Evaluation Question 1

Video presentation of our answer to Evaluation Question 1:  In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation Question 1 - Digipack and Poster - Harry

Prezi Presentation of the section with my digipack in the answer for question 1.

Media Evaluation Question 1 on Prezi

Evaluation Question 1 - Digipak & Poster - Pat

Evaluation Question 2

Media Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 3.

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 1 Final Script

For our music video, we decided in the end to create a straightforward illustration video as we felt that this would be the best way for us to make our video look professional and realistic, using the typical conventions of a music video. When we were researching for our music, we spent a night browsing through numerous music videos, both old and new, taking bits of inspiration from certain scenes from many videos, some that use the general conventions of music videos, some that develop these on these conventional music videos and some that completely challenge these videos.

One thing we looked at in detail was the Brit-pop era, with bands such as Blur, Oasis and The Stone Roses influencing our decisions on the styling of our band in the video. In the band, we decided to give the lead singer freedom in what he wanted to wear, as his own personal style is heavily influenced by people such as Damon Albarn, of Blur, Liam Fray, of The Courteneers and Faris Badwin, lead singer of The Horrors. We wanted to create the star image, with him leading the band, being the very "cool" and most unique out of the 4. This style also reflected on the band. We decided to change the band halfway through due to the time they could offer us and the fact that we wanted to have people that could play guitar, as we tried to learn from the mistakes of others.

When I looked at inspiration from other music videos for our music video, The Drums - “Let’s Go Surfing” came to mind. We were always keen on filming the video outside, as we felt it would fit in with the alternative genre we were looking at and was a bit different than the typical performance video. We then decided to develop this idea of filming outside to in a field, which then inspired us to shoot the video in night-time. This then prompted us to look at other videos both night & day, with rural mise en scene. Videos such as Coldplay’s “The Scientist”, Foals “Spanish Sahara” both have outdoor countryside settings but we felt that the camera-shots in these video were edited too slow for a song like us, due to it being fast paced. This fitting in with what Abt stated in 1987, with music videos being directed to create a following by the artists having a unique style, something which we have tried to incorporate into the video.

This then led us to look at videos by bands such as The Vaccines and The Maccabees, especially songs off “Colour It In”, as this is more of a faster paced album. We took inspiration from The Horror’s infamous video “Sheena Is A Parasite” as although the mise en scene and storyline is not at all similar to our music video, the fast paced shots, rough editing and dark lighting work due to the short and snappy length of the song. This is something we developed to fit our product, trying to make a fitting video.

We also tried to emulate some dancing shots on a handheld camera, like those seen in The Drums “Lets Go Surfing”, where the band are dancing, with charismatic frontman Jonathon Pierce hogging the limelight, this being replicated by our frontman in our video. This is a convention we looked to challenge, as this time we had all members of the band dancing, rather than just the frontman. 

Evaluation Question 4 DRAFT

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

When planning the video we looked into the hardware that would be available for shooting a video. Before we had an idea for a video we were set to use a panasonic handheld video camera, normally used for home videos. This seemed good enough for us at the time to produce a professional quality video but when we decided to film in the dark we immediately switched our attention to looking for a better camera. The problem with filming in dark conditions is that the video would be grainy and there would be visual noise on the clips. We managed to borrow a Canon 500D SLR Video, a brilliant quality camera that suited our needs perfectly. 

Youtube and vimeo were the main websites used for research as most music videos around are on these sites. Many images of digipacks and posters are available on the internet and this was where most research was taken place. When analysing videos, tubechop helped me pick out key components from each video. 

When creating the digipack and poster, a key tool that would 

Evaluation question 2 draft

My part to question 2...

I feel that with my digipak, the simplistic and quite different style of the band combines and links the two together. Rather than doing a simple band shot, I think that the image of the band would be to be quite cool and stand out. A similar band like The Arctic Monkey’s also used a very simple digipak for their latest L.P., “Suck It And See”. I do feel that I maybe should have looked at incorporating a band photo or just a picture of the frontman, as with my digipak you would not know about the bands “cool” image and may feel the record would be of a different genre.

The same can be said about my poster, which however does advertise the band name and due to the repetition of “We Are Black Wax”, it creates mystery and would be likely to gain interest. This also fits in with the bands quite mysterious style.

Evaluation question 3

For our music video, we received many pieces of audience feedback at many stages of the campaign. 

When we first pitched the idea to teachers and peers the idea was quite different. Initially we intended to create a video in numerous locations with a large amount of people. The main feedback we received was positive and although the overriding theme was that having the two locations of a field and city was a good idea, one of our peers highlighted the fact that it may be hard to link in the contrast and we decided to take this into account, as we wanted our music video to look professional. Also, in our original idea, we intended on having more of a fun feel to the music video, with many people being in it dancing. This idea was also successful in our pitch but during the making process of the video, we decided that it was probably unrealistic and changed the way we anted the audience to perceive our band.

When we displayed our draft music video, again the feedback we received was very good. I would, at the time, preferred more negative feedback, so that we could make more changes and have a greater idea of what to do. We received some things that we needed to change from Mr Ford & Mrs Hammond. Initially, we had included a firework that went off, as in the song there is the sound of a firework exploding. Although we had some good shots, the actual explosion was disappointing and we were told to omit this from the video which we agreed with. 

