Evaluation.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
For the craetion of American metal band Five Finger Death Punch 'My Own Hell' music video, I used, developed and challenged forms and conventions of existing metal music videos.
The typical band line-up includes a drummer, a bassist, a rhythm guitarist,a lead guitarist and a singer, who may or may not be an instrumentalist. Five Finger Death Punch may consist of the typical 5-piece band line-up, however, a 5-piece band is only typical; 36Crazyfists is an Alaskan 4-piece metal band whose line-up includes a dummer, a bassist, a guiarist and a singer whilst Lacuna Coil is an Italian 6-piece metal band whose line-up consists of a drummer, a bassist/ keyboardist, 2 guitarists and both a male and female singer. My Own Hell consists of the standard 4-piece band line-up: a drummer, a bassist, a guitarist and a singer - therefore sticking to the conventions of a metal music video.
I have used the convention of a performance-based music video with interwoven cuts of narrative; the performance holds the illusion that of a live show and the 'band members' are shown rhythmically beating their heads in time with the music (head-banging). I have also developed this convention with with the non-performance cuts that show a mixture between narrative, performance and the behaviour of crowds at gigs (mosh-pitting) as seen 2 minutes 34 seconds in.
I have conformed and developed the metal "uniform" from that of classical to contemporary standards, the band members and even the 'extras' seen in the video i.e. the mosh pit scenes were asked to wear the more fashionable 'metal head' or 'rock scene wear': band t-shirts, animal print, dark colours, anything with skulls, leather, chains, crosses, skinny jeans, long shorts, standard blue jeans, studded belts, Vans, DC or Converse shoes etc.
I have used and explored the conventions of camera work in a metal music video by shooting close-ups of both the singer and the instruments, tracking the singer's movements, using as many different camera angles as possible and using a range of different distance shots.
I have used and challenged the forms and conventions of editing a metal music video; My Own Hell is cut to the tempo of the music, I have varied my shots from angle to angle, singer to instrument to band shot, I have also exhibited jumping distance shots - I challenged the conventions by exceeding shots beyond the duration of 4 seconds when focusing on the breakdown of an instrument i.e. the drums or when trying to set the mood as well as the scene. I used digital effects to enhance the effects of editing by bleaching, speeding up or slowing shots down for a more dramatic effect.
I used intertextuality to my advantage in My Own Hell; the shots of the mosh pit are intended to increase my audience's engagement with and attentiveness to my product as they will recognise and reminisce their own personal experiences at a live show, being a part of the mosh pit, setting the atmosphere for the venue and the band performing.

