Evaluation and feedback of final video.

From the beginning myself and my group set out to create a music video that was both visually impressive and had the ability to challenge certain media stereotypes, having completed the video i think we have achieved our goals. We hoped that we could make our video more meaningful by confronting the stereotypes associated with the genre, by making females the focal point of our video we were actively challenging the sexist stereotypes within Hip-hop. Traditionally in Hip-hop women our used in videos as 'objects of desire' and status symbols for the male artists they cling too, our video however features females as the dominant figures which creates both irony and interest.
My group has benefited from keeping some aspects of the video true to traditional Hip-hop music videos whilst at the same time challenging a major stereotype, this means that the video not only appeals to the original target audience but also has the ability to appeal to a wider range of people. I think this is one of the videos biggest accomplishments as it clearly challenges these sexist stereotypes, with the use of body language and certain mannerisms associated with Hip-hop we were able to present the females performers in a way that suggested power. Cinematography also help us convey this message in our video, by using low angle camera shots which are use traditionally to create the illusion of dominance we were able to present are actors as powerful, this is an aspect usually associated with the male artists of the genre. We also thought it was important for our female subjects to act in a masculine fashion whilst at the same time retaining some feminine qualities this meant that females were not just filling the traditional roles of men in the Hip-hop, but instead creating a new one for themselves. We  kept some aspects of our video such as clothing, this very typical of the genre, we thought it was important to keep at least one element of the music video stereotypical so it would appeal to an existing audience. From research we had conducted earlier in the project we identified the types of clothing worn by Hip-hop artist in there music video, we went to great lengths to ensure that we included as many of these as possible.

 As you can see in the images above our video includes a number of shots that are typical of music videos in the same genre, like many Hip-hop music videos our video includes a direct performance to camera, in an effort to recreate the performances of other Hip-hop artists, we encouraged  the actors to be passionate verging on aggressive when performing to the camera, this helped reinforce the idea that our actors needed to be presented in a way that suggested their power and dominance whilst at the same time helping us challenge the stereotype we had initially set out to confront. The images show that our video shares similar aspects such as cinematography and lighting, shooting our video in a studio meant we were better able to duplicate the environments that areoften seen in other Hip-hop music videos, during the research stage of the project we found that many videos from the genre featured a performance in a studio with little or no background detail or props, this is one of the reasons we decided to shoot our footage in the studio. Another reason we made this decision is so we would have better control over factors such as lighting and composition, although there are not strict rules on lighting in hip-hop music videos we did find some recurring trends and attempted to reproduce these in our own video. We also tried to include similar shots to those feature in other music videos shot in a studio, these consist mainly of mid-shots and close ups. As you can see in the examples above the clothing worn by the performers are the same style and similar colours, the body language and posture adopted by those in the videos are also very similar.

I think that all the products i have produced work well together as  a package because there is a clear theme present in all of my work. I am pleased with the outcome of both my digipak and advert, i went  go to great effort to make my advert and digipak look as convincing and as realistic as possible. However despite my efforts i feel i have produce a product that is not exactly as i hoped for. Although my digipak and advert feature many aspects that are typical of other Hip-hop products, i think i have failed to capture the simplistic style that seems to be a trend in both the digipaks and adverts i have analysed. However  i do think that the final outcome of my media package is a solid effort and not too bad for a first attempt. When i compare my own promotional pack to those i have studied in the project i realise that i may have  put in more effort than is actually needed, the digipaks and adverts i have studied tend to have all necessary information presented clearly in a minimalistic fashion.  Using relatively plain fonts and a simplistic layout allows the audience to focus their attention on the photograph of the artist. My digipak and advert however has a little too much going on, they also both lack a real focal put and the attention of the audience is scattered across the page. Although the fonts and other aspects i have included are genre specific and will appeal to my target audience, i think i might have benefited from taking a more minimalistic approach.