Also, feedback we received told us to scrap some of the long-shots as the focus was not brilliant and the air looked foggy. We also tried to make the video look more serious, with less dancing and more different angled shots, as this would fit in more with the bands image.

For my digipak, the feedback I received was again quite positive. A lot of people felt it was quite different copared with the typical digipak and fit in well with the band quirky image. After my draft, I did change minuscule details such as adding a full stop on one of the pages and changing the font on the back panel, to the one used on the front. This was also similar with my CD poster draft, I just changed the font and added the bands facebook/twitter.

Evaluation Question 1 DRAFT

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


When researching into digi-packs I again looked for examples that I liked. I think a key aspect about a front cover that I thought should be on is the band. Razorlight - Razorlight was an album cover that I thought was simple but effective. Another similar inspiration is The Hives 'Veni Vendi Vicious'. I featured the band standing in a similar pose but instead of having just a black and white cover I decided to add some colour with the red and blue in the title. Instead of just having a black and white picture of the band I used an effect on photoshop (posterize) to make the photo just black and white, an effect that I believed worked well. This effect is similar to that used on Kasabian's Velociraptor! front cover. I thought this red and blue worked well, so I carried it on throughout.

 For my band logo I decided that the band's name in a simple font would work well, I made it italic as I quite liked the look of that on The Stroke's albums. I've used the band name as a motif throughout my digipack. 

Inside the cover I was originally going to keep it very simple, featuring the credits on one page, a CD outline in the middle and some location pictures on the right hand side page. I did this on my draft, but when I saw it finished I realised this didn't work well at all. 


The feedback I received gave me the idea to feature more images of the band, I used images from stills of the music video, in the same effect of black and white posterize. I also changed the inside to have a low opacity patterned red and blue background, so that the 3 panels were joined together as I felt this would look better and was a common feature in most digipacks I researched into. 


The pattern used on the middle and left back panels was sort of an impulsive decision when making these on photoshop. I wanted to keep the colour scheme of red and blue and was planning to just use one of these colours as a block background. I played around with some shapes and then patterned the blocks together and in the end looked quite effective. I used the font 'futura' throughout as I felt it was effective in many different forms throughout digipack and poster. 

Evaluation question 1

For our music video, we decided in the end to create a straightforward illustration video as we felt that this would be the best way for us to make our video look professional and realistic. When we were researching for our music, we spent a night browsing through numerous music videos, both old and new, taking bits of inspiration from certain scenes from many videos.

One thing we looked at in detail was the Brit-pop era, with bands such as Blur, Oasis and The Stone Roses influencing our decisions on the styling of our band in the video. In the band, we decided to give the lead singer freedom in what he wanted to wear, as his own personal style is heavily influenced by people such as Damon Albarn, of Blur, Liam Fray, of The Courteneers and Faris Badwin, lead singer of The Horrors. This style also reflected on the band. We decided to change the band halfway through due to the time they could offer us and the fact that we wanted to have people that could play guitar, as we tried to learn from the mistakes of others.

When I looked at inspiration from other music videos for our music video, The Drums - “Let’s Go Surfing” came to mind. We were always keen on filming the video outside, as we feel it fit in with the alternative genre we were looking at and was a bit different than the typical performance video. This then inspired us to shoot the video in night-time which then made us look at other videos both night & day, based in rural landscape. Videos such as Coldplay’s “The Scientist”, Foals “Spanish Sahara” both have outdoor countryside settings but we felt that the shots in these video were too slow for a song like us, due to it being fast paced.

This then led us to look at videos by bands such as The Vaccines and The Maccabees, especially songs off “Colour It In”, as this is more of a faster paced album. We took inspiration from The Horror’s infamous video “Sheena Is A Parasite” as although the mise en scene and storyline is not at all similar to our music video, the fast paced shots work due to the short and snappy length of the song.

We also tried to emulate some dancing shots on a handheld camera, like those seen in The Drums “Lets Go Surfing”, where the band are dancing, with charismatic frontman Jonathon Pierce hogging the limelight, this being replicated by our frontman in our video.

For my digipak, I wanted to create something quite simple and abstract, without it looking bare. When researching and planning my digipak, I looked at a different genre of music to inspire me. One person who had a huge effect on my digipak was Jamie xx and I looked at his releases, “Far Nearer” and “I’m New Here”, with Gil Scott-Heron. I tried to take his idea by using a bold colour, with a slight gradient and a small rectangle. In an ideal world, on the front cover on my digipak I had it alligned so that the rectangle would have been visible on the 3rd panel, with the hole on the front, this replicating Jamie xx. I also looked and took inspiration from other electronic artists such as Totally Enourmous Extinct Dinosaurs and Neon Indian.

The back panel with the song titles and record label information are inspired by SBTRKT’s eponymous album artwork, made by Go De Jong. I found that the simpicity of it helped to fit in with the layout of my digipak.

