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Construction

Album Cover

Magazine Advert

Music Video

EVALUATION Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the forms and conventions of real media texts?

Q1) In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge the forms and conventions of real media texts?

We shot our narrative music video in Grove Park, on the beach, and used the cafe called Gardens. We wanted our video to have the vintage feel, which most acoustic, singer, song writers have. This is one of the features of a music video. We got our inspiration from the artist Katie Melua and the video 'Rambling man' By Laura Marling. These two artists both us

e conventions in a simular way which we wanted our video to look.

They both use close ups of instruments, mainly guitars, which is exactly how we wanted to start our video, especially as the song starts with Joanna playing the guitar.

According to Andrew Goodwin a key feature of a music video is to have a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals that you see on screen. When we got the lyrics to the song, we all thought it was happy, but then Joanna explained them to us, and we realised it was the complete opposite. Infact its about how a girl hates this guy so much because she wants to be with him, but he just doesnt notice her at all.

In our music video we have specific shots for when certain parts of the song are introduced. Whenever the chorus comes in, thats when we have the performance shots. This only promotes our artist but we wanted to even out the narrative. By doing this, we see how the artist is ment to be feeling, as we see her emotions coming out in the lyrics. Even in the narrative our artist is still a focal point, as she's made out to be 'stalking' the guy she is singing about.

Most genered videos have their own iconography. When we thought 'acoustic, singer-songwriter' our connations were, black and white effects, a performace space, so either a studio or a bandstand. We liked the idea or close ups and having a vintage style of the beach, quirky cafes, writing names in the sand, and performing in an 'own' space.

When choosing ideas for our video, we didnt want people being like, oh thats been done before in this and that video, so we wanted to take an idea, and change it. For example we wanted Joanna to walk down a long road and just sing! This idea was done in Avril Lavignes - With You. We thought the idea would work if maybe we used lanterns, that way weve added our own convention to it, but it didnt work.

The lanterns took to long to blow up,and we wouldnt have been able to get lots up in one go.

Nowadays people can just sit in front of a webcam and DIY. Thousands of videos are uploaded in minutes on you tube of people singing and showing off their talents. This is a good way for some people to be recognised! Some bands put promo videos on this website to try and get noticed by music labels. In minutes videos can get over millions of views, and be a hit. Its a new technology that has allowed people to upload silly, funny and pointless videos.

Lots of people create videos by just taking songs they like and editing pictures to create a slideshow. You will be suprised at how many views these types of DIY vids get. it does promote artists that arent availiable to 'itunes' or radio stations yet. Artists can upload their promo videos, and as they get bigger and more recognised they will have another backup and money to create a proper video.

EVALUATION Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Question 2) How effective is thecombination of yourmain product and ancillary texts?
Throughout the different stages of production, (the main product and ancillary texts) we have tried to keep a constant theme throughout in order for the audience to identify with the artist we have chosen and draw direct links between the three products…the music video, digipak and magazine advertisement.
Once we had decided on a genre of music we were familiar with and had consumed a lot of, weresearched deeply into the forms and conventions of artist’s promotional material in this specific genre. We identified our artist Joanna as an acoustic artist, due to the only sound being her and the guitar (no digital instruments involved.) We first looked at acoustic music videos we were familiar with and how they effectively represent and establish the artist in a way that the audience could identify with. For example the artist we could draw close links with was the artist LauraMarling. We had already consumed her music before, due to her effective promotion material. We noticed that her music video for ‘The Rambling Man’ contained a large amount of close up shots of her face so the audience can see her raw emotion.Thisidea then continued with close up shots of random objects that contributed to the theme of the video giving it an artistic abstract visual. We combined these techniques in our own video. The close up shots of Joanna’s face , enable the audience to remember her so in the future they could recognise her immediately. The large amount of performance close ups also express her emotive and reflective side, showing she has a passion for what she is singing about. The emotive expressions will help the audience feel sympathy and warmth towards her, which may make sales of her music go up, if the audience have nice opinions of her as a person. These close up shots are carried through to the digi pak design.

Before we started the design of the album artwork we conducted semiotic analysis into other digipaks of a different genre. We analysed hip-hop albums such as artists like Kanye West and Kid CuDi, noticing the bright colours and animation involved. Comparing that with acoustic artists, we were then aware that the genre we were working in was less vibrant with neutral tones, nature and beauty entwined in the inlays. We took photos of Joanna when she is not directly looking at the camera as she looks out into the distance, ‘the way she sees it’ which links in with the title of the album.


