FINISHED!!!!!!

UN ANNOTOTED VIDEO - this is for the viewing pleasure :) ANNOTATED - this is for a break down of each shot :)

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

Hardware:

iMac Computer – used in the editing stages of my production. Easy to use due to FireWire connection.

Handheld Digital Camera and Tripod – used in the filming stages of my production.

Software:

iMovie – video editing suite. Used in the editing stages of my production. Provided adequate but not quality editing software.

Photoshop – photo editing suite. Used in the creation of my album cover and poster.

Google Chrome – web browser. Used in the research and planning stages of my production, and also the evaluation stage too.

Microsoft Word 2003 – word processor. Used in the evaluation stage to write up my evaluation.

Online Resources:

Blogger – used to track progress of my production the entire way through.

Poll Junkie – used in the research and planning stages to best discover, from my target audience, the conventions of my genre.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

My audience feedback was generally positive, with almost every single observation remarking on the humour factor in the video. This signifies that my aim to make my rap video unconventional and comical imitating the styles of Busta Rhymes and Dizzee Rascal was successful. However, the majority of the feedback I had was from my friends and associates. This creates a bias due to the fact that they know and the notion of seeing me dressed as a spider would seem funny to them regardless of the video’s content.

Nevertheless, I did receive some feedback from random and unknown sources on youtube.com.

Here is one:

“Some shots are a bit dark and some are slightly out of sync. Other than that it is very good. The perspective shots are quite effective and high angle and low angle shots are used well.” Eithy1593.

From this I learnt that the blue light, although created the atmosphere I was looking for, it meant that the characters could be hard to see, thus jeopardizing the viewing pleasure and understanding for my audience. The comment about the perspective shots being quite effective was just the feedback I was searching for, considering the time and effort it took to singlehandedly construct these shots using ‘X’s sellotaped onto the floor in order for my characters to stand on. This was used to make sure the distance was perfect without the characters being out of shot.

The second such comment follows:

“funny as fuck ! good that you interpreted the characters into the video although in some places some of the video was out of sync with the song !” ScotneyP.

This supported the first comment’s remark that parts of my video were slightly out of synch with the lyrics of the song. This was partially due to the quality of the video after transferring it to youtube.com, and also due to the quality of editing software I used. In the future, rather than using iMovie, I will use more sophisticated software to get the perfect finish. My timekeeping also greatly affected the quality of the product, as the length of time taken to produce the costumes used in the production meant that I was rushed for time in the editing stages. Next time, I will ensure that the costume making process does not in anyway jeopardize the overall quality of the end product.

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

Location – The setting of my video and the backgrounds of my album covers are all black, depicting bare locations in order to strengthen the focus onto the character shown in each shot or picture. On my album’s front cover, I have set the spider on a web, which is not featured in the video production, but helps to identify the creature that it sat upon it. The plain black and white of this background helps to make the bright colours of the spider stand out. It also adds an element of reality to the image, by using the convention of a spider sat on its cobweb awaiting its prey despite the surreal feel of the actual spider.

Font – The graffiti font style used on the front of my album cover links in with the urban feel typically associated with rap artists. This is further depicted in my video through the spider’s use of rap-style postures. The colour of my font is a golden yellow, the same colour used on the spider’s ‘bling’. This insinuates that the title is made out of gold, also representative of the power theme that runs through much of the rap industry. Furthermore, on the inside cover of the album with the track list on, the font I have used links in with the spider and the fact that it’s the same colour purple which again is used to link in with the idea of royalty. Also, bold font is more noticeable than other fonts, catching the eye, and so is used for integral information.

Spot Lighting – The use of a spotlight on my characters both in the video production and the album covers is to draw the eye of the audience to that creature. It is also taken from the conventions of the rap industry to highlight that the person the spotlight is trained on is more important than everyone else, picked out with light when all else remains dark.

Colour Scheme – The colour scheme I have chosen to run throughout my video and ancillary product is purple and black. The purple, the colour of the spider’s costume and font, is to create a connotation with royalty. This aids the audience in understanding where the spider stands in his society (the food chain) – or rather, where he thinks he stands, as he is unsuccessful in catching his prey. Like most rap artists, the spider uses purple, the colour of kings, to impress upon the viewer his opinion of himself. Black is used to depict the dark humour behind the spider’s lyrics (sexual innuendos crossed with a predator chasing his prey).

