Evaluation

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

Our Media products we have looked at the conventions of the chosen genre (Alternative Rock), we created 10 digi-pak images, 2 posters that aim for different audiences, a front cover and a back cover. We also created a music video, which we feel in synthesis with print product, keeps to the conventions of the alternative rock genre. In looking for which artist to create a music video, we looked at Alternative Rock songs that were quite well known, and decided to use All the Small Things by Blink 182, however  since they were a massive band, we seeked to get permission from a cover artist called Tweeda. When we wanted to create our music video we looked at existing music videos from the genre , such as Sum41 and Linkin park, and we want to follow the conventions of the genre (the inclusion of drugs, sex, music, relationships), and also have 2 parts to the video, which is the live performance and the narrative section.  In creating this Music video, we feel we have met the conventions of the usual alternative rock  conventions within our narrative piece, with the inclusion of sex and drugs and alcohol, and also with the live performance we wanted performances that would similar to other videos in the genre, with the frontman being the main centre of attention, as well as the main center of attention in the narrative piece. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lxjGwxMaN8s

Narrative

The Narrative section of our music video’s is heavily influenced by the genre we were trying to replicate, with influences like Linkin Park, Sum 41 and 30 Seconds to Mars. In our video we wanted to be associated with the likes of these bands and follow the trends of these music videos. In the music video,. We wanted a very clear and concise Storylie, something that wasn’t too elaborate and easily identifiable, similar to the Wheetus song ‘Teenage Dirtbag Music Video’.  In the Wheetus video, there is a clearly difference between the live performance and the Narrative, and the narrative follows along the lines of a young man going through life an dmeeting a young girl despite the troubles of school life. The video focuses almost completely on the young man and later in the second half on their relationship between the girl.

However, we wanted to go the extra mile with our story, unlike Wheetus, and we wanted to include the common themes of teenagers, like sex and drugs, whilst still having the main focus of it being somewhat a love story. As you can see with the compariosns with Wheetus (Above) and ours (Below) we feel we have replicated the conventions of the music videos well.

For the Live performance, we wanted to have a very stark difference between the narrative, so we could clearly see which one had obviously taken place first (The Narrative) and that the Live performance was like an aftermath of that event. With the live performance we wanted to have a clear connection with the narrative conventions of the alternative rock genre, which includes the camera work having lots of random shots ranging from medium shots, to extreme close ups and so forth, we also need to have the front-man predominately in the video, with it cutting at parts occasionally to other band members when it's their 'part' ('Na na na na' in our case). As you can see from t he comparison, we have gone for a more sombre look in our narrative, unlike Wheetus' More lively performance  but the aspects remain the same, each both have a range of shots and both  use the conventions of the Alternative Rock Genre.

Print Products

When designing our print products, we changed our minds, reiterate, scrapped them then changed again, throughout this process we looked at existing print products by other bands like Enter Shikari and The Killers, and we discovered that they all have their own identity and a symbol that they felt they symbolise themselves with, like the Triangle of Enter Shikari, and for our project we wanted to create something similar. Originally we thought we wanted something rather Punk is and something rough and sketchy, in line with the conventions of very loose and abstract drawing the average teenager might do.

Originally, we agreed we liked this and wanted to take it down this route, and the feedback was good, but after doing some more work in our spare time, we thought 'Why can't we make the print product even moire messy and really expressive, so that we can link to the conventions but also have a very strong iconography  So we began work on a new style of album cover, and to keep in line with the conventions, we tried to create something that was colourful, something that would look like it would be on an Alternative Rock album and something that be unique aswell, and be associated with Tweeda (our Artist). Aswell for the album cover, we wanted to make a statement that rather than the album cover be riddled with Stickers and reviews and TWEEDA all over it. We wanted simply the picture and the parental advisory, to show that it is more about the music, rather than the name, and furthering this view that we wanted the artwork and the iconography to stand out. In our Print products, we utilized new forms o media such as QR codes, which cna be scanned from any Iphone or Android phone, and a message appears 'TWEEDA SAYS BUY THIS ALBUM'.

