Evaluation question 3.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback is a key element in the creation of any type of media. Audience gives people in the media industry a target during the production stage. Without audiences there would be no media. By not having a target audience many media industries would fail in the attraction and profit of their products as they would not be aimed at any particular type of consumers. The crucial part of having an audience is that they can provide the industry with constructive criticism as well as productive feedback that will enable that product to become more tailored to the needs of that collective group.

Student feedback.

The main thing we learnt from our audience feedback is that we needed to incorporate more establishing shots between scenes to enable our music video to flow between. We collected some quantitative research and found that 40% of people wanted more shots of the surroundings. We made these changes to the video and found that it did look much better and the storyline was a lot clearer. Another main point that we learnt from our audience feedback was that the relationship between me and Lauren had to be made clearer. 60% of people said that they could not tell whether our feelings were matched or not. We did not want to explicitly show that me and Lauren were a gay couple which is what may have caused confusion but this was purposefully done.
 

Music video analysis.

After watching a Paramore video which features two females 'having fun' with one another, we felt as if we wanted to create the same vibe. In the Paramore video the audience cannot tell whether the two girls are in a relationship or if they are just friends which is intriguing. It is important to create a sense of ambiguity within a music video as it will make the audience members want to watch it again. Due to the fact that music videos are only short bursts of a story that are often played on repeat in social areas, the storyline needs to fascinate the audience so that they will want to watch it multiple times in order to create a variety of conclusions/meanings from the narrative. Throughout the video the audience is left to work out what the relationship between the two characters is which is what we also wanted to create. After telling our audience this, they felt what we were trying to portray was clearer. However, even though 40% of our target audience took the preferred reading approach where they understood that me and Lauren were in a committed relationship, 60% had more of a negotiated reading approach. That 60% saw that me and Lauren must have had some kind of feelings for one another but felt that it was still not clear enough that we were in an actual relationship. This meant that they created a variety of meanings behind the narrative that consisted of themes such as friendship, loneliness and forced love.

Feedback from the band.

We also collected some qualitative research from the band which created the song 'Southern Comforting'. We did this via email, however, we did arrange a Skype call with the lead singer but unfortunately he was unavailable to do this at the time we arranged. We decided to show the finished product to Charlie Kerr who we have been in contact with throughout the whole process and he showed the rest of JPNS GRLS via YouTube. He told us that the idea of having a homosexual relationship was pleasing and he fully supported the message which we were trying to create. Charlie wrote to us saying " I am very excited that you are looking to show that love takes many forms and that you want to use our song as a vessel for that" and he liked that our video contained "Love and beautiful visuals". We were told from our audience feedback that the graffiti we used worked really well to distinguish between shots so it made the move less jumpy and more flowing and it also set the scene for the urban atmosphere (which consisted of a gritty landscape and a lot of street style scenes) and storyline. We chose to add in a few more graffiti shots after an audience member said they made the video "brighter which reflects the relationship that you both are sharing."

Teacher and target audience feedback.

Many of our audience feedback members said that the relationship between me and Lauren was very realistic and kept the audience engaged. We added in a few more shots of me and Lauren together to feed into the idea of us being a couple as that is what our audience members decided they liked. 50% of the audience members we asked said the pulled focus shots that we used throughout the video were really effective. We chose to include as many as possible because we all felt it added an eery aspect to our media video , especially the ones we took in the inner city. The audience really liked the circling shots which we used to show the passing of time. Our teacher said this was her favourite shot of the video so we made sure to include it again in the montage of shots near the end of our finished product in order to emphasise the fast pace of this movement and the desolate atmosphere that is brought in moments of isolation from the bustling city life.

The audience feedback that we collected helped us in many ways to change aspects of our music video and include more qualities that attracted specific collective groups. We were able to create an idea that intrigued and created emotion for our target audience because of the feelings that they portrayed to us whilst watching and contributing to the process of our music video product.

Evaluation question 4.

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

Planning.

