Audience Feedback Video

Jordan's Evaluation Questions

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

Our music video is basically an attempt to take a rap video and make it more of a parody. Understandably our choice of music did help along with that because the Flight of the Choncords songs are funny in themselves. However from our music video we hoped to creative a comical contrasting image of our more silly and miss guided rappers that roam the streets in silly and outrageous outfits. The normally conventions of a rapper is that of someone with lots of money and women surrounding them, and those more within the genre of grime are in the street. We tried to have the same mise-en-scene with the street background and setting. However through this choice of scenery we have noticed a lack of shot variation and therefore the focus on that one scene in heinsight may not have been the most effective way of getting an original music video. However saying this with all of our cut-aways I feel that we have achieved a story and tried to emphasise the euphemisms.
Dyer's pop star theory states that stars are constructions, people constructed to be more like a "real person" as much as possible to relate to the audience. However with their contrasting outfits with the mise-en-scene I feel that we made an attempt to negate this convention because we wanted our actors to stand out and to be seen as outsiders in a area they do not particularly fit in with. However I fear that each role did have their own ideology, because in the end Ben Scragg actually took more of the comedic role, but that was just because of how the lyrics ended up. This is dissapointing because we wanted out charecters to be as simular as they could be. But most of our audience feedback from Facebook found that Ben was actually the favoured character
From a voyeuristic point of view, I feel that we have developed this well. This is because through the vicarious observation of the two characters you start to want to know how the rap battle pans out and get a sense of narrative and connection from thee pair without even properly thinking about it. This was partly the reason for choosing our actors, because we're all good friend i thought that chemistry may be more obvious and easier to show through film.
Seeing as our music video is a parody making fun of the rapper stereotype we initially wanted to get more intertextulaities into our video. Unfortunately with time constraints we could not get everything we had initially planned into it. However as seen in the video above, our video never stops to amuse, which I think is a good aspect for a parody to have, because our audience will want to watch it again.

2. how effective is the combination of our main product and ancillary texts?

From our ancillary texts we hopes to still get the comedic aspect of our product. Our idea was to make the digipack more like a cartoon because we thought it would be original to have a comic incorporated into our digipack. The idea was to have the story of how they became the "hiphopopotomouse and the Rhymenocerouse". I developed this digipack idea where as Russell and Jack developed some of their own ideas. However since the macs at 6th form can go wrong sometimes, I have found it hard to get the image of my final digipack to load onto the blog which in turn is included in problems that I faced with the technology we used.

We developed a magazine advert to promote our product, to create our advert we used Wordle which was recommended to us by our teacher. We thought this was a brilliant idea to use Wordle because it was original and funky, but also kind of all over the place which is that in turn similar to what a parody is. I feel that our advert created in Wordle is simple and different enough that when a person looks at it, they would want to know more as there is a mystery created,  people would want to look into our music video and find out more.

The convergence between our main product and our ancillary texts worked better with the digipack more then it did with the magazine article. This, I feel, is because the digipacks incorperate more text image cohesion and therefore our audience can understand the links between the rappers names and the images that are on the digipack. The magazine article, despite a interesting concept, maybe not have enough to it. For one it was probably not big enough and therefore not enough peolpe would spot it to make it worth while. I do however like the fact that it may get a person interested in it, and therefore link them to and spark the interest in the digipack and the music video. More work may be needed into it. There is actually a web address in the advert itself, however it is very small and maybe does not stand out enough for our audience to see and therefore looking into the band may be harder then we intended it to be.

3. what have I learned from our audience feedback? (see video above)

• "Not a terrible amount of shot variation"
• "I liked the transitions" - had to do because of Liam's bad acting.
• "The cut-aways were good, when it went to the shutting of the door...and you having things like that. That did add some variation
• "The background may be a bit boring?"
• "The ending was effective because when the music ended, you did that comic bit at the end."

From our audience research we found that they fed back to us similar points which we ourselves had raised when self reflecting on our main product after production. When one of our classmates said; "Not a terrible amount of shot variation" I did however try to explain that our cut-aways where meant to just be a shot to include added information, and that the narrative was meant to be in that back ally. however I understand that our target audience are roughly people ages 15-25 whom would most likely like fast paced music and in turn fast paced music videos

When Matt brought up the fact that he "liked the transitions", I explained that we needed to do this due to Liams bad acting, and therefore we had to make up for it in the editing. However it shows the power of editing and how much influence it has on the final product of our work if we managed to turn a near disaster into something that one of our classmates liked. From this I have defiantly learned that if I were to do it again, maybe we should ask people that are more into acting and drama therefore they may be more used to us and be easier to work with. However the fact that they were not trained actors made the video more interesting with a quirky feel.

