Evaluation

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

All three of our media products (music video, digipak and magazine advert) are based around the genre of rap and hip hop. Before creating the products we made sure that we researched into both genres a great deal to allow us to create the best product we could with the knowledge gained through research and planning.

Our main product which took the longest time to make and required much hard work and cooperation was the music video to HB's 'Never Let The Party Stop'. The song fits into the rap and hip hop genre and with the use of 'Goodwin's Theory of Analysis’; we were able to establish what needed to be done to create a music video that fitted the conventions of a stereotypical rap video. To ensure our video fitted with the genre characteristics we made sure that 'HB' (Jack) wore the typical attire of that of a rapper. This included clothing such as jeans, t-shirt, flat peak hats, sneakers, varsity jackets and the famous 'bling' neck-wear.

We watched lots of rap and hip hop videos to get ideas for what we wanted to include in our video. We noticed that lots of close-up shots are used, especially when filming voyeuristic footage which is used quite heavily within this genre. Considering that our target audience was aimed at around 15-25 year olds and that our work is getting marked by examiners, we decided that it would be inappropriate to add overly sensual material! So, we created a close-up shot of just my lips coated in a glossy lip-gloss, lip syncing the chorus. We felt this added a subtle hint of voyeurism that would be acceptable for an A2 piece of coursework.

Like some rap artists such as Eminem, we wanted to have a narrative running throughout the video. Eminem is a good example because much of his music is based around how he made his way to the top of the music career, starting from nothing. Our music video illustrates this, mainly through the use of setting. The video starts at a school and progresses up to being in an affluent part of Oxford and then, at the end, on stage ready to perform to an audience. Vladimir Propp's Theory of Narrative helps to further expand on this idea; 'HB' is the hero who is male and restores the narrative equilibrium often embarking upon a quest (to reach stardom). Although there are not all aspects of Propp's theory there is also a sense of helper such as the fans and the backstage director - all who help 'HB' to become and expand on being famous.

The magazine advert and Digipak made for 'HB's' album use conventions of real media products. We did lots of research into our Digipak as we wanted it to correlate with other famous rappers' CD covers. Our main influence was Jay Z, a famous American rapper. Lots of his CD covers are in black and white. We felt this gave an effective and powerful image - Jay Z is extremely famous but the black and white gives a feeling of simplicity. We felt this went well with the music video as 'HB' starts from nothing, a plain background, to working his way up to the top. The pictures of the cities on the cover also help with this idea; they show a contrast from where 'HB' was, to where he wants to be. We have however, challenged the rap convention by not having a picture of 'HB' on the front cover. We felt that it left the audience with more of an ambiguous meaning that they could then work out for themselves.

We got a lot of our influence for our magazine advert from music magazines. We wanted it to be eye catching and spent quite a lot of time changing it to make it better. Both the Digipak and advert use rap conventions through perspective and point of view. The advert shows a picture of 'HB' with a large audience in the background as well as the album cover in the bottom right. David Chandler's Representation Theory comes into this when talking about semiotics. He states that all texts are constructed representations rather than a 'reflection'. It could be said that the poster is merely how we want our demographic audience to see 'HB'; famous, worshipped by fans, and wanted by everyone!

Looking back, I think our pieces could have been improved if we had better equipment. Obviously we could only really use what the school offered but if we had better editing software I think we could have improved the quality of the video especially, a lot more.

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

I feel that our main product (music video) and two ancillary texts (digipak and magazine advert) work effectively together as they all relate to each other in a sense that they all show 'achievement' and notion of looking. A theory that correlates well to the idea of notion of looking and our music video is Jonathan Shroeder's theory that ‘Media, especially film, has been called an instrument of the male gaze, producing representations of women, the good life, and sexual fantasy from a male point of view' (Schroeder 1998). The Good life is definitely shown throughout all the products (stage show and fans on the video, New York - City of Dreams on CD cover and the large audience on the poster) and there is also a slight sense of sexual fantasy and representation of women through the use of close-up shots of the lips that show through fades throughout the video.

