This is it..

his is my last post, I hope that you have enjoyed reading about my experiences within A2 Media;

Here is our final Music Video:

Bye!

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

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During research the media technology I mainly used was the internet. Youtube 'Broadcast Yourself' was a huge part of my research for music videos, it is easy to find video clips and music videos that will help to show you the conventions of the genre and even other projects done by people at other schools, their media products. This means that I was able to achieve realistic views about what to ask in questionnaires becuase I had seen the typical shots, costumes, colours, effects etc. of the pop/rock genre.
Another tecnology used in the research and planning stage was music channels. Channels such as Viva, MTV and TMF will show all types of music videos, including pop whereas NME, MTV2 and Kerrang will show more Rock videos, this makes it easier to see videos in our genre and make notes on the conventions. When watching music videos on Youtube you can get more information than just watching tv, they have user comments which allow you to see peoples views and opinions on them, people may be censored slightly in order to abide to the websites rules, the still maintain the individual opions of the audience.

During the construction of my media product i used many different technologies, the main one being the video cameras. the main part of our construction is the filming, this means that video cameras were the major part of construction. They were not the most up-to-date but they had all different functions that enabled us to use different effects at the time, rather than later on during editing, like zoom for instant.

Imovie on the apple mac's is the other technology that we used in our construction and is just as important as the video cameras, perhaps slightly more important. We used effects on this programme such as speeding up and reversing, without this on the computers then it would have been difficult to get the final product to how we wanted it and we would have been disatisfied with our product.
When making my digipak and magazine advert the technology I used was Photoshop- Adobe.7 and a camera. Photoshop helped to change the images that I have created with the camera, I can change the sizes of them, cut out the shape of the male and add texts that possibly are unobtainable in other programmes. I think that my previous use of photshop in Photography lessons has enabled me to have skills that i may not have had without this subject.
The camera i have used is a samsung that has a screen on the front, it enables the person i am taking a picture of to see what they are doing and change so that they are also happy with the pictures and eventually the final product.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

My music video, Album cover/Digipak and Magazine article must all have synergy and in order to create this I must explore the areas that the audience will relate to most and which will build a relationship between them and us.

• At first glance, there is no instant similarity between my music video and the digipak and magazine advertisement, however it does not necessarily have to match the exact image of the video. By not having a direct link between the two means that when they watch the video they will be surprised rather than already knowing what is involved. Superman can be described as shouty music since pop/rock songs often have loud vocals, the image of someone shouting refers to this and can create a subtle link between the two products.
• Between the Album cover/Digipak and the Magazine Advert there are a large amount of similarities and they are bright and bold so are very like to stick in your mind. By using a unconventional font on both means that this image will stick in the audiences mind, having it twice means that it is more repetitive without being annoying, enough so that they can connect the font to the album.
• Another feature that is alike is that they both follow the same colour scheme, this means that the colour will also be a reminder of the product and it will be hard for the audience to disconnect the colour from the album, therefore whenever they come across something that is this light green they will be instinctively reminded of our product.
• The image is also quite different to anything else out there, these images wont be seen anywhere else except on products that will relate back to the music video or digipak and therefore these faces, all similar yet different will be printed in the audiences mind since its repeated 4 times altogether and will be like the colour scheme and font in the sense that it will always bring their mind back to one thing: Our Product!

Overall I think that all three products are effective together, although the video doesn't have complete direct links it still allows the audience to create their own ideas about the album cover connected to the video and possibly come up with their own individual reasons for remembering these products together.

In what ways does your product use forms and conventions of real media products?

Music Video;

Our music video is the most important part of the production, this creates the basis of the two ancillary task.
The conventions that we have followed for our media are;

• Stereotypes; this means that the audience can relate to the characters and can connect to the characters feelings, so they can feel sympathy or empathy. They can also relate to the characters if they feel they fall under the same stereotype.
• Love; this is an important sub-topic, there are usually always the aspects of love, the narrative is often the story of two lovers and their battles for example, we have the story of three different dates.

Digipak;

This is the second most important, it has to appeal to the audience visually since they will be purchasing the album depending on how it looks on the shelf.

The conventions I followed were;

• The shape and size of the album cover; this is important, you never see rectangular shaped cd so its important that it is a square shaped.
• The barcode and other texts; This is important to make sure that the CD looks professional, website links and a barcode are typical features of Albums as they are important information. The writing at the bottom is boring terms and conditions which are also used on most, if not all albums covers.