How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary texts?
I think my main product, the music video My Own Hell combined with the ancillary texts - the digi pak and magazine advertisement are very effective as a whole. I think it's evident that my works support each other as the images used in my ancillary texts were either taken as My Own Hell was being produced or stills were taken from the actual video footage of My Own Hell. I believe that the images are strong and self-explanatory as well as artistic. Five Finger Death Punch's knuckle-duster logo can be found in both my main product and my ancillary texts, setting a sub-concious link in the audiences mind. Within the video of My Own Hell as the singer, Jamie wore the bands logo t-shirt, advertising the band within it's own music video - the logo can also be seen on the bottom right-hand corner of the digi pak's front cover and at the top of the magazine advertisement page. Not to mention the magazine's sole purpose is to advertise the digi pak, its conventional when advertising to have an image of whose product your advertising, in this case the band and an image of their product which is usually a new single or album, but in this case the digi pak. Most importantly I belive they reflect the genre that I am trying to represent which is metal. I have stuck to the conventions of a magazine - using no more than two or three colours throughout my magazine advertisement and digipak. My colour scheme is also a way I have differed from the forms and conventions of a magazine; usually magazines use a bright and attractive colour scheme to attract the audience’s attention and persuade them to purchase what they are advertising in the magazine, however, I have decided to use Kerrang!’s style as a basis for my colour scheme design. I have chosen Kerrang! due to it being a well-known rock magazine, which is well suited for the genre of my music video and it’s ancillary texts. Kerrang! use black as they’re dominant colour with some lighter colours such as white and yellow. Following this example I have also used black as my dominant colour with pieces of white for a contrasting professional look, I also used eye-catching vibrant pictures of the fire in ‘My Own Hell’ which will hopefully attract the audience’s attention and persuade them to purchase the digipak.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?
I recieved both positive and negative feedback from my audience. My music video 'My Own Hell' by American metal band Five Finger Death Punch was an overall success as 10/10 viewers approved, giving it a 'thumbs up'.
"It looks like a music video of its genre." - Luke McManus
"Lots of raw energy and power." - Peter Bennett
2/10 commented on the intro as one of their favoured scenes; as Nick (Drummer) walks on 'stage', takes his position behind the drums, adjusting his instrument and warms up by stretching the muscles in his back and arms. The twisting of the drumstick or 'stick trick' indicates he is ready to 'rock'. It "sets the scene and tone of the video and builds up anticipation".
6/10 commented on the effectiveness of editing - cuts between the performance and the narrative. How the images illustrate and reflect the lyrics. I was pleased to find out tha my audience recognised the symbolisim within my video; the shots of fire and pictures burning were to symbolise 'hell', the shots of Jamie drinking and smoking were to symbolise how he was being a 'danger to myself' and that the shots of Jamie, the main protagonist inside a mosh pit represented a 'padded cell'.
"Although the 'mosh pit' acts as a set of walls to contain the main protagonist, having a 'mosh pit' allows the audience to relate to the music video in a more intimate and open way." - Jamie Sambridge
Other digitally edited scenes that were highly favoured were the 'speed edited scenes'; the shots of Jamie speed up gave the audience the impression of the "permanency of his troubles" and the ending sequence where Jamie's movement is slowed down as he screams, the movement corresponds with the relationship of the music. The bleached effect on the narrative also recieved a positive response.
The mise-en-scene, lighting and camera movement recieved an overall positive response, however, even though the editing recieved praise it also held me backas there were a few negative responses.
Due to file compression, the shots that I failed to sync perfectly became more noticeable as 4/10 commented on the performance being slightly out of sync.
"Where it isn't synced as much it's as much the fault of the actor rather than the editor, i.e. my out of time drumming." - Nick Quinn
2/10 suggested the video have more narrative as they believe its too performance-based.
My power as producer was questionned as very few thought I could have exercised my power and authority to give 'My Own Hell' a greater depth in meaning.
"I did think the singer needed to be angrier." - Lauren Ashley Bigmac
"I think the mosh pit should have been more compact - although I know that's not your fault." - Kimberley Johnston
"A few cuts between shots are too slow for that genre." - Luke McManus
I am fully aware that some shots exceed the duration of 4 seconds in effect slowing down 'My Own Hell'. To improve the faults of my music video, in future I will spend more time and pay greater attention to detail, such as syncing and the duration of shots. I will also explore the opportunity of narrative and use the authority of producer to except nothing less than 100%.

How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
I used media technologies to aid me in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages of my product.
I used Youtube to aid my research of this project. It was through Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/) that I was able to access and analyse the works of metal bands such as Five Finger Death Punch. It was also through Youtube that I able to gain knowledge of how a music video should look. As a result of watching various metal music videos through this worldwide networking site I was able to construct ideas of my own for my project of creating a music video.
I used two of the school's Digital Video Cameras to construct my music video, setting them in different positions, at different angles to help me produce a resemblence of a professional metal music video. It was also easier to upload my footage onto a P.C or Mac as all I had to do was plug the Digital Video Camera in, and after the push of a button my footage automatically uploaded, quickly and efficently.
I uploaded all my footage to i-Movie, where I edited and constructed the basis of my music video, choosing clips and organising them in order to the soundtrack of 'My Own Hell'. Once I had gained confidence in using the software I then began to refine and adjust my music video, trimming clips to sync them perfectly, adding digital effects like bleaching the narrative shots and speeding up and slowing shots down for dramatic effect. Once I was happy with my outcome I then exported my music video, ready for uploading.
I used the social highly popular networking site Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/) to upload my music video, My Own Hell. Facebook enabled me to gain feedback for my efforts as my friends/ family, i.e. my audience were able to leave comments, give me feedback and 'like' my music video.
I used Blogspot (http://www.blogspot.com/) to record all the evidence of my project from the planning of My Own Hell (lyric annotation and storyboard etc) to the research of other music videos and the conventions of the particular genre (metal) to the rough cut of My Own Hell, the alternative endings as well as the final cut version to the supporting pieces, the ancillary texts. Blogging is an efficient way of presenting your work as it cannot be lost like loose pieces of paper - only deleted, you may edit your work as you please and it's presentable and easily accessable from anywhere in the world.

Key

Internet Video Sharing Site:

http://www.youtube.com/


Social Networking Sites:

http://www.facebook.com/

http://www.blogger.com/


Search Engine:

http://www.google.com/

http://www.wikipedia.org/

Ancillary Text (Magazine Advertisement)

Ancillary Text (DigiPak)

Ancillary Text (DigiPak Draft)

Ideas for Digi Pak

Analysis of an Existing DigiPak.

Nine Inch Nails – Year Zero.

1. How is the artist represented in the images?
The images of the digi pak are not of the artist but of what the album represents. Trent Reznor, front man of Nine Inch Nails, described Year Zero as a concept album criticizing the United States government's current policies and how they will impact the world 15 years in the future.
The images can be interpreted in many different ways.
The front cover is a point-of-view image of which appears to be a ghost-like hand gripping the land this is taken through the front wind-screen of a car.
The last few seconds of the "My Violent Heart" file found on the USB drive is static; spectrogram analysis reveals an image resembling an arm extending down from the sky. This arm is known as "The Presence." This spectrogram image is later put at the end of "The Warning" and doesn't appear at the end of "My Violent Heart" on the album.
The Presence is the ‘ghost-like hand’ visible on the cover of the album.
The backing image of the digi pak was taken or edited in sepia.
When the digi pak is opened the back displays a contrasting yet conjoined scenery; to the left, a little back water town set on a hill with a catholic church perched on the hill top, separated by a moss covered wall and a stream (to the right) is the work side of town, a derelict almost shanty-like town where the main workplace is a huge foundry that lies in the background.
On the inside of the opened digi pak, the basic black CD, entitled year zero in white text is framed by conflicting images either side of the digi pak. Each side shows an arm; the left side shows a (masculine) left arm in a pinstriped suit, white shirt, wearing a silver wrist watch - leather bound Holy Bible in hand whilst on the right side of the digi pak shows a bare (masculine) right arm holding which appears to be a semi-automatic weapon, a gun.

2. What colours are used and why do you think they might have been chosen?
Black/ White; I think were chosen as they contrast with one another and stereotypically black represents darkness, chaos, secrecy etc whilst white represents light, peace and purity.
In arguments, things can be black and white, meaning that the issue at hand is dichotomized (having two clear, opposing sides with no middle ground).
Shades of blue; I think was chosen as all the different shades can represent emotions like sadness and calm to positions like royalty to temperature (cold).

3. Do the design/ layout reflect the style of the artist?
Industrial rock artists generally employ the basic rock instrumentation of electric guitars, drums and bass and pair it with white noise blasts, electronic music gear (synthesizers, sequencers, samplers and drum machines). Guitars are commonly heavily distorted or otherwise affected. Bass guitars and drums may be played live, or be replaced by electronic musical instruments or computers in general. Industrial rock frequently incorporates the sounds of machinery and industry.

4. Can you tell what genre of music the artist is from the packaging? How?
Nine Inch Nails is an Industrial Rock project. Although from the packaging it’s hard to categorize into a specific genre it’s easy to say by process of elimination that the packaging can only belong to that of the rock genre as no other genre would have a derelict town on the back of a CD and abstract image on the front.

5. How is the packaging laid out? What information does it give?
The digi pak is a 6 panel lay out with a sleeve which holds all the albums information like track numbers and song titles, lyrics to the songs, album information, ‘thank you’s’ and websites to visit. Every panel baring the CD holder displays an image relevant to the albums purpose.

6. What is the title of the album? What meaning does it give to the image on the front cover – are they linked?
The digi pak is entitled Year Zero; baring the title in mind whilst looking at the front cover I would say that it looks as if life as come to a stand-still or that there is simply nothing left.

7. How does the packing promote the artist?
I think the packaging promotes the artist, Trent Reznor as the packaging is certainly different just like the sound of industrial rock project Nine Inch Nails. Not to mention that most of Nine Inch Nails CDs are used as a canvas of art works.