Our primary use of research was the internet. Web 2.0 allowed us to gain the information needed due to user-generated content and usability being easily available to use. Web 2.0 allows users to interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as part of a virtual community. Web 2.0 allows us to blog, social network and create hosted services. Much of the user-generated content on Web 2.0 impacted our work and audience feedback as this was the reason we were able to communicate with a variety of people about our creations. Folksonomy which is a system which users apply public tags to online items, allowed our work to be seen by a bigger audience of people due to the connections that could be made between us and others who were interested in our chosen genre or narrative. 

Construction.

We used many different platforms such as YouTube to research a variety of videos for our chosen genre. This helped us to plan what conventions we were going to incorporate from these into our own music video to make sure that we fit in with the genre characteristics. We also used Email to help us plan our music video and song/genre chose. We emailed the band JPNS GRLS directly to ask whether or not we could use the song 'Southern comforting' and also asked them a variety of questions whilst we were planning the storyline of the music video. We also emailed the band a YouTube link to the finished product in order to gain some feedback from them. We also used the internet for Google to find out about the characteristics of our genre and also research about the makings of the band and the type of audience that they appeal to. 



Evaluation.

We used the camera to video parts of our audience feedback. We filmed members of our target audience throughout the process of the making of our video. At different stages of the video production we filmed a variety of people asking them whether they liked the ideas for our album package and initial music video storyline. We used a variety of social media accounts, primarily Facebook, to help in the construction and planning stage of our music video. We made sure to set up a group chat on Facebook messenger so that we could easily communicate with one another. Each group member was involved in this and we used it frequently to discuss when we would go filming/ our availability and to share with one another our ideas or any extra work that we had done individually. Facebook also allowed us to plan the initial ideas for the video.

Evaluation.

We were able to see the popularity of the types of images that we were trying to create/ show to our target audience. One of the main pieces of media technology that we used to create our music video was IMovie. Throughout the process of editing this was the platform that we used to create our final product and to trial a variety of different effects and cuts whilst we were finding what shots would definitely be present. YouTube was another main component for the evaluation stage of preparing our music video. By uploading the video onto YouTube it allowed us to show others what we had made and gain their feedback. They could access this at any time and we were also able to show anybody we wanted at any time as YouTube was easily accessible on our mobile phones.





Comparison.

On the other hand, there were a few issues with the media technologies that were available to use. Our group initially started to write their blogs on the Tumblr platform but due to privacy reasons it meant that Sam and Lauren had to switch their blogs over to Wordpress which limited them to adding certain edits and posts etc.. Furthermore, none of my media group had a Twitter account so we could not put our music video or gain any audience feedback from this media platform as it was not available to us. This limited the variety of feedback during our evaluation as many people would have been able to comment on our video via Twitter.

Evaluation question 1.

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



Our music video subverts as well as follows typical conventions of the genre 'Garage Rock.' The main theme that we have chosen to create is the rebellious aspect of love. In many garage rock videos "teenage love" is often show as a spontaneous relationship which often leads to random illegal activities. The inconography of rebellion is a prime feature of our music video as well as others of the genre as it fits with the fast pace/ tempo of the conventional garage rock. The urban setting which we have based our music video around is often conventional of the genre due to the fast pace of life it creates. The album package/ artwork, however, is fairly submissive of the garage rock genre. Our album package features highly the artwork of graffiti which is a common element of the Hip Hop genre.


Use.



Firstly, after the analysis of album packages by artists such as "Muse" and "Coldplay" and video analysis of artists such as "Kid Ink" and "Galantis" I became influenced by many of the features that were presented. Finding the hidden messages of these videos and forms of promotion helped us to use those certain conventions or dismiss them. The album package for the band "Led Zepplin" heavily showed images that related to graffiti. The colours that were used or this promotional package influenced us to use the same features on ours. Even though our music video does not contain a lot of colour, our album packaged does does from the graffiti element. I chose to analyse the video "All American Boy" which was created by an American artist called Steve Grand as a prime example of a homosexual relationship. Seeing as this was also the main narrative for our music video, I was influenced by how this relationship between two males was portrayed in terms of editing and muse en scene. Both males were shown in similar outfits, subverting the idea that there should always be a more 'masculine' one in a homosexual relationship, we also used this element as both of our girl characters are 'girly'. Also both guys were staged equally, they both had a similar amount of screen time and neither were in alliance with the camera. We were also influenced by this form of camerawork as we wanted both of our characters to be shown on equal grounds. This video had a lot of relevance to our work as it portrayed similar messages to the ones we were going to use throughout the making of our video. The music video for Galantis' song "runaway" influenced the pace of our music video considerably. This video is also set in an urban environment and the pace of life is exactly what we used in our music video in the form of our being shown running e.t.c. There was also a key element of layout in Galantis "Runaway" that we wanted to use in our music video. We wanted to show shots of the city area such as buildings and graffiti and then go back to our music video narrative of the two female character and "Runaway" does this simultaneously. This creates the fast pace effect of editing which we were trying to go for in our music video to give off the message about the "passing of time."


Develop.

Furthermore, we chose to develop the primary theme of love in our music video and make it a more widespread occurence across all sexes and age groups. As love is a key convention of Garage Rock, we developed this to become more fitting to our initial ideas of having a homosexual relationship portrayl. We thought this would express originality as a lot of relationships are often categorised by a male and female according to Barthes' cultural myth which focuses on the stereotypical straight relationship. We wanted to change this stereotype because there are other alternative methods of love as well as musical genres as our genre is also commonly known as "alternative rock". Many of the album covers produced by Garage rock bands/ Rock bands in general show some form of artwork that may be an eye catching source for their target audience. We developed this by taking a form of artwork also but connecting it to the urban setting of our music video to change the view of garage rock imagery. We altered this convention as we knew that we wanted to include graffiti in our music video as an ongoing theme. Many media platforms and music videos show the theme of love but we wanted to take it one step further so that our music video was not generic or "mainstream" in the hope that it would gain more attention from audience members. We employed interpellation in our music video as we did not show the typical heteronormative ideology in the way that it is often presented. The girls are shown to be a couple, together, not two individuals. Overall, our work is more unconventional of the Garage Rock genre.


Challenged.

Moreover, we challenged the conventional form of garage rock music videos due to making our performance a narrative based video. Typically, garage rock videos show a performance of the band as well as a narrative and keep switching back and forth to keep up the fast pace. We thought that performance based video were now becoming out of fashion and that this was due to cinematography. TV and music videos such as Taylor Swifts "Love Story" and the TV show "Pretty Little Liars" are becoming more cinematic which means that narratives are becoming more and more important in the production of music videos. The times of media are forever changing and we felt it was a good idea to stick to the more modern features of generic music videos as our band is extremely modern also. This compliments Goodwins theory of the presence of links between lyrics and visuals which leads too performance, narrative or concept based music videos. By us challenging the performance based vides was also done for practical reasons as we could only have contact with the band over the internet due to their tour in America. In this sense we were contradicting stereotypical conventions of garage rock videos. We also challenged the theory of gender complicity in our music video as we chose not to present as 'ideal' version of gender. We chose to make our characters rebellious to fit in with the generic convention of teenagers in music videos and the fact that both our characters were girls shown to be "drinking" and "smoking" creates more of a downcast on the idealised version of a teenage girl which is supposedly much more tame.


We also challenged the cultural myth by Barthes of archetypes as we did not show the traditional heterosexual relationship in our music video. The fact that we made our characters supposed lesbians in a society that does not necessarily agree with that label shows that we have challenged the cultural myth of love only being found by a man and woman. The binary oppositions of our music video challenge the typical area of conflict interest such as a heterosexual argument as we do no intentionally show the bickering between me and Lauren. There are moments where we are pictured alone (as the two girl characters) but we do not clearly film our argument as that is not the characterisation of our relationship. Our album package shows us alone, there are three images of me and one of me and Lauren together which is the only real evidence of us being outcasts from society as even though we are surrounded by the bustle of the city, it is only us two and sometimes the loneliness takes its toll as I am supposed to represent on my own. This is why the conflict of our video is fairly low-key because we are challenging the aggressive convention of teenager relationships that are often shown in the garage rock videos to fit with the fast pace of the song.



