feel that my music video challenges the convention of featuring musical instruments being played along to the song. I felt that without the use of instruments, the creation of my video would be less time-consuming, as contacting a band to learn and play along to the song would take a lot of rehearsing for them. I also felt that the absence of instruments helped the video focus on the mindset of the character featured in the narrative. However, the shots of the character lip-syncing are separate from the shots in which the story is seen to be progressing.

Alongside the music video, I was required to design artwork for a fictional album that the song would appear on as well as a magazine advert to support the album. The format that I used for the album itself was that of a digipak. For this, I needed artwork for the front and back cover, as well as two inside covers and artwork for the CD itself. The main problem that I encountered when beginning work on the ancillary texts was how to start it effectively. I feel that looking back, I should have produced a number of hand drawn drafts before I began to digitally reproduce my ideas. The software I used to create the ancillary texts was Adobe Photoshop CS5.

When I started, I put together a simple cover, using fonts available on the software, using a photo of the singer printscreened from the video itself, and a shade of red that was potentially eye-searing. I edited the photo of the singer by using assorted colours, to attempt to create a graffiti-like effect. However, the feedback I recieved was very critical of the quality of the photo as well as the colours used. I eventually decided to stop trying to make improvements on it and just start from scratch.

When thinking of how I could construct a better cover, I remembered that I looked into existing album covers of the genre and how they all featured the mascots that were characteristic of the bands:

I decided that I should try to pursue the same kind of idea, and therefore decided to create my own mascot for the cover. This took a few attempts, which was not helped by my inability to draw at a high standard. I started off with simple tools and used Paint to construct my mascot, and decided I would do some further editing in photoshop if necessary. I also set out to improve my choice of fonts, and decided that the best way to do this would be to use fonts that are not available on Photoshop. I found a website named cooltext.com that had a wide, diverse selection of fonts to choose from. They were placed under several categories, and I looked mainly under "music" "grunge" and "horror" as they mostly consisted of fonts that could be suitable for a heavy metal album. Some of the fonts available were based on those of existing bands, some of which I used in my ancillary texts.

The fonts were decided on after much careful consideration, and overall I noticed that the quality of my new front cover was much stronger than my previous cover, and the feedback I recieved reflected this.

I subsequently worked on the other ancillary products using a similar scheme of a black background, with red and white fonts and shadow effects. The tracklist was featured on the back cover, the CD artwork and the second inside cover. Therefore, my digipak artwork is conventional in that like most existing back covers, the track listing is included. It is also often included on the CD artwork but is not quite as common. It will most likely be displayed again in the inside artwork if not inside the booklet itself, as some packages will conventionally feature the lyrics to all of the songs.

My front cover is conventional in that it features the band name, the album name, and a main image in the center (the mascot). It also carries a Parental Advisory sticker, which has been used for decades on albums that contain mature content such as swearing and sex references. The back cover, as well as the tracklist, features copyright information on the label on which the album was released. The CD once again contains the main image, and the band and album titles, as the majority of CD artwork does. Whereas the inside artwork may contain an image of the band, mine contains an edited image of the frontman. I have also included thank you notes, which is also conventional and is usually part of the booklet. These notes usually contain individual member thanks as well as band thanks, and notes on the instruments that the band members use.

QUESTION TWO:
HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY TEXTS?
When I first set out to create my ancillary texts, I felt it would be important to establish some common features with the music video. At first, I directly did this by taking a screenshot from my music video to use as part of the cover. The screenshot featured the performer, who I felt could also act as the bandleader and could therefore be featured on the front cover. However, this ultimately proved to be unsuccessful, even after attempting to edit it in Photoshop using the colour replacement tool and various filter effects. However, I did create a fictional track listing at this time which did remain in future drafts; the song that I created a music video for - Force Of Habit - is the first song on the album. Conventionally, the lead single of an album will usually be the 1st to 5th track. This makes it noticeable to the consumer, enabling him/her to see the song title, persuading them to buy the full album. Whilst the track list itself remained, the font style and colours used for it changed from my initial draft to my final draft, to further suit the colour scheme of black, red, and white that I established.

The album title itself is taken from a lyric in the Force Of Habit song - The title is "Stricken Like The Rest" and this is heard early in the song with the line "It's a disease, I'm stricken like the rest". This could potentially mean that consumers may already be able to identify that the song is included on the album just by looking at the album cover, which makes it more effective promotion-wise for those who liked the song when they heard it on a radio station or a music channel, but did not hear the band or song name. I can also envision that the song would be played to promote the album on television and internet advertisements. In terms of the internet, my magazine advert contains links to the band's website, Facebook page, and Twitter page. I noticed that these links could be found on many existing advertisements, and could understand why they would appear, being that the internet is a very popular ways of gaining information, with social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter being among the most visited websites. On these, bands can post statuses regularly announcing any relevant information, and can communicate directly to the fans in the comment section, which is helpful for any competitions or other methods of promotion.

