Evaluation: Corinna's write up

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

The media product that my group made uses forms of conventions of real media texts. This can be seen when we used certain motif in our music video like when we used green screen to make as if the main character was in New York or when we used fragmentation of the body to represent certain lyrics in the song.

The media product develops forms of conventions of real media texts. This can be seen when we created the website when we showed the album cover, Rihanna’s twitter, images of the artist, tour dates and the music video. This website is used to show different ways that an artist promotes their album so that they can sell a lot of records. The development can also be shown in the MTV show where Rihanna is interviewed by MTV presenters about her new single, album, music video and the process of making all of this.

The media product challenges forms of conventions of real media texts by showing the artist Rihanna as a vulnerable girl when she is mainly seen as a bad girl. We did this so that we could get more fans for Rihanna because when we checked the ranking, Rihanna was the tenth most popular artist. Also, there is a female lead who is acting out all of the lyrics from the song and the music video becomes controversial when she ends up killing herself. 

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

The combination of the media product and the ancillary text that we used for our music video is really effective on the website; you can see images of Rihanna in the studio and just being a regular normal girl who likes music. Also in the music video, Rihanna isn’t dressed up in a way that can be represented as controversial and the video shows a girl in her bedroom remembering about the guy that she is in love with. In the mtv show, you can see rihanna promoting her film like most people do before their music video shows on the TV.

This is effective because most people can relate to Rihanna because she is seen as a normal girl and less controversial than they usually are by seeing the music video and the website. This is also effective because girls can relate to being in love with a boy that might not like them anymore and the music video shows that rihanna also has problems like this. 

3.What have you learned from your audience feedback?

From the audience feedback, we have learnt that people have different opinions from looking at a music video. Some of the audience told us that they thought that the music video was good because of the way that we tried to portray Rihanna compared to the way that she is portrayed in other music videos. We also found out that the music video went with the plot that we put down before we created it. They also thought that the black and white was good because it showed the emotion that the main character more than the lyrics. They liked the fact that Rihanna wasn’t in the whole music video and that it changed from Rihanna to the main character.

Some of the audience thought that the green screen wasn’t that good because you could still see the green bits form one of the characters in the green screen bit. They also thought that we could show the background moving to make it seem more real.   

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

In the planning of the music video, we use youtube to search for different music videos and see how music videos have changed during the decades. We also looked at common motifs that can be found in a music video. For example, in Madonna’s music video ‘like a prayer’, there is an impossible sequence that shows Madonna with holes in a hand which also shows controversy.

In the research of the music video, we started coming up with what artist we were going to do for our music video. We then researched the artist so that we can have as much information about them and their fan base. This is so that we would know what to do to bring their career back up if it has gone down. For my group, we chose Rihanna because she is always seen as a bad girl and we wanted to change her image a bit so that her fan base can grow.

In the construction of the music video, we made a radio spot that will announce the song that we would use for our music video which is ‘Fool In Love’ by Rihanna. We then film our music video and did a research log to show what we did on each day and what we needed to change. Step by Steps were created for different media products that we had to make which was a website on iweb, CD cover on photoshop, radio spot on garageband and music video on adobe premiere.

In the evaluation of the music video, we tested our video to the audience and got feedback from them to tell us what was good about it and what we could improve.