Evaluation

1. Evaluation Sophie Carter Candidate Number: 3095 Centre Number: 12845

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? The editing techniques used in my media product uses the conventions of a real media product. Some effective cuts I have incorporated into the video are ‘jump cuts’, which are used frequently in real Prodigy music videos. Another editing technique that develops the conventions is the use of parallel editing – this technique is not only used in most Prodigy videos but in the majority of music videos. I have tried to use this convention by shooting different locations and short ‘narratives’ and editing the shots so that the action is happening at the same time. The cinematography conventions of real media products are challenged in my media product – over the shoulder shots/close-ups of the face are not common among Prodigy products.

3. This may be to create a distance between the audience and the band to not allow the audience to get too intimate with the band. However, I have challenged these conventions by shooting facial expressions close-ups. For example, here: The conventions of the real Prodigy videos are that they are often in black and white or chromakey, which is something that I wanted to use in this media product. For example, in the Firestarter original video, the entire film has the black and white SFX. I originally planned to use this technique, but after a trial and feedback, I found that the audience preferred it to be in full colour.

4. The ancillary tasks have both used and challenged the forms of existing products from Prodigy. Firstly, the form that the poster is in is not electronic or digital like some advanced advertisements are, which uses the conventions well. The fact that all information is given on the poster is another convention that is developed – the dates are given as on other similar posters, along with details of the website and supporting artists. The black background is a common theme between the CD cover and the poster, linking the two effectively. Not in support of the conventions is the image that is present on both the CD cover and advertisement. Similar Prodigy media products have proved to use ‘abstract’ images, such as a crab/badge. The image that I chose to use is directly linked to the original media product as it is a freeze frame of a shot that I thought would be appropriate and eye-catching. The main reason for this would be the brief that our media products have to be linked in some way, and so the theme of this freeze frame allowed me to cohere the products effectively.

5. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? The combination of the main product and ancillary texts is effective in some ways. • The use of the black background in both of my ancillary texts coheres them, as together they look matching. I think this is effective because from my research, it is evident that CD covers and tour posters often have the same colour scheme. • The freeze frame image from the main task is present in both ancillary texts, making it a common theme and effectively linking the three products. • The same font style is used in both ancillary texts, cohering them.

6. However, some improvements could have been made to the combination of all three media products. The font of the titles in the main task is ‘digital’ which doesn’t cohere to the font style of the ancillary texts. This is unfortunate, however I felt that the ‘digital’ font style in the main task had more impact that a plainer font style like on the ancillary task. The different purposes are a reason for this – the purpose of the poster is to inform and so the font needs to be legible, however the entertaining purpose of the main task leads the font to be more eye-catching and fitting with the music.

7. What have you learned from your audience feedback? The audience feedback has helped a lot in the modifications I made throughout the editing process. The main source of feedback was Mr. Dunford, my media teacher, as he developed an evaluation sheet for me. This sheet analyzed each shot, second by second which was very helpful when making specific changes. For example, instead of a comment such as “more close-up shots needed”, it was said that “at 1.17, swap this establishing shot for a close up”. He also suggested some shots that I remove completely from the video as they were irrelevant from his perspective (the train tracks and some corridor shots). His feedback was also appreciated in the ancillary tasks – I wasn’t aware of the concept of ‘framing’, and he helped me to understand this. From that, I was able to improve the layout of my images to make them look more professional. My peers within my media class have given some constructive feedback – after editing a certain section for a period of time it is often difficult to see obvious faults. Therefore, having someone from the outside take a look at the editing often results in some simple flaws being sorted out. For example, one of my peers pointed out some lip-synching that wasn’t in time to the music, which I was able to change. As mentioned before, I had to ask the opinion of the audience whether to change the colour of the entire video to black and white, or keep it in full colour.

8. I asked the opinion of some AS students, who again hadn’t experienced my editing process so were new people to see the video. I also asked my peers in my A2 class, as well as some non-media students, as these were closer to the target audience age range. I played a section of the video in black and white, and the same section again in colour and the overall opinion was that the colour version was better. I feel this was a good aspect of the video to gain feedback from, because it allowed an easy yes/no answer and would affect the overall look of the video, so their opinion was valid.

9. How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages? Throughout the research stages of process I used a range of media technologies to research effectively. These included: • Using a variety of programs on the computer to display our findings – PowerPoint and Excel. • YouTube to conduct my secondary research. • Polls on the blog allowed opinions to be expressed easily. • I also uploaded a presentation of my group presenting our research findings onto my blog. This involved using the program ‘Serif’ to edit it and YouTube to upload it onto the internet to be shared. In the construction stages a further range of media technologies were used. • I learnt how to use some software that was not familiar to me previously – Adobe Photoshop. On this software, I constructed both of my ancillary tasks, which was new to me and I had to learn to use.

10. Some new cameras were purchased this year by the school, and so I had to adjust my knowledge of last year’s camera to learn how to use them. • The software ‘Serif Movie Plus’ was the program that was used to edit the main task. This is an updated version from last year, and so some more learning had to be done to use it to its full potential. In the evaluation stages, I was able to use PowerPoint well. The presentation then had to be uploaded onto the blog, which is another media technology used.