Music videos are also a very effective way to sell a song to the audience, and are now available for free viewing on Web 2.0, on video-sharing websites such as YouTube, rather then just music channels. Music videos are also often sold on internet music stores like iTunes, after which they are viewable on portable devices such as iPhones, iPods and mobile phones, which is a prime example of synergy. The visual appeal of a music video usually helps the song to become more appealing, and this is usually achieved in popular music through performance, with more indie-oriented acts using a more abstract format of music video. In heavy metal specifically, it is conventional to include many fast paced shots of the band members playing their instruments, and if a video is to include narrative, it will usually cross cut between the performance shots. Mine does exactly this, as explained in further detail above. Whilst mine eventually did not include any overt visual link to my ancillary texts, the lyric used as the title makes it instantly recognizable as the album that features the song.

QUESTION THREE:
WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?
I recieved some feedback along the way that guided me, helping me to create better final products. During the production of my ancillary texts, I recieved feedback after my initial drafts, stating that I needed to improve the colour as well as the image and font, as the colour red and the image effects were unattractive, and the fonts used were too plain. I took this feedback on board and started from scratch, using the feedback to help me make a much better product, centered about a black, as opposed to a red background, as well as a new drawn image and more attractive fonts taken from the internet.

I recieved more feedback for my album cover as I was finishing up all parts of my ancillary texts. I was told that I could add more to the album cover to make it look less empty. I then attempted to add some effects on Photoshop, but I didn't feel that any of them improved the cover, but only took away from its strength. However, I did add a red background for the album title, but this was the full extent that I put the feedback into effect.

Then, when I searched for audience feedback for my final products, I asked participants the following questions:

1.       Do you think my video works well as a mixture of performance (singer only) and narrative?

2.       What elements of the video do you think work the most?

3.       What elements do you feel could be improved?

4.       Do you think my video and my ancillary texts go together effectively?

5.       Do you think the colour scheme of the digipak and magazine advertisement works well?

6.       What do you think of the magazine advert as a standalone product? (do you think it would appeal to someone who had never seen the album cover before?)

7.       Do you think anything about the ancillary texts could be improved?

8.       Do you feel the ancillary texts are suitable for the heavy metal genre?

1. 0:00
2. 0:29
3. 0:48
4. 1:05
5. 1:36
6. 1:53
7. 2:15
8. 2:30

1. 0:00
2. 0:16
3. 0:29
4. 0:42
5. 0:52
6. 0:59
7. 1:16
8. 1:44


1. 0:00
2. 0:59
3. 1:37
4. 2:34
5. 3:09
6. 3:31
7. 4:09
8. 4:43

I felt that it was important to get participants who were not necessarily fans of heavy metal music, as it allows me to gain a general consensus of how non-metal fans view the genre's conventions from what they have seen. The general consensus I have gained from my feedback is that they expect black and red colours and occasionally deathly/beastly imagery, all of which can be seen in my final products

In terms of the video, I have received common praise from participants for my mixture of narrative and performance, as well as the effects used. I have also received praise for the use of on-screen lyrics and the way they are animated. Participants have also noted the use of cinematography in some parts and how it fits well with the rhythm of the song. However, the video has received criticism for its lip syncing and the enthusiasm of the performer. However, I was trying to create the image of somebody who is insane and does not outwardly portray all of his emotions. As for the lip syncing, I can understand where participants are coming from, as the performer did not have much time to become familiar with the song and struggled to understand some of the lyrics as they were being sung.

If I was to do my music video again, I would ensure that I hired film lights, so that I would have more control of the lighting in my shots, and would end up with a higher quality product, with easy to understand shots. I would also try to give my actor more time to learn the lyrics to the song, and understand how they are sung, to enable more accurate lip-syncing when the time would come to film. However, I am glad that I have been able to complete a video for a song of 4 minutes; I felt this was slightly challenging considering that many other students who were producing music videos, had chosen songs that were of a length of 3 minutes or under.