To conclude, we have used many genre conventions in our music video in order to showcase 'Garage Rock' as it is not seen as a mainstream genre. The character recognition and the disjointed narrative that we used in our music video in the form of our montage and variety of settings and the image of our female characters in the emo 'glam' style is very fitting to the garage rock genre.

Using social media.

We decided to post our music video on YouTube so that a variety of people could view it. YouTube is a really good social media platform to gain views from all sorts of people which is what we wanted to do so that we could gain feedback from a wider variety of audience. YouTube is easily accessible across all different technologies such as phones or laptops so any content that is uploaded onto the site is more likely to be seen by many.

From posting our music video onto YouTube the members of the band we chose (JPNS GRLS) were able to view what we created and give their feedback. We sent them the YouTube link via email and gained a response from them saying how they really enjoyed it. If we didn't upload our video onto YouTube then it would have made it harder for the band to see our finished product.

We decided not to post our music video onto our Facebook profiles as we did not want everyone to view the product due to the possible negative connotations that it portrays. However, we did send our music video to a selected few via Facebook messenger so that we could get their feedback and see whether or not they liked what we created. I sent the video on Facebook messenger to three of my friends and Sam sent it to three of hers and then we both compared the feedback we got. Facebook was a good way of contacting people as it enabled us to get their response even though we could not personally show all of the people as they do not attend our sixth form. We were able to get a range of responses and all were unbiased as none of the people we messaged were media students and they all had not seen the process we took in creating the music video.

One of the most important media platforms that we used in the process of making our music video was email. Email enabled us to contact the band JPNS GRLS and ask for their permission to use the song 'Southern Comforting'. Email also helped us to stay in contact with the band throughout the process of making the video. We asked the lead singer Charlie Kerr a variety of questions via email that we were initially going to ask him during a Skype call which unfortunately didn't happen due to him not being able to make it. Email allowed us to still gain the information that we needed from Charlie Kerr so that we could carry on making the video. We have sent emails back and forth from us to the band throughout the making of our video and it really helped to be able to contact them whenever we needed to so that we made sure to incorporate their ideas.

Theory- The male gaze.

The male gaze is a concept coined by feminist film critic Laura Mulvey. It refers to the way visual arts are structured around a masculine viewer. It describes the tendency in visual culture to depict the world and women from a masculine point of view and in terms of men's attitudes.
An example of this can be seen in the film 'The Avengers' in the form of Black Widow. She is a character who has clearly been formed in a pleasing way to the male eye. Her superhero outfit is a tight black, leather (PVC) catsuit which clings to all aspects of her body. This means that her image is extremely revealing and therefore stands out to a male audience. This can fit with the feminist view that a woman is merely a mans 'possession' an object which they can desire and chase after. A female is an image of mens adoration, therefore they must fit with the idealised form that men require.
On the other hand, our music video shows women from a completely different perspective. Me and Lauren are shown to be each others desire, we are pleasing to the eye of one another and not to a male audience. We are not wearing any short or revealing clothing, or any other objects that may be pleasing to men because that is not our purpose. In many ways we have fed into the feminist theory that women should be free from all male oppression, we show freedom with one another in a sense that we could not be tied down by anyone else. 
Gay relationships are often not accepted in society, however in recent times people have become more aware of their existence. A variety of media platforms have not openly shown gay relationships due to the negative reactions they could get from an audience. The television series, 'Hollyoaks' is one of the only programmes that clearly shows the existence of gay relationships. However, there target audience is teenagers and young adults and therefore they may not have such a negative approach to seeing these images/ storyline as an older audience. Gay relationships are becoming more acceptable to see on TV as many documentaries, especially on channel 4, have been made to highlight gays in modern society. Although, many films do not show gay realtionships as they still follow the concept of a 'fairytale ending' which would consist of a man and a woman. It seems more common to see these types of relationships in soaps as they add to the dramatic effect. Even though the concept is being shown across more media platforms, there is still a long way to go.