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

Before I started planning my music video I did a lot of research into existing music videos and the conventions of these. There are three types of music video performance, narrative and concept. Performance music videos are based around the artist performing the song in front of the camera, with a large focus on the artist and/or band. A narrative video has a storyline that relates to the songs lyrics and illustrates what is being said or is independent from the song and tells a different story. A concept music video is a video that isnt straight forward and doesnt make complete sense; it makes the audience think whilst watching. For example, I looked at four music videos in depth; these were Run-DMC - Walk This Way (performance), Rihanna - Man Down (narrative), Robbie Williams Candy (concept) and Haters So Solid Crew (performance). When analyzing these videos I compared them to the conventions of music videos. Andrew Goodwin had seven key conventions of music videos so I used these a lot not only in research when looking at other music videos but planning my own music video. His seven conventions are that music videos demonstrate certain genre characteristics, a relationship between lyrics and visuals, and between music and visuals. The record label demands close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs/iconography that recur across all of their work. There is frequent reference to looking at the female body and there are intertextual references to film, television and popular culture. The most common conventions I found when looking at other music videos were links between the visuals and lyrics and lots of close ups of the artist, for example in Gotyes music video for Somebody That I Used To Know, the camera is almost always focused on the two singers faces. This creates a close and emotional relationship between the singer and the audience as well as showing the emotion on their faces. The conventions I included in my own music video are links between the music and visuals, for example right at the start when Nadia dances to the music and when the judges put their heads down to the beat. I did this to make it entertaining to watch and to make the music video fit the music well. I have also included lots of long shots and mid shots to create emphasis on the actors emotions and locations. An example of this is when I used a mid shot of Chris when he is annoyed and checking his watch. I have included a panning shot of Nadia as she dances on the stage to create movement which matches the upbeat dance music. This is a genre convention of dance music which widens my target audience to include fans of dance music. I have challenged the convention of having close ups of the artist as I have used actors instead. I did this because of the genre of music I chose and I didnt think it was important to create a relationship between the artist and the audience. I think this convention is particularly relevant when the artist sings the song whereas this isnt the case with We No Speak Americano. The conventions of a magazine advert are to keep it quite simple with little words and a large background image. The colours must reflect the theme and tone of the item being advertised, for example in Katy Perrys advert for the Part Of Me music video the colours are khaki, browns and reds which goes with the theme of war. The information must be displayed clearly and boldly and stand out from the background image. I conformed to these conventions by using a screen shot from my music video as the background image so that the synergy is obvious. I also used bright blue for some of the text and used emboldening it so that the writing stood out. The information included on the advert should be clear and uncomplicated, selling the product to the audience in an effective and simple way. A typical advert would include when and where the product would be available from and the imagery should give the audience an idea of the kind of genre the music is. For example, an advert for pop music would probably focus on the artists image to sell the product whereas an advert for a death metal artist or band would probably feature dark colours and flames. Prior to making my band website I had a look at some others like the official Yolanda Be Cool website as the genre is quite specific. This gave me ideas of what to include on my own website like releases, videos and also a blog. I have an app for Blogger on my website which is linked to my blog which has the whole process of my music video production. This will provide a link for the audience to become

