George Douglas - 4055

Evaluation:

http://twgsbmedia10a2group4.blogspot.com/2010/12/george-evaluation.html

Audience research:

http://twgsbmedia10a2group4.blogspot.com/2010/12/audience-feedback-questions.html

Print Work:

http://twgsbmedia10a2group4.blogspot.com/2010/12/george-final-advert.html

Animatic:

http://twgsbmedia10a2group4.blogspot.com/2010/11/group-animatic.html

Jamie Cutts - 4051

Evaluation Question 1 :
http://twgsbmedia10a2group4.blogspot.com/2011/01/jcutts-question-1.html

Evaluation Question 2 :
http://twgsbmedia10a2group4.blogspot.com/2011/01/jcutts-question-2.html

Evaluation Question 3:
http://twgsbmedia10a2group4.blogspot.com/2011/01/jcutts-question-3.html

Evaluation Question 4:
http://twgsbmedia10a2group4.blogspot.com/2011/01/evaluation-jcutts.html

James Cork - 4045

Evaluation Question 1:
http://twgsbmedia10a2group4.blogspot.com/2010/12/james-evaluation.html

Evaluation Question 2:
http://twgsbmedia10a2group4.blogspot.com/2010/12/james-evaluation-question-2.html

Evaluation Question 3:
http://twgsbmedia10a2group4.blogspot.com/2011/01/james-evaluation-question-3.html

Evaluation Question 4:
http://twgsbmedia10a2group4.blogspot.com/2010/12/james-evaluation-question-4.html

JCutts- Question 2

How effective is the combination of your media and ancillary texts?

• When constructing our music video , we also had to produce a digipack and advertisement, for the album of our chosen track, in our case; The Script - Science And Faith. This is to be seen as a branding exercise more than anything. The advertisement must sell the band as a product, and therefore must comply with the genre of an Indie Rock back or if it doesn't, there must be a deliberate reason why it hasn't.
• In order to create Band image and brand our artist through the album and advertisement we had to ensure that there was some link between each of our individual adverts so that our final idea could be compiled from features of them all. We chose that the use of the graffitied alien would be a big selling point on our digipack and correspondingly we chose to use that in our adverts. I then changed my away from the alien for my advert and chose to put a screen shot of the band instead. I felt this would work better in the style of how our music video was put together. As our music video used a lot of meat shots selling the song through the band and lead singer, if i used a similar effect on the advert this would show a strong brand image.

• Above is a copy of the advertisement I made. I chose to use this image as I thought it was a strong image of the band. I also chose to drain the colour from the surrounding background. I felt this gave a feel that they were more 'alone' and different. This is something that present in our song , and throughout the album , the fact that the problem is between only the people involved and that a decision has to be made. This often gives a feeling of loneliness and that you may seem very much alone. Both band members seem to be thinking with with facial expressions showing deeper thought.

• The drain of colour also helps with the leading line. Your eye is instantly drawn to the colour in the advert, following down to the name of the album and band name. This is done in a way so that you associate the Album and Band to branded in the same category as the Band members as one. It then leads you to quotes from a radio 1 DJ 'Scott Mills' and the Indie Rock Magazine 'Q' this also suggests stereotypically what kind of audience it is looking to appeal to .

• The rule of thirds in this case is somewhat broken due to the fact it is anchored and structured around the linear features of the wall and building. This helps also with the fact if you follow the lines of the wall or steps it leads you to the Band members again and this means the leading line does exactly what I intended it to do , create a brand image which is not only associated with the Album but seen as one brand.

• I feel when put into a half page of a magazine like this one was intended to do it will catch the eyes of any readers, not only for the fact that it shows the band in colour where as the background is in black and white, the lead singer is wearing a bright white jumper anchoring the image in the centre of the image. This conveys dominance , a stereotypical feature of a lead singer in an Indie rock band , and also in a relationship, which is predominately what the song and album is about.
  

Jcutts - Question 1

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

The title of the band's album we chose to promote was called 'Science and Faith' this vague name allows the band to go into issues such as relationships, emotions, and other things through song. Our particular song we chose to make a music video to called 'walk away' is about a relationship which shows a male character who know he is bad for the female character, however she cant bring herself to leave him , and a vicious circle begins.

Conforming to Conventions;

• In terms of convention of the band 'The Script' are we looked into previous video's they had released . They conformed to most Indie Rock type styles, this included plenty of performance shots but with some sort of narrative running through it . However we were very indiscive whether to go ahead with the amount of performance shots as other videos did. This was due to the fact our equipment was obviously a lot less superior to ones available to professional musicians. On top of that none of us played an instrument . However in the end we chose to go ahead with the performance shots, we recorded several times to ensure we had covered every angle we wanted and also had enough in case any part was out of time, after all if this wasn't convincing it would ruin our video. Fortunately the footage we had was good enough for most to believe we were actually playing the instruments .
  

• Of course, when looking at forms and conventions, we had to look into Dyer's paradox's . His first being that the star must appear to be ordinary yet extraordinary at the same time . This meant clothing for the lead singer and band member must be fairly fashionable, yet at the same time the audience must be able to compare themselves to him and therefore compare the song and lyrics to a situation they may be in.