We thought the location of our productive work was one of the most effective parts to our portfolio. Using the performance footage of Joanna in a bandstand was the basis of our video, working the narrative around this. The bandstand is situated in a park, meaning the surroundings are beautiful. The performance area being deserted gave the feel of a practice rehearsal, where all her emotions could flood out. We used the bandstand visuals not only for the music video but also for the digipak inlays. So if someone was to catch a glimpse of the video and then see this theme on a cd cover they could immediately establish the music video was by Joanna. This combination gives Joanna a good strong brand identity.
Acoustic artists typically play their instruments in their videos. They want to show the audience that they have talent and write and compose their material. We decided that Joanna should definitely play her acoustic guitar. The first few seconds of our video, (strumming of the guitar) allows the audience to straight away know exactly what they are about to consume, a video for an acoustic artist. We then chose to take photos of her guitar in a different setting for the album artwork but one that would relate to back to the video. As we were creating the seaside vintage feel in the narrative we placed the guitar in a beach setting. The guitar by itself draws the attention that she is an acoustic artist and establishes her immediately. It takes the focus off the artist and more to the creation of the music, through the instrument. We included Joanna as the main focus on the other parts of the product and ancillary texts so to have a

photo of just the guitar adds something different to the mix.



With the advertisement we chose to use conventional features of all genres of music in the magazine advertisement industry, so the audience could recognise we were advertising for a musician not a film, or book etc. We created the music logo of the record label reck records which we used in the advertisement to show an association with the corporate business she works for. We also used bright yellow stars to show the ratings from music experts such as Q and NME, which catch the viewer’s attention quickly. The attention through the use of colours and text type are what make an effective advertisement. The public normally believe that music critics are always right. So if we feature NME quoting ‘faultless’ then the audience will believe its faultless also.

In conclusion we believe the links between each promotional material are strong and recognisable enabling the audience to establish a connection with Joanna, through the use of camera shots (to create sympathy and to show her personality), the combination of emphasis on guitar throughout music video and Digipak and the key features of a magazine advert. We think we could have improved the effectiveness of the combination by keeping the colouring the same on all aspects, as colour is what helps you remember and associate different objects with. We found this hard, due to the various locations we used, however the conventional style of each product reminds us that Joanna is an acoustic artist, passionate about music and her brand image is established as the focus is on close ups of her face throughout.

EVALUATION Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Q3-What have

you learne

d from your audience

feedback?

When we chose Joanna as our artist for our music video and decided on the treatment we decided that out target audience would be teenagers and young adults 13-22 year olds. This means that students at college would qualify as the target audience so there feedback is v

ery important in helping us develop our music video. We used audience feedback very early on to identify a target audience, we interviewed male and female teenagers and adults and found very early on that teenage females were the target audience. .

We found that teenage girls were more interested in artists such as Beyonce and Rihanna, a lot of the target audience seemed to like bands such as Paramore. Joanna is a good mix of these type of artists, he music is usually acoustic but her lyrics have a strong meaning that create the song. The boys seemed to prefer artists such as Neyo and Kanye West who have no similarities to Joanna. This made it clear who our target audience should be. We also put together a pie chart to resemble what peoples favourite genre of music was.

Females aged 13- 18 were represented in this pie chart, Indie was the most popular genre of music.

Because we had such detailed research into a target audience and genre of music this meant that our planning for the music video was also well thought out. We used audience feedback to research popular music videos and produce a treatment for ours.

We like the use of the pavilion as the main setting, the audio & video synchronistic quality is great! The shots were framed well, and there are a few clever ideas in there. we particularly likethe shot of the girl walking on her own on the beach. – This was feedback from an AS media group who represented the target audience. The fact that the group seemed to really like the rough cut of the video was a positive sign that we had attracted out target audience. It appears that shots of the pavilion and the beach are liked and appreciated by them.

However when we asked people outside of our target audience E.g. Adult men, we appeared to get a different response to what their music interests were. Their favourite music seemed to be 60s rock, such as the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, although their favourite music videos didn’t necessarily correlate as Madonna ‘Hung up’ and Beyonce ‘Single Ladies’ still appeared to be top videos.

We didn’t find the storyline very interesting and weren’t too keen on the song. – This was a comment from an all boys group of media students. This is evidence that there seems to be a certain target audience for each music video and you have to represent this.

What genre of music a person likes shouldn’t affect their appreciation of a music video, we’ve found that it helps if somebody of a different taste of music gives feedback on your work because they give you criticisms that the target audience might not have noticed as they see the video in a different way to everyone else.