I tried to abstractly link the music video and digipak together by using colour to represent the video. The green in my digipak front heps to replicate the background of the trees and grass in the video and the splash of bright orange replicated the band, standing out from the darker shade. this was something I thought about during the creative process as I did not want to reference the video heavily, as I was creating a digipak for an album, not a single for the song I did.

For the poster, I again looked at how Jamie xx and the xx had advertised their albums and I tried to emulate something similar. I decided to create a panel which fit with the poster, like jamie, by repeating the bands twitter name, which would again help to market the product as it shows continuity. I feel that both my digipak and poster challenge the stereotypical image of a a midshot of the band and I feel this adds a bit more of an edge to the band.

Evaluation Question 2 DRAFT

How Effective is the Combination of Your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?


I think my Digi-pack, magazine advert and the video give a representation of 'Black Wax' all in the same way. At the start we aimed for our band to be 'indie'. I think throughout the production of these we have slightly adjusted this and the band's appearance in particular has made the image and genre of it being more brit-pop (examples like Oasis, Stone Roses, The Courteeners). Max (lead singer) in particular looks less indie and a bit more 'blokey'. Knowing him, I can say his favourite frontman is Liam Fray (The Courteneers) so I assumed he would try to emulate him in our video. He has done this to an extent, but the song and the nature of the song had to make it a bit more fun. Little Comets are an indie band, they appeal to a younger audience than the likes of Oasis, Courteneers etc. 'Dancing Song' is a very upbeat, happy song. Max's on-screen nature suits the song but also has that brit-pop twist that works well. The synopsis of our song involves dancing, which suits the song very well, I think all the band members retain a certain 'coolness' when dancing. From the draft we had to rid of some of the more ridiculous dancing (Callum- big fish, little fish, cardboard box & Sam - can opener) So that it suits the image of the band. This was also the reason for the editing out of the firework, this was involved as a bit of a random fun part (it is also featured in the song as a sound effect) but for the final piece we felt that it again did not suit the band's image.


The location used for our video is also a good effect on the continuity of the band's image. The idea was to use an outside area and light it. This was probably best inspired by 'The Drums - Let's go surfing' in terms of lighting in a dark location. The field was probably the only large open space we had available for filming at night. It works well as you can't really see any of the trees or fences just grass so it's quite open to think what the location is like as the backdrop for most frames is black.


For my digipack and magazine cover I have kept a constant colour scheme throughout. The effect on the images of the band have kept a certain mystery and coolness about them. I like the effect, although some people say it looks a lot like the images at the start of 'The Inbetweeners' I think it works well. The red and blue used gives it a more fun edge and the bright colours contrast the black and white in a way that I like and I think are effective. 

Final Music Video feedback

After handing in the video after our deadline, as a class we were given feedback anonymously from each other on our videos. Each was given a few comments and a rating out of 10. Here is the feedback we received:
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- The first shot with the drummer is a bit out of sync but it is a good shot
- Max lip syncs very well
- Shadows on faces are a bit of an issue
- Like the song and location
- Some shots are a bit dark
- Like that it's different with the darkness
9/10
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- Good miming - In time
- A lot of movement
- Good variety of shots
8/10
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- Very nice location
- Great lighting
- Good Syncing
- Great acting
- Didn't really see the point of shots where the instruments disappear
- Very fitting outfits and instruments
- Use of both handheld and steady shots seems odd
- Some shots went wrong slightly in terms of camera work (steady shots moving slightly, faces covered by mics etc.)
- Last shot seems off, ending by continuing the shot before it would be much better
9/10
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- Chosen band members play their part really well - looks realistic
- Main artist lip syncing is good
- Fast paced shots look good
- Good location
- Good variety of shots + panning
- Good camera
9/10
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- Lead singer suits role
- Good use of lighting
- Drums sync well
- Location works well
8/10
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- Lighting works really well
- Dancing works well
- Singing fits with music well
- mise en scene fits with song/genre
10/10
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- Some of the dancing looks awkward
- Good lip syncing and use of instruments
- The actor in the coat doesn't really fit in
- Good lighting and setting
- The blurred shots work well
8/10
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- Singer looks authentic
- Variety of shots
9/10
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- The location and lighting work really well, especially the shots behind the drummer when you can see the headlight glare
- The ariel drummer shot is really good as you can see it all and its well centred
- The lead singer is good and seems confident but dancing seems awkward
8/10
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- Great lip/instrument sync
- Some shots with camera man's shadow
- Good shots of instruments vanishing
- Shot above drum is amazing
- Guitarist has very different outfit to everyone else
9/10
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- Great front man choice
- Good fast paced variety of shots
- Realistic lip syncing and instruments
8-9/10
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- Lip syncing is literally perfect
- Good shots, fast paced which goes well with the song
- Lighting looks really good
- Clear camera
- Good location
9/10
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- Really like the location
- Pace of editing is really good
- Lip syncing shots work well
9/10
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- Some camera shots a bit shaky
- Band really interesting to watch - frontman is good
- lots of varied shots - looks really professional
- light looks good - different and interesting
- outfits fit with song
9/10
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- Really good shots
- Flows well
- Good outfits - setting suits the song
- Band name on drum - Didn't think of that! creative
9/10

FINAL Music Video