Final Products

Evaluation Questions

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

2. How effective is the combination of my main product and ancillary texts?

3. What have I learned from my audience research?

4. How did I use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Evaluation Question 1

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

When I decided to do my music video using Playmobil, I tried to find some music videos done using stop frame. A lot of videos have been done using Playmobil but most of them aren't music videos, or if they are, they have been done badly. The best two I have found are the two that are above. I liked these two videos as they looked really good and the video worked well with the chosen song. I wanted my music video to break the conventions of existing music videos in the rock genre as I felt that all the other ideas I had had been done before and where over-used. I didn't want to do what has been done before and I liked the idea of doing a stop frame so I chose this over a video that involved a full cast of people.  Originally I was going to do my whole video as a stop frame apart from the beginning and end like I did in my first draft. I knew I wanted a narrative to my video as I find that they are easier to follow and keep the audience watching. Abstract videos do look good but I didn't feel that it would fit with my song as it is quite a fun, upbeat song. 

For a lot of the parts of my video, the editing was too slow for the movement, so I changed my idea slightly to show behind the scenes and the processes. I really wanted to do my whole video as a stop frame but the ideas that I had for the music video would have been very difficult to do due to the camera needing to stay in one position. The main issue I had was with the characters falling over when I moved them. I think this looks better as it is now than before. I think the video is better to watch now that it isn't all stop frame. So, I am even breaking the conventions of the Playmobil stop frames that have been done before. Some of the video is quite repetitive so more filming will need to be done in order to change this. But I am much happier with how it looks. I was worried how it would look when I combined the stop frame with the clips of the boy as I didn't want the narrative to become confusing. But I think it works quite well and is more effective than just a stop frame.

I changed my idea further to include clips of the boy on the beach as I had repeated the guitar sequences a lot. I chose the beach as it provided me with a wider range of clips to use but still fit with the theme and feel of my music video. This is what it looks like now:

I am really happy with how this edit looks compared to my last one. It allowed me to get more footage and create more moments in the video that are funny. 

The Original Music Video

I really liked the idea of the original video and wanted to create the same idea of having fun with your friends/band in the summer. I still stuck with this idea but changed it so that it was Playmobil rather than real people. I liked the idea of sticking to the conventions expected of a song in this genre like the band practice, the costume of the characters and the live performance. But I wanted to break the usual conventions. By making elements of my video using Playmobil, it makes my music video Postmodern because it isn't real. I tried to make my music video as fun to watch as possible as this fits with the song. The song is about having fun and enjoying the summer so I tried to reflect this in my video. I also tried to make it funny in places as this also reflects the fun nature of the song. I did consider at one point making an abstract video but decided against it when I realised it wouldn't work with my song choice. 

It is also aware of itself as a media text because the video shows the behind the scenes and processes the boy did in order to make the video. It is also self-reflexive as it is drawing attention to it's fictional nature. I tried to combine the stop motion and behind the scenes together. Not a lot of videos show the behind the scenes within the actual music video so I did it in mine as I found it looked better than just a stop frame. 

I tried to keep with the idea of the original music video when I had the main character and his love interest. I also wanted to include the band practice as I liked this in the video and wanted to do this in my video too. 

Similar Shots

When choosing what to include in my video, I had a look at some existing products of the same/similar genre of music. I wanted to have shots in my video that were used in other videos and would make the video conventional.

When deciding that I wanted the boy in my video to pretend to play guitar in my video, I had a look at McBusted 'Air Guitar'. This is a screen shot I took from the video to show why I have decided to use this in my music video. I liked the idea of having a mixture of stop frame and clips of the boy making the video. I also wanted clips of him playing the air guitar as I liked how this added to the fun element of the music video. I think if I had used a real guitar, it wouldn't have had the same effect as an air guitar does. By having him play the air guitar, it shows that he is doing it to the song and is just enjoying himself. If I had used a real guitar, it would have seemed less real and would have taken away from the fun of the video. Having an air guitar makes it appear improvised and shows that he genuinely likes the song. Using this medium shot allows the audience to see what he is doing. The 'Air Guitar' video also used this shot which is why I chose to do it. I could have used a long shot which would have showed his whole body but it would have taken attention away from what he is doing and wouldn't have been as effective.

