The final video

The final website

http://bbjonty.wixsite.com/ramoso-official

The final digipak

Evaluation Task 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

A media form is the overall shape of media product, e.g. a music video. A media convention is an expected style of structure typically used inside of a genre within a media form, e.g. the conventions of a pop video would include high key lighting, bright colours, etc. An example of a media convention of a music video would be the time and length (3-5 minutes long), performance and stylistic elements or a combination of several of these conventions. Conventions can be split into technical conventions and symbolic conversations. Technical conventions include how the video is typically filmed, lit, shot and edited. Symbolic conventions incorporate how costumes, performance, sets and props are used in a specific genre. We follow conventions because it is a "tried and tested formula, which has been deemed to be successful".

In my video we have challenged and agreed to many conventions in the genre of our artist. The genre of our artist we have created is EDM. EDM is an umbrella term for many genres within, such as, dance, house, techno, drum and bass, etc.

TECHNICAL CONVENTIONS

Editing conventions 

In this genre we a typical editing convention is the use of fast rhythmic editing on the beat. This is shown in an examples below. This short clip of Calvin Harris' My Way shows fast rhythmic editing on the 'drop' of the music. This represents a convention which we used across many EDM music videos, including ours (also shown below). Rhythmic editing (cutting to the beat) is used to emphasise the beat of the track and the pace of the music. 

Along with this another convention which we developed in our music video was the use of discontinuity editing. We used discontinuity editing through the use of our graphic match created in the editing process. We used the idea of discontinuity editing as a part of our video (on the 'drop') as we wanted a piece of editing to capture the audience as this idea of the graphic match is something which is a limited form as it isn't shown very often, but it will capture the audience as it is something which is a visually stimulating for the them to watch. To show a similarity with other music videos in our genre (EDM) I have compared it to Skrillex and Justin Bieber's Where Are Ü Now. This similarity of discontinuity editing is shown below:

Lighting conventions

In this genre, the use of this technical area is very important, especially in this genre. This is because in this genre of music it is about the 'drop' of the song as it is the part which the audience look towards. In doing this we have developed the convention of setting a club scene/the type of lighting they would be using in a club scene. In our music video we have used this convention to emphasise the idea that our artist is a performer. An example which I have used to show a similarity with other music videos in the same genre is Calvin Harris' This Is What You Came For. I have chosen this song from many as it clearly shows the use of lighting on the 'drop' of the song (developing the convention).

Camera conventions

In this genre there are many camera conventions, such as the use of tracking shots in the artists music video. There is a use of tracking shots in this genre (EDM) so that the audience is able to follow the artist as they are on the stage of the music video as the camera techniques used allow a full view of the band members individually. In the case of my artist we use this convention so that the audience are able to view each band member easily but that they can identify the main artist of the group. A video to show the use and development of this convention of camera techniques is Daft Punk's Get Lucky (shown below).

Along with tracking shots another convention which I have shown in my music video is a close up on the key line of the song. This is shown in many EDM music videos, such as 'Radioactive' by Anna Lunoe. This is shown in my music video when we here the start of the chorus with the lyrics of "I hear the nightcall". The use of this convention shows that we wanted to create a connection between the audience and our artist by having a clear shot of the main artist on the key line of the song causing the audience to create a link with the main line and our artists face, overall helping him generate his 'star image'.

This convention is shown across many other EDM artists. This is mainly because, as well as making a connection with the artist, it really 'shows off' the ability of our artist. The close up/clear shot of our artist on the key line of the song really emphasised our artist's look making the audience remember him and his name. We helped our artist with the use of a shallow depth of field to make him more attractive and making him stand out and we did this with a special lens (50mm).

SYMBOLIC CONVENTIONS

Costume conventions

In my music video we have developed a costume convention of our artist having a uniform. We gave him a piece of uniform to help audiences remember his name and his music. Along with this we also gave him (as well as the whole group) the uniform so that they were seen as a unity. However, we did challenge the idea of uniform conventions in this genre as the uniform of our artist was building dungarees. Usually a convention of uniform in this genre (when it is used) tend to be a hair style or an accessory which the artist will have at all times to make them individual. This is different to our artist as his is an item of clothing which is seen straight away by the audience and it is worn by the whole crew, therefore showing that he isn't focusing on his fame and that he is about the music which he creates. An example of this within our genre is Deadmau5.

WEBSITE CONVENTIONS

Layout conventions

A convention of the layout in my genre (EDM) is the ability to navigate around the website homepage easily. This is done by having titles at the top of the page (listed) and, in our case, having easily seen tabs to, again, help the audience around the website as swiftly as possible. Research was done to check the conventions of this, this is shown below. 

Along with this convention there is also the convention of having stills of the artist and what the artist loved doing with his life (music). Our website has developed these conventions in a way that will help him rise as an up and coming artist, but also in a way that will make the audience realise that he is about his music. My website homepage is shown below to show the way that it had used and developed these conventions of homepage in this genre.

DIGIPAK CONVENTIONS

Colour conventions

Within the digipak sector of my coursework my group and I performed research into the colour that digipaks in our genre include on their digipaks. I found that artists in this genre tend to use bright colours to make them stand out amongst other artists. This is shown below by many artists, such as Chainsmokers and Galantis. We developed this convention in our digipak as one of our main aims was to have colour as the focus of our digipak. The use of this convention was effective because it allowed us to really make our up and coming artist to stand out amongst this large genre. 

