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.