We understood the storyline, and liked the idea of the couple. It didn't come across as very emotional and think more effects may help with this, e.g. slow motion/black and white to set a more suitable mood. -Even though this person wasn’t necessarily a fan of Joanna’s music or of the representation of the music video they still give good criticisms and positive feedback which helped us. The concept of the video was appreciated, with the relationship between the two actors and Joanna, and appeared to be liked as well. But strong c

riticisms about setting the right mood in the video and trying to portray more emotion was a helpful and well taken point which the group appreciated.

The group believes that audience feedback is vital, especially when in the editing stages. We produced a rough cut which we placed on YouTube so we could gain feedback. This feedback helped us so much to produce the final version of our music video. We had comments about the storyline coming into late; therefore we decided to bring it in after about 20 seconds whereas before it didn’t come in until about 1 minute in, this produced more positive comments because people now felt like they understood the storyline from the start.This is strong evidence for how important audience feedback is whether its from the target audience or not.

I thinkthat audience feedback is usually accurate because they see things that the producers of the video don’t see, e.g. whether or not the storyline is affective. Obviously sometimes comments can be argued with or ignored but it’s very important to note everyone’s feedback whether you see it as important or not.

Good use of shots, but it's slightly out of sync, especially atthe beginning, and sometimes the shots get a bit repetitive and boring. – This is an example of good and bad feedback from the audience. They appreciate the shots used and criticise them, but don’t give details into what they think is good or bad about the shots. They say it’s repetitive but a lot of music videos use the same shots of the artist whilst performing. Therefore this is constructive criticism but could be more detailed so we can improve the video more.

EVALUATION Question 4 - How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluating?

Evaluation Question 4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluating?

During the construction stages of our A2 Media music video production we had to use different equipment to the standard Filming camera. For our project to work we needed to gather information and record our findings using quick relevant memory aids such as pictures, short voice clips and anamatic. We also had to keep a diary of how shoots went and what happened, such as filming being cancelled.

Along side making a promo music video and digipak we were asked to record our planning and research as a blog. We started by researching into influences and inspirations of record artists on the internet using mainstream websites such as myspace. When we looked further into this we decided to conduct a survey. We used the video on our phones to record small interviews. We asked questions like "who is your favourite artist?" and "what is their favourite genre of music?". Once we collected a number of interviews we transferred them onto the computer and created a larger video showing the interviews. We also created a number of pie charts showing the most popular bands and albums percentage. We found that by filming and recording our research rather than typing and explaining it was a

faster technique. When planning our filming we had to test certain shots for continuity and colour balance. We experimented with different angles to evaluate which looked more successful, we used compact cameras to quickly film each test. Before filming, we drew a storyboard showing each shot to use as a clear guide when we went and actually filmed. We had to check if the shots would match up to the song lyrics in time. To get a clear representation of this we created an animatic. This enabled us to establish the correct amount of time we needed to use when filming each shot. We scanned our hand drawn story board onto the computer and used Final Cut Pro to correct the time change then uploaded the final animatic onto blogger.

We also had to use different media sources when creating our DigiPak. We looked into magazines with the same genre of our artist and at the presentation and appearance of the stereotypical album. After developing some ideas for our digi pak we then used photo shop to alter our images and add details.

When constructing our music video we use a various number of effects to add tension and empathy. We researched into Fade In's/outs and developed one into our video by experimenting with the effects on Final Cut Pro. When evaluating our project we also used an alternative method by recording our answers. There were various different ways we could have presented our evaluation such as, a voice over our final piece or by completing a presentation but we decided on a voice recording as it clearly presents our answers.

Audience feedback via Social Networking

By promoting our music video through facebook, in the first hour we gained over 150 views. Joanna's style of music can attract a varied audience so with facebook I thought it'd be a good way to reach all different audiences, due to older family members having access to facebook.

I copied and pasted the url into a status so a link from youtube was created. This allows you to see how many people have viewed it. Also posting it allows friends to 'like' or post comments. I requested friends to evaluate the video. All feedback was 100% positive. Hopefully we will aquire some negative feedback which we can then bring up in evaluation and how we will improve it next time.


Joanna is also promoting our video through her myspace. We are waiting for comments to be posted as it was uploaded on 08/02/11.

I have created a link on my twitter acount, which has resulted in getting 24 more views on youtube.

Story Board (new-after adjustments made 13/01/11)

Th







This is the second storyboard I have produced. After changing our ideas so close to filming we needed to produce a quick visual reference to take on set.

Adjustments to Ancillary tasks

We have faced a problem with the use of photography in our ancillary task, which has meant we have had to make radical changes at the end of this project. We originally were using photos of Joanna which she purposely took for our use, however we have to show that the photos we use have been taken by us personally.