In the stop frame, I want to show the band practicing in a garage because this is the stereotypical place people think of when bands are practicing. This is a screen shot from the 5 Seconds of Summer video 'Amnesia'. Having a band practice is an idea that I took from the original video. In the original video, the band practice is a bigger portion of the video compared to how much it is shown in mine. But I still wanted to include it as I think it looks really effective when it has been used in existing music videos. For the shot in my music video, I chose to do the rule of thirds as I thought this would look better. I wanted the audience to be able to see the props and see enough of the background in order to establish where the characters are. 

The main character in my music video is my little brother. I have seen a few videos that include young children in them instead of the artist. This is a screen shot from McFly's 'Love is on the Radio'. This is to mirror the part of my video where the boy is showing his home-made placards. The shot I will be further away from his face than this one is but it is quite similar. I wanted to show as many clear shots of the boy as I could as it was him that made the stop frame. Like in the 'Love is on the Radio' video, I used a medium close-up as I didn't need his whole body to be in shot. I just needed people to be able to see the placards he is holding up.

There is a part in the video where the two characters are on the porch. I tried to use an image of a house that is similar to this one. This is a screen shot taken from 5 Second of Summer's 'She's Kinda Hot'. I liked the idea of having the two characters together outside the house as it was an opportunity to show that they are in love. This was done in the original video but it wasn't the same as it is in my music video. But the idea of having the two characters alone is what I wanted to re-create. In the 'She's Kinda Hot' video, it is used as an establishing shot, whereas I used this half way through the video. 

There is a few parts of the video that are going to be band performance. This is used in a lot of music videos in this genre. These two screen shots are taken from Green Day 'American Idiot' and 5 Seconds of Summer 'She Looks so Perfect'. Band performance is used in most rock music videos so I decided to do this in mine. As my music video breaks most of the conventions expected, I wanted their to be some familiarity to the rock genre. I wanted people to be able to watch the music video without sound and still be able to identify it as a rock song. By having the characters in the costumes they are in, and the different backdrops, I think I have managed to do this. I used a long shot like in the two videos because I wanted to create the impression that they are on stage. I chose to do a high angle shot instead of a low angle because I wanted to create the sense that they are being filmed from high up as part of a live performance, possibly for TV.

Breaking Conventions

Mainly my music video breaks conventions of a rock video as it isn't done with real people. The only real person I have in it is a little boy. Although, some music videos in this genre do have children in them to replace the artist, it isn't what is done in the majority of rock music videos. Even the narrative to my video breaks the conventions because it is about a boy making a stop frame for a school project. Most music videos in this genre are about smoking, drugs, sex, women etc. I didn't want to conform to this idea as it has been used so many times. That was the main reason I decided to go with the idea I have done. My whole promotional package is about breaking conventions which is what creates continuity and makes it different from other existing products. Even in my magazine advert I am breaking conventions by it not filling the page. I was going to fill the page but it wouldn't be breaking conventions like the rest of my products.

Colour

The original music video was done all in black and white. I didn't like this idea for my music video as I didn't feel that it would reflect my idea. Most of the videos in the rock genre are done in colour so this conforms to what is expected. I was going to have the stop frame in black and white and the clips of the boy either side in colour to show that the stop frame is set earlier. I decided against this in the end as I combined the behind the scenes and stop frame into one video. I think if I had done the parts of actual stop frame in black and white, it would have been confusing for the audience. There isn't a lot of stop frame in my video so changing to black and white would have not looked right. I think it would have looked like it was from a different video and wouldn't have flowed with the overall video. So I kept the whole video in colour.

Editing

The most common type of editing used in rock music videos is fast paced. When I make changes to my video, I will need to make the editing faster to reflect this convention. 

The pace of editing in this part of the video is the kind of pace I need throughout when I am putting in the clips of the boy. I also need to add some effects to the clips like making them flash or make the lighting change. Having the image flash on the part where the boy is playing air guitar would emphasise what he is doing and will make it fit better with the song. The faster paced editing will look good on the parts of the song where there isn't any singing. I also did a time lapse of a clock to show how quickly time passes. I did this for the line 'nothing can last forever'. I felt that this was the best way to show how quickly time passes us by. I have seen time lapses used in existing music videos and I really liked how it looked.

