There are various ways in which our media product uses conventions of real products in the media. For example, music videos, for rock songs, rely on the genre of the song and stick to this. The typical features in music videos include frequent band shots, quick cuts (any editing which reflects the pace), low key lighting/ chiaroscuro (in some rock videos) and a clear narrative which reflects the emotional meaning in the song. We feel that we have successfully included all of these elements in our video, showing our use and clear understanding of intertextuality. In our music video, the main focus is on the protagonist - Sean. But the band are an important factor to the video as they are very representative of the song, and also me as the ex-girlfriend. I am an important character as my actions cause Sean to feel the way he does, which forms the storyline of the video. This shows how we reflect real media products as in various rock music videos, the protagonist is important to the song but in many genres of music, this works also. Another use of intertextuality is our understanding and use of Todorov's theory and other conventions. (where he talks about equilibrium-disequilibrium-equilibrium.) This factor is important in our video as it shows how sean goes from happiness, to being let down, then at the end, he lets me down and is shown to be superior and happy again as he now knows that i feel like he has felt.
Looking back at my evaluation of 'Waking the demon' by Bullet For My Valentine , we can clearly see that it is a convention portraying darkness and the use of light. Chiaroscuro is important here and also we decided that this was a main factor to portray meaning and feelings in our music video. We feel that we have challenged our use of lighting, in different ways, which variate our shots. An appropriate use of lighting is important in videos portraying the mood of anger, darkness and depression, which ours and waking the demon does, so a clear link to this video shows how we have challenged real media conventions in many ways. In many 'rock' music videos, a love story to a break up can be shown in various ways.But usually they are portrayed in the way in which we have done it, through our music video. The production company in line with our video wouldn't have to take any risks in producing and promoting our video as we have tightly stayed in our genre and have nothing that our audience will be shicked by (negatively) as we have portrayed our genre of 'metal rock' well. Our video would only attract rock music lovers as we have stereotypically chosen a band image and an image of our actors to suit this. So someone who likes pop would see their image and straight away dislike the video. Another way that we have developed and challenged conventions of real media is our use of the "structuralism" theory. Propp's theory states that structuralism can be applied to generic film genres and that every media concept has a structure. It comes from culture as directors use the culture/typicalness of film and structure it in their own way - so a form of intertextuality is used but structured to suit them - like what me and Ben have achieved.
(2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Along with the music video that my group produced, we also created a digipak CD cover (the front of it, insert and back) and a magazine advertisement to promote this, then to be shown in a magazine. I feel that all of our products link together well and that they stay within our chosen genre, which we could of slipped up on. This would of happened if we used a different font and colour (such as pink) as they would not look effective and represent our genre well enough. Therefore we decided to stick with the same font, being, "cracked" as our products needed to look part of the 'metal' genre and represent our video and chosen genre of music well.
This also attracts our audience as they will be drawn towards our chosen image and font, as its style is interesting and is alike to the kerrang magazine font, of which they would read. The image we chose for our digipak and poster was of a crying eye (my eye). As a group, we feel that this image is the most capturing aspect of our ptinted media products, as of the depressed/upset meaning it gives through it, also effectively linking to our video which is what we wanted. As all three products link in one way or another and the printed media products promote the music video and song well. Sticking with the cracked font throughout gives the band a signiture image with their name. This lets them be recognisable from this font, as when one goes into a music shop to purchase a cd, the bands name (and font the name is in) is what one looks for, as it is a signiture image for them. Again with the image of the eye, we feel that it doesn't sell the artist like most cd's do, it sells the song and video, as of the close relation between the two. At the end of our video, i am left feeling upset. I start to cry which reflects the title of the song and the lyrics "has no-one told you, your crie's are all in vain?" as me becoming upset shows Sean 'telling me' and leaving me feeling the way he did. This all reflects our image and the use of it and also how effective our combinations of our media products are. 
(3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?
From the audience feedback, i feel that Ben and I have learnt a lot regarding the planning and research (with the depth that you need to go into just to appeal to your audience)to then create and produce the video well! I know that I wanted to do a rock music video as rock music is my favorite type of music, therefore I knew that Ben and I had to appeal to the right audience, as we had already chosen a genre of music of which we both agreed on. After me and ben had chosen the genre, we decided to brainstorm various, popular metal bands of today such as machine head and Bullet for my valentine. Cries in vain appealed to us and after getting some feedback from our friends who listen to the same music we do, we decided that this would be a good representation of our music video's genre. By posting four different polls on my blog, I got to see how my audience fealt about the build up to my production and if my planning and research was paying off, from the early stages to th later stages. I also was lucky enough to recieve a few comments from my audience, where i got to view their likes and (if so) any dislikes or thoughts on improvements needed. The feedback that i recieved from a few people in my target audience when my group finished the video, was very helpful. As from this I got to see if what i had planned and produced was good enough and if my final product was to their expectations. As you can see, they were very pleased with what my group produced and I personally feel that we have targeted the correct audience well and that the images of the band, cd cover, lighting in video and our use of colours really attracted them towards our products. Therefore, I believe that as a group, we have learnt that the best results from our audience feedback was the focus group, as we got to see their reactions to our video first hand and knew there and then their true feelings which were evidently pleasing for us to hear and also that an audience are a very important aspect in the media as well as ones research, planing and production.
(4) How did you use media technologies in the construction and research planning and evaluation stages?
I used media technologies in many ways, within making my video, CD cover and magazine advert. To begin with, premier.pro was one of the most important technologies in my groups production as it was the programme that helped my group to create and edit our video. It is a very advanced programme and compared to I-movie (which was used during my preliminary task)it was very different and challenging. But next to this in importance, was the internet. It provided me with enough research and planning with websites such as Youtube and Google. From this i was able to analyse music videos to use as inspiration and to look at their use of different angles, their use of pace and also the lighting etc. (in the videos like Waking he Demon). This also shows my use of conventions in the media, despite the difficulties with some of the videos not having embedded codes. Evidently, the internet was important as all of my research, construction and production was posted on this blog, which furthered my intrest also to be creative and make my blog interesting to not just a target audience but also anyone who was producing a media project like myself.
Other products and techs I used were photoshop, a video camera and a digital camera. Photoshop was used to produce our adverts and digipak. As i have used this programme the year before, I knew straight away what to use, but i did find certain things that i had never seen before which could make my poster and digipak stand out. Photoshop really helped me and Ben to construct creative and effective products and we feel that out knowledge and use of photoshop had grown. The digital camera was so important as we needed this to take a picture of myself to be used in the video, to take pictures of our locations and also the band images. Then the digital camera was used for the footage for our final video. We spent most of our time doing this as we wanted to capture as many shots as we could, for when it came to editing we had enough footage to choose from. This was challenging as it became interesting to try high,low and canted angles with and without the use of a tripod. All of the technologies that we used as a group and that I used on my own helped Ben and Myself create, construct and plan easier as without these our products would not be as effective as we believe they are.
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