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

The first part of this evaluation will answer this question whilst referring to my video. The second part will refer to the ancillary products which were created along side the music video. we were given a choice to create a music video or film trailer and we chose a music video. our reason for choosing this was that we thought that our resources would be more eligible and also that we could include more media codes and conventions into a music video than in a film trailer. By establishing all of the codes and conventions for music videos and studying all of the iconography for them, we could make a rock music video. The final genre which was chosen was Rock.


THE MUSIC VIDEO

For our research we looked out for specific details of iconography on existing products. We looked at a range of music videos created by Rock bands and we also looked at similar videos from the genre of Pop because it was closely related to the band we chose which have been stereotyped as a 'Pop Rock kind of band'. We found that some of the conventions had a strong narrative, band shots, close-ups of instruments and use of slow motion. Also throughout the video the range of shots used were vast in terms of changing from shot to shot. The most common shots used in the music videos were mid-shots, long-shots, close-ups, tracking shots, panning shots and a pan and zoom shot. These shots were also added into our video and we tried to get the biggest range of shots possible, but at the same time keep it as consistent as possible. for example every band shot would have the same angle on the shot (a crane shot, which dips down and gets a higher angle on the shot).

The screenshot above shows you a picture of the opening clip of our music video. We started off by using a close up of the drummers foot kicking the bass drum. this shot was used and synchronised with the opening beat of the song to give the video a sense of rhythm. 

Above is a screenshot taken from a music video by 'The Fray'. Its a close-up shot of the snare drum with the drummers stick in the background at the top. this convention was innovated into our music video, and used in a different concept. the close up shot used above was just a quick 1 second shot which was used to establish the importance of the objects in the shot. 

Again here, if you compare the two shots, the one on the right was taken from the fray's music video and the one on the left was taken from our music video. the use of these shots are strictly to establish the importance of the shot and the objects/person in the shot.


We also found that the most common shot used was a mid-shot. Below is a shot which is used in our music video and its of a man sitting on a bench in what looks to be a park. we can tell this by just simply looking at the image and this is the main reason for using these mid-shots, its so that the audience can establish who, what and where they are in the video. we can instantly tell that its a man and we can instantly see where he is. not so much what he's doing though, but that comes through with the Mise-En-Scene of the whole video. The mid-shot is sometimes supported or refereed to otherwise as an establishing shot. 

Below, we can see a screenshot from a music video I have researched and found a shot very similar, but used in a completely different way.  

This shot here shows, clearly, two people sitting on a bed looking sad. We can tell this by their posture and expressions. What supports this fact is the colour of the shot; the director has used a black and white effect on the clip so that it supports the story line throughout the video. 


Band shots are also a very popular shot used in rock band music videos, and they support the fact that the music being played throughout the video was created by them and not computer generated like hip-hop music for instance. 

We found that by adding band shots into our video we would be supporting strong codes and conventions for rock music video and it also effects and contributes to the verisimilitude of the video. These shots can tend to move away from the narrative sometimes so we decided to link them to our narrative that that we knew that every shot in the video made an impact on the finished product.     


We used transitions in the editing of our music video to show continuity. We used cross dissolves between most shots to make the video flow a lot smoother. If we used a lot of different transitions then the video will end up being confusing and could possibly distract the audiences attention away from the narrative. 


ANCILLARY TASKS


The two main ancillary tasks i done were creating an 'Im There' poster and also 4 bus banners. each of which containing a different member of the band. to create both of these i used Adobe Photoshop CS3. In the past i had used this software before so it gave me a head start into creating the products. i also done some more research in existing products for my ancillary tasks. The first steps i took into researching these products were on google images. The images below support my research from this.  

 

I came up with a good sketched out plan of what i wanted to create and what colours, font and size i was going to have each element. I also looked into how the house style could be carried on throughout my teams work as well. I then had to proof read each part and the decided whether every component was eye-catching and supported its correct codes and conventions. Below is my final ancillary product of the i'm there poster and also my bus banners.