Evaluation

1. In what ways does your Media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
‘Kicking Up Dust’ by ‘Fitzwilliam and the Spitfires’ incorporates many of the conventions used by real media texts; an example of this being the song’s indie genre characteristics. The song is in the vein of a traditional love song, revolving around the theme of heartache and loves journey. We wanted our video to have a sombre feel in order to reflect that. We also felt that our video should have a straightforward narrative style, as again, this is a common element within most mainstream music videos. We discovered much of this through various forms of research. Such as, looking at the work of other indie bands and how they present themselves and their work, looking at various music videos on YouTube, as well as looking at a few production techniques we wished to explore.
The theme of a relationship breaking up is evident within the song, and this is a common form within many music videos, although we have tried to challenge traditional conventions through our use of two homosexual protagonists and our demonstration of the break- up of their relationship. We did some research on YouTube looking for other music videos which demonstrated gay relationships, and the closest we found was ‘Lady Gaga’s’ ‘Telephone’ featuring ‘Beyonce’, where a lesbian relationship is hinted at. This inspired us to develop our portrayal of a gay couple as we had been encouraged by our chosen band to make something a little bit different. We could also perhaps suggest that the gay relationship adds a post modern element to our video, as we have chosen to interpret the song in that way and also because it represent a modern element of society.
The chorus line of ‘Kicking up dust on the way behind me, as I focused on the track...’ clearly indicated that a journey is, key to the whole song, so we centred our video around the journey that love takes our two characters on. It conforms to conventions used by real media texts as it shows a relationship between the lyrics and visual elements of the video. We researched other videos that depicted journeys, ‘Take That’s’ ‘Greatest Day’ video was particularly good as it illustrated aspects of a journey, and used seamless transitions in order to portray this. This was an element that we ourselves had considered as we felt it would emphasise the journey that the character was taking and improve the flow of the video. We then researched the use of this seamless cutting technique and found a collection of media with ‘invisible’ transitions, including the opening sequence to ITV’s Doc Martin series.
The practicality of doing all of the invisible transitions differed from what I had originally planned in the script and animatic storyboard, but a fair few of them were easily producible. This way of using cuts isn’t unheard of in music videos, but it is uncommon, a majority will have straight cuts, but I felt that by using this type of editing it would not only emphasise the journey aspect of the video, but add some excitement to the piece.
We also decided that we wanted the video to have a reminiscent theme to it, so we see the main character reminiscing upon his broken relationship. For example, when the character walks into the camera a white transition is used, this is supposed to give the illusion of the camera entering the characters mind, showing the audience how he has come to walk this lonely path.

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Our ancillary tasks have changed several times over the period of producing the music video. The main reason was we felt they just weren’t working and we weren’t happy with them.
They went from computer images:
CD
DVD
Magazine

To sketches:

CD
DVD cover

Magazine
To our final ancillaries:

CD cover

CD insert

DVD cover

Magazine advert

We did decide to go for a slightly different angle with the ancillaries’ compared to the main theme of journey within the video, we liked the idea of the characters each loosing half of them self when they broke up. I decided that the best way to portray this would be by showing only half of their faces on the texts; we were trying to emphasise that the two characters did not really want to split up- we took this idea from a line in the song ‘’if you don’t want me to go, why don’t you join me?’’.
The theme does still relate to the video though, in the last scenes we see half of Jack’s face and half of Alec’s face, this was to show that the song was nearly at its end, and the characters were about to depart from one another; with showing half of their face on camera, hopefully, making the audience realise that the pain of leaving one another is cutting them in half. No other shots in the video show half a characters face, implying that this really is the end for them.
The CD cover shows this idea very well, when opened fully the half faces join to become a full face, making them whole again.
The magazine advert also falls to the idea above, but is presented to the audience as a mystery; the two shoulders touching should hopefully give an indication that the two know each other, but the fact the each man only has half his face on show, should, optimistically, make the audience wonder what’s going on. The advert is very simple, perhaps too simple, with not enough information on it, but we didn’t want a messy looking poster, we were aiming for something simplistic but eye catching.
The DVD case shows that it is Alec who is leaving Jack, and with Jack in the background, it emphasises the idea that they don’t really want to be break up. We got the idea for this picture from a line in the song ‘’but I’m too scared to look back’’. Originally we were going to go for the half face idea again, but I felt that it would be too repetitive, when there were so many other potentials within the song, that would make a great DVD case. Besides it keeps with the theme of journey, as Alec is walking away from Jack, and essentially away from his former life. The back of the DVD case is meant to reinforce the idea that the character is on a journey that he has to go on, so much so, he has walked through the viewer and emerged the other side (on the back of the case); relating to the video very much.
So, the ancillary’s main task we believed was to try and portray a relationship breaking up against both men’s wishes, I think that the DVD cover does this best. But once you’ve seen the music video then the other two become a lot more apparent.

