Media Evaluation

My music video does not really attempt to challenge the stereotype of binge drinking teens, it shows that our group has a real understanding and insight into what happens should people take drugs or binge drink. Our idea came from the viewings of recent music videos that have been released like Madness- Dust Devil (2009) and The Prodigy- Smack My Bitch Up. I feel that due to not challenging the stereotype that our video will be easily relatable for those who ‘live for the weekend’ and drink until their hearts content. My DVD cover, I feel relates well to the video I created and enforces the idea of binge drinking/ drug taking with the shot glasses on the back of the cover in the background. Another way I feel that we develop on this idea would be the front cover of the DVD cover we made. This showing an extreme close up of an eye with the picture in black and white, and the eye having a red colour to it, showing that the person within the picture is either angry or high or drunk. This relates extremely well to the ideology of our video. But our group found this particular hard as due to the specification requesting a DVD cover instead of a CD cover, we had to adjust our ideas that I feel would have looked good as a CD cover. This was also hard to find ideas on how a DVD cover for a band would look, as most bands don’t release DVD’s they usually release an album. Moving on from the DVD cover leads me to the magazine article. My magazine article that has been designed to advertise the release of the DVD has a picture of the DVD’s front cover with a bit of an interview with the band members. I feel that this is very good, as it sticks to the task and advertises the DVD well due to the picture of it in the article. This I feel does not challenge the conventions of music advertising within magazines as most new album releases have a picture of either the album or the album artwork to make sure that the public can spot it easily in stores around the country. A particular magazine that I researched that did this was Kerrang! I have also borrowed ideas from Kerrang like the ‘hot new music coming your way’ box in the corner of the page.
My video builds on the binge drinking and drug taking teens that we now feel have become the ‘skins generation’. This is not a fair representation of some teens that perhaps are more sensible and aware of what is happening around them, on a night out or just having a bit of a social gathering with their mates. Although this I feel is a fair representation of what really does happen at these times as most people think that they have to do it just to fit in with their gang (peer pressure) and don’t want to seem ‘uncool’. The types of teens our video represents would be those aged from 14-18. The DVD cover I feel does not really represent a particular social group, but if I was to say that it did yet again I would say that it leans more towards the ‘skins generation’ of the economy yet again. This would be because of the coloured shot glasses on the back and the coloured pupil in the eye. With the magazine article I feel that the social group that we aim to represent would yet again be the youth culture and young teens, with the teenage girl being seen as if she was raving/drunk.
I feel that due to how The Prodigy’s music was integrated into the heads of most music fans, through the synonymous amount of plays from MTV and major radio stations, our song will be played hopefully just as much on the radio stations that we now have. I feel that our music video will be shown on television channels like Kerrang and NME. This is due to the type of music that is already distributed on these channels. I feel that the magazine article is also quite similar to these types of magazines as well. So I also think that these institutions will be the main distributors of our DVD.
I feel that my music video has the main target audience of the youth and the ‘skins generation’ that I keep referring to. I believe that this type of social group are the main target audience and that due to this I feel that our video would be quite popular with these social groups. I feel that our DVD cover and magazine article also reinforce this idea and that most people that will be reading this magazine article will be those who buy the magazines of the aforementioned Kerrang and NME institutions.
I feel that we addressed this throughout the video, DVD cover and the magazine article as they all have the same feel, which is that they are aimed at teenagers and young adults who like to party. I feel that we addressed this in the video with a young teenage girl being the main person in the film and also with her being the only one that the audience see within the video, gives us the feel that we, the audience are there with her at that moment. Also within the video due to relationship between lyrics and visuals when the chorus goes ‘NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NEVER AGAIN’ we have shown that the video is related to drug taking and taking it too far and this has been influenced by drinking as well. The relationship between the music and the visuals also backs this up as when Ty is having a breakdown at the end of the video, and with song being titled ‘Breakdown’ it is kind of easy to figure out what the storyline of the video is going to be. The video also speeds up when the music goes into the instrumental section of the song and I feel that this works well and shows that the effect of the drugs and alcohol is starting to really take effect. I feel that all of this helps to attract the youth culture to our group’s product. The theory by Dennis Mcquail links well into this, as our main target audience being the youth section of the public, are more likely to enjoy our music video as it can be easily related too from their own past experiences, and are more likely to experience a night out like this.
I have found that yet again it can be really easy to research things like music videos, and DVD covers for music videos. The internet came in really useful for this as we were able to gain ideas from looking at music videos that we felt could be like our own. The internet also came in use with the research that we had to carry out like looking at how magazine’s advertise album’s or DVD’s. It also helped provide us with insight into how DVD covers are produced for music videos and also the look of them. The Premiere pro software was extremely helpful and allowed us the creative freedom that last year we did not have as we were using movie maker. With Premier pro we could change the lighting of the video; we had a larger range of editing techniques to choose from in short. Fireworks also came in really useful for the creation of the magazine article and the DVD cover. With the software allowing me to be able to stop any pictures from pixelating should they need to be enlarged, this came in extremely handy in the creation of the magazine picture and the front cover of the DVD cover. However, it was not all plain sailing and easy. I ran into problems like not having saved my DVD cover and Magazine article as the right format in order to be able to upload it to my blog. I also encountered problems with uploading my final cut of my music video to my blog as well. This was partly down to the Premiere pro software and also the blog. Other problems I found were not with the technology that I was using but the communication between my group’s members was pretty appalling in parts of the course.
Looking back at last year’s work, I feel that my use of technical skills has come a long way and has developed well with the understanding that I have of these now. I have also gained proficient knowledge in how to use different types of software this year compared to last year, such as Premier pro as last year we struggled just to get the software to work, let alone use it. I think this may be easy to tell towards the end of our video, as I feel that we may have used too many special effects at that point. I have also learned that communication within the group is a vital component for success in a group task like this, I do feel that our group could have communicated a lot better than what we did in the end. I also feel that should we have done this then our time management would have been so much better as well. This would all have hopefully come together to produce a better final product altogether and gained me a higher mark for the coursework section of the course.

magazine article

This is my final draft of a magazine cover. I feel that it gets straight to the point of what it is meant to do, which is to advertise the release of the DVD. I believe this to be because of the 'Introducing' box in the top left hand corner of the page, i feel that this would grab the attention of many readers of the magazine as it is easily noticeable against the plain white background of a page. I also feel that with a picture of the DVD cover included in the article, it will have more chance to gain recognition before it hits the stores. I feel that with the continuity of the font style used on the DVD cover and the magazine article, gives the article a more professional feel and that it can easily be seen to relate to the band image we were trying to gain. I also feel that with the inclusion of well known businesses that I feel would sell our product, also adds to the professional feel of the article. It also entails which businesses our product would be able to be consumed from.