Evaluation - Alex Breeze

1. Our music video uses and develops on a lot of pop genre forms and conventions. We focused on these four main conventions; camera angles, costume, editing transitions and lighting. Firstly the camera angles within our music video featured a lot of close-ups and tracking shots. We learnt from other artists' music videos, including Beyonce's 'Run the World', that these camera shots help to attract attention to the singer and artist recognition within audiences.
  The costume within our music video was focused on a teenage 'indie' look, inspired by artists such as One direction, JLS and Justin Bieber. This worked well in our video as it used and developed on costume conventions of a current modern pop genre artist. This also made our artist more relatable to the targeted audience of teenagers and young adults.
  The editing transitions within our music video are quick and fast paced. From our research into other music videos we learnt that this helps to keep the audience engaged and interested in the video. An example of an artist that uses fast paced shots and quick transitions in their video would be 'Two Door Cinema Club - Something Good Can Work'.
  Finally the lighting within our music video was inspired by the music video 'Greatest Day' by Take That as within their video it is bright and summery which is what we tried to portray in our own video. We also tried to achieve glare on the camera lens which is also featured in the Take That video. This is because it is a unique effect and can help to represent the mood and atmosphere of our video. For example within in our product we used glowing Autumn light that suggests Ne-Yo is over coming his sadness because its still dark, but its getting lighter. Also with the scenes when Ne-Yo is in the past with the female character, it is bright and happy; showing the mood of the scene. This is not a convention of pop videos to have past and present scenes of happiness and sadness however I think it works well with the song and lyrics.
  Overall our video conforms to and challenges the conventions of a pop music video however I am pleased with the various elements we have chosen to focus on and I think we have demonstrated the atmosphere of the song well. The lyrics fit well with the illustrative nature of our video through the use of characters and a storyline throughout the song.

2. The combination of our main product and our ancillary texts work well because we have a key theme running throughout: emotions. As the song is quite emotional and Ne-Yo is trying to portray these emotions through his lyrics, we have tried to captures these feelings through the use of acting in our video, imagery in our ancillary texts and lighting in all our products.
  The acting within our video features a sad and depressed teen which is illustrative to the lyrics as he is sad from just losing his girlfriend. We tried to capture these emotions through the way the character walks and the expressions that are made. This attracts the audience because it shows the artist being vulnerable and so the audience can relate to this.
  This imagery within our poster and digipak represents the emotions of the artist. For example within the poster there is graffiti that is aggressive in some places but sad in others. All of these represent the feelings our artist is feelings within this vulnerable time in his life.
  The lighting within all our products is a key illustration of our theme: emotions. For example within our video it is light in some places but dark in others which signals the feelings and emotions the artist is feeling at these points in the song. Also the lighting on our ancillary texts are dark and gloomy again representing the feelings of the artist. The front cover of our digipak is a close-up of the artists face which helps for artist recognition but also to connect with the audience as they can feel closer to him due to his vulnerable expression.
  Overall the products we have made work well together because they have a sharing theme of emotions and help to display the artist in an unusual way from what is normal. For example Ne-Yo is usually shown as a 'player' and a womaniser in his videos, but with this video and promotional pack we hope to shine light on his vulnerable side.

3. Our audience feedback has helped us to improve in all of our our products. For example with the rough cut of our video we received feedback stating 'the mirror shot of the iphone shows good inter textual references of the target audience'. This helped us to confirm that this was a good shot because at first we were debating whether or not to keep it. We also received feedback stating that our lip syncing was OK but could do with improvement, from this feedback we made sure that in our final product all the lyrics were lip synced.
  Our advice from Amar was the most useful because he suggested we have shorter scenes and more scenes featuring the female extra. This was good advice as we later received compliments on how the video kept the audience entertained and on their toes.
  We also received feedback on our ancillary texts from Andrea, this was to over edit some of the images so they stand out as much as possible. For example with the front cover image of the album, before the advice it was hardly edited on Photoshop however once finished we had added more contrast, de-saturation, adjusted the levels and curves. This advice made our images look at lot better and stand out a lot more.  
  Overall we took full advantage of the feedback given and improved on all our products.

4. We used three main media technologies including Final Cut, Photoshop and Blogger.
  Within Final Cut we edited and enhanced our video from using such effects as cutting, contrasting and adding transitions. We also used image enhancing tools within Final Cut that colour corrected the scenes to give them more of a professional look and also an Autumn seasonal glow. Another technique we used was making the flashback scenes black and white with also a white glow round the outside to help convey that the scenes were in the past. This was a pinnacle part of our illustrative storyline because with out this technique the flashbacks wouldn't have been obvious and so the story wouldn't have made sense.  Without Final Cut we would not have been able to edit our project and with ease.
  The media technology Photoshop was a key part to the making of our ancillary products as we used the programme to edit and enhance the images but also to add in text which is a fundamental convention to the digipak. These adjustments improved our digipak massively as through Photoshop we were able to add more contrast to the images, adjust curves, levels and change the saturation. Without these edits our images would have appeared dull and unprofessional. Overall Photoshop made enhancing our images a lot more easier and quicker.
  Another media technology we used was Blogger. This made it easy for us to document and record our ideas, thoughts and feelings towards our products. Also it made it easy for others to pass on feedback and for to immediately see and respond to this feedback.
  Overall, all of these software packages carried our creativity forward instead of hindering it and helped us to create a product and ancillary texts at a professional level.