The group decided that Facebook would be a suitable place to attain feedback on our video, this was due to a number of reasons. Firstly because we were able to upload the video with ease and create a group asking for feedback, secondly because of how accessible Facebook is( using another method such as a questionnaire may have limited the response we received) i also thought it was appropriate because many of my friends on Facebook share an interest in the genre and as teenagers make up a large majority of our target audience any feedback we receive is likely to be both valuable and relevant. The general trend in the feedback seems to be that the overall look of our video is good, and the cinematography is also impressive. I am pleased that our idea of challenging stereotypes  has been so well received and by those that have viewed the video, from the feedback i am able to conclude that we presented our message very clearly, all those that responded to our video have commented on how they like the idea of the roles of males and females being switched in the video. This means that all our efforts at trying to convey our female performers in this manner has been a success. However not all of the feedback was so positive, a recurring criticism seems to be the poor light conditions in the video, evident in parts of the video where the faces of the performers are barely visible. This is unfortunate because the light conditions where perfect when filming it was only in the editing process that we were forced to change them. Because we had  filmed the video over the period of two days we struggled to make the lighting conditions exactly the same as before, this is why during the editing process we were forced to darken some of the footage, unfortunately as the feedback suggests we made it too dark. This is something i would have like to go back and alter if i had the chance, either by making the lighting more consistent over the two days of filming or by editing the footage on Final Cut Pro.

In the research stage of the project i quickly learnt that 'Google' was the most useful tool i had at my disposal, it was by far the most effective way of viewing media products of other artists in the genre, because of its simplicity i was quickly able to find both images and information about a particular artist or media product.
Facebook and Myspace also became very useful at a later stage in the project when trying to identify Wu-tang clans target audience. By viewing the profiles of those who had become fans of the group i was quickly able to establish some basic characteristics of my target audience, including age, gender and ethnicity. I found this to be the most effective way of identifying my audience, but viewing the online demographics of different magazines associated with the genre i.e 'The Source' was also useful.
 When taking the photographs to be used for my digipak and advert i used a digital SLR(CanonD500) so i would be able to upload the photos and begin the editing process with little time or effort wasted. Having already had some experience with the Photoshop software i was quickly able to perfect the images. I learnt that by making adjustments to the gamma and contrast and other factors such as these was a fast and effective way of making my images look more professional. I also used the 'Desaturate' and 'Posterise' tool to create the stencil style effect you can see in my finished images, it was these tools and others that enabled me to turn my relatively simple photos into the more genre specific images on both my digipak and advert.
I also used Photoshop for the layout and text featured in both my media products, I think The Photoshop software was the most effective photo editing software i could have used partly due to many features designed to enhance your photographs, but also because it allowed me to see what worked well and what didn't and edit accordingly, all with relative ease.
When filming the footage for our video we used three Xm2 cameras, during our first filming session i discovered the some of the advantage of using these cameras, such as the ability to alter the exposure level and change the white balance so the footage that you capture has the best light conditions possible. The final version of our video was created using Final cut pro, this software is very useful and probably the most effective for what we wanted to achieve. It was at this stage that we added cuts to our video, we learnt it was important to make cuts in time with rhythm of the song, we also learnt that if the pace of the music changed the pace of editing must also change to avoid it looking as if it was out of time with the song. when using final cut pro we were also able to add effects such as fades, however not all of these adjustments were entirely successful as we found out from our feedback. Because we didn't want to use the entire track we were forced to cut the song at the start of a verse, at first this did not work because it stopped so abruptly, but Final cut pro allowed us to loop an instrumental version of the same song at the end of the original track resulting in a seamless edit which we were then able to fade out.

Overall i am happy with the outcome of all aspects of my media project, despite my digipak and advert not being entirely perfect i am still very pleased with them as they fulfilled there intended roles and work well together with the video as a media package. I think our biggest success in this project is our music video, not only have we managed challenge conventions but we have also created music video of great quality. I think we were very ambitious to begin with and chose a relatively hard genre to based our ideas on. However i believe we have made a very good effort in trying to achieve our original goals and i am certain that all the media products i have produced are very relevant to the genre would appeal to my intened audience.