When I asked participants whether they felt my video and ancillary texts worked well together, they said they did due to the use of similar colours in both, such as red and black. They also noted that this was characteristic of the heavy metal genre, which is also good as they have successfully identified the genre from the ancillary texts alone. One participant commented on my other possible album cover, which served to show how my artwork mascot may appear in another cover. I was told that consumers would be able to recognise them as the same mascot and therefore the same band. I was told by one other participant, however, that on my back cover, the tracklisting was potentially quite difficult to read due to the shadows surrounding them.I also received feedback saying that the mascot had something of a cartoon appearance. Whilst this was not my intention, I can understand why they may view it as such, as I relied on paint and Photoshop, after having decided against manipulating a photograph. My drawing skills are lacking and I find it difficult to draw more detailed images. However, I do feel that I have achieved the creation of a generally threatening mascot, which are characteristic of heavy metal artwork. However, if I was to attempt the ancillary texts again, I would spend more time on planning the mascot's appearance and getting a general impression of how it would appear before I began to draw it, and then being able to come up with something that had a more complex appearance.

QUESTION FOUR:
HOW DID YOU USE NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES?
The use of different forms of Media available played a very integral part in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages of my music video and ancillary texts. As part of my planning and research, I have used several images and charts to demonstrate my ideas. With my research in particular, it was important that I gave effective examples of existing pieces of work. As a result, I have several examples of heavy metal and hard rock music videos and have given some analysis on each one as well as having them demonstrate the standard conventions of the genre. I used the same music videos to show to fans of the genre that I could interview to get their views on them. I have also included such an interview as part of my research. As it was of course, in a video format, I was given several options on how to upload it. We were advised to use the popular video-sharing website YouTube, in which people can watch videos of all kinds (Such as TV shows, Movies, Music videos, and homemade videos), mostly for free, which is an effective demonstration of the way people use Web 2.0. We were also advised to use YouTube to upload all other video forms of work, such as the deconstruction task, the animatic, and the music video drafts.

However, we were not limited to YouTube, and there were other ways of making videos based on research available. I have also used a website entitled GoAnimate, which relies on Text-to-speech technology to create a conversation between animated characters. This was very useful, because more often than not, text to speech can come out much clearer than recorded dialogue. There were many voices available, with the choice of different languages and accents.

Another website that was available for use was Prezi, in which a user can create a presentation of sorts, which will look like a diagram when zoomed out, but in a video format, it was zoom in to each individual part. Users are able to embed pictures as well as add text to accompany these. This is useful to describe a procedure e.g. requesting and gaining permission to shoot in a particular location.

In order to edit my music video, I used the video editing software Adobe Premiere Elements. There are a high amount of effects and transitions available, as well as the ability to change the scale of the frame and play two or more shots at the same time, which I have made use of. Over time, I found myself become more used to the software, and began to find it easier every time I used it. This was helpful, as I had deadlines to work towards and the more used to Premiere Elements I was, the faster I could complete drafts. However, I also learned that the software can run into problems if I tried to import clips that were under 3 seconds, and I had a few shots that were, and so this was an obstacle I had to overcome during some stages of the editing procedure.

Pictures of the editing process can be seen below:

For all parts of my ancillary texts, I used Adobe Photoshop CS5. I had previously used this piece of software in AS Media, in the designing of a magazine cover, contents page and double page spread. However, it wasn't until A2 that I felt my skills were really beginning to develop. When I was constructing my front cover I felt rather confident in being able to remove the white background from certain images, either manually or using the quick selection too. Sometimes, this tool encounters minor problems that cannot be fixed unless the background is removed manually. I encountered this several times. It was rather time consuming but the magnifier tool helped me to see what I was doing properly

I also made use of the filter tools, something that I knew very little about during AS. I decided to apply filter effects to my mascot to give it a slightly more realistic, less cartoon-like appearance. These alterations were minor, with the use of paint and shadow like effects. I also used this tool to edit a photo of Dan, which appeared on the inside artwork. It was edited to become a  shadow-like shade of black and white (not greyscale) I also added hints of red using the spray-paint tool, creating an effect of blood.

I also learned how to use the distortion and perspective tools to change the sizes of different sides and angles of an image. This was achieved whilst I was putting all of the digipak artwork into one image, to show how it would look were it actually released. I tilted the front and back covers slightly, and distorted one inside cover as well as the disc artwork, to show how it would look were it partially opened.

I used perspective and distortion tools again in my second possible album cover, which served to demonstrate how the mascot may appear in the artwork for another possible release by the fictional band. The band logo and title are made to look as though they are trapped inside ice, as well as the mascot. This was achieved by using a similar shade of blue, so that they look frozen. I also drew the ice myself, but used distortion and perspective effects to make the environment look less linear and more realistic.

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