Evaluation Questions

The task was to produce a music video along with extra ancillary tasks for a particular band. As a class we divided into groups and listened to various bands and songs on which we could base a music video around. After short listing various bands and possible songs to use, I decided to create a video for System of a Down’s ‘Question!’ I felt that by doing this song, I could reach my maximum potential as it is one of my favourite songs and therefore I would find working on this particular song the most pleasing. At the beginning of Year 12 we learnt how to use various media technologies to create both a preliminary task before then progressed onto producing an opening sequence for a film in the thriller genre. This year we will be using more sophisticated camera work, Photoshop for our CD covers and much more precise editing to that lip syncing is up to professional standards.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I believe that the combination of both main products and ancillary products has been effective. I believe this because I used direct references from the production of the music video to integrate into both the album cover and the Kerrang! article respectively. Personally I trust that the article text that I formed is very successful at tying in closely with the music video, as I state throughout the article the journalistic view of the video in production, as a voyeur. This way I could show to the audience how the video was created by the ‘band’ and suggest how the audience may feel about the new video. The article was really interesting to produce as I had to take an objective view of how I produced the video myself, meaning that I had to be somewhat critical of how I went about producing and starring in the video when writing journalistically. In all ancillary pieces I wanted to combine the mise-en-scene that I used in the music video (dark clothes, dark makeup, forest setting, guitar and microphone props etc.) and place them in the ancillary texts. For example in the article I use black and white frequently within the colour scheme, keeping with the dark atmosphere of the music video itself. I also took a picture of myself as my ‘alter ego’ Serj Tankian with a finger to my lips for the main article, and to tie in with the video itself I wore the same black shirt and used the same style of black make up that was seen in the music production. This was really important to me as I wanted to keep the realism intact between the professional music video I created and the article I had produced to accompany it; making both combine to appear as one project. For the album cover I used much the same technique of combination. I did this by again wearing the same make up and by using the same mis-en-scene that was used in the video; the clothes, setting and props. I then used Photoshop to merge these images and feelings they represented to create the album cover for the song that I was using.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Within the various stages of production I had to use a variety of media technologies to complete goals successfully. As is the beginning of a media project, valuable research must be done to ensure that your production is on the right track, and will satisfy the target audience. I used the vas information highway of the internet extensively to discover more about the band I was going to be producing the music video for, their past and how their music has changed, up to their album covers and styles of video. Through this extensive research I found of that System of a Down used many conventions that I would have to emulate in order to make the final production and ancillary tasks seem realistic within the genre I would be imitating; these conventions including the simplicity of album covers and the shots they use in videos to make them effective. I also used the internet to discover more about music videos as a whole, looking at directors such as Mark Romanek and his broad spectrum of videos representing artists from pop legend Madonna to rock gods Audioslave. I examined these videos on YouTube and took note of how he used a variety of interesting shots and mise-en-scene to create his famous videos, and how these would affect the target audience. As well as the internet I used many other media related programmes to create my various ancillary projects. I used Photoshop in order to produce my album cover and back. For this I took a large amount of pictures and chose the best two for the sections I needed. I then overlapped System’s font (downloaded off Dafont.com) for the title of the single and the band name, as well as the track listing on this back. I only had to edit the pictures slightly as the noose that we used for the back cover did not show up; therefore I used a paint brush tool on Photoshop to create the hanging noose. To create the article I used Microsoft Word home vista version as it had all the tools of publishing software and a word processor that I needed to emulate the style of Kerrang magazine. We used Sony Vegas Pro to edit the video as it has a huge amount of effects and tools that you can use to mould the video clips to gain the shots you desire. This was a huge help as it meant we could manipulate shots to look more effective and professional so that the shots appealed to the target audience, an example of this was the edge blur effects that we used to make the forest shots look as if they were in a dream state. I believe that in using these professional programmes our work has really excelled as we had the best tools at our disposal and managed to create a great array of constructed work for our media project.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My media both challenged and develops upon conventions of music videos. I decided that I wanted to create a video that kept within the successful regions of the conventions that make a good rock video so that my production, System of a Down’s ‘Question!’, could look as realistic and as impressive as possible. The lyrics in a music video are used to establish the mood of the piece, depending on the choice subject of the artist, the mood usually depends of lyrics; and I wanted to continue this tradition in my video. I wanted to express the emotions of the lyrics through the video I created, conveying the dark horrors within the words of the song through the mise-en-scene, lighting and setting. I felt that this as especially important in keeping with the music videos for rock genre, as it is the most expressive genre of music. Another convention that i wanted to develop on was the music’s genre as they change the type of video you create. This will be shown similar to lyrics, through the mise-en-scene, lighting, performance, and setting. If the song is heavy, a darker video will be expected and I wanted to work within that realm. I wanted to express the feelings of the song and convey the darkness of it. For this i used a good choice of settings, that of an old house and a wooded area, both settings that are popular in rock videos. For mise-en-scene i used dark clothing throughout with black make up around the eyes another common theme within the darker area of rock videos. One convention that i wanted to challenge was the music itself. This convention means that the pace of the song usually drives the editing style of the video. If the tempo is fast then the editing usually matches this, however I wanted to add more depth than just a quick blast of imagery; I wanted to add uncertainty. To do this, I moved away from consistent fast editing by adding some sustained shots and sequences into the video of the character in enthralling situations. I believe help the effectiveness of the video when it does speed up later in the song as it is sort of a journey for the audience. I also developed upon the narrative convention of modern videos. For this, instead of firing off randomly from performance to narrative, I decided to make my video into a journey; from narrative to performance. This way i could tell a tale of the characters journey through the video, from the forest and his fear; to his comfortable environment when surrounded by music.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?
From receiving audience feedback more orally and from YouTube I have learnt a great deal about how the audience see our videos and how to improve it; to provide the audience with something they take pleasure in. I have learnt techniques and skills that will help me improve my future videos by looking closely at the audience feedback and discovering that I need to improve on some things. Firstly I have learnt that I need to increase the difference in effects so that the dreamlike state of the first sequence is more comparable to the live performance. This would be achieved by changing the lighting and adding some motion blur to some sections and maybe changing the speed of the playback. I also learned that the audience wanted to see a variety of shot speeds which I felt I did well; however some people thought that some of the shots were held on for to long and needed to be sped up with more exciting cuts; to keep inline with the high tempo beat.