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

Our music video was based on the artist Professor Green with his song “Jungle”. His genre is R n B and Rap and he is one of the biggest artists in Britain. Dub-step is not an established sub-genre so its music video conventions have not yet been established. This allowed us to be very creative, with very much a free hand regarding our style of production. For example, we used editing techniques such as fade to black to emphasise the ‘dark nature’ of our subject matter and a non-linear narrative to make the video more intriguing for our audience. We adopted the traditional style of continuity editing, with cuts on the beats on the music. This challenges the emerging conventions of Dub-step music videos as the shot transitions are focused more between the beats.

Regarding our choice of mise-en-scene, Dub-step has roots in London’s underground urban dance scene, therefore we felt we needed to feature this life-style in our music video. We consequently had an emphasis on London’s inner city housing estate areas and Soho back streets.

Our research on Dub-step videos was fairly limited as we could only find two productions: “Blackburner” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN4unt2aB1s) and “Dreamer”. We analysed these videos and found that both were similar regarding their style of production. They were performance driven, and without following any kind of recognisable narrative, they did not make any sense. Basically, they featured a fairly unimaginative mixture of flashing lights and people’s faces popping up on screen to sing the lyrics. Our video challenged these embryonic conventions as we followed a distinct storyline, with a closed narrative structure. We wanted to increase our target audience interest by doing this.

Of course, being a mixture of performance and narrative driven, our video is following the conventions of more traditional music video productions. We also

used traditional editing effects such as fade to black to punctuate the action, while using tried and tested black and white sequences to connote flashbacks. We also adopted the style of intercutting scenes, in our case a street scene narrative that is related to the lyrics of the song and shots of a performer lip-syncing in a back-street pool room.

Our scenes also traditionally comprised of establishing shots to set the scene, with medium shots and close-ups to emphasise particular action. We had to make some of the shots a bit pacey so

that it would match the beat of the song. As is conventional, we featured close ups of the artist to promote his image, encouraging the concept of the female gaze. We use conventional symbolic codes, such as characters in hoods / on mobile phones to enable greater audience identification. The shot where the main character is about to sniff the cocaine is an extreme example of this, with drugs being a feature of inner city gang life. Our style of presentation was influenced by film noirs, showing their characters warts and all. In our case, the shots of cocaine sniffing are warning the audience that the rest of our character’s scenes are now going to be under the influence of drugs.

Regarding our narrative, to a degree, we followed the emerging convention of using violence in music videos. There has been much controversy about this development, with many feeling that music videos have gone a step too far in recent times. For example The Game’s music video for “Dreams” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K0q74jtV8s) features a gang breaking into a person’s house and shooting him in the chest.

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

I think our main product and ancillary texts flow well together as they have managed to adopt the key elements of branding.

This was firstly achieved in our video as we tried to differentiate ourselves from what already existed in current market trends. Many of the big acts like Beyonce and Rihanna have music videos that use creative, surreal ideas in terms of mise-en-scene, but such music videos do not really explore visual effects (other than through the use of CGI). In our

Beyonce youtube.com/watch?v=FHp2KgyQUFk&ob=av2e

The extreme violence, with the gun and blood from his chest

One of our shots, although without blood on his body

music video, we focused on keeping a consistent mood of obscurity, which was largely achieved by and modifying the colours of our clips. For example The choice of the black and white colours at the end the end sequence, when the vocalist disappears connotes that he is in a different dimension and also he is dead.

We followed these main branding elements through into our print products. For example, developing our concept of back-street urban life, we featured a night-time shot of the housing estate and Soho’s Chinatown. We used the colour of green, obviously, for the “Prof Green” caption, but we also used green to connote a balancing influence regarding his warning in the lyrics “Don’t go down there”. We also superimposed a big close up of the artist over the Chinatown shot, connoting that he was ‘overseeing’ all the activity in that area, and not looking too pleased with what he saw connoted by the fact that he is looking away from the street scene. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VHwnua6yg0&feature=youtu.be. All this worked very effectively, in my view, extending the concept of the video production.

Our digipack follows established forms and conventions, for example using an image of the artist, the name of the artist, the name of the song and a track-listing. We also followed emerging Dub-step digipack conventions by modifying the artist’s image in terms of colouration. However we have challenged some conventions as most digipacks use bright colours to grab the viewer’s attention. We have gone for a different approach, with a dark mise-en-scene, including poor street lighting and dark colours to show the viewers that we are promoting a track with a sinister theme. In fact, our video and each of our print products feature night-time scenarios with dark backgrounds and only a hint of street lighting, to give everything a very shady atmosphere. We made sure that the mise-en-scenes were very similar so that each text would flow together, however we gave the products subtle differences so that the audience could recognise that each text was a different but integral part of the whole.

We are very happy with our ancillary texts (below).

Digipack front & back cover Inner Sleeve

Magazine advert

We wanted to make the magazine advert as simple and effective as possible, while maintaining our branding style. In my opinion I think we have achieved this very well as the mise-en-scene is again dark and foreboding with the same font style and colouring for “Professor Green”. The main character is again hooded, with little street lighting to expose his features. Our magazine advert follows established forms and conventions by showing an image of the artist, the name of the artist, name of the song and the date of release, all vital elements in selling the final digipack

to our audience.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

From our initial audience research we could see that our music video was going to be aimed at urban audiences aged 15-25, of both genders and all ethnicities. This was the demographic that could see them-selves most effectively relating to our Dub-step genre and subject matter.

On the subject of our end of production audience feedback, the majority of people we surveyed thought that the overall concept was excellent, as we had comments such as “I think the change between cameras/shots is really well done”, verifying that we accomplished our overall objectives.

