Carla's Evaluation

Q1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our main media is an indie music video about a boy who likes to talk about general stuff to his girlfriend such as “Weather” (used in the title) to show their relationship is grounded in reality.

We had to use typical elements such as expected themes e.g. realistic issues and stereotypes for this type of video so the audience could get an idea of the genre and to make it feel authentic.

We decided to make our music video show romantic shots (a kiss, etc) but with funny elements e.g. to keep the viewer interested, we did this by adding random shots which still related to the lyrics i.e. the squirrel as it came out in the fine weather whilst filming and the squirrel looked to be hunting for food therefore it shows nature at work.

We tried to use a variety of different shots such as, extreme long shots, close ups in order to keep the viewer interested. These shots included performance and narrative this is typical of indie music videos as they are based around the same idea to get lots of narrative and performance shots into the music video.

Our music video uses typical generic conventions within the music video to make it successful and recognisable to its Indie genre this is because we have nature/weather as our main topic held within our theme, Indie plays a massive part in nature as we have music festivals that celebrate the free life (for the weekend) just like hippy times, therefore we can relate our music product with the Indie theme. All this is achieved by using the correct mise en scene, lighting, editing, sound and cinematography.

All typical elements can be found on the blog (http://zcmj.blogspot.com/search/label/Research) titled, The Indie Audience.

Mise en scene- Both Conor and Jess used in the video are typical elements of the Indie genre, we know this because of their clothing and hair cuts e.g. Conors hair is long and with a side fringe, Jess’ hair is also long with lots of layers and a rounded fringe; clothing used is basically anything comfortable maybe worn out and tatty looking but nothing over the top (eccentricity). This is typical of a music video as we nearly always see the artist or the band within the indie genre with this type of clothing on.

Editing/Cinematography- While filming we considered that we needed to take lots of shots in order to have enough footage to create our music video. We took some of extreme longs shots looking up at Clitheroe castle and vice versa. We took performance shots of the artist so when he was sat on a bench in the park playing his guitar and singing along. Once we collated all of our shots we had to use ‘Final Cut Express’ software used to edit and produce the final outcome of the video. We used effects such as additive dissolve and slow motion in order to get a longer insight on the performance aspect of the video. This was typical overall as there were many shots used as there is in a typical indie video to show an interesting light on the artist.

Sound- We had to make sure the sound quality was good to go onto the video therefore we got a recording from the college music studio of Conors performance. We also had to make sure the lip syncing were spot on in the video.

Lighting throughout is natural, this is typical of the indie genre as more often than not indie videos show the artist in natural light or portray natural lighting (using subtle artificial lighting behind the camera, etc).

In the ancillary task we produced a magazine cover and a 6 panel DigiPak.

The magazine cover showed Conor in a flattering light as all his blemishes had been air brushed out using Photoshop. He wears a plain black shirt to show comfort, smart- casual. His hair is also long and neat to the side. He is also sat with an acoustic guitar showing performance. These are typical elements of the indie genre, which can again be found on ‘The Indie Audience’ post found on the Blogger.

The DigiPak was also edited on Photoshop. I created the trees panel; this panel consisted of playing about with the hue, saturation, brightness and contrast also the smart blur to stop the picture looking overly grainy. Found on the blogger under the title of Final Print Product- DigiPak Sample.

Q2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

Our ancillary and music video links as a whole as there is a consistency of a weather approach in some way, whether edited or naturally, for example, the magazine has the image of Conor with leaves edited in a sepia colour, in the DigiPak all the panels show some sort of image representing the lyrics of weather, the main product (our music video) has a consistency to show the lyrics through scenes and shots; “Talking about the weather…” – Conor and Jessica are seen talking to one another during these lyrics. By looking at these links between these products we are able to identify them as a whole.


In my opinion I would say that they are effective when identifying the genre as we have typical representation of the Indie Rock genre, for example, Jessica is seen with a typical Indie hair style; rounded fringe and many layers. The shots are typical of the Indie genre too; for we can see many different shots showing variation to Mother Nature’s environment which is solely based on the lyrics and the genre itself.



Our strongest part of the project as a whole was the initial planning as it was dependant upon the weather as we wanted to create scenes showing the variation of the conditions in weather and by chance we were forecasted some snow so we planned to film some snow shots which created some lovely scenery shots (video and stills) suitable for our main product and ancillary tasks.



Our weakest part of the project would be some of the shots used in the project as they render poor quality shots in which I feel may have let the project down as a whole; for example, the studio shots are infinitely grainy and could have been improved.



The branding within our projects is a decent standard for our level of experience and shows a good understanding of making the product link as a whole, with the genre. Our branding in our ancillaries and music product has good branding techniques, for example, on the magazine cover, the writing is clearly seen, and the mise en scene, lighting, editing, sound and cinematography are typical of the genre as we can see a performance shot commonly used to brand a music product.



Q3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We have used audience feedback when our final music product was complete. We had a mixed response, good and bad but non to the extreme. We didn’t receive any feedback whilst making or editing the music product.



• 3 out 3 said the sound quality was at a good standard

• 1 out 3 said there was some random clips in the video that they didn’t quite know why

• 2 out 3 commented on the grainy saturated part of the video (in the studio)

• 1 out of 3 said that it should have been more colourful

• 2 out of 3 said there was a lot of shots that kept them watching

• Overall, 2 of the 3 thought that the video was well produced, whereas 1 out of the 3 said there could have been more to make this video more interesting.



From this feedback I realised that it was all true and that we should have done surveys before, during and after the production of the music video.



Q4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?



We used media technologies throughout our media product in order to achieve everything we have. We used I.C.T and D.T throughout and where necessary. Our blog played a major role throughout the creation of “Talking about the weather” music video. This can be found at www.blogger.com. The blog contains all of our research and planning efforts as individuals and as a group. We used interactive websites such as www.facebook.com to keep updated about the blog and how our product was progressing, etc. To receive feedback we uploaded our video onto www.youtube.com, where we received two comments about the music video. We not only used internet but we used digital technology (D.T) our cameras and mobiles to take images for our ancillaries, research and planning. For the filming of our product we used camcorders from college to help make our video. We spent most of our production on the Apple Macs editing (using Final Cut Express) software that was a simple way to make a creative music product. Photoshop helped us to use special effects and hide blemishes on the artists face.

I feel that we could have used the Final Cut Express to help us with our music product more to our advantage but there were certain aspects that what we changed had a downside effect on the whole video hence the grainy washed out effect in the studio shots, therefore we had to leave it how it was as we had no knowledge to get around this problem without it being overly time consuming.