Throughout the process in creating my product, the digital technologies used have enhance my knowledge in completing my product. Technologies change and develop every year and get more sophisticated as time goes by. This allows the state of technology to become more engaging and a faster process in terms of editing. The use of tutorials help us to understand the improvements of digital technology in order to keep up with them, in which we did. A few examples being for PhotoShop and Final Cut Pro, in which helped to develop our skills and knowledge further. It has become apparent that we have been privileged in the sense that if this was to be produced at a different time period, half of the things that can be done now, could not be done as quick or as effieciently back then. i.e editing needed to be done very carefully as one mistake would have meant the project would have been redone from where the mistake was made, but in this present time we can simply slot in our changes or mistakes made. It is evident that the media technologies that are now available helped greatly with the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages in terms of being more productive and efficient than would have been if produced in another era.
Audience feedback is the most important factor which determines the outcome of our product. The audience are the ones in which the product is produced for and initially influences the success of the product. For example if they enjoy a certain type of genre, or have an initial like towards a music video, they are likely to spread it via word of mouth. This can be done through telling someone about it or made viral via social networking websites for the artist to gain recognition and success. (Merlau Ponty's 'embodied experience' can realate as we have an embodied experience and anything in which we use our bodies to create, we help build our identity.)
Artists create songs and music videos in which they believe will greatly please their fans and audience. In order to do this, they need to be following certain codes and conventions of the given genre.
As 'alternative' genre was new to me, it was a great experience to listen to and create a music video for something I wasn't familiar with. This enabled me to suggest stereotypical ideas for the music video which makes me believe that we conformed to the codes and conventions of an alternative genre.
The audience feedback we received gave us an idea of what we were doing right and where we were going wrong. They collectively had similar views, and therefore decided to change and adapt to what the majority may have disliked or wanted different. As a group, we were still unsure of having our whole music video in black and white, however after listening to the feedback, it worked in our favour as they believed it expressed the emotions further of the protagonist.
Another area in which we were unsure about was the narrative. We thought that maybe it might be difficult for the audience to understand what was going on, however they said that the storyline wasn't complex nor did it create any confusion and that the lyrics which appeared on screen made it clearer as the chosen words were a true reflection of what the protagonist was going through and how 'tough' life is for him. Furthermore, the only confusion created was the ending when the footage rewinded and faded out on a path which couldn't be read properly. This brought more changes to the group I.e having to film again and creating an alternative ending. By having to film yet another day at such short notice, showed our determination into pleasing our audience and wanting to capture the perfect ending. We could have easily left it or used old footage to help create an ending but we realised throughout the course of the task that audience feedback holds great authority in the making of our product.
In conclusion, audience feedback played a pivotal role in the process of planning, making and eventually finishing our product as their opinions are very important and hold the initial value of the product. Throughout the experience of creating our product, I have now genuinely grown to enjoy the Alternative genre of music.
MAIN PRODUCT
"Our media product uses and develops forms and conventions of real media products. For example during our research and planning stages, we had to find similar artists in which we thought we could compare ourselves with and help develop our ideas further. We then looked at their videos and noted down the things we liked and the similarities which were apparent between them.
Most of these were to do with the editing for example, slow edits and movement which represented the artists emotion, in which we portrayed in our video too."
I believe the storyline and narrative also conformed to real media products because when we presented our initial idea for our video, the response received was said to be a typical expectation of a video for our genre. This gave us confidence in pursuing our idea further to project it as a music video.
Another similarity we picked up on was the idea of rewinding our footage. After watching Coldplays 'The Scientist', we saw the video rewind. This doesn't happen often in videos and brings something new to the market in which we were able to fit in with our narrative.
Our product develops forms and conventions of real media products by using selective lyrics to appear on-screen to further express the emotion that we wanted to portray. None of the music videos for our genre and of similar artists had not used the idea of lyrics appearing on-screen in which we thought this was different and unique.
In terms of challenging forms and conventions of real media products, we wanted to stay away from subverting to what was stereotypically expected of our video. This was probably due to the fact that our group wasn't familiar with the genre and it may have been much more difficult in trying to subvert from what's expected than to conform to. Having said that, I think what did challenge and subvert from real media products is the webcam effect in the beginning, which the main character turns the webcam on and sits back down to play the song. This is shown through various jump cuts to reduce time. I believe this was a unique and almost an original idea as it hasn't been seen before, or captured in other videos during our research.
The colourless video brings a new look to music videos as the majority seen are usually in colour. This technique also challenges conventions of real media products. However, there is a split second where colour is shown, and that is right before the footage starts to rewind. This was actually done by accident but I suggested to leave it because personally, for me, it represented new life and the character literally ‘moving on’ (as seen at the end of the music video).
Furthermore, in one of Coldplay’s videos – “Yellow”, he is seen walking on a beach, stressing how simple music videos of this particular genre can be. However we subverted to this as we wanted to bring something different to our audience, by having a complicated storyline and rewinding to make a difference to the typically expected music video of our genre. The unclear storyline created an enigmatic effect forcing the audience to watch the video to the end to find out what happens. Here, a narrative theorist, Roland Barthes can relate. The enigma code is that the narrative establishes enigmas or mysteries as it goes along. In other words, the appearance and disappearance of the antagonist creates questions that remain unanswered until the end of the music video.
WEBSITE
Our website uses codes and conventions of real products as many similarities are shown. During our researching process we wanted to identify things were quite stereotypical to our chosen genre and wanted to keep the same. Some of our chosen artists were Coldplay, James Blunt and James Morrison. If we take a look at both James Blunt’ and James Morrison’s website and compare it to our final, we can compare the similar trends they both contain.
If we compare the websites we can instantly spot many similarities. Some of which being figure of the artist in the background, being able to listen to their current song and a bold, clear name of the artist with links to different social networking sites to gather more information about the artist. These similarities help to keep our website current and fresh by sticking similarly to the codes and conventions of an Alternative genre.
The ways in which our product develops and challenges conventions of real media products is the consistency of branding shown throughout our three products. The font used was simple to keep clarity between the main product and ancillary texts, as was the black and white effect, which isn’t apparent in the existing products. Here we wanted to subvert from existing products to show individuality and uniqueness.
DIGI-PAK
Our digi pak uses certain codes and conventions of real media products that are already on the market. If we look at artists in which we used in our research and planning stages, we can compare the similarities that are kept throughout. In James Morrison’s Album Cover he is seen sitting with his guitar in what would be called a natural shot. We first attempted to do this as our initial album cover idea to express his loneliness and closure and to show that he is a guitarist and is highly dependent on it. However we found a better way to express this as we didn’t want to fully replicate anything already existing and the idea of the wide open lake was the final idea. In addition the bold standard font with the title of the cover underneath trends in both covers. It makes it stand out and attract those walking past who may want to purchase the Album thus conforming to existing products.
If we look at another James Morrison cover below, we can see the similarities that are held here in comparison to the previous one.
The ways in which our product uses and challenges real media products would be the colour scheme as most products we researched into had colour. We took a risk of presenting our product in black and white but believe there is potential for this as it complements our branding in which we’ve incorporated between the digi pak, website and main product.