3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
We have learnt a lot from our audience feedback and received plenty of positive feedback on our video. After working to complete our rough cut we showed it to several people to see what they thought. All of those we showed it to enjoyed it but a few changes were suggested, such as polishing a few cuts and perhaps rethinking one piece of footage. So we took these suggestions and worked on them along with our own ideas to straighten out the glitches in our video.

4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used a lot of new media technologies in the process of producing our music video; YouTube was key to our whole research and planning, we looked up many music videos to gain or develop our ideas. Through facebook we were able to show our video to others gaining valuable audience feedback, also via this media we were able to present our finished product to our band. By using our blogs we could regularly log and update our work, also giving us the opportunity to display our videos (animatic, rough cut, music video and commentary) and ancillary tasks. We used Adobe editing software on the schools computers; it enabled us to create the feel and look within the shots that we wanted. The memory aspect of the video meant that in many frames the main character had to be duplicated doing different things; this to begin with was a challenge, but we soon worked out how to get this result. In creating our ancillary tasks I used a series of computer programmes; Paint, Microsoft Word and Publisher, and Photoshop.

New Ancillarys

Feeling that our ancillaries just weren't working, we decided to change them:

CD cover

CD insert

DVD cover

Magazine Advert

These we felt fit in with our music video much much better. It kept to our on going themes, such as the main characters 'loosing half of themselevs' during the split- which is portrayed in the magazine advert and the CD cover, and the DVD cover keeps with the theme of journey.

Video Commentary

Final Final Cut!

Final Cut

Rough Cut

Summary so far......

After having several problems with our group, with one member leaving, Paul and I have had our work cut out to catch up. The digi-pack which our third member was in charge of was nowhere near completed, so after designing the CD cover, and the DVD case- the magazine advert was the only one that was completed- i set about making them in Paint and Microsoft Word;
Front of CD cover

Back of CD cover

Magazine Advert

DVD cover

I'm not completely sure what compelled me to do this one in black and white; the only reason i can think of is, its to show that relationships aren't black and white. There are other factors present which determine it's outcome.

Inspiration!

This is additional research to that of our pitches;
In this CD cover I liked how the eye took up the whole image. It gave me the idea of putting the man inside the girl’s eye. This is to show that the man is trapped in the girls ‘mind’s eye’, so even though she won’t go with him, she still thinks about him a lot.


Even though this is a Playstation game case, I liked how only half of the man’s face was shown. It linked to one of my ideas for a shot in the video; by only showing half of the man and woman’s face in the last scenes, when they go their separate ways, it could show that by leaving each other they are also leaving half of themselves behind. Give the impression that they don’t really want to part, but they feel that they have to, hence the line in the song “at least I know I died on the road”; showing that if they don’t split then the man will forever regret his decision.


With our complications of getting everyone together at the same time, we had to make a strange compromise, a boy playing the girls part. Not only does it make the words sung in the song not relate, but also the images featured in the digi-pack are now ‘wrong’, so to speak. But the original concept of a couple splitting up, with the theme of abstract, is still there; and I believe that by creating a music video about a homosexual relationship is entering the realms of postmodernism, and also hitting the mark of the abstract theme, as the gay relationship depicted with in the video goes against preconceived notions and conventions of the typical romantic genre.

Also during filming I found that some of the shots I wanted were too technical and could have become too time consuming for the amount of time we had. So my idea of there being no cuts in the video until the last few shots, showing that the relationship had ended for good, has gone. Some of the transitions are still there. But I feel I have lost some of the seamless flow of the journey the man is on.