1. Evaluation
Q1- in what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms
and conventions of real media products?
I feel that our music video, Blue foundation – eyes on fire (dubstep remix) is mainly
able to challenge the forms and conventions of ‘real media products’ as well as use
and develop them. Our video has been generated from a new underground wave of
music genre, ‘dubstep’. Dubstep is primarily a hybrid of older genres such as; drum
and bass, garage, bassline and niche, incorporating a darker, grittier sound which
helps us to identify it is from the streets. Our music video is a fusion of both
performance and narrative, the blend of these two particular structures give the video
a wider appeal to the general public, catering to those who love narrative and visual
arts as well as those who enjoy performance pieces, it is also atypical to the few
dubstep videos which have in recent times been released.
E.g.: Coki and benga: Night
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMR5K2QWfJk
Essentially a ‘darker’ video, running in a non-chronological order, it is able to grip
and perplex the audience – this I feel juxtaposes the typical forms and conventions of
other similar media products of this category – One of the main influences for our
more sinister take stemmed from the thriller movie genre, When acting as assistant
director I opted to use such things as, heavy alcohol consumption and explicit drug
use in order to amplify the intensity Both the characters featured in our video played a
vital role in balancing out our structure, the girl playing the role of ‘Brooke’ in the
narrative is perceived as a lonely, down and out individual who has an alcohol and
drug addiction, she seems to be searching for something, but is unable to find it.
Whereas our second character who is lip-syncing for the performance role, takes on a
more menacing demeanour with subtle hints of ‘seductress’. The style of our
presentation was one that originated from that of ‘film noirs’ used to make the
audience aware of Brooke’s contemptuous personality when under the influence of
their beloved narcotics.
In reference to other conventions we were able to expand on ‘voyeurism and the male
gaze’, two things which are predominantly seen in ‘Hollywood’ and many American
music videos, Hip-Hop in particular.

2. Although, we refrained from using the typical raunchy ‘video girls’, through using
sneaky camera angles and we were easily able to create an atmosphere which
portrayed the girls being unaware they were being watched – emphasising sexual
allure and the concept of
‘male gaze’, were women are
seen as mere sexual objects.
We then lead to numerous
body/face shots of the artist
as these ‘money shots’ have
become very high demand
from various record labels in
recent years.
The editing which we used
abides by the conventional techniques of transitional cuts; fade up/ to black and
layering he cuts to fit the music beat, although we decided to steer clear of heavy
visual effects as we felt it would bombard our videos complex simplicity.
As the main chunk of the song deals with heavy beats and drops, we used fast
transitions in order to compliment the atmosphere fully, conversely during the songs
intro and outro, the mood differs and becomes more soft and melodious, which called
for much smoother transitions to portray the melancholy and gloom.
The camerawork centred around us following the traditional technical shots plus a
variety of diverse shots to capture the relationship between both the performer and
actress ‘Brooke’. We achieved this by using canted angle shots with Brooke to after
she has taken cocaine to show her disorientation and altered state of mind, When she
sniffs the cocaine, we used close up shots, to show the intimacy and virtual
involvement we have with the character – sharing her emotions, Close ups of the
performer were also imperative as they gave us a link to the root of the song, and
helped us in understand/deciphering what the narrative was about.
As dubstep’s birthplace was London’s urban underground scene, we thought it only
right to convey this ‘scene’ in our music video.
Using a clash of the class systems, we made a point of showing both sides of London
city, On one hand we see the lavish 5-star hotel and expansive clothes, yet on the
other hand, the back streets of the West-end, alleyways and class A drugs, As we
chose such a niche genre, we were able to stretch our imagination and creativity.

3. Q2- How effective is the combination of your main product and
ancillary texts?
My group members and I felt that it was of utmost importance we break away from
current music video fads which shroud today’s entertainment industry, and create
something more innovative. We disregarded the surrealism, explosive flamboyant
colours and even animation (CGI) which can be seen in various artists’ videos such as
(e.g.: Nicki Minaj’s – ‘Massive attack’ & ‘your love’ and Kanye West’s ‘Heartless’ &
‘The good life’)
We took a more artistic route, predominately our obscure shots and story-telling
ability. During the editing period, we could properly manipulate colours/shots and
overlays in order to keep the atmosphere of the video consistent.
By having espoused the key elements of branding, our group was able to transfer and
develop features from the video onto the digipak, ensuring the continuation of ‘mood’
from video to digipak. For example, the performer’s seductive side is seen through the
use of red – connoting lust and anger, and the large kiss on the upper section of the
back cover suggests sassiness and allure.
As the viewer/audience will be more
inclined to purchase the digipak after
watching the video, it was imperative
we made sure they both complimented
each other through particular themes,
eg: Locations and colours.