The parts of the video where the boy is moving the characters is sped up compared to what it was like when I filmed it. I did this as it was better for showing what the boy was doing and it gives the audience a better idea of what the boys finished school project will look like. I also did it to show the audience how a stop frame is done. By speeding it up, I feel that it puts emphasis on how long the process of making a stop frame really is.

Cinematography

This is the first shot of my music video. The conventional first shot of a music video would be an establishing shot in order to show the audience where the action is taking place. As my music video is constantly breaking conventions, I decided to make this start from the very first shot. Instead of an establishing shot I chose to do a medium shot. This breaks the usual conventions but still establishes where the action is taking place. It is still clear to the audience that the video is taking place inside a house despite the fact its not an establishing shot.

I used an over-the-shoulder shot for the this part of the video to show the audience what the boy has just got out of his bag. I chose this shot as it allows the audience to see what the boy is seeing. It also lets them know what the narrative of the video is. I only used this shot for a few seconds as the whole point is that the audience see that the piece of paper says 'Class Project'. The audience don't need to read the rest of the piece of paper in order to understand the narrative. Over-the-shoulder shots aren't used in many music videos as the videos are filming the artists rather than what they are looking at. So, this also breaks the conventions.

I used a low angle shot for the time lapse of the clock. I was originally going to do the shot of the clock so that the camera was level with the clock but I opted to use a low angle. I did this to show that time dominates us all and the time lapse shows how quickly time goes by. As the video is mainly about how time has gone by and how much everything has changed, I needed to have a clock featured in the video somewhere.

I used a similar shot for the end of the video as I did for the beginning of the video. I did this because the closing of the door at the end makes the video come to a definite stop. The same as the opening of the door at the beginning starts the narrative. I also think doing this completes the narrative and doesn't leave the audience wondering what will happen next.

While filming this part of the song, I wasn't sure how to do it to show how upset the character was. In the first couple of edits, I did it so he sat down on a chair, but this didn't really make it look like he was really upset. My actor suggested I make a rain cloud and cut up some pieces of paper for rain. I did use this idea in the end. I used it because it was actually his idea which shows that it accurately shows how a 9 year old would show sadness. When I watched the footage back, I realised it was out of focus. I was going to re-film it but I thought it looked really good because not only did it show he was sad, but it also showed the characters confusion about the break up of the band. I used this shot in the video to remind the audience of how old the child is. Rain/rain clouds are used to show the sadness the character is experiencing. 

Mise-en-scene

The use of the superman bag and school uniform allows the audience to identify that he is a school-age child. I decided to use a superman bag as this gives the audience a little bit of background information about what the boy likes. It is also something the male audience will be able to relate with as a lot of men liked superheroes when they were younger. They may have even had a similar bag when they were at school.

This is the first shot that shows the boy making the video. I wanted to show that he is using a box and some printed out sets to make his music video. This shows that he is using what he has at home to make the video and is being creative with it. By showing this throughout the video, it reminds the audience that it is just something he is making as a fun school project. It is also more realistic to show this as it shows that he hasn't got really expensive set. It is just something fun for him to do.

I used placards to introduce the stop frame video. I chose to do this as I liked how it looked and it showed the theme of going back in time. Placards aren't really used now so I got my actor to use them to introduce the idea of going back in time and I thought it would look much better visually than just some text on the screen.

I used Playmobil as the characters in the boys music video. I chose these as they are toys that a child of his age has and is a realistic toy that he would use to make a video. It also reminds the audience that it is a young boy who is making this video and that he is just using things he has at home. 

Conventions

These are the conventions of a magazine advert. I have included all of them apart from the image of the album cover as I didn't feel like I needed it as my digipak cover is very similar to the advert itself. All of the other conventions are included on my advert. I looked at existing magazine adverts for ideas of what I needed to include on my advert.

I was going to make my advert similar to these as I liked the idea of having the main image as a cartoon. When I had a look through images I had on my camera, I really liked the image that I used because it was taken while I was on holiday and looked summery. I was going to keep it in colour but I made a black and white version to see what it would look like and I preferred the black and white one over the coloured one. I wanted to keep the theme of summer in my advert but I didn't want to carry on the toy/cartoon theme. I think my advert looks better as an abstract piece alongside my other two products as it still keeps in the theme of breaking conventions.

