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

Below i have looked at how we have used various technologies for the construction, research, planning and evaluation that i have completed. I have analysed each technology, and written a little about it, in this powerpoint presentation. Due to a size limit on Slideshare, i have unfortunately had to split it into three separate slideshows, but all the information is there.

The following Wordle demonstrates what technologies we have used, and to what extent we have used them; the bigger the text is, the more we have used them.

Evaluation 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Evaluation 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts (Digipak and Magazine advert)?

As part of our coursework, along with our music video, we had to create a digipak and a magazine advert to go with it, as if the product was really to go on sale. We tried to keep certain things in each product similar, or the same, as shown in the presentation below. This continuity heightens the effectiveness of how we present type of band and song that we were trying to portray.

We have not only considered our own opinions of the digipak and magazine advert; to get a real analysis of these products, we asked members of our target audience what they thought in a series of interviews, with mainly positive feedback, and the answers which we were hoping for. The questions which we asked were;
What were your first impressions of the Magazine Advert and Digipak?
From the two products, what type of music would you guess this band makes?
What themes/ideas run throughout the advert, digipak and music video?
Do the two products make you want to watch the music video?
Would you consider the magazine advert to be 'eye catching'?

Evaluation 1: In what ways does your media product use, develope or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Today, for the first time  i used a website called 'Prezi' to create this powerpoint to answer the first evaluation question. It is a great way to display all information, in an interesting and easy way.

Our Final Products

Below are the three final products; A music video for the song 'Oh Me Oh My' by the 99s, accompanied by a 6 panel Digipak and a Magazine Advert.


Music Video

Digipak

Magazine Advert

Creating Our Survey

Today we created a survey on surveymonkey.com, to gather audience feedback. Although we are unable to post this on Facebook due to school filters, i will text people asking them to do it, and also paste the link below, for anyone who looks at my blog to get as many results as possible. Results will be collected in a few days time.

OUR SURVEY LINK.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QCQFRDL

Theory Work: Andrew Goodwin's theory of how to analyse a music video.

I have created a Prezi to demonstrate the 5 aspects of Andrew Goodwins theory of how to analyse a music video.

Filming/Editing: Making the 'Oh Me Oh My' video title

On a music video that is shown on a music channel, such as VIVA or 4MUSIC, at the beginning and end of the song their is a caption telling the audience the name of the song and the artist. In our case this is;

Oh Me Oh Me
The 99s

We had to make one of these for our music video, which we did on the same program as when we made the credits for our thriller; Livetype

We did this by putting the text in, changed the colour and font, and effects, to affect the way it came onto the screen, and faded away. We also had to adjust how long it would stay on the screen. This had to fit in time with the video.

Here is the finished article on the music video.

Our Song/Artist: Tweeted by The 99s!

My sister Katie tweeted James from the 99's, explaining that me and the boys had made the video, and that they should check it out, sending him a link to watch it. In response, he said he really liked it, and that they would like to put it onto their website if that was okay, which of course we told them it is! I told my sister to then give him the link to my blog, so they can see the digipak and advert. We will keep a look out on the 99s website for the video.

Digipak & Advert: Creating the Digipak

I have put into the table below a range of aspects, tools and processes i have used to make the digipak for our music video on Photoshop.

Digipak & Advert: Creating the Magazine Advert

We created the digipak on Photoshop, and it really allowed us to extend our skills with using the tools on photoshop.

To begin with, Tom took a picture of a brick wall in school and then i made it to the size i wanted; A4. This was for the background, and is the picture we continued to use for our digipak panels.

Then, we took the pictures that we took for the digipak, and individually cut them out using the magnetic lasso, which attaches itself to recognisable edges. Any mistakes it makes can be changed by pressing 'Q' on the keyboard, in order to 'tidy up'.

From here, we had toput each picture into the 'Filter Gallery', where we could add effects to make it look more graffitied, as if it had been graiffiti'd onto the wall, as shown below. We had to apply the same filters to each person.

Someone else recommended to us the website www.dafont.com, which offers a wide range of free downloadable fonts. We searched 'graffiti', and 'spraypaint', and ended up using a font called 'cityburn'. We then continued to use this font on our digipak too.

The below image is the original magazine advert that we created, however upon analysis of it, we decided it was too crowded with too much text, and so we removed one of the ratings, and rearranged the positioning of the HMV and iTunes logo.

Digipak & Advert: Our Digipak

Below is our digipak, the finished product. I have taken various printscreens of the digipak as a whole, then the inside, the outside and each panel seperately. We tried to keep certain aspects common throughout. Firstly the brick wall, which we also maintain on the magazine advert. Also, the graffiti font, and the modified pictures, particularly on the inside. The colour theme was brown and red.