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

A form, or code, and convention of a media product depend upon the genre of the media product itself. Codes and conventions are the recognisable and predictable forms and methods used by the media to communicate specific ideas or to express a required impression. Technical codes include camera angles, sound and lighting. Symbolic codes include the language, costume and actions of characters. The genre of my music video is rap. The codes and conventions that are present in real rap media products today commonly represent power, sex and male dominance. In this report I will be comparing my rap media product with real rap media products from current artists such as Busta Rhymes, Dizzee Rascal and Jay-Z, all internationally award-winning rap artists.

In order to determine contemporary codes and conventions of recent rap media products, I conducted a questionnaire aimed at my target audience, which consisted mostly of teenage boys. As a result of this, I found that 100% of those who answered the question on my poll (which is located on my blog) “What would you associate with rap/hip hop artists?” felt that bling, big puff jackets and baggy clothes were stereotypical attire for the chosen genre. It was due to these results that I then included a flat peak and ‘bling’ (showy jewellery) on the front cover of my CD case. However, due to the costume itself, during filming these props proved difficult to use and sometimes ineffective as they were barely noticeable against the costumes colours.

In real rap videos, actions used include arms held out in an aggressive and dominant manner. This is to represent their power and standing to be high in the music industry. I incorporated this convention into my media production by having low angled shots of my spider, replicating this dance style in order to give the same effect to my target audience. This is also represented in real rap products and certain gestures can be ascribed to a certain person as their trademark. This is evident in the work of Jay-Z, who has the triangular hand symbol indicating his music production company, RocNation.

In accordance with codes and conventions of rap lyrics, the lyrics that I have chosen contain a constant stream of sexual innuendos. This is incredibly common in the rap industry, where most lyricists focus on the female form and its sexualisation. In my lyrics, the spider’s persistent attempts at luring the fly to his parlour, pantry and bed can be seen either as attempts at sating his hunger, or when viewed in more depth, as a sexual innuendo.

In addition to this, the use of spotlighting in recent rap videos, such as Pass Out by Tinie Tempah, is utilised to give of the impression that the person the spotlight is focused on is more important than anyone else, like royalty. It is also used to draw the eye of the audience to the artist, mainly when they are lip synching or singing the lyrics. I used this in my production to give off the same notion. When my spotlight is focused on the spider, it is to give the feeling to the audience that he has the undivided attention of the fly.

However, I have developed this convention by putting a blue tint on the spotlight to create a spooky and mystical atmosphere which also links in with the idea of animals having human characteristics, known as personification.

The conventional editing of a rap media product is commonly quick and cut shots so as to match the beat of the song and the machine gun-like lyrics. This is used in artist’s music videos, such as Busta Rhymes Gimme Some Mo’. This process is evident in my product mainly in the introduction, where the beat is the main point of focus in the song itself.

I developed my costumes from the accepted image of a spider and a fly by altering the colours to a more surreal selection of colours in order to link in with the mythical atmosphere. I have done this by using purple as the base colour of my spider. I used this colour to represent mystery and also again royalty due to his standing in the video as the dominant character. On the other hand, I used pink on the fly instead of a duller colour associated with flies, such as brown or green, to signify the femininity and innocence of the character.

In my development of editing conventions, I took a regular close up shot of the spider’s face and manipulated the image. I was left with a series of increasingly multiplied mirror images and facially distorted images so as to keep up with the beat of the music. I also used this to indicate a point of view shot from a fly’s eyes, which see multiple images instantaneously.

A typical mese-en-scene of a real rap media production is a male dominant environment (a male ‘paradise’), full of attractive women wearing barely nothing, dancing seductively and accompanied by a host of fast cars, large homes, nightclubs and so on, adding to the signification that the artist is better (more successful, etc) than the average male, again like royalty. This can be seen in the work of Jay Z in the production of Young Forever. Due to the fact that this was a low budget production, I challenged this by using a bare scene the entire way through. This works together with the spotlight to make the main focal point the artist, either the spider or the fly.

The costumes themselves are a challenge to stereotypical rap attire, which consists of baggy clothes, puff jackets, suits with canes, etc. These are used throughout the rap industry by generally all successful rap artists. However, some rap artists are well known for challenging this convention, by dressing as surreal characters in order to add a humour factor to their rap videos, and their overall wacky personalities. I conveyed this in my own production by creating cartoonish and exaggerated spider and fly outfits. These were used for the same reasons as Dizzee Rascal used a shark in his Bonkers video and Busta Rhymes dressed as a wrestler, policeman and cowboy in his music video Gimme Some Mo’: to give a fantasy element to the production.

view my music video through this link and comment please !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZ5D6LMnmvQ

Inside CD cover on the right side behind the CD

again i used photo shop the same as the inside cover on the left hand side , i am planning on having the same image printed onto my CD so that when you have the CD in and when you have it out the image is still there.