Damien Crosby EVALUATION

Music Video Evaluation
Damien Crosby

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
1.During the process of our project, we wanted to make sure we covered aspects of music videos similar to today’s industry. We started off by analyzing the lyrics to the song, and seeing how we could incorporate them into a narrative for our video. We came up with the idea that the lyrics were representing a girl who has broken up with her boyfriend, and is regretting letting him go. She cannot get him out of her head, and this is reflected in the video in the way that as she carries out a normal day, the boy is there with her as she subconsciously thinks about him. The links between music lyrics, visuals and narrative, is strongly based on Andrew Goodwins ‘How to analyze a music video’. In this book he talks of 6 major points which music videos use to successfully sell a music video as a media product. The way in which we have created links between visuals and narrative shows we have conformed to his analysis, helping our video to be as professional as it can possibly be. During the narrative, the lead singer follows her during the day, and various shots in different scenes highlight this narrative. Once we had the narrative, we set about to shoot the video in a way which would please our record company, and sell our band successfully as an institution. The clothes we wore and the scenery in which the video was shot reflects this, as we dressed to suit the genre of our band, and shot in places which gave a reflection of our band, such as woodland scenery, and the town centre to give us a modern upbeat image as well as relaxed and laidback. The music genre which our band conformed to, is a hybrid of ‘indie’/’pop rock’. Once we had the initial idea for our video, we looked for other videos in today’s market which had a similar style or used similar effects and conventions of ours. We discovered three videos which done this, the first being ‘Bowling For Soup- Girl All The Bad Guys Want’. (2002) The inter-textual reference from this video refers to the superimposement of the band on television screens. Whilst the shot is in motion, the band appear to be performing on the television also. This effect we feel is a professional one and gives our video the ‘wow’ factor, in terms of the effects used. And we have used this shot in our video when Jodi walks past a television shop, and the band are performing on the television. Another video which we found to be inter-textually referenced from ours is ‘Fountains of Wayne- Stacey’s Mom’(2003). This video refers to the way in which the girl in our narrative sees the superimposement of the band, by sitting down watching the television and the band appears on the TV. The third and last video we felt was similar to ours was ‘Wyclef Jean- Gone Till November’(1998). this reflects the idea of the singer following a girl during the video, and adding to the narrative. To successfully shoot the video to high standards we focused largely on camerawork, and how the camera was used to highlight the band as an image, to vary shots to show pace and keep the audience entertained, and to give a certain feel to our video. A pan shot of the band performing was a handheld shot and gives a natural feel to the shot, panning in sync with the music. Tracking shots were also used, as well as long shots combined with close ups and extreme long shots. The lighting we used during the project was mainly natural, only indoor shots used electrical lighting. We chose to use mainly natural light as the band give across a very natural rural image, and having a woodland scene as a previous album cover gave us the inspiration to follow this style when filming. Another way in which our product developed and used real media products was in the production of our DigiPak. Using the rule of thirds, We stuck again to a natural chilled style, and used a shot of the band in the woodlands as our image. The font is black and bold so stands out well to the buyer, and is laid on top of a masking tape effect. The masking tape effect we felt was a good one as it is a representation of the bands name. ‘I Was A Cub Scout.” It links to this in the way that masking tape gives the idea of school and the bands name also suggests a young image. Once our digipack was completed we focused on our magazine advert and how the conventions of these were followed globally across the media and advertising industry. We stuck to using the band in the image to sell them to the buyer, having the title of the product we were advertising, and combined these with institutional information such as using ‘I Tunes’ and ‘Amazon’, which are online sites and reflect today’s market in the download and online purchasing industry. Also general conventions such as barcodes, as well as a release date and band websites for information and to build popularity. We also have used a quote from a review by ‘NME’ magazine, and we have chosen NME as they interview and review similar bands with similar genres. To combine this with the review, a five star rating has been used to furthermore advertise our album as one you will need in your record collection.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
As a combination the main product as ancillary texts worked well to produce a positive effect, as the magazine and digipak combine to really advertise and sell the bands image. The natural feel relates and helps put the band across s celebrities who are not affected by fame, and stay down to earth, unlike what some critics portray celebrities as power mad and fake. The name of the band ‘I Was A Cub Scout’ refers to young/childish memories and thoughts, so when the masking tape effect is used in our digpak and magazine, a schooltime feel was embedded into our texts to reflect the bands childish happy side. To combine this text and attitude with a natural laidback image, we went into a woodland area to take our photos for the texts. This puts the band across as those who are honest and real artists, and this is backed up by the fact that the songs are written by the band as well as the instruments being played. This we feel puts the audience in a state that they see the band as genuine and a change from the powerhungry, musicians whose voices are studio modified, do not know how to play instruments and are in the music industry for other reasons than to play, enjoy and love music.


What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
To gather our feedback we asked fellow members of the class what strengths and weaknesses our project had. As only the rough cut was completed, many said that a narrative was needed. However we had already planned to include a narrative, but it was yet to be shot. The use of more locations was mentioned, so we took this into account and went to a TV shop, a shopping centre, a bedroom, and a town scene as well as a car park. We feel the use of different locations was effectively used and we are glad the idea was mentioned. The result of us doing so gathered a lot more positive feedback and using feedback slips we saw that there was not much else needed to do, as we had covered many aspects already. We decided to add more camera shots, and show progression through the song between the band footage and the narrative. We are pleased with the feedback we received, as well as the feedback from our teacher. He said that our footage was good and the effects we were using were good, as well as the digipak and magazine being very professional. Without this feedback we would have been unable to see our project from a analytical perspective, and would have been unable to adjust it accordingly to ensure it was to the best of our ability.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used various media technologies for the research, planning, construction and evaluation of our final product. For our planning, we wanted to understand the bands views and who they were as people. To do this we decided to email I was a cub scout using Myspace. Unfortunately we were unable to receive a reply as the band sadly split up in late 2007. In our research stages, Youtube was a big influence as we were able to easily search videos and watch them online, to help us understand techniques and ways in which the video was shot. As well as this related videos gave us a number of videos which were either by the same band, or were of a similar genre and style. In terms of the construction stage, using the Macs we were able to use final cut express for all our editing work. Using this we were able to add effects and make sure our work was in sync and professional. For our digipak and magazine, we used photoshop to edit our imagery, select our fonts and use effects such as the masking tape to bring out the font on the image. Once the video was completed, myself and bobby participated in a ‘Band Interview’. During this interview, in a documentary style, we reflected on and answered these four questions. Jodi was the interviewer, as well as the one who filmed the footage. We took this footage and embedded images from our work onto it, as well as some shots form the video. This way as we were answering a question, the shot would play over our voices and give the viewer more understanding of what we set out to achieve.