Below is the product as a whole

Below is the inside panels;

With the ice cream picture, we did debate whether to put 'The 99s' next to it, but decided to leave it off to keep it simple, and allow the audience to work out the relevance of the picture themselves.

Below is the outside panels, including the front and back cover

Digipak & Advert: Our Magazine Advert

Below is the final version of our magazine advert. It encorporates the images from our digipak, and from the actual music video, and continues along the theme of the indie-looking brick wall. To match this, we used what I considered to be a graffiti, spray paint type of font, not only on the information, but also over the top of the writing on the 'oh' 'me' 'oh' 'my' boards, to make it stand out more.

Theory Work: Application of the Feminist theory to our video

When considering our music video, the Feminist theory is the most interesting to apply to our video.

In terms of the gaze, it is true thhat the audience IS made to view the video through the mans perspective, particuarly as at times when we see the 'desired female', we see it through his eyes, as a point of veiw shot. Triple gaze applies; in the video, i am seen by Tom, through whom the camera sees the perspective of, and therefore so does the audience. Furthermore, in our music video, i am veiwed, to a certain extent, as an object, although knowing the male characters relationship with the female character, it is likely that he is not only viewing her as a physical object of desire, but also considers the the other aspects of their relationship that he misses. Due to their being no background on the story, and no dialogue in the video, the audience can only see the physical desire.

In contrast to the usual interpretation of agency, our video can be considered to go against 'the norm' where the man has all the control. In this case, also we follow the male characters side of the story, it is evidentally the woman that holds the influence over the female, as it is her decisions that effect and influence the story of the music video, such as at the end, when i choose Dan over Tom, upsetting him. In this case, the female is active, and the male is passive and powerless.

Looking at Mulvey's theory of erotic desire, although not to the extent of many music videos in this present day, in our video, i could be considered to be the object of the male characters desire; although i do not parade around in barely any clothing, i am still the female character desired by the male; not only on a physical level, but more extensively. In the music video, I do not consider myself to be an object of desire however for the audience; they would only see a plainly dressed girl, not knowing it is also the character of the girl that the protagonist longs for.

Theory Work: Application of Suture to our video

The theory of Suture is hard to apply to our video, as it usually only applies to Classical Hollywood media texts. However in my opinion the simple idea of our music video does not provide many possible different interpretations and readings, so if i discuss in terms of this idea, then the prefered or dominant reading is the only one that is possibly decoded from our music video by the audience, as not much is left for the audience to consider and decode themselves- as the producers, we do not feel like we have particuarly encoded our work with a message, it is more just for entertainment purposes.

Theory Work: Application of the Reception Theory to our video

According to the Reception Theory, our video has been encoded in a particular way by myself, Tom and Dan, and it can be decoded in 3 different ways by the audience. If this is the case;

- Our message encoded in the video is simply ideas of a relationship split up, and the boy imagining his girlfriend in different locations. It is meant to be entertaining and comical.

- If it is decoded by the audience in the prefered or dominant way, then this would have been the message that they got.

- If it is decoded by the audience in the negotiated way, then the audience will accept this message, but may consider it to be inappropriate to mock a relationship splitting up, due to a bad split they themselves went through, or they may just be disinterested and not find it entertaining.

- If it is decoded by the audience in the oppositional way, they may reject its meaning as they cannot to the situation that we have presented them with, or because it goes against cultural, political or ideological reasons. However this unlikely as he video does not challenge any of these and there is no reason it would cause controversy.

Theory Work: Application of the Uses and Gratifications Model to our video

If the Uses and Gratifications Model is to be applied, and the audience uses our media text (music video) then the uses they may gain from it are;

• Pleasure
• Entertainment
• Escapism
• To Learn
• Compare
• To Relax
• To Relate

It's main function is to entertain, and being comical could provide pleasure.
To some, its comical aspects could be used as an escapism, from the 'real world', as with our media text their feelings and actions are irrelevant. This also enables them to relax.
Other groups and people looking at music videos may use our work to learn, or compare to other indie group videos, or even to compare it to the origial youtube video made by The 99s.
Being an average life situation portrayed in our music video,of a couple splitting up and the boy missing the girl is a dialemma that many people can relate to, making them more interested in watching the video.

Theory Work: Application of the Effects Model to our video

When considering the Effects Model in terms of our own music video, there is nothing in our video that would have a terrible influence on the audience if they were to copy it, as it does not include any behaviour that should not be imitated, such as violence or drug taking. The only behaviour that may be copied is the nature of the relationship bewteen the male antagonist and his ex-girlfriend, which poses no threat to anyone.
There is no reason why the video would be controversial and consequently banned, and it should not provoke such behaviour as moral panics, meaning failures and couch potatos.
In my opinion, there is no behaviour that anyone would want to, or be able to copy.

