1. Zayd Hillawi
Evaluation
Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
We had to look at a song choice that would reflect on the genre of the music video so it
would suit the scenes we would be filming. When deciding what sort of theme we should go
for during the planning of our music video, we listed different ideas that could challenge or
develop typical forms and conventions of modern teenagers and how they’re viewed in
society. We decided to go for a dubstep song by Professor Green
who is a young urban artist. The original song is about life in Hackney
and teenagers in hooded clothes causing all sorts of mischief. The
song was called “In the Jungle” which reflects on the life of a
stereotypical teenager living in a council estate causing trouble. The
dubstep song was unique and the genre had not been used many
times in previous projects so we went for it.
The narrative of our music video consisted of a teenager who is the main character, wearing
a hoodie, walking around the streets of Soho late at night causing trouble. The video reveals
the teenager to be snorting drugs and this was one of the main forms that were used in our
video as it stereotypes the typical teenager using drugs to ruin their life and cause upset
wherever they go. The conventions we developed in the music video had been transition of
shots to reveal character and setting, it was like a preview of what is to come. For example
urban artist Tinchy Stryder with his song, “Game Over”
featuring 4 other urban artists, consists of transition shots
at the beginning to reveal each artist that will be doing
their lyrics in that order of showing. We used different
settings in the music video such as council estates, sleazy
clubs in Soho, and dark alleyways where many crimes are
seen to have been committed in. These settings that were
based on our video were again the stereotypes used for
teenagers in hanging around in or even living in with
regards to council estates. Later on in the video, we see
the character trying to cause a fight in the alleyways which
again challenges the conventions of a teenager’s life. He
also goes to stab the singer in the video, and this is also when the person had already sniffed
the drugs. This was meant to show that drugs can cause people to do terrible things like
taking a life, and when the character takes off his hood in the video after the stabbing it
shows how they might be trying to seek redemption for what they have just done.
Regarding intertextuality, when we were planning the narrative for the video, we looked at
urban movies that had a relevant story to ours. This gave us ideas that could help us with

2. Zayd Hillawi
the conventions for young people on drugs, and maybe replicate a few scenes. Kidulthood
focused on the urban scene in London, with young characters using drugs and knife crime as
a form of influence on their life. This gave us a wide range of ideas such as use of settings,
props and character looks to use in our music video. The scenes in that movie, such as gang
fights, burglary and other forms of crime caused by the teenage characters were very
helpful in helping us stereotype different racial backgrounds. It also helped us in deciding
the settings we should use for the music video.
Q2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
We feel that the combination of our main product and its ancillary texts worked very well
together as they adopted the key elements of
branding. We noticed that many music videos
heavily rely on a unique and creative look in the
mise-en-scene and enhance the power of modern
technology such as CGI to make their video look
more eye catching and attractive for listeners. An
example can be pop artist Jessie J and her song
“Domino” which involves the artist singing whilst in the middle of the camera shot for the
whole video whilst the background changes every minute to something colourful or dark. In
the video, when the background changes so does the artist’s clothes which also interchange
between dark and bright colours to match the background. So for our video we didn’t do
many sort of high tech editing techniques like Jessie J’s music video, we basically used a
wide range of differing camera shots for effect and the tempo of the shots was at times
upped but also slowed down for use of effect. We had to keep this
form of editing the same throughout the video so it looked
consistent, if we added a bit of high tech editing into a certain part of
the video it’d have looked out of place so we had to maintain
consistency and house style.
By adopting the key elements of branding, we had decided what to
put on our digipak after researching digipaks by real life music artists
and also looking at our music video for ideas too. This would help us
decide on the final design for the digipak and how it would be laid out. When looking within
the video for ideas, the concept of drug taking and violence helped us decide on what to put
on the digipak as the main look. The use of darkness in the video helps connote the terror
and horror in the video so we used the main character with the hoodie on the front of the
digipak as the bigger image. We also included other images that
would reflect on the video such as the snooker table and a road sign
in Soho. This would give the viewer a big help in knowing what will
be on the video because of what the digipak will reveal in terms of

3. Zayd Hillawi
the mise-en-scene and the characters in it. The road sign would also be connoted by the
viewer as a setting in the video.
Our digipak follows many of the forms and conventions in a professional music artist’s own
digipak. Our digipak showed the artist’s name, the name of the song, track lists of other
different songs and the music label the artist is currently signed under too. With the digipak
front cover we didn’t follow many conventions as other real life digipaks
because we had put quite a few images on our one which revealed aspects
of mise-en-scene in the video and also where a certain part of the video is
set. We didn’t use the artist’s face on the digipak but the main character
that the video is based on throughout of it. Some artists usually put their
face on their album cover in order to show the viewers who is the singer
and also use the background to show the listeners aspects of the mise-en-
scene too just like we did with our digipak. An example of this is Professor
Green with his album “Alive till I’m dead”.
The magazine advert follows some parts of the forms and conventions as well but on the
main cover we persisted with using the main character as the focus of the advert instead of
the singer. We used quite a dark background with dim street lights and an empty road to
connote different aspects of the video and how violence will be connoted better in a dark
colour and the character disguising some of his face with a hoodie would complement those
sorts of connotations. The forms and conventions that were followed had been the name of
the artist in a big font placed next to the character so the listener would know who the artist
is and the main character in the video would be the picture of the hooded character. This
would show the listener an interest as they’d like to see what would revolve around this
particular character that had beaten the artist in terms of being the main focus of the whole
advert. We also added big shop names under the advert to show the listeners where it
would be sold, and we also added the artist’s website and 5 star ratings so the listener
would know the video has been enjoyed by others.
Regarding intertextuality, we didn’t have really any form of influence on our magazine
advert. We followed the conventions of having the artist’s name placed in big letters on the
advert but we had not shown the singer on the advert instead we had shown the main focus
of the video which was the hooded character and the background would show the mise-en-
scene of the video which was dark streets where the character will be around in some parts
of the video.
Q3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
When we were planning our music video, we concocted a questionnaire for our target
audience as a form of research which had been males and females between the ages of 15-
20 years of age. We felt this was the right area to target our video at because the dubstep
genre had been listened to people of that age and we felt that they would have more

4. Zayd Hillawi
experience and knowledge in answering questions about that particular
genre. We didn’t target any particular ethnicities as the dubstep genre
is listened to by any person with a foreign background. The target
audience research revealed lots of useful information that would
contribute to the making of our music video. We learned that the
majority of the target audience that answered the questionnaire
preferred RnB and Hip Hop songs which are what dubstep songs revolve
around so it was pretty much expected. However, they did not prefer
Rock or Grime as much as dubstep videos aren’t usually related to those
two genres. Another thing that we learnt is that the audience had
preferred performance in the music videos rather than narrative,
however it wasn’t a majority vote as the performance option only got voted a tiny bit more.
This helped us decide to put a mixture of both options on the videos with aspects of
performance and narrative being focused on fairly. The audience did not like seeing concept
however, they preferred the other two options more and it is understandable as most music
videos from the two favoured genre’s centre around performance and narrative more. We
also learned that the mise-en-scene was more appreciated than the music artist which was
quite perplexing as the teenage audience usually like to see the artist being appreciated and
their face being the selling part of the single. However, we did use the mise-en-scene from
the videos and reflected it on our digipak design. The background reflects on the different
settings in the music video.
With these answers and more from our questionnaire, we started
building different elements into our music video in order for the
target audience to gain a reaction to some parts and have an
emotional response to some particular scenes such as the stabbing of
one of the characters. We used characters aged between 17- 20
years of age in the video so the audience can feel a connection as
they’re aged around those years and that was what we wanted to
achieve. The characters had been of mixed ethnicity and the
audience had shown in the results they’d like to see a mixture of
different races in music videos for representation issues. So we put
into the script the singer, who was black, would be the one that got
stabbed in order to create an emotional response for the target audience to show how black
people can be victims too instead of the stereotype being branded about black people being
the troublemakers when it’s actually anyone regardless of their racial background. For the
audience to continue having a connection with the video, we used different camera shots to
place the viewer in the main character’s head. Point of view shots were important so the
viewer can be placed in that position and try experience the feeling the character is going
through. This had brought back positive reviews as the viewers had understood what our
intentions were.

5. Zayd Hillawi
From our audience feedback on the whole project consisting of the music video and the
ancillary products, the majority of the audience that answered the questionnaire had less
criticism to say about the video than the ancillary products. The ancillary products had
gained more criticism for some of the fonts and colours used which was a bit disappointing
because we thought we had laid it out well but some of the negative comments we got was
everything was a bit too squashed into the digipak front cover for instance. They liked the
concept of showing different parts of the mise-en-scene in the video on it, but felt it may
have been a bit too large and out of place. They also didn’t like a bit of the text shown
across one of the images as it distracted them from focusing on the important parts of the
digipak that can help a potential buyer in deciding if they want the song or not. The hooded
character received plaudits as it showed an interesting side to the digipak and made the
audience think about what happens to him in the video. The magazine advert was liked for
the fact the main character was in the middle of it as he stood on a dark road with darkness
behind him. His face was covered too which was what the audience liked the most as they
said it was mysterious and scary and that had been what the character was described as.
The music video received plaudits in all areas bar one particular scene which had been the
stabbing of the singer, the audience felt that it would’ve looked more realistic and shocking
if a blood wound had been shown to make the death look more eye catching and causing an
emotional response to an innocent person dying. The hand held shots had been the most
important part of the video that we hoped we would receive positive reviews on and we did
which made us very pleased as the audience had thought everything was on the tripod so it
was good to hear something positive on that front. The audience also agreed the narrative
did reflect on real life issues which were important for highlighting as a discussing point as it
can open all kinds of debate.
We feel that the video and ancillary texts did meet the OCR brief because we was able to
challenge forms and conventions of teenagers and drug use which was what we needed to
do. We also managed to do a great job of filming the whole video in a professional way as
we used a wide range of camera shots and also upped the tempo of it a little bit at times
too. The editing of the video was also done professionally as it made all the camera shots
flow in a sequence to make the video look outstanding. However, the video did have some
errors in the camera shots such as not tracking the main character well in some scenes, and
also a few canted shots too. This is why the video does not have the wow factor for a big
label to promote it and I feel a small independent label might be able to look at it and take it
on there as it’s not near enough perfect in comparison to professional music videos. It
would be good to be released to a particular audience in a smaller area of the market and
see where it goes from there. The digipak doesn’t show the artist’s face which was what
made our project look a bit more unique, because it’s usually the artist’s face that is seen on
the digipaks for the customer to know what to buy according to the artist’s name and face.
However, our video isn’t like the professional music artists and we felt that we would put
the main character on there instead to make it look more unique and we had added

6. Zayd Hillawi
different parts of the mise-en-scene to make it look eye catching. Our video’s unique selling
point is mixing dubstep with real life issues because we want to show our target audience
what types of dangers can happen from drug use.
Q4. How did you use new media technologies in the research, planning, construction and
evaluation stages?
When we started the project we had to set about doing all the necessary research. Google
was a massive help here because it helped us find out how to make digipaks and magazine
adverts. We also used it for research on statistics on knife crime and debates on teenagers
being involved with drugs and other types too such as
stabbings, robberies, murder and possession of weapons.
YouTube was a great source to look through different music
videos whilst we were deciding what one to use for our
project. We looked through different genres of music videos to listen to and broke as many
down as possible to a final suitable choice. We also uploaded our final video on YouTube in
order to advertise it for our target audience and gain feedback on it. The researching of
digipaks helped us build on a good design that reflects our music video, the research
showed what should be displayed on it and how it should be laid out so it looks eye catching
and appealing too for our target audience. Facebook was a great form of communication
with different members of the target audience, because it has tools that allow us to
advertise our music video on it so the viewers can watch the video and give us reasonable
answers for our audience feedback. The use of blogging was also something we’ve gotten
used to now and it’s helped increase our skills in using it. It has many different functions,
such as font editing and image uploading, to help present our work in a professional manner
and make it look eye catching as well. It stored all our theory and practical work in a great
way and the functions it offered in helping us present it were fantastic.
When we moved on from the research side of the project, we
started planning the music video shoot. The camera we used
was a Panasonic HDC-SD80 full HD digital camera because it’s
an HD camera which means it offers great image quality when
we edit the clips and it’ll also show the target audience a crisp
and better view of the music video. It also shows how we’re very fond of the advancing
world of technology and how it helped us out in many ways. We had to keep using the
camera in the right way so the camera shots weren’t blurry due to light adjustments and we
also had to make sure space was available on the SD card so we can use up as much video
time as possible and help us pick different camera shots for when the time comes to edit.
The camera had great battery life and it was very easy to use, the instruction booklet wasn’t
even needed so that goes to show how great it was for us. Since it was light and not painful
on the arm, we used it for some handheld shots in order to stop wasting time with the
tripod adjustments. The handheld shots weren’t unbalanced and the shots had not been too

7. Zayd Hillawi
shaky as well so it worked out well at the end. The best part of that type of camera was
using it for point of view shots as it was easy to use with the strap on the side to insert your
hand in for holding.
The editing facilities were very much top class and elegant. We were very much used to
using them by now as we gained experience with them throughout last year. The editing
program Final Cut Pro provided us with everything we needed in
different ranges of tools to help the video flow and not lack any
form of continuity. It helped us out in spotting any errors in the
continuity side of the video and the uploading of the music file
for the background was very much easy as we knew how to
import files into the programme from last year. The only criticism
we had of the software was at the beginning when we had just
started to use it and the camera shots hadn’t moved onto the program properly so we had
to transfer them one by one which took a long time and wasted valuable editing time.
Moving on with the digipak and magazine advert designs, we had used Adobe Photoshop
CS4 and were given tutorials that would help us develop our skills with it. We learnt about
different sorts of tools such as rendering, implementing slow motion techniques, adding
split screens with shots and so much more that would make our video look elegant because
these types of techniques are always used in professional music videos to make them stand
out. I found Photoshop hard to use even with the tutorials and I didn’t enjoy using it to
create the leaflet, I found it too complex and I needed a bit of help in understanding some
of the design tools that can help me in making the leaflet look the way I had wanted it to so I
can get higher marks for it. I had pictured how it would look and drew design ideas but
when it came to putting it on the computer screen I struggled. Luckily, I had help from my
group members and they showed me the way to making the designing process on the
programme easier and so we were able to get it done as quickly as possible.