Linking back to a previous post titled 'Developing the Magazine Advert' we used exactly the same process to create a new advertisement, which used a photo of Joanna our group had taken ourselves. We had to create a suitable image instead of using one given to us, which we found benefited us (even though the overall look is not so professional.) We took into account the lighting in the room before taking it and made sure we had a large amount of foreground and background with no objects in the frame so we found it much easier to place text in areas where it can be visibly seen.

The particular photo we had taken would stretch to the desired size of a magazine advert without having to compensate on quality, this meant we didn't have to change the background colours, which saved alot of problems. Although created in a very small time gap we believe this advertisement has been more successful, even though the quality of photograph may not look so professional.

Album front and back cover

We also had to completely redo this part of the ancillary task after the realisation that we were not allowed to use the material we had produced. With the deadline approaching we split the group up and Emily and Rosie took the photos which we used for the front, inlays and back cover. Me and Cori decided to choose to have the same image for the magazine advertisement as the album front cover. This is so the audience can immediately draw links and associations with the two pieces of promotional material. Also being confident users with photoshop software we coul create these images quickly. We think our new designs are more suited to the running theme of seaside, acoustic and vintage vibes, which we hope the audience would appreciate and admire.

Original front cover Final front cover

For our inlays we used software which enabled us to use all of the images we have taken of Joanna and landscapes involved in our video, to make a collage for one of the sides. We think the tracklist on the inside adds an unusual twist and because she is a new artist it won't effect sales, as nobody knows the songs yet. The photo of the guitar links back to the video creating brand identity. We liked the photo Emily and Rosie took of Joanna at a local gig. It adds a personal touch to the inside of the album.

Final Cut- 'In Your Bones'

Editing, Disparity between original ideas/ rough cut/ final cut

The difference between shot list from orginal to adjusted is very significant. After a revision of ideas, we came to the conclusion that we would need to include more narrative, otherwise performance elements could become boring. We also took out all establishing shots as we though they were unneccessary. Other parts of our original shot list were un realistic, the dolly of joanna walking down the road didn't work due to alot of traffic and no dolly method that would result in a stable image throughout. We over came this by filming Joanna on the beach and using the zoom function on the video camera.

Deviations between original storyboard and final storyboard


















This original storyboard (on left) shows Joanna coming into contact with the Boy (James) and aggresively defending herself. After futher thoughts we thought the video would be more effective if Joanna didn't confront him, instead keep her distance, to show that she can't confront him and just imagines everything to be perfect. So instead we used the idea of a cafe scene, with her sitting next to the booth the boy and girl were in, showing the boy never notices her which links with the lyrics.

We completely changed the ending to the video. Originally we were going to use the paper lanterns however after experimenting (shown in earlier post) we found that we would have to have perfect weather conditions for it to be successful. With time running out to film we couldn't be fussy with the days we filmed. Therefore I thought it would be better to have Joanna walking on the beach with the boy (as her imagination) and then using an effect to fade this scene out and merge it into just her walking off into the distance.


Disparity between storyboard and final cut












We couldn't film on the pier as it was crowded so had to think of another scene where Joanna would be following the couple. We used the idea we had previously to fit in here, (Joanna destroying the names that James wrote on the beach.)

Whist editing we found the shots became boring because they all lasted for over 4 seconds. We therefore inserted quick shots of previous scenes near the end (lasting less than 2 seconds) which changed the order of shots in the last third.

Final Digipak

Magazine Advert
Album Front Cover
Inlay One

Inlay Two

Track ListBack Cover

This is our final DigiPak. Emily and Rosie took the pictures of the setting and Joanna on sunday whilst she was performing a gig.

Evaluation Prep

We have decided that because of the lack of time left to finish our Blog we would each take an evaluation question to complete at home.
Emily- Question 1
Katrina- Question 2
Cori- Question3
Rosie- Question 4
We are t0 all finish our question and publish them on the blog by Friday 4th Feb otherwise we miss the deadline.
There are many different ways to present out evaluation though. We can:

• Film ourselves talking through our evaluation
• Do voice overs of our evaluation over our music video highlighting certain points.
• Complete a presentation of our evaluation which we did last year.
• Produce short clips to represent our evaluation points.

We need to pick a way that shows we are creative in our ideas and shows are evaluation points in necessary detail.

Track lists cont..

When albums that are full of tracks, and have a collection of artists on, these either have all the songs on the back cover or have a leaflet inside with them all on.

Example of these are: