Evaluation Question 1, Plan.

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

This question requires you to demonstrate how your research and planning has influenced your work. You'll need to review your research and planning posts and identify which elements from the music videos and artists you've researched have been incorporated into your final pieces.

You need to be honest, does your product 'work'?

When responding DON'T:

• write an essay 
• simply list points 
• produce a PowerPoint 
• waffle! 
• claim to have been 'original' (you haven't been, it's not possible!) 
• ONLY discuss your video 

When responding DO:

• Write about all THREE products 
• Be creative (how can you respond in an entertaining yet informative way?) 
• Use technology (e.g. photoshop, tubechop, prezi, scribd, iMovie, soundcloud, flickr etc) 
• Be analytical (pick out specific examples and remember your A2 theorists as well as ones from AS. Barthes, Todorov, Mulvey, Gilmore, Goodwin, Stewart etc) 
• Explain every decisions (discuss the choices you made) 
• Use the correct vocabulary (longshot, verisimilitude, diegetic etc) 

For my music video, I atttempted to emulate simplistic music videos from the alternative/indie market, which takes up the vast majority of my music collection. Video's from bands such as The Horrors, The Vaccines, and The Cribs, often follow a simplistic performance, that focuses on the music, rather than the content of video. Therefore this was something that I believed could play into my hands, since I'm not the most technical person who has sat down at a computer. Admittedly, my music video wasn't supposed to become as basic as it did, but due to the lack of time (my own fault) and also my lack of skills, it turned out to be a basic video.

One image representation that I tried to stay away from was the new 'indie wave' look that started to sweep across the nation recently, with bands such as Friendly Fires, and The Maccabee's following this look. Although I did need to stick to my genre, therefore I felt the best way to go about this, was a follow a more tradional indie look, therefore I took inspiration from bands who were influenced by music from previous generations, such as The Courteeners, who are influenced by the Mod culture, and also sight The Smths as a large influence on them. This was something that I noted on original pitch, that I would take inspiration previous generations, and although I didn't completely go all out making this a music video that resembles a previous generation, I did still stick to the routes of my pitch, especially in the form of frontman Levi Strummer. I believe you could look at his image throughout the video, and he portrays a man who was influenced by previous generations. I also attempted mix this with the image of a band who know they are cool, I don't want to use the cringy phrase, but they know how to 'Give it Big' and I tried to portray by putting the bass player in parka coat, similar to one you would have seen a man such as Noel Gallagher, followed by putting the lead guitarist in a 'Pretty Green' jumper, pioneered by Liam Gallagher, so I was putting these clothes symbolised this genre of music on my band members.

If anything positive was to come out of the video, I believe it was the camera angles used. I wanted to get a lot of close ups, something you see in many in many videos today, once again by bands such as The Cribs, I did this because it cuts out anything irrevelant, there would be no need to have a long shot of Strummer when he is singing the vocals, because there would be no need to see his jeans, it's just important that you can see his mouth clearly. I also tried to get shots of the drummer hitting the actual drums, and than showing his face, this was because it makes for a better edit, because you can see the drummer hitting the beat on time, rather than seeing an image of the drummer as the music is playing, because once again this would be pointless. I carried this procedure out once again with the guitarists, showing them strum to the music, because this helped my video look like an actual video.

For my Digipak, the ideas that I had envisaged in my mind, were not those that were portrayed on the actual Digipak, I once again tried to emulate my genre, the majority of bands that I looked to for inspiration had had chosen an image, rather than a having themselves on the front cover, as that is more a 'pop'/'mainstream' thing to do. I tried to recreate a roarscharke physcological, not only did it give a deeper meaning of playing with your mind pragmatically, it also links back to bands such as The Horrors and The Courteeners, who have artistic images on their front covers. I continued to follow the inspirations from these bands for my back cover, by making it very simplistic, sticking to the black and white theme, and then just naming the tracks, along with all the legal requirements.

With my poster, I took the main image from my front cover and placed it onto the poster, I did this for one main reason, to make my band look more distinctive, so that people knew who they were looking at when they saw the image. Another technique of other bands from my genre, an example is below with The Courteeners.

Overall, I do believe I could have done the elements of this piece of coursework better, if I had given myself more time, or had organised myself better, although I'd like to think I adapted my work to make it look like I had created work relevant to my genre.