E.g. regarding technical, symbolic and cultural coding, most of our audience pointed out that our camerawork and lighting were of a near-professional standard etc. Our feedback on editing techniques was very positive as we had a comment saying “I think the change between cameras/shots is really well done”. I learnt that the fast paced editing and good camerawork kept the tension going, making the audience wanting to see what happens next. Regarding our mise-en-scene, the actual locations were proved to be a very big part of our music video’s success and 98% of our audience surveyed thought our settings were most appropriate. The only criticism we had about our choice of location was when the main character was playing pool, with one respondent thinking that the location looked more like a garage, as it was stacked with storage boxes. From this we realised that a more up-market pool room would have added a little more authenticity to our production. We also realised that every location has to be precise in order to best ensure the preferred reading.

We also learned that the majority of the people that we got our feedback from were mainly into RnB and Hip-Hop, and were into narrative driven music videos

instead of performance-based productions, which gave us a bit of a shock. We noticed that RnB and Hip-Hop music are genres that focus more on storyline instead of performance for example comparing a music video of “The Game” and the rock band “Linking Park”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K0q74jtV8shttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVTXPUF4Oz4&feature=relmfu

As already stated, many of the audience that observed the music video were not into Dub-step, however they all commented that the music really suited the video and they actually liked the choice of Dub-step song that we chose. The majority of our target audience said it was very catchy and entertaining and that they were going to listen to Dubs-step more. They also wanted us to make more music videos. From all this I have learnt that we have utilised the conventions very well, to a high technical and aesthetic standard.

Regarding the magazine cover and the inner sleeve, I gave it to the audience for them to hare their opinions on it. 97% of them said that they were very good as each of them flows together and they can see how it suits the music video, which shows that we have accomplished our goal of continuity. E.g. the layout and the type of colours shown on both of them are quiet similar such as the use of green fonts and the use of a dim background with street lights. The audience really admired the choice of colours used and the type of images and fonts used also. Not one of them said that they would change anything from it. This proposes that we put a lot of thought into the layout, the images, the font and also the colours we wanted to put on it. They all said that they fit the conventions of our music video.

On the subject of our Magazine advert, we also presented that to the audience. The majority of the audience we presented the magazine to thought that the overall construction was very well thought of as we had comments such as “I really like how the street lights are contrasted with the darkness and the person is standing there in all black clothes, it makes the whole atmosphere look dangerous”. From this comment it demonstrated that our intention of creating a Soho and menacing atmosphere was a success.

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

During the research stage, I used the internet extensively to help me gain

knowledge of the forms and conventions of different music genres and to research different kinds of Dub-step music. YouTube was one of the most popular websites that I used for this research, and it really helped me with my similar text analysis. For this I analysed the female R n B song artist named Rihanna. I examined her music video “Te Amo” to see the different types of camera angles and shots used to portray her image. This gave me an idea of how an R n B music video should look like.

I used Google as my main search engine and it offered us a lot more significant information as the search results are actually categorised by humans as opposed being computerised. Google also provided us with links to images and videos, not just web links. The use of Facebook also helped us during our target audience research because we were easily able to gain a large sample size.

During the planning stage we used Youtube to look at different genres to find out which genre would suit our group. We examined the convention of R n B, Rock, Dubstep and Soul. Youtube had a variety of music videos from a genre which allowed us to analyse and study each genre properly before we chose which one we wanted to pick. Having picked Dubstep to be our genre, we then had to research on that genre and found out what made Dubstep different from the other genre which was done through using Google. Google was one of the most current websites that I used for this research and it also helpe me with my subject matter. For this I investigated Dubstep and the history of it to get a general idea of where it all started from and how it developed during the years.

For post-production we used Final Cut pro on a Mac computer. This was my first time using this editing system as I was used to use Adobe Premier on a PC. However, I soon found that Final Cut Pro is much more user friendly regarding the use of effects and keeping the video in sync with the music on the timeline.

For example, when we imported our clips, we had to use the log and capture feature whilst playing back our tape though the external video tape player. This was a very long process, but required us to watch all our clips again, taking note of any flaws in what we had recorded. After the clips were imported into Final Cut Pro, some needed to be shortened to fit in the correct timing of our sequence timeline, which meant we were not going towards the script and storyboard at times. New techniques that we had to learn were the adding of visual effects to our clips and this was difficult to catch on as this was something I did not learn during AS. We used effects such as split screens and fade to black. Photo shop CS4 and also Adobe Photoshop Element 10 were another use of technology of computers that we used to construct our magazine and digi-pack. Each member of our group chose which part of the digi-pack they wanted to do and we each tried to make it so that each of it flows together e.g. same or similar use of colours and font. Moreover To add a cross transitions between clips, I had to click between the clips on the timeline, and then right click and click on add cross transition. I was then able to choose how fast I wanted the transition by dragging the transition left and right, making it wide or thin.

For the construction of our music video we used a cannon Legria HF R36 digital camera. The camera was very good quality however the camera man did find it a bit difficult to begin with however he did get the hang of it. Everybody in the group got a chance to record so that we could all become familiar with it. we needed to know how to set up several controls like the white balance so our recording would be clear and not grainy in the current lighting condition due to the fact that we were filming in dark conditions. I learnt from using this camera that lighting was one of the main things we had to adjust before using it otherwise when editing the video we would not be able to see much.

We had to upload every research and evaluation on a blog. The blog was very easy to use however the appearance of the blog was quiet different which confused me a bit however I got the hang of it very quickly. We uploaded images and documents from slide share unto the blog moreover it is very quick to upload.

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