We also found out that with our little extra ending to the music video, added just that little bit of extra humour which most of our classmates enjoyed. This idea I think was good and is something I would do again because it does make the song more original to you, and puts that certain signature onto it. From the feedback it received I would defiantly use that technique again.

4. how did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

Sorry for the background noise on the microphone on my laptop.

Jack's evaluation questions

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

Our media product seems to follow similarly and differently to a typical media product. Its conventions are similar in some features, including shots with the actors direct addressing the camera which is stereotypically used in rap videos, we did this because the band we aimed to emulate were rapping the song that we were impersonating. To help keep a quick and rapid pace, we used plenty of jump cuts after each slight pause in the recording to make it seem so much quicker in the video, these jump cuts also help us manage to keep the video and the song in sync with each other.
This was vital if we were to obtain a good music video from this coursework, or else all of our work would have gone to waste and looked silly. The Mis-en-scene was kept similar to conventional rap video, our setting was meant to be a "gritty urban area" which was similar to the video we emulated and to the majority of rap videos, it was also used to reflect the general content of the video. Unfortunately we couldnt do a lot to sort out the lighting situation whilst we were there, so we had to make do with what we had.
However, we altered the choice of costume which added the desired amount of humour into the video that we wanted. We went with a nerdy look instead of the chain-blinger look that's typically portrayed in the majority of rap videos which include rappers such as eminem and Jay-Z , it was influenced to me by the video "white and nerdy" by Weird Al Yankovic. But we based our work primarily on the Flight of the conchords as we created the video with one of their songs, the choice of costume was also influenced by our band choice as-well. Plus we added an extra couple of different settings that would help link to the comic appeal, overall this research seemed to prove very effective.

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

Our combination of the product and texts were rather effective overall, we created digipaks and adverts each between the three of us. The digipak featured cartoon animals of a rhinoceros and a hippopotamus which is significant because it relates to the song that we chose to emulate, it is also used to create a comical effect on whoever would purchase it, relating to what we are trying to portray in the video. Plus, it also has a parental guidance sticker to show its still a rap song and it might have some offensive words, just incase the target audience is accidentally mistaken for anyone under the age of 10, which is understandable with the pictures of the animals on them.
The magazine advert was created through a programme called wordle, it is a website which can create a fancy page with whatever you want to type into it. It also has choices of different backgrounds and colours to help create it. We decided to type in the lyrics of our chosen song and then the words mentioned the most in the song popped up the biggest on wordle, words such as "motherflippin", "hiphopapotamus" and "rhymenocerous" were the words that were mentioned the most on wordle which was what was to be expected and hoped for when we tried it.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

From my audience feedback I have found out some information that proved key into helping us improve our video, it was shown at the epic festival all for other schools as well as our school to watch. Some positives that were pointed out were the dance scenes, the audience believed it fitted well with the music which was what we aimed to do. They also believed the camera and editing techniques were very good throughout with some visually pleasing scenery. However, because we didnt fully finish the video in time for the festival, we got some feedback about our ending that we used with an abrupt end to the song. So after this we put together our composed final pieces to add together our intentional final part of the video which was fixed and created to make the ending much better.

On the other hand, we did receive some criticisms about our digipak because it featured some spelling mistakes which we couldnt change when we noticed the errors, i felt i should have done the typing because i am a better speller than Jord and that way we wouldnt be having those problems. But they did feel that the main pictures and font were good which was another plus to take in.
We also posted both the rough version and the final version of the video on facebook and on youtube. Unfortunatly we received no feedback from any youtube viewers which was a shame, but we did get some positive feedback from our friends on facebook about the video with plenty of views which overall was a success.

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

Overall we used several types of media technologies to help throughout the coursework, the majority of this was compiled within the editing phase. We used Adobe pro to edit the video, to make sure it runs smoothly by cutting out any irrelevant bits and syncing the mouths to match the song, we were also able to change the motion of the video to fast or slow as well as the smoother slide transitions. Last year, we used windows movie-maker, which wasn't as advanced as Adobe pro, this means that this year we had a better chance of achieving more enhanced editing techniques and a better quality video.
The filming was compiled through a handheld camera as this is what we were restricted with as a school. We also had a tripod to help keep the footage steady and stable, this helped us massively when it came to the filming as we were commended on our camerawork by the audience feedback. We also created our own video diaries throughout the coursework to track our progress to record together, we then posted each entry on the blog to add as visual progress as well as all of the written progress that we have compiled and worked together on the blog.

Russells Evaluation Questions

1-Our media product uses coventions from similiar media products by using techniques such as the direct addresss towards the camera this has been sampled in many rap videos by the likes of Eminem,50 cent and many others. So i thought it would be good to involve it because our genre was comic rap so had to feature, and to some extent twist to acheive comic effect, conventions from both genres. It also features conventions such as jump cuts jumping from one scene to the other this is often featured in fast paced music videos to keep the pace of the video fast. we wanted fast paced becuase the song was fast paced and need the video to be in synch with the song. We have also used the mise-en-scene from real media products, most rap videos are filmed in grtitty urban areas to reflect the gritty and usually marcarbe content they rap about so we done the same. Filming in a back alley behind some house its not as darkly lit as real videos but we couldnt do much about that with our budget on the other people could still identify the clear link to real rap videos. I think we challenged conventions of real media products for example the props used in real rap videos could be gold chains and expensive cars however we subverted that by giving our actors props such as a bright red backpack held high on his back which is sterotypicall of a 'Nerd' in todays generation. This totally revesres the typical view of rap singers this is reinforced with the use of suit jackets and comic T-shirts as well as tucking in trousers and socks. Whereas this challenges the rap conventions it develops the comic conventions, similiar to videos by Wierd Al Yankovic and 'white and nerdy' which is of the same style and genre we were aiming for. There is also a scene filmed in a bright green area with lots of grass and sky which is very different to the normal gritty rap scenes but this boosts the comic appeal of the video.

2-The combination of the main video and ancillary texts such as the digi-pak and magazine advert were very effective they were all clear and effectivly advertised the song and band the magazine advert was created through wordle and feature all the lyrics and the words most used were larger than the rest this made the words from the song title and band name large, it also featured the website for people to have a look at the website . The digi-pak featured cartoon animals this was for comic effect but the parental guidance sticker is to show it is still a rap song and may feature offensive words. Through the use of convergent technologies all the media texts feature a clear link to each other mostly throuht the dialouge on each.

3- The film was shown at the Epic festival in which we recieved feedback in which we learnt that the dancing scenes we had were not only funny but fitted in with the music well furthermore we were told the bit with the character 'Steve' was good and made for interesting watching and also featured good camera and editing techniques i was also told the filming on the grass using the stones was visually pleasing. Finally after showing our rough draft it was said the ending wasnt very good but after making our final product that has now been fixed with a suitable ending. The digi-pak (refer to post before this one) was also critisced, the main font and pictures are good and provide comic effect as well as something to remmember the band by although the information on the back does feature a few speeling errors however this was done in another programme and was copies over so could not be changed. We have also posted the video on the site YouTube however as of yet have not received any worthwihle feedback

4-I used several madia technoloigies in the construction ,research, planning and evaluation mostly during the editing phase and using adobe pro to edit the video using it to cut out irrelevent clips and to make the video run smoothley also using it to sync the moving mouths to the words of the song. This differs from last year as we used windows movie maker which isnt as advanced as adobe meaning we could acheive better editing techniques such as slow motion or fast motion and better transitions between scenes.This was particularly useful in advancing my media skills in editing and how difficult it actually is. The filming was also done using a handheld cam corder although to keep steady images we used a tri-pod this made the video look a lot more professional. Through out the project we were keeping video diarys using a laptop camera to record it aswell as various websites on the internet most important of which blogspot which we used to record everything.

Final Production Piece

Jordans - Digipack Booklet

This is the inside of the booklet. We have completed this in an animated comic style because we wanted to do something different to other CD booklets, where they just have the lyrics. We did the story of how our band became the Hiphopopotomous and the Rhymnocerous. Another reason we did this is because we had the idea that we could have the link and the intertextuality between digipack and the music video. We were going to do this by having this story being involed as a cut scene at the beginning of our video.

Jordan's - Digipack

This is our final digipack.

We chose the simple design because we wanted to make it comical, and the simplicities are suppose to be representative of our band, because we want to make our people look comical and the complete opposite to a rapper.

We chose the pictures because our song is about a "Hiphopopotomus, and a Ryhmenocerous"

and obviously these names are suppose to relate to the animals; hippopotamus and a rhinocerous.

We chose the green border because of connotations of grass and nature, but since they are rappers , i made it spiky. I added the border to make it seem more refined and more uniformed between both sides of the digipack. Once*