better acquainted with the music video. Other conventions of a music website include an information page where the audience can learn more about the artist and therefore create a more informal relationship between them. A website may also contain a page that enables the audience to listen to and buy the music the artist has created which increases the availability of the music and revenue. I have incorporated both of these conventions into my website. I have put an app for Soundcloud on my website which allows the viewers to explore other music by Yolanda Be Cool. On the releases page I have also included links to Beatport, allowing the viewers to purchase music by Yolanda Be Cool. I have been unconventional with my website by including information about the actors in the music video as the artist is not shown. This is therefore more relevant and interesting to the reader than information about the artist as they may not be familiar with the artist. The colour scheme of my website reflects my music video as some of it is brightly coloured whereas other parts are grey scale. This reflects the old/new theme of my music video. I have put my music video on the home page so it is the main focus when the audience goes on my website. This helps provide a link between all of my texts. I thought about including my poster on my website but it didnt fit in well and I didnt want to make another tab just for the poster as I felt more menu buttons would be too much. 2. How effective is the combination of your media product and ancillary texts? (Video post with images, video is always in view, edited) I have made many links between my three products, for example, the theme of old and new by using black and white contrasting with colour across them all. In my music video some of the footage is in black and white to represent an older time while some footage is in colour to represent modern day. The background image for my advert is half black and white and half colour to represent which character is from which era. To incorporate this theme in my website I have used black and white colours for some of the text and bright colours for other parts of the text. I have also used the same font for the name of the artist on both my website and advert so that the audience can create links between them and to make it more obvious they are from the same artist, helping to sell the product. The font I chose on my advert is bold for the colour (new) parts to represent modern trends and for the black and white (old) parts the text is quite flamboyant to seem like an older calligraphy style. By linking my music video and ancillary tasks I have created synergy, an important convention of music products as it helps with the promotion and sale of a product. It also helps to gain fans for the artist, as it is easy for them to identify that the texts are from the same artist. On my website I have links to Beatport which allow the audience to listen to and buy a release, again creating synergy as it links the music from the music video and the website. As the song is quite catchy this is more likely to get stuck in the audiences head and therefore they may want to buy it. I have the music video on the home page of my website and so it is the first thing the audience will see, instead of having it hidden away on a different page. This will hopefully increase views and get more people interested in the music, who would then go to the releases page and buy an album or single. On my magazine advert I have included a link to my website, linking the audience to somewhere with more information and the opportunity to purchase music. It is important to link my texts otherwise it would make it harder for people to find out about the artist and could lose potential money spenders. I feel I have created a clear brand for the artist as I have used the same font for the name of the band on both ancillary texts and used the black and white theme for my advert and video. I originally chose the black and white contrasting with colour footage to represent the old era in my music video. I decided this was a significant concept in my video and so chose to use it across my ancillary tasks as well, more prominently in the background image of the advert. 3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback? (Voice over including voices of different people, edited, images and video as visual)

To obtain audience feedback I sent out questionnaires to a mixed age of people, from seventeen to twenty-seven, keeping within my target audience of sixteen to thirty-five. However, my results were biased due to most of my friends being seventeen and only one person was eighteen and one person was twenty-seven. I tried to remove bias by asking five females and five males. This also kept my results at a manageable level as I only had to evaluate ten questionnaires. The first question I asked was how often they watch music videos, immediately eliminating anyone who didnt watch any as they would not be relevant for this audience feedback. Fortunately no one asked never watched music videos, with the most popular frequency being every week showing that everyone had quite a good knowledge and experience of music videos. Most people who did the questionnaires preferred a narrative music video, I asked this question to see whether my idea for my music video would be a popular one and it confirmed that my idea of an auditioning process would be ideal as it fits into the narrative category. Also, I found that the preferred theme in a narrative music video is romance. To conform to this I could have included romance in my music video, however, the next two favourites were comedy and dancing which are the themes of my music video and I thought that was enough to keep it popular. Also, the relationship between my two characters could be interpreted as romantic although I didnt intend for this. Another question I asked is whether they prefer to see the artists in a music video or actors to see what my target audience thought about actors taking the place of the artist. The majority of people said both which suggests they prefer to see a large amount of people in a music video including both the artist and actors, proposing they wont be disappointed to see people other than the artists in my music video. It didnt suit my song choice to include people acting as the artist in my music video; however it could be interpreted that the characters could be the band even though they show no musical talent. I also asked whether they enjoyed the auditioning processes on talent shows and the majority said yes, with some saying only the funny ones. All the auditions in my music video arent meant to be serious and Im hoping the audience will find them funny. I asked this question as my narrative is based on the auditioning process for a talent competition so I wanted to know whether my target audience would enjoy this. Only one person said that they didnt enjoy watching auditions which shows that they are quite popular with most people. The majority of people asked said they got their music from iTunes, so I included the logo for iTunes on my magazine advert to advertise that they can purchase the music there. However, I couldnt link the buy now buttons on my website to iTunes so I linked them to Beatport as I knew it had all of Yolanda Be Cools music available for purchase. I asked the question of where my target audience acquires their music from to get a better idea of how to market my music video in my ancillary tasks. I also did a few test screenings and recorded peoples reactions to my music video at various stages. I did this to judge how people felt about my music video and I got some laughs that showed they found parts funny. I then asked them what they liked and didnt like to get some constructive feedback, however they werent that helpful and mostly said they enjoyed the dancing and didnt like the gaps, as I hadnt finished. Reaction videos proved to be not very useful but I enjoyed showing people my work so I did a few. Something I learnt from doing this was that people really liked the different effects I used in my video as it made it more interesting and fun. A lot of people said that they didnt really like the colour tints while Tyler and Oli are dancing so I added a split screen where nine shots were shown at once which was a massive improvement. People really like that part now whereas before it was quite boring. If I did the music video again I would probably focus more on the auditions at the start, perhaps including shots of the acts getting ready backstage and then move on to the auditions. I used the sequences of Nadia and Chris going to the auditions to provide background information but I dont think its necessary and slows down the pace of the music video. Im glad I included the shot of the sign for the auditions as it clarifies which the audience what is happening in the music video early on. Audience research is important as it enabled me to look at my target audiences preferences so I could tailor and adapt my products to suit them. This means that my products appeal to them and generate as much interest as possible within my target audience.