Theory Work: Feminist Film Theory and Audiences

Laura Mulvey, a British film theory feminist, wrote an essay in 1975, titled "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema". Her theory is that cinema reflects our society, and therefore a patriarchal, male dominated society. It questions how this patriachal society can manifest itself and present itself within the world of cinema. Mulvey's work considered three methods of interpretation;

1. The Gaze
2. Agency
3. Erotic Desire

THE GAZE
This is where the gaze (what something is looking at) of the camera is the same as that ofthe male character. This means that the male gaze is active, whereas the female gaze is passive.
Mulvey argues that the way that men look at women is different to how women look at men, and by having an active male gaze, with the narrative being that of male characters, their gaze is directed towards female characters the provided perspective is that of a male.
The spectator of the text is made to identify with the male gaze, as it is from this perspective that the camera films. It is an optical, libidinal point of view from the male.
There are 3 levels of the cinematic gaze, known as the triple gaze- camera, character and spectator, all of which objectify the female characters. Below is a diagram that demonstrates the three identicle gazes; the female is objectified by the male, and therefore by the camera and the audience.

One example of this can be seen in James Bond: Dr No, as shown below;

As shown in the clip, the woman is viewed by the male protegonist, the camera, and the audience not as a woman, but as an object. This clip, and others like it, is constructed as if every spectator was male; women view the text as if they were a male member of the audience. This is an example of, and done through, the suture process. Most James Bond films follow this form of the gaze; another example is is Halle Berry in 'Die Another Day'.

A controversial film, which goes against this male gaze on women is 'Top Gun'. Although it is strongly denied by Tom Cruise, the gaze of this film, in a number of scenes, seems to be a male gaze on another male. This is evident from the slow motion shots, and the mise en scene such as close positioning of characters within the frame, as can be seen in the scene, along with others, from the film below;



AGENCY
The theory of agency is that in classical Hollywood cinema the male protegonist has agency- he is active and has the power. He is the agent around whom the dramatic unfolds, and who makes the decisions that make things happen in films. The female characters are passive and powerless, only present to be an object of lust and desire for the protagonist, leading onto Mulvey's theory of Erotic Desire.

EROTIC DESIRE
Laura Mulvey argues that women have just two roles in films;

• An object of erotic desire for characters
• An object of erotic desire for the audience

There is much evidence to suggest this theory is correct, in some films this seems so more than others, such as Megan Fox in Transformers.



Theory Work: Audience Theory- The Suture Theory

This theory suggests that the way that Hollywood films (in particular) are put together, in terms of narrative, editing, sound and mise en scene set the audience up to be 'satured', or positioned, making them see only one possible reading of the text. No matter how conscious the audience is of the position they are in, or what outcome is to follow in the film, they are still forced into this prefered or dominant reading. The audience is emotionally manpulated through various techniques to make them feel a particular way, unanimously. Regardless of a persons film knowledge or experiance, being 'stitched in' to this way of interpreting the text, or satured, is inescapable.
 An example of this can be seen in the film 'Crash', in which in one scene a man gives his daughter his invisible bullet proof cloak to protect her. From this point, the audience can predict that although it is made up to comfort the little girl, the father will at some point be shot, and possibly the daughter will witness it, or be involved. Although we are aware of this, when it happens, we are still horrified, shocked, and saddened.

Recent Work

I havent been posting much recently due to the fact that our group has been finishing our video editing, which we have now done,  and we are currently working on our digipak and magazine advert.

Theory Work: Audience Theory- The Reception Theory

The Effects Theory, and the Uses and Gratifications Model both have surroundin controversies and limitations, and so a new approach was developed by Stuart Hall inthe 1970s. It considered how texts were encoded with meaning by producers and then decoded, or understood, by audiences. This suggests that when a producer constructs a text it is encoded with a meaning or message that the producer wishes to convey to the audience.
Sometimes, the meaning is misinterpretedm, as is the case for the song 'Born in the USA' by Bruce Springsteen, which was actually about rejection from the USA after returning from the war. Nowadays, the song is wrongly recognised as an athem for America, singing its praises.
Sometimes audiences correctly decodethe message of meaning and understand what the producer is trying to say, but sometimes the audience will rejcts or fail to correctly identify or understand the message.

There are three ways that texts can be read, or decoded, by the audiences;

1. Dominant/Prefered- The audience decpdes the messgae correctly, and broadly agrees with it.

2. Negotiated- The audience accpets, rejects or refines the elements of the text, in light of previously held views. They neither agree, disagree or are disinterested.

3. Oppositional- The dominant meaning is recognised but is rejected for cultural, political or ideaological reasons.

The above diagram shows the 3 interpretations, and by height, how much they are wanted by the producer, Dominant being the prefered reading.

In the next few weeks i will be looking at what would happen if our video was decoded with each of the 3 readings.

