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

For the research and planning section, we used the website Youtube quite a lot to look at existing music videos in order to get our ideas for our own music videos. We also used Youtube to look for tutorials in how to do text typography which was very useful because we created we managed to create a demo text typography video. We also used Youtube to actually upload the demo video and our music video. We used social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to upload the videos and get some feedback from our friends and followers. So for Facebook, we uploaded our draft video and we let our friends to comment on the video to see what areas we need to improve on in terms of camera angles and locations etc. We didn’t get as a big response on Twitter for our draft music video due to the fact that the majority of our friends do not have a Twitter account. We also uploaded our final music video onto Facebook using the same process as our draft video. For our filming/producing section we used the Sanyo VPC WH1 Waterproof HD video camera. We used this camera because it films in 720p HD, which will appeal to the audience especially if they are watching the video via Youtube because the Internet now can host HD videos. Personally, when searching for videos onto Youtube, videos that can be viewed in 720p are more appealing than videos recorded in just 360p/480p. So hosting a video in HD will not only be more appealing to me, it would be more appealing to a wider range of people. We were well aware we needed to use a camera that produced high resolution results in order to make it in tip top HD. We used other equipment to help us with our filming such as a tripod which allowed us to keep our shots steady and a stills camera which allowed us to produce the photos we used in our ancillary tasks.
To edit our main task, we used video editing software called Sony Vegas 10 mainly because we were comfortable with the software and it produces professional results. We also used Adobe after effects for the text typography in the video and the use of colours with the fast cuts. Adobe after effects was also used for our creation of the digi pack with the sunlight effect etc. For our poster we used Photoshop as it is very professional software and we used it to cut out the background of certain images etc. A software called cinema 4d was also used for the text of the poster.
We created our own blogs using blogger to show our research, planning and production of our media products.

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

By looking at our main video and ancillary products, the viewers can instantly tell that there are two different types of characters in this band. Tom (singer) is supposedly the 'stupid/funny' character with his funny faces and poses. In contrast to Tom, Jihad (my character) is supposedly the 'cool/laid back' character with his serious faces and poses. The two different personalities are shown throughout the music video especially at a scene in the second verse where Tom is wearing fake bling, sun glasses and a hat which does not suit him at all because he looks like an idiot but it represents his character as he does not care what he looks like and he likes dressing up for fun as he is bored. On the other hand, Jihad sticks to his laid back character by not over dressing himself with bling and hats etc even though it would suit him but he tends not to as he does not want to express his inner self. Both characters seem to have something called a ‘Bromance’. Even though they are both best buddies< one character is embarrassed to be with the other. On the front cover, Tom really reinforces the target audience and young people in society today with what he is wearing. The fact that he is wearing mainstream clothing represents what young people wear today with the chinos, chequered shirts and flat shoes etc. Because the artists have dressed like this, it would attract a specific target audience especially the younger generation.
Our products also link well together in terms of narrative. The video, digi pack and the poster clearly indicates that there are two bored young men out on a warm evening in the sub-urban estates and up to some mischief. This will appeal to the target audience because it is likely that this is what they did when they were younger or they may be still doing that now. This boredom is justified in the digi pack on the inside front cover where you can see one of the artist pulling a funny pose and a face and the other artist being laid back and looking slightly bored.
For our video we decided to go for locations with bricks, houses, estates and sub-urban settings and for our digi pack we chose a brick themed layout so they link in together very well. We chose this layout because we thought it would reinforce the sub-urban demographic of both the band and the target audience. Also the bricks can be very useful, for example, the back cover where we used the bricks to add text on it through the middle of the two artists. The bricks makes the audience feel that there are two young men hanging around in a warm, late evening, sub-urban estate which fits in with the target audience because they might have brought up in the same way as the band did. Our poster does not really fit in with this theme because we decided to make it much more vibrant to appeal to the viewers/audience.
We used postmodern editing in our video to catch the attention of the audience for example, our transition shot where both performers sit on a bench and it cuts to another location where they are sitting on another bench in a different location. Another example in our video would be at the other transition shots near the end where one performer leans against a wall and then it cuts to the other performer leaning against the wall.

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

The first impressions when viewing our media products, the audience would think that the genre of it was Hip-Hop. However, the actual genre of our media products and Rizzle Kicks is British Hip-Hop. We challenged Hip-Hop conventions by not using typical hip-hop conventions in our media products. We didn’t use conventions such as money, fast car, an abundance of bling, half naked women, drugs, alcohol, violence and city estates. However, we did use a little bit of bling and manipulated a drug deal scene. We did use other hip-hop conventions such as the characters wearing flat peak hats, hoodies and sunglasses. We decided not to use vast amount of hip-hop conventions because the artists we were studying were Rizzle Kicks and we wanted our characters to represent their genre which is British Hip-Hop and we developed it by wearing, chequered shirts, summer shorts, plimsoles, polo tops, chinos and other mainstream British fashion clothing. We used real media products to help create our media products. We firstly studied the Kanye West – Good Life music video and were fascinated by the use of text typography throughout the video. The video influenced us to use a bit of typography in our music video with the words popping up in sync with the lyrics. Before we implemented the typography, we produced a demo by using the good life song to see how it looked and we thought it looked quite good, so we used it in our own video. We also studied the Wiz Khalifa – On My Level music video because that was a music video, which consisted of typical hip-hop conventions, and we liked the use of cuts in time with the beat at the start of the video. We used this idea for our music video in the second verse where there is a small section where the beat of the song is emphasised, so we used cuts to match the beats in time. We also used the official Rizzle Kicks – Down with the Trumpets music video because firstly, this was the song we were using in our music video and it would give us an idea of what we should use in terms of mise-en-scene such as the mainstream outfits, suburban locations, camera shots and ideas. For the locations sections, we studied the locations Rizzle Kicks perform in their video and tried to find similar looking locations in our town. They used some alleyways in their video and there were plenty of alleyways we used in our video. Also they used a location, which consisted of vibrant coloured buildings/houses, which looked like the Port Marine vicinity of our town. We used their music video to pinch some ideas but we interpreted them in our own way. One example was at the start of their video they used a cassette player to start their song so in our own video we used the same proposal but instead we used a vinyl record player to start the song. We used the vinyl record player idea because it looked quirky and retro and it was kind of cool in a geeky way. Another idea from the official music video we used in our video was the ‘drug deal’ scene because we thought this was the most important part of the narrative of the video where the trumpet is introduced so we thought we would use this scenery in our video but we interpreted it in a different way to make it our own.