Conventions of a digipak:

• images
• barcode
• tracklist
• record label logo and information
• discs
• name of artist and album

I have included all of these conventions on my digipak. I tried to use a lot of different images with me using the same image for my advert and front cover of the digipak. I found existing digipaks that had a wider range of images were more effective than those that had very few images. I tried to link my music video into the digipak by having images from the music video. I tried to make it so that they didn't look about of place by changing the opacity so that they didn't stand out so much that they didn't look like they were misplaced.

This is the back of a digipak I looked at to see what I needed to include on the back. I knew I needed the tracklist, barcode and the record label logo, but I wasn't sure what I needed to write in terms of the record label and the distribution. I didn't use the same positioning as this product as I didn't think it looked good. I looked at a few other backs of digipaks to see what they were like but I used this one as I could see what the small writing said and could use it as a rough template for my product.

This is the digipak I looked at to get an idea of what the inside of mine should look like. I took the idea of having a different print on the disks from the background as I thought this looked better in my product.

I thought by doing it like this rather than have the background image continue onto the discs, it would make them stand out more. I did like the idea of making the two discs look like vinyls as this would add to the theme of looking back in time, but I chose not to do this as I didn't feel that it would fit with m video as I made no reference to vinyls. As for the inside images, I chose not to have any writing on them as I didn't feel like this was needed. I wanted to use these two panels to be for images taken from the music video. I thought this would be better for linking the products all together as it uses the same image as the advert for the front, uses some of the advert image for the back and behind the discs and it has images from the video. I used the digipak as a way of linking all three products together and show that they are all part of one promotional package.

Theories that apply to my video

Tessa Perkins

Perkin's theory applies to my music video because the characters I used in the video fit the stereotype of a band. They have clothing on that is expected from  a band in this genre and they are playing guitars which is also a stereotype of a rock band. The boy in my video also fits the stereotype of a child his age when he uses Playmobil to make the video. It is expected that a boy of this age enjoys playing with toys like this.

Sven Carlsson

Carlsson's theory applies to my music video because my video falls into one of the three groups that he says music videos fall into. My music video has a narrative so therefore, conforms to his theory.

Jean Baudrillard

Postmodernism applies to my music video as it isn't real. The use of toys in the video shows that it isn't real. It is also aware of itself as a media text when it shows the boy doing the stop frame and changing set around. It is always drawing attention to the fact that it isn't real.

Pam Cook

The video has a high degree of narrative closure because it starts and ends with the boy going through the door. It also shows its fictional nature by providing the story line of a boy doing a school project. 

Jason Mittell

I used costumes on the Playmobil that are familiar to the audience as they are similar to costumes of existing artists. The use of guitars and mics also shows that the video is a rock song and this helps sell it as a product.

David Buckingham

The idea that genre changes conforms to my music video because it is a rock song but the video isn't what is expected visually. By using Playmobil and having a little boy as my actor, it shows the change in genre.

John Fiske

All of the shots are of the boy on his own. By filming him on his own, it shows that he has made the project by himself. 

Blumer and Katz

The video is made for people within the target audience to relate to. I wanted people to watch my music video and it take them back to when they were little and played with their toys and went to the beach.

My advert and digipak

I wanted to place my two products in places where they would be seen if they were released. I did this so I could see how they looked against existing products and how they would look in real life places.

I also put my song in a music chart that it would appear in (it is the second one down in the chart)

Evaluation Question 2

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

Audience Feedback Survey

These are the responses I have got from my survey

From the feedback I got from Survey Monkey, I can see that the majority liked my three products. This survey was sent out to people at college (16-19 year olds), so they all fall within my target audience age range. I was worried that my products (mainly my video) wouldn't appeal to my target audience with it involving Playmobil, but thankfully it does. I do still have changes that I need to make to it but I am glad to see that people like what I have done so far. I have shown my music video to other people in college and they have liked it too. Some people mentioned that there needs to be more variety of shots, which I am going to shoot over the Easter holidays. I have been told that some shots on the beach might look goo as they fit with the theme and will create a wider variety of shots. Having a beach at the end of my street means that filming there will be easy as it is not far to go and I can go back another day and do more filming if I need to. Overall, I have had very positive feedback from my three products.

