Blog 20 - Evaluation

Evaluation – A2 Media Coursework

During the process of the A2 coursework I have learned and developed my skills in many areas, I feel like this project gave me the ability to access my creative side through designing/creating and also researching for the digipak and advert, and also to gain knowledge of computer software and improved through practicing photo shop skills my researching skills through researching into the chosen artist and genre. The course has also given the ability to improve of my time management and planning skills to meet the deadlines of specific blogs and creations.

Throughout the development of the project I wanted to conduct as much research into the chosen artist to get the best possible vision and sense of the way the products are created, the themes and styles of their videos, digipacks and adverts and also they way in which they market the product to the target audience. To do this I used the internet such as the artist’s official website to get a real feel of the imagery in which the artist uses to portray themselves, I visited www.youtube.com to watch past and current music videos from my chosen artist in which to get a wide variety of videos with different lyrical moods and influences for example the difference between Rihanna’s hits ‘Take A Bow’ and ‘Disturbia’ all in which I analysed within the mise-en-scene blog. After this research task it also gave me access to the wider scale of target audiences with research into magazines and photo shoots which give very opposite interpretations and imagery of the chosen artist such as fashion magazines to men’s magazines. From this research it gave me clearer sense of the type of style and feel I wanted the music video and the promotional advert and digipack to look like, for example in the advert and digipack I wanted the themes of the two packs to flow and blend well together therefore I chose a main theme with influence on both. In terms of the music video the artist video research gave me a wide variety of styles to choose from, however as the song we chose was a balled style of track, I began to research into that particular style of single and music video, this gave me the influences for the video in terms of styling such having a main love story between two individuals and also the mise-en-scene for the music video such as simple and everyday costumes and also the locations for the shoot, the main video’s I gathered inspiration from are both ‘Take A Bow’ and ‘Unfaithful’ some of Rihanna’s earlier work. When filming the music video we learned all about camera use, camera safety, and the effects in which you can capture with the camera, all this is explained in blog 7, the thought of using a camera and equipment such as the tripod and learning camera settings (auto/manual) etc was very frightening at first, however before we began shooting we did a class preliminary task in which gave us the tools and the knowledge in which to increase our confidence when filming with the camera.

When editing and putting the video together I used the Apple software Final Cut Express, during the process of editing I learned a lot about how actual video’s are put together and how much work goes into them from the planning stages to the shooting and then the playback and editing stages.

Using the software I learned how to cut and separate longer clips/shots of footage and how to place them within a sequence on a timeline, the experience was rather daunting at the beginning stages but the more practice I had with the software the more confident and assured I became. When creating the advert and digipack pages I used Adobe Photoshop in which was a programme I had previously used when doing my AS coursework project, Over the space of the A2 course however my skills had rapidly approved and this allowed me to really get into the more creative side of the project, it was a great feeling to see my flat planned idea become a real when designing the advert and digipack and I was really pleased with the end result. To gain good and reliable feedback for these I decided to upload them to social networking website www.facebook.com this was for the main reason that it is a highly populated website in which artist’s such as my chosen artist use this website for advertising purposes and also daily information for fans, also within the target audience for my advert and digipack it was the most practical approach in which the audience would respond to positively. The feedback I got for the advert was mostly positive which was a good thing as It showed that the theme and style was appealing towards the targeted market, a few pointers I was given was the choices of font colouring that the white font was blending in too much with the clouded background which could limit people’s ability to read the information clearly so if I was to change this I would have changed the colour to a more dominant colour. The feedback from the digipack was also positive people liked the style and theme of the pack and they way in which the photos were cropped and edited using the photo shop software, If I were to change the digipack I would have added some more brighter images to make it look more eye catching and appealing towards the target audience.

The approach to receiving feedback from the music video was very different to the promotional pack, I wanted to try something different therefore I sent out e-mails to a number of individuals with the video attached requesting feedback, I also showed some people the video via the computer and asked for verbal feedback, concluding the feedback I noticed that some of the shots in the video do not flow as well after one and other which can affect the feel and reactions towards the video, therefore if I was to re-edit some of the footage I would have looked more carefully at this to ensure the video’s editing was the best it could have been. One other criticism was the syncing of the miming within the video, this was due to the cast member being unfamiliar with the track and it’s lyrics and her low confidence in front of the camera, this related in her not making much eye-line contact within the shots which is often used within Rihanna’s music videos therefore if I was to re-shoot the video I would probably use a different girl for the lead role.

In terms of challenging forms and conventions of media products I decided for the video I wanted to keep the video a ‘norm’ in terms of differentiation towards media products as I felt that the style and lyrics to the video would most suitable match with a love story kind of themed video and this is the type of video in which the target audiences would understand and enjoy. However for the digipack and advert I wanted to keep the soft natured style of the pop genre however I wanted to give it some variation, firstly I decided to name the album ‘Fallen Angel’ as the type of name wouldn’t normally be viewed in an album name or style for an artist like Rihanna, it would more likely to be to the soft-rock kind of genre such as Avril Lavignes classic music style. I wanted to keep the feel and style of the digipack and advert to be fluid and match well together, to achieve this I decided to keep a matching colour scheme of black background with white fonts, I decided on a more traditional and script-like font to give the album a classic feel with a contemporary vibe in terms of photographs etc. I then chose to add a golden colour for the title of the album within the advert and the bonus CD track listing this was to represent to the audience that the pack is a special edition and is nothing like previous digipacks and albums so they feel as if they are buying something they’ve never had before, this was also due to the main target audience of my artist is teenagers and young adults. I decided to use the cloud imagery for the disk’s to keep to the theme of the album as I thought this would reflect well and relate to the album/digipack as a whole, after some research of Rihanna’s digipacks I also noticed she used similar or the same CD styles for more than 1 CD in her digipack, therefore I drew inspiration from this.

Throughout the media product there were many problems and issues occurred, at the beginning of the course I had joined with a group of 4 students and we began to plan our music video and discuss initial ideas and plans, however unfortunately the communication and the interest of some members began to affect the progression of the groups video in comparison to other groups within the class and year. This then resulted within the group splitting up and myself and one member to form a new group, however this caused a change in everything therefore we had to re-plan and change the blog work completely, this put us at a slight dis-advantage in comparison to other groups however we was determined to complete the project of time however we had to put a lot of after lesson hours into the work to get everything done.

We also had a few issues when filming the music video as our leading female cast members was very difficult to work with at times, due to her lack of confidence and order of taking direction from the director and also myself it proved more difficult to direct her and for her to give us the emotion and motivation we was looking for, this resulted in more time to get good footage which increased the amount of time filming and decreased the amount of time to edit which I felt was disappointing. Taking all this into consideration I would have planned the lead cast member to be more confident and have more creativity.

To conclude this media product I have really enjoyed the whole experience, I enjoyed working as part of a group as I feel like it increased my friendships within the class and the involvement and achievement you feel when you have contributed and completed something big. My favourite part of the project was the creation of the advert and the digipack, this was because I really enjoy being creative and this gave the chance for me to do something I had never done before whilst increasing my abilities and skills of the software at the same time. My least favourite part of the whole thing was the separation of the initial group plan, this was because I began to get stressed and angry and the lack of work being produced and began to panic about my success, another reason was that the new group had to re-think and plan a new idea and completely renovate all the previous blog work we had done up to that point in which required a lot of home-study time to catch up to the deadlines the other groups were on. I thought the editing process of the coursework was very long and was very tricky and fiddly; this really tested my patience and abilities with the software as I found the Final cut express software rather difficult to grasp and manage the most effectively. Overall I am pleased with the end result and feel I have tried my best and worked to the best of my ability.