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

The forms of media created for our media product consisted of a music video, album artwork and magazine advert. These were all based around the genre of grime, in which our chosen song, ‘Next Hype’ was well suited as it is performed by grime artist Tempa T. The music video is primarily performance based while loosely complimented by narrative, following the generic codes and conventions of the grime genre as well as the intervention of house music which plays with the basic foundations that are commonly composed in a grime music video.

The main star of our production plays an important role in our music video as he is the main attraction and label that the audience will recognise and admire. This is shown through the use of close up and low angle shots that promote the star as a powerful and influential image.

The artist keeps close eye contact with the camera creating an impact of intimidation that connects with the audience; a feature that is typical of other grime music video’s such as So Solid Crew’s ‘21 seconds’.

This corresponds with Richard Dyers star theory in which the vocalist is embodied into an image of power, anger and angst allowing the audience to be manipulated by the star successfully appealing to our audience demographic.

Album artworks following the genre of grime usually conform to the same set of codes and conventions. Our group applied these similar rules to attract the same audience. For example Wiley’s album ‘Playtime is Over’ uses similar codes and conventions in his album artwork as we have in magazine advert and digipak. This consists of the use of dark colours, urban locations and urban clothing (e.g. tracksuits, hooded clothing) that represent the lower class and the unorthodox society they follow. This consorts to Andrew Goodwin’s six point theory in which he suggests there are often intertextual references made in a music product.

The camera work and pace of editing of our music video relates to the conventions of our chosen genre as the use of free form camera work changes between moments of grime and house music, as we used a remixed version of Tempa T’s ‘Next Hype’. In moments of house music we used a still camera (tripod) to represent the difference in music genre. The grime melodies of the song are featured with a free form style of camera to represent the aggression of the genre,

while a still camera represents the simplistic rhythm of house.

This relates to Goodwin’s theory of a relationship between music and visuals. By using these techniques we were able to establish familiar conventions of the genre of our song in order to contain our target audience, while at the same time challenging the conventions of our music genre and pushing its boundries.



Our music product also uses conventions of real media products by the use of the similarity in the music video techniques used between our music video and grime artists Wiley. In Wiley's music video 'numbers in action', the use of jump shots filmed by a still camera while multiple Wiley's perform actions in the background relates closely to the techniques used in our own music video in which jump shots are used to show the star moving across the rooms performing different actions and sitting in different positions.

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Evaluation: Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

During the planning of our music video production, as a performance piece, the star (Adam) was used as the main attraction of our product, starring in the music video as well as promoting the album artwork with the branding of his image on the digipak as well as the magazine advert. This relates to Goodwin’s Star theory in which he states that the star will be the focal point of the media product presented. Like the music video, the ancillary texts created conform to the genre of grime in which dark, dull colours are used as well the inclusion of urban elements such as brick walls covered with graffiti. This can be seen in our magazine advert as well as the digipak.

The genre of grime is depicted throughout the media texts created. In the music video the locations used summarize the urban features of the lower class life style. This is shown by the use of back alleys as well as the use of council flats in the background of various scenes. In preparation for shooting our music video we travelled around multiple council estates in order to find the location which most typically suited the characteristics of our genre.

Costume also promotes this feature as the main star is seen wearing a variety of hooded clothes and track suits which are commonly associated with urban youth culture. The use of violence throughout the piece relates to the lyrics of the song in which violent nature is demonstrated - ‘Bloods pouring I got stains off the knife'.

Violence is highly depicted in the music video by the use of props. For example throughout the music video the star carries a baseball bat. This was used in order to show how lower class youth assert their dominance in order to achieve credibility throughout the lower class society they live in. This anti-social behaviour is carried out in order to highlight the grime genre in which our chosen song comes from. Violence is also shown by the way in which the star character breaks into a house and then carjacks a vehicle.

The theme of lower class urban culture and the corresponding violence is pursued in the artwork of the magazine advert as it highly demonstrates an uncaring and lower class area. This is shown by the litter on the ground surrounding the bins within the image. The irony of the litter surrounding the bins shows how little the lower class are devoted to decent living standards or care for the place and environment they live in.

The editing of this magazine advert has been used to create a dirty and unsettling effect on the location demonstrated by the shadowy effects across the wall which creates an evil and disturbing atmosphere. Anti-social behaviour is followed through into the magazine advert and album artwork. For example the star of the music video is edited onto the magazine advert to create the effect that he is part of the graffiti on the wall. This represents how he is judged as a person by the area in which he lives. The main star lives in a neglected place, therefore, he himself is neglected from society and acts out in a violent manor. The red eyes represent the violent and evil nature of the main star.

The album artwork continues to follow the same attributes of the main product. Grime is associated within the digipak by the use of dark and dull colours that represent the basic and unappealing lower class life style. The backwards lettering on the front cover is used as a metaphor to express the backward state of the lower class living standards and social life. The digipak is made up of single close ups of the main star. This is done to exaggerate the anti-social behaviour of the main character which relate to the violent lyrics of Tempa T. The album name ‘The Decline’ was derived from the idea of a lower class society as the word decline represents the grime genre of the album perfectly since it annotates that the lower class people are declining lower in society, resorting to violence and law breaking and refusal to follow the basic rules of society, which is demonstrated throughout our music video.