4. Our digipak, following traditional forms and conventions, includes the name of the
song, a track list, extras – such as behind the scene footage, the name of the artist and
most importantly, the artist herself, Although one way in which we challenged them is
our use of heavy visual effects.
We considered it of importance that the artist was featured on the cover instead of
anything or anyone else, as it helps the artist to be identified and build up a persona/
connection with the consumer, because at the moment she is neither very well
‘known’ or mainstream yet.
In regards to our magazine advert, we kept consistent with the urban and ominous
mood which was evident in our music video and digipak, however in order to make it
more diverse, we decided on using a ‘3D’ effect so to preserve the warped mood of
the video, yet give the audience something new so to not loose their attention.
Although we used the same font for both the advert
and digipak to keep a sense of familiarity – and to
help recognise that both the pieces originated from
the same video.
The advert also follows forms and conventions as we
have shown the release date of the single,
An image of the artist and the name of the song, these
three things play a vital role in selling the product to
the audience, as it ensures that the viewer knows who
is singing the song, exactly when it’s due for release.
As the image plays the main role in capturing the
readers eye, so the inspiration for the use of 3D
visualisation was taken from our editor, Julio’s love
for rap artist; Tinie Tempah - his album for his debut single Pass Out, has extremely
simple, straightforward artwork, yet it is able to be an eye-catching image, making the
readers want to stop and stare.
It has not been uncommon to some magazine ads to make reference to voyeurism, but
we as a group felt that it had no importance in our advert as our video does not
contain anything outwardly sexual. With reference to intertexuality, it is evident that
our ad has been influenced by different types of artwork – mainly ‘modern art.
Overall, I feel that the mixture of our main product (music video) and the ancillary
texts (digipak and magazine advertisement) have worked well in unison and adopt the
key elements of branding.

5. Q3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?
When choosing our target audience, we had to bear in mind that since dubstep is a
niche genre we had to ensure that it would be aesthetically pleasing to the minority
that enjoy it.
We decided that we would have both males and females between the ages of 16 and
24 as our target audience – As dubstep is obviously a new genre we knew that it was
more likely to appeal to the younger audience who are more aware of fresh music and
artists. As a group we felt it wrong to only target certain genders or ethnicities, as
dubstep is of an acquired taste and anyone is able to listen to and like it.
Our target audience research provided us with evidence of what they most enjoyed
about our music video, From the research we found that everyone enjoyed the
narrative and visual arts but to our surprise ‘performance’ was one of the least
favourite – probably because many of the performance type videos are of the mainly
rock, punk or metal genre. Example – Aerosmith: ‘Dream on’ Official music video.
When constructing our video, we took our audience feedback into account and aimed
to present something which had a creative narrative and excellent visual arts as that’s
what our target audience find most appealing, While we also knew that they were not
too keen on the performance aspect, we still thought it would play an important role in
our video (helps to disseminate the face of the singer and make her known to the
audience and doesn’t make them feel empathetic towards the character in the
narrative).
We found that many of our target audience were mainly fans of commercial
R&B/hip-hop, with some also liking the occasional pop song, so therefore we made
sure our video contained certain aspects from these genres, eg: pretty girl and good
storyline.
When relating our music video to our target audience of 16-24yo, we thought that the
best way to do so was to have 2our main characters of that age range – We were able
to achieve this by using my friend 20 year old friend Joedy as the actress, this helped
the audience to connect with her and empathise, maybe even relating to some of
things she did/went through.

