Reflective Evaluation

Question 4:

Reflective Evaluation Sarah Carter

Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We screened our finished music video to our class peers in order to get clear and honest feedback from them and hopeful gain an insight into the positive and negatives features of our video. We gave each media group an audience feedback sheet and asked them to fill it in truthfully after they had seen the entire video. Unfortunately, the video we showed them was the compressed version uploaded to the blog, so it had to be taken into consideration the fact that the quality (especially with regards to lighting) was not a factor in the video itself, just the compressed file.
The feedback we received gave us both many good points to consider, but also some negatives that could have been addressed. There was a unanimous opinion throughout the feedback that said the performance was the strongest part of the video, which we were pleased with as we agreed that the performance was particularly effective. It was rated suitable/professional in all cases, which was good and it was found that there was generally no problems found with the lip-synching or timing of the instruments. The drumming was found to be particularly enjoyable.
The issues raised were mainly to do with narrative. Some found it confusing whereas others thought it was simply "boring", which we thought was pretty harsh as no reason was given as to why or what could be improved. Nevertheless, we take the opinion into consideration as more than one group found the narrative to be the main area for improvement. We find that the confusion found within the narrative where it is said the audience "did not understand the ending" could have been made worse by the bad quality, which made the last few scenes (which were set at night, in the dark) difficult to decipher.
It was noted that the shots varied in quality throughout the video. We felt that this was once again an issue raised by the quality of the video we showed to the audience, as when played in full quality, there is no significant variation in quality of video.
We thought that perhaps the narrative problems could have been solved with a more developed storyline, however the time frame we had to think of an idea, storyboard and film it, this was the best result we could have come up with and I think that generally it is successful in portraying the general idea of homelessness and isolation. Obviously, audience opinions are subjective and is probably why there are very few areas where all 5 feedback sheets are in agreement.

Reflective Evaluation Sarah Carter

Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Throughout the campaign, we have attempted to maintain a clear theme through several different factors. First of all, I feel that the colour scheme we have used throughout helps to make the three media products clearly related to the same artist and idea. Within the digipack and the website, there is a black and white theme, which uses similar photographs from the same locations and images of the band. The splattered paint is a feature that can be seen in both, along with the smiley logo that is apparent in most of Blink-182's products. We wanted to make sure the two were similar enough that they would have a clear link, as is seen on the current Blink-182 website where the album cover is used as the website background and clearly advertised throughout the site. We have included the single cover in the website to further advertise the band's music and the new music video we created. The video is clearly linked to these two media products in a way that the theme is kept looking moody and grunge like throughout, the tones and colours included in the video are muted in a way that keeps in line with the tone of the entire song.

The three are interrelated in a way that they all incorporate clear reference to the band. As stated before the use of the same themes and logos throughout shows they are linked to the same band and by incorporating pictures of our "band members" from the video into the digipack and website, the viewer can make an obvious connection to what they have seen in the video and what is present in the digipack and website.

I feel they target the audience quite well through the use of suburban, familiar locations that could be related to by teens and young adults. The use of teen actors would also help to make our target audience feel like they can relate to the song, the band and the subject matter, which targets the issue of teen angst/depression and homelessness.

Existing digipack and webpage:

These media products help to sell the artist in many ways. As is typical of the genre conventions of pop-punk, the band are very rarely seen on the front cover of the album. This is seen here, with Fall Out Boy's album From Under The Cork Tree and also with all of Blink-182's albums. They are, however, featured on the website. I feel this is done so that a relationship between the consumer and the music is established initially through the album, and then when this is done, the consumer will continue on to find out more about the band and their background, therefore wanting to know what they look like. We can also see links to things aimed at the fan base such as message boards and merchandise. We also see a "tour" tab, which would be another way to sell the band and their music. We have mirrored many of these features in our own media products. We have avoided putting images of the band on the front cover of the digipack to fit with genre conventions, however we have put images of them on the inside cover, as is seen similarly in the Blink-182 album Take Off Your Pants and Jacket. Our website also has the generic conventions of a band website, including tabs for tour dates, photos and information on each band member.

Reflective Evaluation Sarah Carter

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

Our video for the song "Natives" by Blink-182

 The video for "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day

The video for "Adam's Song" by Blink-182

Shown above are the videos for three songs - "Natives" by Blink-182 which is the song that Ewan and I created a music video for, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day and lastly "Adam's Song" by our chosen artist, Blink-182. The two existing videos show the genre conventions of pop-punk very clearly - the use of lighting, location and subject matter all point towards the more serious, melancholy side to the music genre of pop-punk. Although the genre lends itself to the more humorous and fun side of music, it also tends to dabble in the more serious side occasionally and to good effect. I believe that in many ways, our music video has also stuck to the conventions of a pop-punk music video through the connection between its subject matter and mis-en-scene.

As seen in the previous Blink-182 video, the subject of suicide is addressed in the lyrics of the song, and the entire mood is generally quite morose. We thought that our song choice was also based around the same sort of topic - the idea of loneliness, isolation and depression - and therefore we decided that it would be best not to challenge the genre conventions to avoid creating something that was inappropriate and inevitably ineffective also. By having a serious approach to the video, I feel we have conformed to the general conventions of a pop-punk music video in a way that benefits our video significantly. Similarly, the video for "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" demonstrates the same sort of mood and subject matter which is typical of a ballad-like, sad pop-punk song. In this way, the two videos has several similarities in their mise-en-scene qualities, including their use of dull and muted lighting/colours and run down environments and locations, such as the warehouse in "Adam's Song" or the deserted town in "Boulevard of Broken Dreams". The idea of homelessness and isolation is something we incorporated into our own video and I think the locations we used were sensible, appropriate and effective in making the narrative of our video look convincing and visually appealing. I especially feel that our band performance location is very effective.

Another aspect of pop-punk videos that we thought we should conform to is the split of narrative and performance - as seen in the two previously existing videos and our own video, there is almost an equal split on performance and narrative, which gives a good amount of variety and a sense of reality to the video, to ensure that the viewer is fully engaged throughout and also, the band themselves are being promoted/sold in the video. We used differing shot types to keep the video interesting and dynamic whilst also taking into conideration hwo these shot types would work best with regard to our actors and performers.

With regards to postmodern ideas, we decided to use a slight sense of intertexuality in our video, but in a discreet and appropriate way. We incorporated a Blink-182 poster into our video, which is only seen briefly. We also got the actor to dial the number "182" in the phone booth, which we believed was a sneaky way to fit the band name into the video.

I thought another way that we used genre conventions is within the narrative itself. We made a conscious effort to ensure that the main character in our video is treated badly from start to finish, with no real care and attention being paid to him at all. This can also be seen in the video for "Adam's Song" where we see still frame shots of the band coming across the characters who are 'in trouble' and yet they pay no real attention to them whatsoever. We thought this was interesting, as usually music is seen to be people's 'saviour' whereas in this case, and in the case of our own music video, we see that the music treats him just the same as everyone else.