The CD cover and music video both show the changing transition from a less wealthy background to an affluent surrounding. We wanted the theme of 'working your way up to the top' to run throughout all of our productions because we all felt that anything is possible if you push yourself to achieve it. HB himself is an 18 year old from Oxfordshire who started his music career from his bedroom! This is why we felt he would be such a brilliant person to use; he is widely recognised in Oxford, he has his own album out and has been interviewed on a local radio station. He has most definitely made his way up and we all hope to see him make it really big in the music industry as he has worked extremely hard to get to where he is now.

I think there could have been improvements. Overall I am really happy with our music video. We didn't have the highest quality equipment and we were let down severely when the editing software we were meant to use crashed on us every time we tried to upload our video. We ended up editing the whole video on Windows Movie Maker which was fine, but I feel it could have looked more professional if we had better software.

3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

When we finished all of our products and had it uploaded onto the blog, we all created polls that people could vote on. This enabled us to see what our demographic audience thought about the video. Also, we used the social network site 'Facebook' to post the finished music video and ask people to comment on what they thought and how we could improve. Blumler and Katz suggest that audiences use the media as an escape from real life and also to try and find their own identity through the product they watch. We wanted our audience to see HB as a role model and someone to look up to, hence why we did not completely fulfil the stereotypical view of rap and hip hop videos; lots of swearing and lots of footage of voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

After looking at the comments people had given us, we realised that the most important thing to work on when making an amateur video with little professional equipment and software, it is so important to make sure that the lip syncing is in time. In every music video we watch, the artist lip syncs in perfect timing to the music. It took us lots of attempts to ensure that HB (Jack) lip synced the song to the best standard he achieved. Overall we are really happy with the lip syncing and had the audience to thank for pointing it out.

As Andrew Hart says 'the meaning in not in the text, but in the reading'. So, although we wanted to calm the stereotypical ideas of the rap and hip hop genre, audiences will interpret what they watch in their own way, meaning that we could only calm so much. Another theory that adds to this The Frankfurts School who created the "Effects" model. This suggests that society is made up of isolated individuals who are susceptible to media messages. Again, this means that there was only so much we could do as a group to create a good, well thought out and structured media product.

Without the feedback we received from our social network audience and also our fellow A2 students who are all creating the same kind of products as us, we would not have been able to create our media products to such a high quality for the equipment given, all feedback given was appreciated!

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

Theorist Laura Mulvey focuses on how 'subject positions' are constructed by media texts rather than investigating the viewing practices of individuals in specific social contexts. I feel this comes into our production because we used media technologies to construct HB in the way that we wanted to without taking his personal attitude into account when filming him.

It would not have been possible to create our media products without the use of media technologies. To start with, all my coursework during AS, all the way through to A2 has been created through the website, 'www.blogger.com'. Blogging comes into Tim O'Reilly's theory that Web 2.0 'allows users to interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators (prosumers) of user-generated content in a virtual community'. This website enabled me to create my own personalised blogd and add posts to explain my group's research, planning and everything else involved in the coursework. Overall blogger has been very helpful in the completion of my coursework with the gadgets on this website allowing me to organise my work to a higher standard. However, I have also had problems with the site where it will not allow certain HTML codes. This meant that I couldn't upload some posts without having to completely retype them. This slowed down my ability to complete the coursework on time but I have now managed to resolve the technical issues.

After we had the research and planning sorted for our music video, my group then needed to actually film it! We used video and tripods supplied by our school to film the video and 'Windows Movie Maker' to edit the finished product. We didn't have any problem with the video camera, however, our video could have been better if the cameras were of a better quality and with higher megapixels. Also, as previously mentioned, the editing software didn't enable us to create great effects of editing as it was a simple program that came with the computor. We did still work hard to create the best product we could with the resources available to us and were overall, very happy with the finished product.

The internet also came in very handy when researching and planning. We used the website 'www.youtube.com' to find music videos that we could then use as inspiration for our music video. Also, the use of Publisher on the Microsoft desktop allowed us to create both our magazine advert and CD cover. The only problem we really had with the internet was that our school has very strict censorship over websites such as YouTube which meant that we had to research music videos at home. Otherwise there were no other problems and we were generally really happy with the three media products created.