Evaluation Task 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and its ancillary text?

Notes I created for evaluation task:

Notes David created for this evaluation task:

Notes Jonty made for evaluation task 2:

Answer:

Evaluation Task 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Stage 1: The Conceptual Stage

This stage took place at the start of my A2 media studies course (September, 2016). This is where we presented 3 or 4 ideas of our own as concepts. From these ideas which I presented to my class I gained some feedback on them.

The main feedback points which I created was that location and lest would play a large part when reviewing a final product. For example for my first initial idea, it was discussed that the idea would need a specific/interesting location(s) for my idea to fully work. This was due to the idea that I would be able to burn through my shots very quickly and, therefore, the audience would get bored and dislike the video. This was a similar situation with my second idea as I would need to generate very aesthetically pleasing and fascinating shots to fulfil the full two-and-a-half minutes.

After this we all (as a class) presented our abstracts we got into our groups (Jonty, David and I) and received the feedback from our class about our initial ideas we would discuss our ideas and cut them down to just three, one each. These ideas we would then develop further. We chose to go forward with Jonty’s Skrillex song called Recess, David’s idea of having a split screen telling two stories but them linking in the end and I chose my Izzy Bizu song idea called White Tiger. After discussing as a group about creating two ideas which would need to be created we came to a conclusion of two ideas (shown below).

Stage 2: The Pitching Stage
We pitched these two ideas to Luke to receive a ‘green light’ for at least one of our ideas or any sort of development we could do to give our ideas more in depth detail to really show it as a final product. This proved to be use of audience feedback as after we pitched these ideas we to Luke he gave us some true and helpful concepts for our ideas. This is shown below, as it was discussed on the blog straight after the pitch so that I could provide the most in depth and important feedback of which he gave us. This audience feedback proved effective due to the fact that after the feedback we met up as a group and discussed the ideas as a whole and if we felt as if the were the best products we could do. We came  to a conclusion that we would start from scratch and develop with different concepts.

One main piece of feedback which I picked up and felt that was a point which I needed to focus on was that we needed to make sure that we were focusing and staying on the genre of of our song. The foam strand of this video caused a few problems, including this and the idea there would problems with the shoot day as due to there being water involved we wouldn't have many options with lighting as its electricity and water. Furthermore, this would mean that it would be very difficult to keep continuity (even though it is a music video).

After we had created a brand new idea we went straight back to Luke to discuss our new idea. To give some more help we also spoke to our lighting manager (George) which allowed us another view of an audience member of my video. This use of audience feedback came to a conclusion of taking away a narrative, which we had, and replacing it with the use of a set of the artist and his ‘crew’ (band). Along with this we discussed the element of the dancers and this was shown to be effective as the feedback we received was all positive feedback and we also collected some additional ideas which we could use in our video, such as costume. Post-pitch my group and I discussed the feedback to generate some of the new ideas we could add into the video, in preparation to the test shoot. We came up with the idea of a graphic match amongst the dancing.

Stage 3: The Prototype Stage
We created a prototype of our final product so that we could test out how our concepts would actually look on film and how it would fit with the music. The test footage was shown to my class to gain some audience feedback, so that my group and I would be able to adapt/do to give the audience what they want. The feedback we received was recorded and I pulled out the key points of what our class and teacher liked and disliked (shown below):

In reason to this my group and I developed our idea even further to make sure that we would be communicating with our audience in the right way to connote the genre of our artist. For example, due to our feedback emphasising on the use of the graphic match positively, we made it the main part of our video (the use of discontinuity editing). Also when we presented this test footage our song was 2:50 minutes long and it felt that for the 50 seconds over 2 minutes our audience was going to get bored and 'switch off' making them have a bad opinion to the video. Due to this criticism we cut down the video to appeal our audience, however, we did take some group knowledge into account that with the footage we needed to cover we felt not to cut it down too much.

Stage 4: The Rough Cut Stage
Once we had a rough cut of the edited video, which I had done, the homepage, which Jonty had created and the digipak, which David made, we presented our products to a focus group of young adults (within our artist's audience age range). We did the focus group for about 15 minutes. 
To set up the focus group we discussed (together) that there would need to be specific questions to ask them, for the correct feedback which we needed, such as how our products complimented and worked with each other as a promo package. 
The key feedback of the focus group is shown below:

From this feedback of our focus group the main part which could have been a small issue is if there was any part of our main product which had a problem with but they didn't have any trouble with and there was no need for the change of the video. The only area which included the video, which the focus group picked up on, was that they felt that it didn't link to the website as well as it did to the digipak. From this information the website was developed to give off the same ideology about our artist. Another example of feedback which we gained from this focus group was where they spoke about the minimalism of the digipak and how on the inside of the (rough) digipak which we presented there was quite a lot going on, with the large image of our artist and the colour strips. On behalf of this feedback David changed the digipak to make it more minimalistic by taking away the colour strips and the still of our artist. However, David and I performed research into similar stars in this genre and their inside page of their digipaks and changed our product according.

Evaluation Task 4: How did you use media technologies in construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

In progress.