In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I used the media conventions around my genre which is dubstep, a relatively new genre having only been recognised for the nine years and being a low budget meaning there is no mainstream artists to base my video on as well as using the normal codes and conventions of any music video with things such as fast cuts no long takes, allot of extreme close ups, as well as performance I would involve a story line like many other videos.
Looking into conventions of music videos was how I found about all of these as well as the evaluation I did on some music videos. However for my genre the research was much harder as my genre was only developed and recognised in 2000 this means there are hardly any artists that use the genre and there are almost no music videos of the genre, certainly no professional music videos, this will be due to the large cost that is obviously around making videos, and looking at the genres that were used to develop dubstep, they are all low budget underground genres as well, this is what gives the genres there identity almost that they are not mainstream and made for making money, not synthetic as Negus theory states there are two kinds of stars, and the dubstep genre is for organic stars only, ones with the real interest in the music and not the money making side. Having such a niche genre allowed me to be more creative giving me less boundaries allowing me to mix with other genres, looking deeper into the genre I found that it was a rather computer orientated genre, many inspirations were drawn from games or gaming on the computer or online which lead me to develop the genre into one that revolved around gaming, and I reflected this in my final product using allot of shots of a laptop and someone playing on the laptop, trying to show the laps of time and how quickly it passes when people get fixed within a computer. Many videos are just pictures or pure performance such as Skreans video and he is known to be one of the biggest dubstep artists. Also the dubstep genre is often looked at to be a street genre, coming from street, hip hop and grime it would be expected to be like these however my artist didn't really conform to these stereotypes so I thought that my product should reflect the breaking of the stereotypes as well. My product had to relate to the genre however it would have to break the stereotypes which is a particularly hard, I had to look at some of the conventions I wished to keep and look at others that didn't matter as much that I would break to give the video its own sense of individuality. When I was looking at conventions to keep, I thought I would keep the video with mainly performance, as many of the videos that can rarely be found often are, again showing how unknown the genre is, also I thought the use of placing it around a game would be a good idea, as often this is where the inspiration can be found, as many of the artists are keen on computers, and games meaning this would be idea. Often people use clips from games to portray there videos, however I thought I would twist this and have someone on the other side of the screen, and record them playing the game.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Looking and analysing other websites and digi packs I noticed they all use things such as updates about the band to try and keep the people following the band as involved as possible this ties in with the star theory this is Dyer's theory on stars, with competitions about winning tickets and meeting the band it allows the fans to think they are close to the star whilst the star is still far away, this means the fans think it is still realistic to chase the band as if they can get to know them.
I looked to keep a general theme throughout my work this would allow them to be recognised and associated by people in the know, giving people that know about the artist a feeling of knowledge and knowing things that other people do not know, I have done this by using a different hard to read font and a logo almost that will be recognised as it is used throughout my video and digi pack as well as on my web site. As you can see on the right hand side, this is the image that created the cultural competence, as the font is hard to read for people who don't have knowledge of the artist. Also due to the low budget of the genre again most of the websites are quite basically, however most of the artists in this genres basic computer skills are often good, as they need to be good with computers as this is often there only instrument within their songs. Many are often just MySpace, facebook or twitter pages; saving money as they are all free to have you don't have to pay for the web space. More often than not its MySpace pages that are used, as they are free and can be easily manipulated by people who can type and understand HTML, which is the code used to create most things on computer, again allowing them to have good looking sites without any extra cost, which is idea due to the low budget surrounding the genre. Again showing how the genre is all based around being home made on computers. Keeping the underground side to the genre I thought I would not announce tour dates on the website, as many of the smaller artists do they will blog or send invites to fans over facebook or other social networking sites, this keeps it more personal and keeps the organic star theory. This again goes with the title Dubfiend, I used on my digi pack and in the video the text is blurred and to people that are not into the genre or know of the artist. This creates a cultural competence for those people who know of the artist.