Magazine Advertisement;

This is the second ancillary task and it is important to have a connection between this and the digipak however it cannot be too similar or it would be repetitive and may appeal less to the audience.

The conventions i have followed are;

• I have included date of realease- this is important to convey when the Album is out on sale, without this advert it would not have the oppurtunity to get publicity.
• Reviews; this is to make sure that the audience are aware of other opinions that could influence them and possibly insure the audience to buy the album.

Audience Feedback about my Advertisement and what I have learnt.

These two graphs show me that the audience think that like my digipak, my advertisement is very eye-catching and that they would go out and purchase the album after seeing it.
29/30 people think that my advertisement would catch their eye, this is VERY successful since it means that if 29 people were looking to buy a new album and saw this in a magazine they would notice it and 26 of them say that they would purchase it all because of this advert.
Similarly to my digipak the results to the question 'What Genre do you think my Advertisement would fall under' had the majority pointing towards 'Indie' however the gap was a lot smaller with only 4 guesses in-between.

Some answers to the other questions were:

Best Features of my advertisement;

• Bold colours- they are alternative to the usual magazine colours, they will catch your eye since they stand out.
• The reviews- two big names; NME and Scott Mills with positive reviews= gives reassurance about whether it is a good album.

Worst Features of my advertisement;

• Font difficulties- It is hard to see some letters since the background contrasts with the image.
• The Name- unsure whether its a band, or singer? no information.

I have realised from both my digipak and advertisement that I need to distinguish between the two genres Pop-Rock and Indie since a lot of my products fall more into Indie, unlike my Video which is under Pop-Rock. This needs to come from research, both questionnaires and independent research can help to show what a Pop-Rock advert is like.
Like I mentioned before, I would definitely need to find a way of making sure that I ask in detail about what makes my advert more 'Indie'

Audience Feedback about my Digipak and what I have learnt...

These two graphs show me that the audience think that my digipak is eye-catching and that they would go out and purchase the album after seeing it. This means that I have been successful when making my Digipak. Since the audience are very important, by the majority of the audience saying that they like my digipak means that I have full filled the potential.

The results to the question 'What Genre do you think my digipak falls under?' have shown me however that the image I have provided has given the audience the idea that Constant Invasions are an 'Indie' band since that is the most popular answer, with pop coming a close second.
If I were to make a digipak again I would make a prototype and then send out a questionnaire before progressing first, I would include questions that make the audience answer Why they think these things and What aspects I should change in order to properly portray the image I want.

Some answers to the other questions are:

Best Features of my digipak;

• The font- very interesting, never been used before- cool and different.
• The colour Scheme- 'Green and Pink are great together- it's neither too girly nor manly.'

Worst Features;

• Not a lot of text- Little information, no lyrics? or band information? the audience have no idea who constant invasions are.
• The blank CD holder- its plain could have been altered to make more interesting, or held the CD with a design in to make it nicer to look at.

Audience Feedback about my Video and What I have learnt.

Here are two of the clips that we recorded that contain personal opinions on our music video;




The General feedback to our music video was;
The Best Features;

• Comedy- reversing the characters, stereotypes.
• Stereotypes alone- they created likeable characters.
• The Effects- action changing as the beat changes.

The Worst features;

• The Grainy image- the camera is very unclear fuzzy.
• Some of the shots- there are a few scenes when the edges are messy, the backdrop is slanted.
• Lighting- its quite dark/dim in the 'speed dating' scenes.

What Genre did the audience think our video was?

• 80% thought it was a Pop Video
• 25% thought it was an Indie Video
• the other 5% thought it was either a Rock or Alternative Video.

From our audience feedback there are changes that i would make if i were to redo the video or to help me improve for my next project that will enable my video to be the best that it can be, these changes are;

• Use a higher quality video camera that will enable the shots to be clearer and less grainy, this will also mean that there will be a more professional finish rather than quite amateur which was one member of the audiences comment.
• Make sure that when filming that all areas that we do not want in the scene are not in the scene! If using a backdrop that we have made ourselves then we must make sure that it is larger than what the camera views to make sure that there is no possible chance that the sides will be messy.
• When filming lighting is as important as the mise-en-scene therefore we should have made sure that there was clear and well lit areas in order for the video to be top quality and to make sure that the audience can see everything that is going on. This will be another feature that will make it seem more professional.

We also asked the audience if they saw our video on the television or internet would they purchase the single;

• 97% said they would which means that only 3% said no, this means that our music video is well liked and that it would have a high success rate if it were in the real life charts for example.