I feel the main product and ancillary texts were combined effectively to produce a specific brand and ideas that relate well to the genre of grime and the specific background details it originates from.

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Evaluation: Question 3 – What have you learned from your audience feedback?

After choosing our song we began to focus on researching our target audience in order to possess a wider idea of what should be included in our music video. From research we gathered that audiences who listened to Tempa T also listened to grime artists such as Dizzee Rascal, So Solid Crew and Wiley. From the research we found from other grime artists it became apparent that grime music videos are mainly made up of performance (such as Dizzee Rascal's 'Fix up, Look Sharp'), which are usually well-received by their audience. 

Therefore in order to please our target audience we decided to create a performance based music video, however we also included a steady amount of narrative to keep our music video exciting and original.

Our research also told us that the approximate age of listeners in our target audience we discovered, averaged between fifteen and twenty five years old.  Since the grime genre originated from the East London area, our target audience would most likely revolve around inner city areas such as this where violence is common. This genre, we found appealed more to males as they can easily relate to lyrics of aggression and violence from personal experience in the area in which they live. To appeal to this audience, violence was included in the music video to keep our target audience entertained. The use of urban clothing was also included into the production so that the main star of the video appears to resemble the average audience listener, increasing the chances of artist to audience relation. The locations of alley ways and council flats made up the majority of the music video scenery. This was done in order to appeal to the suburban youth that make up the wider percentage of our audience. As they would typically come from a lower class area, the audience would be more comfortable with this location as it resembles their natural habitat. This is a location shot of what we thought our target audience would be able to recognize and relate to:

The audience is set in the position of spectator as the main character of the music video composes the song as well as commits acts of violence. As the scenes change from performance to narrative, the audience receives a satisfaction that they are safe from the acts of the main character and are also in league with him after seeing the performance scenes. This is done by allowing the audience to reach the star past the anti-social behavior and allowing them to receive his lyrics as if listening to him personally. Therefore when the main character of the video attacks and robs a man’s vehicle, the audience are resistant to feel fear, but instead feel in league with him.

On the first screening of our rough cut music video to our target demographic, we found the music video was well received as we gained much positive feedback from questionnaires including comments on things such as the successfulness the flow of the fast paced editing had in correspondent with the music. However we also had negative feedback including comments on lack of use of different camera angles. A variety of comments received are displayed bellow.

'Need to use a wider range of camera angles'

'Liked the CD cover, and fast cuts'

'I liked the locations'

'The editing was really precise and i liked the concept of the still camera shots. It looked really different and it was very effective.'

'The adverts looked very professional'

 We took these suggestions on board determinedly and managed to effectively include a much wider variety of camera angles in our music video such as the ones used bellow.

The feedback we received from class mates proved to be a massive help as well as a confidence boost in creativity as not everyone enjoys this genre of music, however our audience seemed to enjoy our music video as well as our digipak and magazine advert designs in which class mates commented on the impact the edited effects had, such as the dark lighting on the magazine advert.  This allowed us to further develop our designs with the confidence that lack of colour would not displease our audience.

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Evaluation: Question 4 – How did you use new media technologies in the research, planning construction and evaluation stages?

During the research stage of our production we used YouTube in order to search for grime artists making it possible for us to view their music videos and capture an idea of what grime music videos generally consist of. 

We also browsed through Myspace, Facebook and Wikipedia in search of Grime artists and its genre so that we could better understand its origins, audiences and background. Throughout our whole media project we used a website called Blogger to post our work allowing us to track our own progress. We had no trouble using Blogger since we were taught how to use it in our previous year during AS media and so we were able to post each individual piece of work displaying everything he had thus done so far. We also used Wix, a website creator, in which we made websites in order to display our projects and evaluation answers. I had trouble using Wix at first as I had never used this type of software and found it difficult to upload video’s or create menus.

Part of our planning included the video-editing software Final Cut Express, which we used to create an animatic version of our hand drawn storyboard. We created this by taking pictures of our story board using a Nikon D40 digital stills camera and then uploading the photos onto Final Cut Express. This task proved to be relatively easy as we had previously used the Final Cut Express software in AS Media.

We also used Adobe Photoshop CS4, the photo editing software, which allowed us to create our album artwork and magazine adverts. Photoshop took a while to get used to considering we hadn’t had the need to use it in AS. We were having slight problems adjusting the font on our magazine advert to suit the grime genre. However, after some research we discovered fonts could be downloaded into Photoshop allowing us to find the perfect font to use in our magazine advert.

After filming the scenes we needed for our music video on a JVC High Definition camera, we uploaded the footage onto Final Cut to edit. Live Type was used to create our production brand logo while the sound playing over the animation was created on Garage Band. In order to create jump cuts the star of our music video was filmed with a fixed camera in three different locations and then layered on top of each other. To create the stop motion sequence within our music video, over 100 images were taken on an SLR camera and then uploaded to Final Cut to create a moving sequence. Aspects of real album covers and magazine advertisement material were introduced to our product with the use of critic quotes from other magazines such as ‘Mojo’ as well as ‘explicit content’ warnings on the cover of our album. 

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