• This image here shows a shot of the lead singer just after he has been seen walking through the streets, just like any other person, he was not over dressed, and could well have been the person watching the video from an audience perspective. However in this shot, the lighting and facial expression shows a deeper meaning, conveying that the lead singer has something to say and it extraordinary in terms of the band. However his facial expression also suggests meaning and that he could have been in this situation , and that what he is singing about, is in fact true, or of a past experience.
• The second of Dyer's paradox's is that the artist must be both Present and absent. We conveyed this by lots of early performance shots, and meat shots of the lead singer, this meant you associated his voice with that face, and branded them as one.

• This early establishing shot means that the audience can quite clearly see the main voice ( the lead singer ) is most definitely present. However there are certain shots in which we can hear the artists voice and therefore tell it is him who is singing , but can see a different couple , in which the lyrics have a strong link to. This could be seen as being both present, and absent.
  

• The evident link between the lyrics and video is on that is obvious in terms of that the lead singer is talking about the characters included, however the clear reason and problem certainly creates a narrative fuzz. This slight vagueness, allows not only for people watching to remain engaged as they try and figure out the plot further, but also will allow any watching to put themselves in the position of either the character or lead singer, this first person mode of address is enhanced with plenty of meat shots and the lead singer looking into the camera.
• In order to convey the problem in what is clearly a relationship between the two characters we had to initiate a clear contrast between a memory that appeared to be happy, and those that showed emotion, for the worse. For the majority of our ''happy shots'' we used an effect which showed a a high contrast in the colour red. The colour has stereotypically got connotation of love as in a heart, which showed the relationship and when put together with a shot with plenty of movement, proved to work well. However equally red also has connotations with anger, and frustrations, we felt this was a clever way to convey both emotions in one, and leave it up to interpretation of the audience to decide what emotion was going through the characters heads at that specific time.

• On the flip side, when we wanted to show a clear time of when the characters seemed upset or feeling sorry for themself we using a grainier wash , with little bright colours, we felt this best described and showed connotations of a broken couple or relationship.
  

• This shows little colour and only one side of the characters face. She is looking away from the camera suggesting she is deep in thought, which when placed in with the lyrics, we can only assume is about the relationship .
  

• The lyrics of the song 'walk away' suggest a male telling a female to 'walk away' from him as he is bad for her. Yet she cannot. This suggest that the male is in control of the relationship and that the women cannot see past her feelings for him, this conforms to the stereotype that men and predominately superior in relationships , in todays patriotic society.

• Here shows a shot of the male character walking away from the girl, yet she chases after him. The fact that this is such a common problem in todays society which is shown on TV drama's films, and even in real day to day life, means it's social currency is increased . People can talk about the video , comparing it to things they have personally seen, watched or even experienced

.Goodwin's Framework;

Goodwins critical framework is something we considered upon constructing our music video, we used a strong link towards the lyrics and video. However despite the link between the lyrics and video, we avoided a ''story telling'' type approach , we wanted to leave a lot down to interpretation.

At this point the lead singer sings; '' Fallen in love in the worst way'' it then cuts to a POV shot of the female character laughing and clearly happy. However the amplification the colour red could suggest a deeper meaning of a problem she is not showing. And how her obsession with the male character is eventually her downfall. This complies with the stereotype that women are often the obsessive ones in relationships.

Jcutts - Question 3

How did the audience feedback inform your concept development?

In order to plan our shoots we used our audience research to decide what would be best . Using survey monkey we were able to gather our research back easily and then make decisions in correlation to the responses.

• Here shows that the people who answered suggested that two to four different locations would be most preferred followed by five or more. This was as expected as we intended on using many different locations but with a similar style to keep to a relatively clear narrative which the audience also indicated they wanted. However doing this we had to enable we kept some narrative fuzz.
• We asked the question what do they think the song is about , to give us an idea of what the audience would expect the forms and conventions to be of it , as you would do in real life when a song is released before the video.
• 'Oh this song is extremely sad and happy. I would personally class it as powerful. It is a moving piece and really sets off ones emotions. Good choice.'
• This was the general idea we got , a lot of people where not sure of the song but gathered it was a relationship that had ups and downs. We used this information and thought that if we left our music video open ended it would give the same confusion that the song gave and not make anything to obvious. This also would allow the audience the ability to put themselves in the position with the band or characters showing a first person mode of address, as if these words and video is meant for a particular person.

• What the lead singer and band should wear was something that we strongly considered before shoots. We had to consider Dyer's paradox's in the sense of a star must be extraordinary and ordinary . This meant we wanted the star to look stylish and in with the genre, but also ordinary looking enough for people to be able to feel like they have some comparison to the lead singer/ band. We decided to dress the lead singer in skinny jeans a white top and a leather jacket in the urban locations and in the band shots, jeans again with a tight Grey top .
• This also had to be taken into consideration when thinking about what the characters would be wearing . We decided on a ordinary look again with the female character wearing leggings a leather jacket and a top. As for the male we gave him a Jacket and Jeans. We felt dressing as any other person would show how relevant the song can be to almost anyone .

George - Evidence of call sheets/ risk asessments

Here is evidence of our call sheets and risk assessments whilst going out on a shoot with school equipment: