Evaluation Question 4

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

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 2

Question 2 of our evaluation is split up between these two videos.

Evaluation Question 1

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

Once we had completed our music video, we decided to upload it onto YouTube: a popular website in which the public can access videos 24/7 freely. We thought that this would be good idea as it means that anyone is able to access it. This would then allows for honest feedback from a variety of people, allowing us to promote our artist. Further promoting is also available from YouTube onto other social media platforms via a share button at the bottom of the video. This then means that our video is able to be shared by not just us but other people also. Furthermore, with YouTube said to be worth between $26 billion and $40 billion, it would make it one of the biggest and most worthy networks for promotion.

For our advert, we wanted to develop real media products by posting it onto social network. Although this is stereotypical, we feel that our music would appeal the most to younger people that are more likely to go on social media than read a magazine or newspaper. Our advert then, using bold colours and our artist as a forefront, allows the audiences attention to be grabbed instantly. Furthermore, with a lot of adverts being posted onto social media, there is always the problem of our advert being ignored. This is then why we felt that bold colours would not only go with our genre and style, but it also is helps us to grab attention and gain popularity within our target audience of younger people. Further aspects of our poster that help to gain our target audiences attention is the ‘grungy’ style that we have created throughout. For example, the light to dark contrast on the background of the poster catches the attention for being brightly coloured, but also the darker fade on it attracts a different type of audience rather that people that would consider themselves as ‘girly’. We have chosen the colours of pink, purple, blue and black within our advert and digipak because it creates synergy between that and the original music video and music promotion done by the original artist Kehlani. Considerations into using just blue, purple and pink did take place, however we decided that having a black fade on the poster, not only appeals to our target audience, but also leaves a shadow over what is to come next for our artist. It also allows our target audience to see that we aren’t completely girl, but also aren’t ‘gothic’. Creating a poster that has collaborative and contrasting colours on gains us more popularity and appeal into not only our target audience, but also to other type of people that would normally tend to look at this sort of thing.  as you can see, we have also advertised our social media pages of our artist. Due our poster attracting a variety of audiences as well as our target audience, this would allow us to gain popularity and to have our own means of promotion for our artist. Popularity within a variety of people and to have our artist and our advert shared and promoted across the different social media platforms. Due to our target audience being the age of people where social media is a very popular form of communication, we will be connecting out advert and artist to them directly.

Within our genre, R&B, women are commonly depicted as being rather sexual and promiscuous. This is something that we wanted to challenge within our music video, and rather have our artist as a powerful figure instead of the typical, erotic type. We challenged this throughout our music video and our ancillary texts in many ways, one of the ways that we done this was through the costume choices. We decided that wanted Mikah to wear clothes that didn’t seem sexual which is why we dressed her in a jumper and jeans for most the music video and ancillary texts. Although they made Mikah seem modest, it also allowed her to be stylish and continue to appeal to our target audience. On the other hand, some of the clothing did conform to the typical R&B genre conventions. This was through both Mikah and Chrissy wearing a cropped hoodie that showed off the midriff. Although it isn’t a large portion of their bodies, it is enough for them to be portrayed as sexualised. This isn’t something that we wanted to do but due to it being a stylish outfit for them both to wear we decided to stick to the decision. We also looked at it in a positive light because it is something that people are used to seeing in an R&B music video so it wasn’t something that would deter the target audience. Through this we then were able to continue to gain popularity and could also portray Mikah and Chrissy as the strong female individuals that we wanted to present them as.

With our camera angles, we decided that we wanted to use a variety of both long shots and close-ups in order to show Mikah as a strong feminine character. We done this through using close-ups of Mikah’s piercings to show off her trademark. This conforms to the typical ideas of a R&B music video because there are normally a lot of close-ups shown of women i.e. Rihanna’s Work video. However, this is usually done to show the female as a sexual object which is something that we subverted because we in fact used it to show her as independent, and as a role model. Although piercings can be seen as deviant, because of the lyrics talking about wanting a ‘gangsta’, we didn’t see the problem of using them as a trademark. This is also similar to Kehlani, the original artist. It can be argued that Kehlani’s trademark is in fact her tattoos, which then shows us subverting the typical R&B stereotype because it is usually the males that have the tattoos, not the females.  We also used long shots to show Mikah as a strong individual. We done this by giving Mikah a baseball bat which can be seen within some shots of our music video and in the images used for our digipak and poster. We chose to give Mikah the baseball bat because not only does it link to the original movie for which the soundtrack was made for Suicide Squad, but it also shows that Mikah can defend herself and that she is a strong female. The use of the baseball bat within the long shots shows a different side to Mikah that the audience wouldn’t see in the other shots. These long shots showing Mikah’s weapon can be linked to Rihanna’s Needed Me music video in which she uses a gun to defend herself and ultimately kills someone. Both this music video and our music video link together because they both have a narrative of a ‘gangsta’ lifestyle either in the lyrics or the video. Both also show some sort of glamorisation around the weapon. For example, we have Mikah posing and holding a bat causally where it could sometime be feared. This is the same as in Rihanna’s music video as she poses in a luxurious gown on an apartment balcony with a gun which again could sometimes be feared. They also link because in one scene Rihanna can be seen dragging the gun across the window. This is similar to our shot of Mikah dragging the bat along the wall in Leake Street. Although it seems as though Mikah conforms to the typical R&B genre because of the similarities between our music video and Rihanna's, it also subverts because this isn't the typical thing that you would see within a female's R&B music video.

In terms of editing, we decided that we would use quick cuts and longer cuts to create ‘thought beats’ and put Goodwin’s theory in practice. We done this is scenes where we made the shot ‘jump’ so it repeated on itself. This was then followed by a longer shot which was slowed down. We used a lot of slow motion shots within our music video to create perfect thought beats which we thought were really effective. This then subverts from the typical R&B music video because the tempo of the typical R&B song isn’t normally as slow as ours. We liked that this subverted the typical R&B conventions because it means we get to create something unique.

Due to our low budget, we weren’t able to film in a studio like the typical music video. This meant that we had to go out and find places that we thought would fit our theme well. This was quite hard as there aren’t many easily accessible places that contain graffiti that is either safe to go or are open to the public. This was a similar situation to the setting/location of a dilapidated building or warehouse. Fortunately, after extensive research, we were able to find a few places that would make the perfect location for our music video. These locations did in fact subvert the stereotype of a typical R&B music video because R&B videos are typically romanticised which ours isn’t, meaning they aren’t the typical locations which would be featured.

For our digipak, we wanted to completely subvert the typical stereotypes of a typical R&B digipak. Normally, for a female artist, close ups of their face with a sexual gaze into the camera, typically photoshopped or airbrushed to make their face look flawless. This can be seen in digipaks such as Rihanna and Katy Perry. We didn’t want our artist to be represented like this because we wanted her to be a aspirational role model to our target audience of females aged 16-22. We did this through presenting her as a strong female that can be independent and is able to defend herself.

Overall, I feel that our ancillary texts have been successful in creating our own unique stamp on the R&B genre by subverting a lot of the typical conventions in order to appeal to our 16-22 year old target audience even though in some element, we didn't conform to the expectations.

Behind the Scenes - Editing

This first picture is us editing our clip to stop it from looking as shaky using the stabiliser tool.

The next picture is us editing Chrissy's dancing using the slow motion tool to make the dancing fit the tempo of the song.

This picture is then of us editing in the close up of Mikah's hand which appears later on in the music video.

This picture is of us cropping a clip to make the shot look for close up.

Behind the scenes- Filming

During our filming, there were a few technical difficulties had when it came to our filming. One of these was the camera quality. Initially when filming, we thought that the quality of the camera was at a great standard. However, when we uploaded our footage onto the computer, the footage seemed to be rather blurry. We weren't able to change this is in some of our shots that we had already filmed, but instead changed the camera to that of a professional quality when filming later shots.

One the first day of our filming, we went to a run down estate in Brompton and a church in the same vicinity. It was a bit of a struggle filming within the estate as we had set up our tripod and camera when there were people walking in and out of their homes. This then delayed our filming time because we had to make sure there were no added people within the shots but also it was clear that some people felt uncomfortable with us filming there. At the church it was quit difficult to get a good picture of the entire location due to there being a lot of woodland area and trying to get the entire church into the shot. When we eventually got back to the editing stage of this scene, we all decided as a group that the church didn't look effective enough within our video and that this wouldn't be included within the video. Although this did waste time, we were able to come forward from this day with our ideas and expectations in a different place to where they were prior.

For our second day of filming, we decided to film within an abandoned warehouse. We believed that this would be a great location to film in due to how dilapidated the environment was and how well it fitted into the song lyrically as well as visually. Furthermore, due to the breakdown of the building, there was a perfect mixture of natural lighting and also darker areas which allowed for us to make the scene ideal for our filming. However, one problem that we found after the filming within the warehouse was that we didn't film Mikah lip syncing the entire song. This is the only thing that we would have changed when filming here as we found that all other scenes came out really well, but there were a few good missed opportunities to get some more great shots.

We went to London for our third day of filming. When we were in London, we filmed within Leake Street Tunnel, Embankment Skate Park and on Westminster Bridge. Our reasons for filming in Leake Street and the skate park was due to the backdrop of graffiti creating a great setting for us and the backdrop of Westminster Bridge was also great for us. Although this was not due to there being graffiti, in the dark, the view of the London Eye behind Mikah created a sense of 'it's what she's aiming for' when looking at the lavish  lifestyle. Furthermore, the dark lighting created a great contrast between the light shots we had already used. This the allowed us to portray there also being a darker side to being a 'gangsta' figure.

For our final day of filming, we chose to film Mikah driving whilst singing in the Medway Tunnel. We found some difficulty doing this because we had to make sure that we got steady shots although the road was bumpy and there were turns around roundabouts etc. Although the lighting outside of the tunnel made for really effective shots, the bright lights inside of the tunnel weren't as good as we would have liked them because the lighting was a sort of yellow colour, which didn't fit into our theme or style that we wanted to create.

Behind the Scenes- Directing

The above video shows me and my group out filming. This clips show us directing Mikah into the places and positions that we want her. My role within this video is where I tell Mikah to stand in certain positions and whereabouts to stand. I also tell the rest of my group that the camera should be closer to Mikah and also that we should to a close up of Mikah.

Final Product - Gangsta Music Video

This is our final product for our music video 'Gangsta by Mikah'.

Final Poster

This our final poster as a part of our ancillary texts.

Selecting Ancillary Images

When looking at our ancillary texts, we had to make sure that we selected the right one in order to show our artist the specific way that we wanted her represented. We all decided that we wanted Mikah in a dominating position which is why we wanted her to have the bat included within the picture. We also wanted Mikah in the similar style of clothing that she has worn throughout the music video which is why we chose the cropped hoodie and black jeans. Although the cropped hoodie conforms to typical R&B conventions, the pictures of Mikah make it seem like she has a longer hoodie on, thus covering her midriff and subverting the sexual R&B stereotype. We also wanted Mikah to look natural within the pictures which is why we let her get into positions that she felt the most comfortable in. This is why you can see within the pictures that she is sitting down, has her hand on her head and has the bat cover her body. Although this body language may seem as though Mikah is shutting herself off to the public, we thought that having her look natural and comfortable within the pictures allows for her to connect with the target audience and to show that she is a normal person just like them. As you can also see to the right of this writing, we got some close up shots of Mikah and her piercings. We done this because we wanted to show off her 'trademark'  that Goodwin said helps an audience to recognise an artist. Due to Mikah's piercings being her trademark, we wanted her to have her hair up and to do a few close ups in order to showcase the trademark we want her to be known for. However, we decided that we didn't want to use the images on our ancillary texts because it didn't particularly look as good as we wanted it to and it didn't really fit in with the rest of the digipak/poster which was unfortunate.

Final Digipak Design

 This is our final digipak design for our EP

'Gangsta by Mikah'.

Front cover

Inside lyric page

Spine

CD

Back cover

Final digipak ideas

This is a video explaining our final ideas on our digipak design.

Digipak Research

Below is a slideshare presentation that I have created on Digipak Research I conducted in order to give me ideas about the digipak that I will be creating.

Digipak research from nsmithson