4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? When doing research for my music video I used a mac and my laptop with broadband internet to find out most of my information on Google and Wikipedia. These provided in-depth information on directors and theories, which helped me gain knowledge about music videos. These include Andrew Goodwins seven key conventions of music videos, Michael Gondrys background, filmography and successes as well as the public perception of him. I researched important events in music video history which enabled me to learn about how they came about and how they have developed. I also did director studies on Robert Hales and Andy Hylton. I watched plenty of music videos on YouTube and analysed them using my blog I created on Blogger, which has been a useful medium for putting my work on and my teacher being able to view it. I used my blog for the whole process and have put all of my research, planning, construction and evaluating on Blogger. By organising my blog using labels it has helped me to look back at ideas I had and decide what I need to do. Blogger was very easy to use as I was introduced to it last year for media studies and I had no problems with it. I used Wallwisher to write down all of my ideas, which helped me to organise what I was planning on doing for my music video. I linked this to my blog so that other people could view it as well. I found it an easy tool to use but Im not sure I would use it again as it seemed a bit unnecessary. I used a scanner to scan in my shot lists and storyboards to upload on to Blogger which gives a better quality than just taking pictures of the document which I did once using the webcam on my laptop. I uploaded my questionnaire to a website called Scribd which I could then embed into a blog post and allows for very easy viewing of documents. I really liked this method of putting documents on to my blog, found it really simple and came across no problems. I used screen grabs and embedded videos and images in most of my blog posts to make them more interesting for the reader and to provide evidence for what I talk about. Embedding was very easy once I learnt how to do it as were screen grabs. For my questionnaire results I created a Prezi and embedded this on to a blog post, providing a useful and engaging way of looking back at results by using graphs. By using a Prezi it enables the viewer to look at information in small chunks rather than a whole large piece of writing, making it more interesting for them. Its also very interactive as the viewer decides when to move on to the next slide and can go back to any slide they wish. I found Prezi a bit difficult to get used to as I had never used it before but I had no major problems. I like the end result as it looks professional. I used my iPod to listen to a variety of music when deciding what song to use for my music video and iTunes to download and listen to music. My iPod enabled me to listen to music on the go which was useful. Whilst constructing my music video I used HD video cameras which gave a really good quality to the footage, therefore making my music video look better overall and more professional due to the superiority over ordinary cameras. I had no problems using the cameras as they had a very simple interface. I also used tripod when I was filming to give steady footage as my shots werent meant to be obvious to the audience. This also helped to obtain a better quality of footage as a shaky shot isnt very professional. I filmed on to a memory card and then imported my footage on to iMovie on an iMac. To do this I used a cable to connect the camera with the memory card in and the iMac, then in iMovie selected the footage I wanted to import into a new event. I then imported this event on to Final Cut Express which was the program I used to edit my footage. I was introduced to Final Cut Express last year so I had a basic knowledge of how to use it but I couldnt remember much. We spent a couple of lessons learning how to use a specific feature of the program and I learnt how to use key frames. I found it quite simple to learn the basics of this feature from videos on YouTube which were very helpful; however I didnt go into much depth. I also learnt how to make a screencast which was uncomplicated to show others how to use key frames. This was a useful tool to use as it meant my classmates could look at the screencast when they could, rewind to parts they dont understand and keep it permanently for future reference. I used a memory stick to get the right version of the song on to an iMac and on to Final Cut Express. This was a very simple copy and paste operation which I am used to. To make my magazine advert I used Photoshop

because it had the best selection of tools. However, I found it very complicated and what should have been the simplest task took me a very long time to work out how to do it using the internet. Having had no previous understanding of Photoshop it took me a long time to make my advert and perhaps limited me as I wasnt sure how to use many of the features. I managed to do most things I wanted but it took me a long time. To create my website I used a website called Wix as it was easy to use. I had never used it before but I picked it up quickly and it had a very simple layout which enabled me to explore the different features and create a website without difficulty. I am pleased with the end result as it is quite professional and I am glad I used Wix. Evaluation *prezi, final cut express, HD camera, tripod, similar to video^.