I also used the conventional links of the homepage with everything you need to know about an artist with his Biography, access to merchandise and the latest news on the band, this gives it everything that a normal bands website would have, there are both images and text used on the homepage, text not used as much as home pages often are more images to keep the viewer on the website for longer by clicking on all the different links. However unlike a conventional website there is not one image of the performer on the website, this keeps the sense of mystery allot like dubfiend's music there is a sense of mystery, only a silhouette used.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
I have learnt a lot from my audience feedback, they have helped me look at my work realistically and it's good to get an outside fair opinion about my work from what the people that would genuinely be my target audience this gave me a realistic view and told me the things that I could improve on in future. Also having a good spread of good and constructive comments allowed me to see that my music video could be improve by having a different range of shots in the which could fill out my work more and make it more interesting helping the work have more of a repeatability factor, Archer. As my music video does become so what repetitive after the first time of watching, the inspiration fitted with the genre and the music video had a good range of shots, however mainly of performance. Many of my comments mentioned about how the video fitted the genre well and fitted the music, however there were also some constructive comments about this, again lacking shots other than performance, it was hard to find something to base the video on as the song had no lyrics it made it hard.
My digi pack received mainly good comments about the fading text, however it was pointed out that some people may struggle to find the CD in some stores as the spine didn't contain any text, so when the CD cover is turned to the side it was just black, my idea to do this was to make it stand out in its self without having any text, making it stand out more than others that have text. The title was also not very clear however this was to help with the idea with you need to know about the artist to be able to read the title and recognise it again giving the cultural competence being created, it's more of a logo rather than text, this is also the same with the fluid splatter effected I used it to help recognise the artist and you will associate it with him.
My website had similar comments to my digi pack as they shared many similarities in the style as I tried to keep a theme through out to show the link between them all as is often clear, also the images used on the website would help advertise the album and digi pack. The layout was said to be good and looked good as well as being easy to use which is something that is not often found on bands websites with links everywhere it doesn't often look to good, there was a good consistent colour scheme and theme that I carried throughout all my work. And this was commented on being good.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Having access to things such as Google and YouTube made it allot easier to look into my relatively unknown genre as YouTube has allowed people on a lower budget bring their music videos to places w here they can be viewed by more than just the mass market which before was extremely hard music videos could only be found on the music channel.
Research with the computers made things allot easier, when looking into unknown genres, the web helps a lot as
Having access to all the different latest programs allowed me to make the most of my website using things like Dreamweaver, flash and fireworks all from adobe allowed me to move my work easily between the 3 and having a good basic knowledge of all the programs this helped me allot when developing my work using these to edit and create images that I would be able to use within my work rather than having to always take pictures or use other images I would be able to design them and make them personally giving me full control to do what I wanted with my work. I feel my use of the programs had improved, from a basic knowledge at the start to a good knowledge of use at the end, as I used the programs I became more familiar with what the programs could do. Such as the logo I used for Dubfiend, is an original image, that I created using the different tools of Fireworks, something I feel I couldn't have done before. And also creating a whole website using Dreamweaver was something I had not completed before only partly finished work. And having access to make a website with different codes already made for me made it a lot easier than if I had to find them myself, again advantages of having the latest programs to help me. If not it would have taken me much longer to develop the pictures I used, possibly making me use un original images and my website would not be as good and well developed if I didn't have the programs there to help me.
The main problem I had was finding a song I had contacted many different bands and didn't get any replies this left me struggling to find a artist to use luckily I was introduced to Fraser my artist now and he said I could use his work, however without meeting him having no replies was making it look lightly I would have no other song to do if Fraser didn't offer his music, also luckily I had a strong interest in the genre of music he was in allowing me to take a real personal interest in my work.
Being able to have access to good quality editing and producing programs has improved my work I feel, also being keen on ICT allowed me to show and use my skills in many different ways and to the best potential with the latest software to work with this gave me the best chance to get the best out of it and do my work to the best of my ability. Being able to tamper with all the different setting of the video editing not only the video but the sound with different effects allowed me to finish my work in black and white how I original wanted and create shots I didn't think possible to make. Using more than one camera angle from different pieces of footage. And also having the ability to speed up and slow down footage I had recorded helped me make my work fit the music that I had as often the tempo of the song changed, this was a positive point that I was given about my work that it fitted the genre and the song with the style and tempo.