6. When compiling our audience feedback, we learnt that the target audience found our
magazine advertisement and music video to be more of a professional standard rather
than our digipak, Over 50% of our survey claimed that they were unable to grasp the
storyline fully, this was obviously disappointing for us as we had worked so hard on
ensuring it would make sense to everyone, nonetheless 80% said that they had found
the visual effects very pleasing, and that they were the main ingredient in creating a
good disjointed feeling within many of the sequences. One person had also suggested
that in order to give the video an even more disorientated feel we could have had
some rewind motions as Brooke was snorting the cocaine.
In regards to our digipak, over 60% of people said that
‘less is more’, they felt that over cluttering a digipak
makes it looks less professional – “simple and less
complex idea make the best digipaks”.
Our feedback also told us that our magazine
advertisement had managed to serve its purpose and
many people found it to properly convey the sense of
‘disorientation’, they were very fond of both the fond and
3D effects used.
Overall, I do feel that our final products effectively meet
the OCR briefs as we were capable of both retaining our
own creativity whilst successfully following and challenging the codes and
conventions of music videos.
As we also demonstrated quality technical skills, such as editing and camera shots, we
felt that our video was one which could be on par with any other video of professional
standard, Although when looking back on the final video cut, we did see some things
which we would have liked to change, such as using more characters of the streets
when Brooke is walking, making it more true to life and changing the last shot in
order to make the ending slightly stronger.
For us, one of the main elements of the entire music video was selling the artist in
order to make the audience want to go out and purchase the digipak – music, this
being one of the main reasons both large and small record labels utilize music videos.
We personally feel that our music video would be better suited to a smaller scale
(independent) record label, mainly because the music genre and video type is niche
and only targeting a small market, however we still hope that it will receive some type
of mainstream attention.

7. Q4 - How did you use new media technologies in the research,
planning, construction and evaluation stages?
When filming and editing our music videos, we had access to new technologies such
as apple editing software – new video cameras and equipment plus many internet
search engines and social networking sites, this was all a great help as it assisted us in
achieving an overall professional standard.
Primarily, during the early stages of development, we were able to use the internet as
a source to find information on things such as our chosen genre, job roles,
representation issues and background info on our band.
The two main websites
which we all used were Google and wikipedia – Google (search engine) helped us to
find relevant information on practically anything we needed, secondly wikipedia was
used if we needed more in-depth knowledge about something specific, such as codes
and conventions of branding and marketing -
These both also helped us in developing our
research skills.
Secondly I was able to use social networking
sites such as tumblr and facebook in order to
upload questionnaires and collate important
information, the entire process from uploading
to completing the questionnaires/surveys was
done online so information could be gathered
both quickly and efficiently, I was also able to
access a wider more diverse group of friends,
which I may not have been able to do if say, I
handed out the questionnaires in college.

8. During our stages of planning much of our work was hand written and then typed up
onto Microsoft word 2007 – when typed up we would either upload it directly onto
blogspot or condense the file and use slideshare, many people found slideshare easier
to use as it gave you the option to upload the file directly and not upload pictures
individually unlike blogspot, another advantage of using slideshare is that it presents
the work neatly and enables the user to browse easily.
During the stages of constructing our video,
we used a Cannon Xm2 for filming the
different scenes, the use of this camera
helped us as it was able to produce high definition and a greater quality in comparison
to other video cameras out there – Although our video was low-budget with better
quality we could better pass off out work as being of professional standard.
In regards to our editing, we used apple’s final cut pro programme, this ensured
precision of transitions amongst other things and gave us a wide variety of special
effects which we took full advantage of : manipulation of colour, fuzzy television
effects and blurred effects.
When creating our digipak I primarily sketched 4 possible ideas we could use and
develop, we then scanned each of then into Photoshop
alongside photographs of Sophia – our performer and
manipulated them until we found a suitable cover,
The Photoshop software allowed us play around with
different pictures and layer/overlap them creating
something more original and professional
looking, we also used dafont.com to help us chose a
correct font which would compliment the theme we
had running throughout the video. The same applied for
our magazine advert; we manipulated various
photographs of Sophia and then added different effects
until we created one worthy of the final product.

9. During the stages of evaluation, the video was converted and uploaded onto both
youtube and facebook, this ensured that we could collate feedback from people we
knew as well as unbiased feedback from people we were not so familiar with, this
helped a great deal as many of the youtubers gave us truthful opinions which helped
us greatly.
Overall, using modern technology helped to broaden our horizons positively and
helped us to familiarise ourselves with a more professional standard which we only
touched on lightly as AS level.