Theory Work: Audience Theory- The Uses and Gratifications Model

The fact that it is unclear that there is any link between the consumption of text and violent imitative behaviour weakens the Effects Model. It is also weakened by the fact that may people watch violent texts and do not appear to be influenced. An alternative theory is the Uses and Gratifications Model, in which the audiences uses the text. This is the opposite to the Effects Model, as where in the Effects the audience is passive, in this model, we are actively using the text for various gratifications or needs. This means that the power lies with the audience, and their is emphasis on how and why we use the text. The model encoporates the idea that we are able to reject, use , or play with the media meanings as we see fit.

Audiences may use the media text to gratify needs for;

• Diversion
• Escapism
• Information
• Pleasure
• To compare
• Sexual stimulation

Audiences may use the media to help them with such issues as;

• Learning
• Emotional satisfaction
• Relaxation
• Help with issues with personal identity/ social identity
• Aggression/violence

This theory is controversial as it suggests that violentimagescan be helpful and help a person deal with issues, rather than harmful. The idea is that the audience act out their violent inpulses through the consumption of media violence. Audiences inclination towards violence is therefore subliminated, and they are less likely to commit violence acts.

Theory Work: Audience Theory- Evidence for The Effects Model

Last week in lesson, we continued with some of the theory work we began a few months ago. We looked at Key Evidence for the Effects Model, which we looked at before Christmas.

The Frankfurt School theorised in the 1920s and 30s that the mass media acted to restrict and control audiences to benefit of corporate capitalism government.

The Bobo Doll Experiment; Albert Bandura conducted an experiment in 1961, in which a group of children watched adults beat a bobo doll, then seeing their behaviour, 88% of children copied them and did the same. The results suggest that children copy violent behaviour, and imitate violent media content. This is one of the main pieces of evidence for the Effects Model; however it has a number of flaws. Firstly, the purpose of the bobo doll is to knock it to the ground and let it bounce back up, that is how it works, so that is all a child could do to the toy. Also, there is no proof that the behaviour displayed was because of what they saw, it may have been related to their background, and how they had been brought up- whether they saw violence as wrong or not.

In the 1950s, Marlon Brando’s film ‘Wild One’ was band for 15 years, due to the fact that it included rebelling teens overtaking a town- there were fears that the behaviour would be imitated.

Key examples of media texts being cited as causing or being contributory factors to behaviour are;

·         The film ‘Childs Play 3’ in the murder of James Bulger in 1993

·         The game ‘Manhunt’ in the murder of Stefan Pakeerah in 2004, by his friend Warren LeBlanc.

·         The film ‘Clockwork Orange’ (1971) in a number of rapes and violent attacks.

·         The film ‘Severance’ (2006) in the murder of Simon Everitt.

In each case, there was a media and political outcry for the texts to be banned. In some cases, laws changed, films were banned, and newspapers demanded the burning of films.

However no case could prove a link between the text and the violent attack that followed

The Effects Model contributes to the Moral Panics whereby;-

Media produces behaviour of inactivity, such as couch potatoes, failures, and people who make no effort is made to get jobs.

The media produces violent ‘copycat’ behaviour, or mindless shopping in response to advertising.

Finished Music Video

Below is the complete music video.

Digipak & Advert: Real Digipak Analysis

Planning: Actual Filming Schedule

We have recently looked back at our initial filming schedule, and have created another schedule, this time the actual reality of when we filmed what, as a comparison. As we previously thought, weather and room availability dud hinder our progress. Also, on a positive note, we were able to get all of our filming done in one day in London, although not on the day we anticipated, due to the weather. And we were able to film at both Toms house and Party Go Go in one day. We had to film after the christmas holidays, which was not expected, but does not effect much.

Filming/Editing: Filming in London

Yesterday we spent the whole day in London, filming at famous, recognisable locations. This included; Tower Bridge, The Tower of London, The London Eye, and on a bridge over the Themes, with a landscape shot of London, including 'The Gherkin' and St Pauls Cathedral. At each place, Tom would have a different 'indie' looking top, and different coloured pieces of card, with different key words from the second verse of our song on them. Today we are spending time putting them in the right order, to the song and hopefully finishing most of the editing. When looking at the footage, we have noticed that the lighting at the London Eye is really bad, and by changing the lighting on Final Cut, it makes it look different from the others and has bad resolution. For this reason, we are only using one shot of the London eye. But we also captured footage of boats on the Themes by the London Eye, which we might speed up and use, like we have with footage of Tom on the swings and other things at the park.

We also filmed the end of the 'story' that we have in our video whilst in London, where me and Tom see each other, only for me to then run past him into the arms of another boy. Again this is quite a comical scene, but you then again feel sorry for Tom. We are debating whether to feature this bit of footage, baring in mind we need to tie the story part of our video up in some way.