For our Posters, we wanted to continue the same trend, with only the iconography being the center fold, but we soon reaslised we would have to make 2 poster, for the simple reason, if you had the simple poster in lets say the Daily Mail, noone is going to know who they are, and without reviews and publications backing it up, no one is going to care about it, and it's a necessary evil in that sense. So we created a poster that would be in a magazine that would be aimed at the Alternative Rock fans themselves, and a second one, which would be aimed at a larger audience who don't know who Tweeda are, or are passing fans of alternative Rock.


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

With our project we wanted, a video piece, and our print products to go well together as a form of synergy, but not necessarily look similar together. As we found in our research, the music videos in typical bands don’t usually follow the look of the album, and they are treated as an individual item (and are usually created well before the print material is even designed), yet their print products can be link to their Genre.

However, we feel that the themes within the Music video link well with the Print products and the connotations within the print products. With the Print Products, we felt strongly about having a deep sense of iconography,  as you can see, we wanted a few links to video and other link to just general teenage culture itself. As we have to crudely drawn Alcohol bottle in the Digi-pak, and then Reece and Emily drinking in the Video, as well as the drugs symbol and the sex symbol in the Digi-pak, is also reflected in the Video where we have them also. With the print products, we wanted to maintain a form of Artistic integrity and a form of originality, something that defines TWEEDA itself,  With our Baushaus text, swirl logo and the lack of a logo on the front, and with the video, we feel that all together we have created products that go for the theme that ‘It’s all about the Art and Music’ and not about the money’. Which links to the Posters we created, which we created 2 posters to link with the theme of ‘All about the music and Art’, with one being a simplistic poster that would be in the indie magazine with no reviews, whereas another with loaded amount of reviews and websites, to portray this as a necessary evil.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We conducted a number of interviews, of people of different ages and those who have interests in the alternative rock genre, and those who don’t, to gather a broad range of thoughts and criticism. Mostly, our feedback was very positive, many felt that the video flowed well, and that the story was easy to follow and the range of shots were excellent. A few quips about the Video was that at times some people felt some parts of the story weren’t necessary (Richard commented that he thought the drinks weren’t necessary in his opinion). The audience also felt in relation to the alternative rock genre it matches well with what they see of the typical conventions of the genre and other bands they have seen (Linkin Park and All Time Low), and were able to make links to them and ours, and alos make links to teenage culture with refrence to Alcohol and drugs etc.

The Print products were alos praised for beign professional and well-made, many felt that the digi-pak was very creative, and had a original look to it, and the the main swirl could be used as an icon for TWEEDA effectively. However, there were some points that the audience made about the Print products that they didn’t like, such as some of the icons, which felt they were too different from each other, or that they didn’t fit. Ben mentioned that the Pug wasn’t particularly good (However it is arguably the best part), and Richard thought that the Digipak was abit tacky.

Overall however, the praise for our Video and print products was brilliant, vast majority really liked them and at the end we got mostly 9/8 out of 10’s for our work and only 1 bad review.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BneBjrgoyfs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiCBAX3XDzY

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

Throughout the projuct, we have used many different technologies in our project. From the beginning we use diferent social media networks and different video websites to research videos in the genre we were looking at, such as using Youtube and Vimeo for actual Music Videos, and using Myspace and Facebok for researching Bands and their print products.

For the construction we used a number of different programs and software to create our video, such as Premiere Pro and Elements, we used these video editing software packages to make a more refined and more professional video with slicker cuts and the ability to render in HD. To actually film the video we used Katie’s Canon 600D, which is a DSLR which packs more of a punch than usual cameras, with it’s very high megapixel camera  and that It can shoot in 1080p and has manual focus.  For the print products, again we used computer software to create the images, with Photoshop Elements and Photoshop CS3, within these I was able to create digitally edited images quickly and effectively, and I also used my Wacom Bamboo Tablet, which allows me to actually draw onto the computer software. This saved valuable time, as if I was drawing with normal pen and paper, and then had to scan each image in and then edit it again on Photoshop, it would of taken us at least twice as long.

For our evaluation and interviews, we again used the same technology that we used for our actual Video, using Adobe Premiere Elements and Katie’s Canon, we also used our Digipak images, and imported them onto the video as well, and also overlapped our actual music video into as well, to give a more professional quality look, as if it looked like a real documentary.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bPSGMevQ1X0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nNnRl71VH1k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AsI3H21Qso4