ERT- Evaluation questions

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

GOODWIN

• When first brainstorming what we wanted in our music video, for example; specific mise-en-scene, amount of characters, costume and locations, we looked into Goodwins framework to see what typical conventions we could conform to or challenge.


• Fast cutting rate is a noticeable convention followed in mainstream videos. Its use is to hold an audience’s attention and make the video more interesting to watch for a focused viewer. Our first thought was to challenge this as our track starts slow and gradually builds up to a faster tempo. However, we tried some faster cutting and found it to improve our video. Therefore, we decided to conform to this convention throughout the majority of the video however, keeping some long shots for the longer notes. For example “for you” which is repeated four times and lasting 16 seconds for the four shots ( 4 seconds per shot).
  
  
  
• Another convention highlighted in Goodwin’s theory is the representation of the genre.
  I would categorise Florence and the Machines music as Indie pop. This genre is seen with an individual, unique and organic feel to it. I think we represent this well through our mise-en-scene and costume. When choosing the mise-en-scene and costume for our video we studied Florence and the Machine’s other videos, as well as videos from a similar genre, so we could specifically get this right. We found that a lot of her locations were outside including props such as balloons and bunting. If chosen to be inside they had interesting mise-en-scene, for example in a church with really detailed decoration and architecture. Which is why when we use the drama studio for her performance shots we added interesting mise-en-scene, the hanging photographs.

• Another convention followed by the majority of music videos is the frequent use of CU’s of the artist, also known as “meat shots”.These present the artist in a more personal way making an audience member feel more involved and allowed into the artist personal life. They also make the video more focused on the artist, and we make it more so though having no other characters. We conform to this through the use of a lot of CU’s with our actress lip syncing. This causes an audience member feel as if the artist is specifically singing to them.
  

• The notion of looking is another way of presenting the artist. Through using effects and camera techniques we make Florence the main focus for the video. We conform to this convention when we use the computer effect of mirroring. This causes us to focus only on her. Another way we conform to this is through the use of the images of her in the background in drama studio location. Through having these images of her, as well as other objects hanging, we replicate her image and again reinforce the fact that she is the main focus of the video.

• However we do not conform to Goodwin’s theory in his convention of a relation between lyrics and visuals. We challenge this in our video as we do not include any visuals that perfectly link to the lyrics, for example a clip of a boy building a coffin. We do however link them ambiguously, for example through the use of the location of a graveyard. This is obviously linked to death with is linked to coffins. This being the closest relation between lyrics and visuals.

DYER

• Throughout our video we present Florence as an abnormal and slightly out of this world person. We do this through the use of mise-en-scene, costume and make-up as well as the way she moves and dances.

• This creates an interest in her as she is extraordinary. This conforming to half of Dyers first paradox: “the star must be simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary for the consumer”. We show the other half of this paradox, the star must be ordinary, slightly less but through the way she is presented as a woman. We present her with vulnerability as well as power. She is seen as powerful and independent through her being the only character in our video, as well as the constant CU’s used and the consistent presence of her throughout the vast majority of shots. However we give her a slight vulnerability through her facial expression, as the song allows her to have this vulnerability and when lip syncing she relates to the lyrics well through the use of her facial expression.
  
• We do not conform as strongly to the second paradox: “the star must be simultaneously present and absent for the consumer” as Florence is present in a lot of the shots throughout the video and in the adverts we created. However, in the digipak she is present in half of the sides but not all creating a sense of mystery about her. (see below)

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

Advert one:



Advert two:


Digipak:

• Advert one, created by Lucy includes florences actual font for her band name from her previous albums. This gives it a professional look and links it back to Florence and shows a significant detail to the real artist. It also is similar to florences latest album cover lungs in which has a circle holding the images.
• Due to issues with photoshop and the school computer this advert, created by me, does use a different font however it was the closest possible one availible to me in that time. I think it still looks similar to the actual font used by Florence and the machine, however I think it adds our own stamp to it. Although the same font is not used I included white lines surrounding the edges of the advert leading to her name which is a motif used by Florecne in her recent albums.
• The digipak, created by Katie, keeps the theme of the red strip which is in both of the adverts. The red strip across her eyes has become a sort of star motif created by us which is now associated with her to our audience members. It also does the same as advert one by one of the sides having a circular image. The digipak also conforms to dyers second paradox: the star must be simultaneously present and absent for the consumer. As florence is present in half of the sides and absent in the others. This creates a personal and mysterious feel to the digipak, also creating interest.

3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

• I am personally looking into the feedback from our final piece.


• To get feeback for our final edit of our music video we uploaded it to youtube.com and distributed it on facebook. We then posted underneath it our surveymonkey link so that we could get feedback of what people thought. Our results from surverymonkey were as follows:


• Question one we asked whether the audience liked the mise-en-scene and felt it was appropriate. 100% of answer liked the mise-en-scene we used and felt it really fit in with the artist. The only negative feed back we got was that one person thought another person may have been more appropriate and the same person thought that the graveyard location was slightly random. However, I definately disagree with this as I think only having herself in the video narrowed the focus in on her and the graveyard location made a slight link to Goodwins framework in his convention of linking images with lyrics. My opinion on this is also backed up by pretty much eveyrone else we have showed the video to.
  
