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

We used a handheld digital video camera to record our shots. It was very useful as it was light and easy to carry around. We also used a tripod which helped when we took panning shots. The camera was also useful when recording a point of view shot. It also had a playback option so when we recorded a shot we made sure that it was recorded properly before we moved on to film more. We also used a photo camera to create our digipak.

We used the studio for closeups, it was helpful as the lighting created a better atmosphere rather than recording it outside or in another room.

Final Cut Pro was just as important as the camera. We used it to put our shots together along with the soundtrack and added effects.

The internet helped too, as we were able to research and find stuff out by the click of a button! We used sites like youtube, wikipedia to get suitable content and research material.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

In order to see if our product was a breakthrough or not, we asked the target audience what they thought about our music video and digipak, and what they think we should change or improve. We asked them to be honest and give their opinions. Here are a few of their comments:

Jordan "I think that you have a great album cover and magazine poster but could improve more on the music video as it lacks a good storyline and misses out aspects of actual music videos, like, lip syncing. Even though, I still like your music video, well done."

Muzzam "I don't really understand your music video, but it kinda suits the song. I think you should have more of a story to your video."

James "I like both your music video and cd cover. The song fits in well with the camera shots, like at the end when the fade is used. However I prefer performance videos and theres not much performing in yours."

Georgie "I think your music video is amazing but could do with a few tweaks like having some singing in it. Your magazine cover is well made but I'm not sure graffiti suits the genre."

Our feedback that we received was pretty much the same all round, but we didn't have enough time to carry out all of the suggestions and things we could improve on. The criticism was fair and honest so we thanked them for their contribution.

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I believe that the combination of our main product and ancillary texts work well as they are both linked to one another. For example, the video and CD cover both have Cat in them as she and I are the performers. Our magazine advert also helps sell the product as it has the MTV logo and the Reprise logo which are well known names to the audience targetted. We decided to use a grafitti wall behind Cat in order to make our album cover etc to look interesting and eye catching. This helps sell the product as it has an artistic feel to the cover rather than having a simple plain photo with text added. The style of the album cover and magazine advert are both similar edits of photos we have taken. This links the album cover and magazine advert together. Our song fits into the genre of 'rock' so we created our cover and advert using the genre as a guide. For example, the images were edited in order to look like other rock band posters and they carry the same style. We compared our album cover with those of the hip-hop genre and there was a clear diferrence between them. We used dull colours in order to stay in the hip-hop style because if they were a bit brighter it may have been mistaken for a more lively genre like hip-hop.

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

At the start of our planning for our music video we researched a variety of videos mainly from the r&b genre, one of the music videos that inspired us the most was the music video of Kanye West - Homecoming. Kanye Wests video consists of himself performing throughout the video but however has most shots of buildings and landmarks with the use of a lot of editing which meant Kanye West wasn't featured as much in the video. We liked this idea as both me and Abdul didn't want to act in our video so we decided to focus on doing this for our video.

Another music video that influenced us was Devlin feat Jasmine - Runaway. This inspired us as we thought it would be a good choice of song to make our own music video to. We also thought his video would be easy to portray however further on in the making we found that the song and video we produced didn't connect which further on in the making meant we changed our choice of song. After looking at our product and comparing it back to Kanye Wests video we realised he did feature in his video a lot more than we thought, we there for had to involve more acting which we had a few difficulties and set backs with when it came to trying to find actors to do the parts, which ended up in me and Abdul having to do it. Towards the end of the making of our production we found our video and the song choice didn't connect well so we there for changed it to the song Good Riddance (time of your life) by Greenday which then had a better all round result, it had better connection with visual and lyrics and

Green Day

Green Day is an American rock band consisting of the lead singer and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, backing singer Mike Dimt and drummer Tre Cool. The band has won five Grammy Awards. Their breakthrough success was in 1994-1996. They have made a few albums and started off just at the age of 15. They are a well known Californian band.

Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)

Good Riddance Lyrics
"Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial
For what it's worth it was worth all the while

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life. "

There are a lot of close-ups and mid shots used in the video. The camera zooms in a lot on shots and is set on fast forward to get the shots to merge together. There are also a range of locations used for example, a woman shown sitting at the front of a newsagent just staring out, which suggests she’s thinking, and a man sat in his car stationary staring at something. All these shots make the video seem different to the hip-hop genre as the shots make you think and then they cut back to the performer with his guitar and lip-syncing. The lighting in the video is minimal as it is a kind of sad song. The music video contains a bit of lip-syncing and guitar performing by the singer. There are a lot of fades between every shot some containing zooms and fast forward cuts.

Song Change

R&B songs usually have a performer and we couldn't find someone to perform in our video, so we decided to change the song to one of a more appropiate genre. Our new music video choice will take some time editing but will turn out better than if we kept the same song.