Advert and Digipak

I tried to make my magazine advert as simple as possible with my music video having a lot going on. I also tried to keep the colours to a minimum (excluding the logos) with my music video being in colour.












 I kept with the theme of breaking the conventions by making my advert not fill the page. The reason it doesn't fill the page is that I made the image I had into a circle. I was going to fill in the background but I didn't like how it looked. I think it is quite effective that my advert is really simple because it contrasts my music video but still fits within the promotional package. With the image being taken while I was on holiday, I felt that it fit with the theme of Summer. I made the image black and white to try and create the sense of it being old (with the music video being about looking back in time). By doing this, it makes the advert quite abstract which also contrasts my music video as my video has a narrative.

When I changed my music video, I added in footage that I took over the Easter holidays which I shot on the beach. When I started editing my footage together, I realised that some of the pieces of footage had a pink tint to them, which I didn't notice while filming. To get rid of this, I had to change them to black and white. I did this to all the clips from the beach. I was worried about how it would look as the rest of my music video is in colour. But I really like how it looks. It also creates continuity between the video and the magazine advert as the advert is also in black and white. I think the footage looks better in black and white by making it look more abstract which is like the magazine advert.

My digipak doesn't really have a colour scheme because I wanted it to be similar to my music video. I also wanted it to contrast my magazine advert. However, the main colour used on my digipak is blue from the cloud background. This can also link to the music video as the boy has a blue school uniform on. I really liked the clouds as a background for some of the panels of my digipak so I used it quite a lot. I did change the opacity of my digipak as I wanted it to be in colour but I didn't want it to be really bright.

Before I settled on a font that I would use on all of my products, I did some research so I could find a font that would best fit with the idea of my products and worked well with the message I am trying to give.

I had a look at a lot of fonts, I chose these fonts from a website called 1001fonts. The one I liked the most was this one:

I really liked this font because of the worn look it has. I was going to use this one as I liked it and thought it would go well with the idea of looking back in time. The worn look made it look quite old which also goes with the idea of me having my advert and parts of my video in black and white. I didn't end up choosing this font as I wanted to make one that was more individual. This was to work with the idea of having the Playmobil.

This is the font I made for my magazine advert. I liked that it is bold but still had the slightly worn look. I didn't end up choosing this font though as I didn't like how it looked on my magazine advert. I had a look at the fonts on Photoshop and found this one.

I really liked how this font looked as it still fits with my idea of looking old as I feel like it looks like a typewriter. I went with this font as I liked that it still stood out but didn't take away from the images I had used.

The font that I used for the album title 'Reckless' was also used on my digipak. I did this to create continuity between the two products. I chose this font as it seemed almost like a typewriter which I thought fit in with the theme of the past. Although, a typewriter isn't used in my music video, I liked how it fit in with the theme. I also used the cloud background to link the products together. The cloud background was taken from my original image. I used it on my digipak on a few of the panels and it is on my advert (in black and white).

When I made changes to my music video, I added the old video recording effect as I felt that this looked better and clearly distinguished the difference between the actual footage and the recordings. I also think it makes it a bit funny as it is called 'Alexcam', which is the name of my character. For this, I used the same font that I used on my advert and digipak to create more continuity between all of my products.

What would I have done differently if I could do it again

If I could make all three products again, I would have done more research into stop frame and how to do it well as I really struggled with this. My main struggle was getting the camera to stay in exactly the same place with me taking all my photos individually. I would have also recorded more footage than I needed as I don't have enough for my video. So I have repeated a lot of the footage. I should have used more locations in my video as it is limited to my house and the back garden. When I do some extra filming, I am going to do some on the beach as this will mean that there will be less repeated footage and will mean I have more than one location. It will also mean I can be more creative with my footage and will have more room to work with when filming. I need to put more effects on my footage as I haven't really put any on it.

This is the latest and final edit of my music video. I posted it onto Facebook for people to look at and comment on. After posting it, I received two texts about it.

I have also had verbal feedback from my Mum. All the feedback I have received has been positive and by people who do not fall within my target audience age range. I have also shown my video to some people at college who do fall within my target audience age range, and they like it too. I am really happy with how my music video has turned out and that it appeals to people inside and outside of the age range I was aiming the product at.