• Question two asked whether the video is suitable for florence and the machine. This is obviously one of our main goals when creating the video as we want it to fit in with her conventions and the trends that she follows. We were very happy to find that 100% of answers agreed with this and had commented on how this was true in the previous question.

• Question three we asked whether they felt the video was suitable for the track. We were slightly suprised to the results to this as in the previous question a lot of audience members had commented on the appropriateness of the track. We recieved 7% of audience members click no to the appropriateness of this. We feel however that this must just be a personal preference as the majority still felt it was appropriate and so have we throughout the whole process.


• Question four was whether the audience felt the artist, Florence, was being represented in a powerful way. The majority of people agreed with our aim and thought she was presented powerfully but a smaller minority disagreed. I think the distinction between the two is whether they see the vulnerability we were trying to present stronger or weaker than the power we presented.

• Quesion 5 we asked whether there was anything the audience would like to change about the video and a large amount of audience members commented with constructive things they would, mainly, like to see more of rather than it was not included at all.

• In questions five and six we ask whether they enjoyed the video and would watch it again. 100% of viewers said they enjoyed the video however only 78% said they would watch it again. I do not think this is necessarily a negative thing as videos are not always meant to be focusedly viewed but sometimes ambiently is appropriate.
  

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

• Throughout our coursework we used many websites from web 2.0 to show, watch or document our own or others work.
  
• We used blogger.com as a collaborative e-portfolio in our group throughout the planning, construction and evaluation stages of our coursework.


• During planning it was very useful to use as a constant diary of inspiring videos we had found on YouTube with editing we found interesting or mise-en-scene that we saw relevant to our own ideas. Through posting these videos on the our blog and commenting on each other’s it allowed us to visually see others ideas and work out part which we could include them and effects of techniques which would allow us to perform them. Blogger.com was so useful for this as it was easy to share these ideas with the rest of the group which kept us all up to date and made our ideas clearer to each other.


• Blogger.com was also useful throughout the construction phase as we could post every lesson about what we had done and what still needed to be done. This kept us very organised as well as if any of our group members had missed the lesson they could still follow what had been done.


• Throughout the evaluation stage of the coursework a website we found very useful was survey monkey. This website enabled us to create a questionnaire that could have multiple choice answers as well as open questions about our video. This was really useful as it allowed any audience member to access and answer it. We published this through the use of facebook.com to get a larger and wider range for our audience research.
  
• Youtube.com has also made it easier for us to receive audience feedback. We have throughout the course uploaded our work frequently to get as much feedback as possible. This really helped us as when an audience member comment on a certain part of the video they didn’t like it gave us time to change it before our final piece was submitted.
  
• When shooting our footage we used DV cameras, this made our footage look a lot more professional. As a group we had no problems using the cameras, apart from in the rainy weather when trying to keep it dry we ended up with bits of umbrella in the shot. However, we knew this would be an issue when we were filming so got plenty of footage and it turned out okay. The camera also picked up the rain, which gave our shots a really nice texture and fit in really well with our videos theme.
  
• To edit the video we used Adobe Premier, in which we found a lot of effects we could use to improve our video. The program is very easy to use and had everything we needed. Certain effects we used were the mirror effect, time stretch, zooming in or out and panning. This really helped us to improve our video as a problem we had was with the amount of movement in some of our shots. Premier allowed us to add movement into the video whilst editing as we had missed the chance to include movement during filming. Doing it this way I think worked out better as a lot of our locations did not have a steady ground to use a dolly for example. Therefore, adding pans in through editing allowed us to make a smooth movement in which ever direction we felt looked best.

• In adobe Photoshop we manipulated photographs taken on our shoots by increasing saturation, changing hue and adding text (this can be seen in my previous post of my advert which includes the many stages i went through in changing it). This changed them into professional looking advertisements. By studying other adverts for similar artist we knew what we had to do to our photographs to make them stand out as well as including the necessary information. As we were presenting Florence as a strong, powerful female throughout the video it was a theme we wanted to present throughout the digipak and adverts as well. Therefore, all three pieces of print media included a photograph of her. To make my advert stand out I increased saturation, making her hair look very bright as well as her red mask she had in the photograph. As in the photograph there were certain parts of the mise-en-scene that were not perfect, using Photoshop allowed me to correct these. For example, there was a strand of grass across her hair that looked out of place, using the clone tool in Photoshop I was able to eliminate this imperfection. It also allowed me to add text which is necessary for an advert. I wanted to include her name, the singles title, her website and in a large font “OUT NOW”. Using Photoshop it allowed me to use the same font that Florence uses in her own albums, as well as positioning it to have the correct line of focus.