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.
  

Questionnaire for my Digipak

This is my questionnaire for my Digipak:



Like my questionnaire for my music video this is handed out to 30 people, 15 males and 15 females. I will also post the results in a future post.

Questionnaire for my Advertisement

This is my questionnaire for audience feedback for my magazine advertisement:


Exactly as I did for the other two questionnaires I have handed them out and will be collecting them and posting the results in a post in the future.

Questionnaire for my Video

This is the questionnaire for the feedback about our video:


This was handed out to 30 people, 15 males and 15 females.
I will collect the results and post them in a future post.

Research, Planning and Evaluation

We used different varieties of researching from questionnaires, watching alternative videos and films in the same genres, storyboarding and more.

When it came to other media products we watched a lot of films/videos from films like Kidulthood and Adulthood to Blink 182’s ‘Always’ music video which we were directly inspired by and in fact attempted to use the three section dividing technique from it but were unfortunately unable to recreate this effect due to the programmes not being available to us. By watching other videos and films we were able to see the features and techniques that were used which we could then use on our own products to make sure that they followed the conventions of other videos/films in the same genres

that we had chosen.

This in turn helped us create questionnaires, we had some ideas that we had collected from our wider research and could make the questions more specific whilst still allowing people to have their own opinions for example a selection of music video effects, Blink 182’s ‘Always’ video split screen effect being compared with Powder’s ‘Up here’ cartoon to reality transitions. These types of questions will result with more detailed answers that are precise to our genre.

The audience are the most important factor of our products since the point of our work is to create entertainment for them. This means that questionnaires are equally as important as it allows us to hear exclusively from the audience to hear what they like to see and what they don’t like to see in our music video/ film opening.

I think as a group we managed our time a lot more successfully when producing our A2 music video compared to our previous teenage drama opening since we were able to learn from our prior mistakes which allows us to divide our time sensibly, for example when it came to storyboarding we spent a little more time to make sure that we had every second accounted for by going through the timings and setting an image for each period, this meant we could spend less time filming, since we didn’t need to worry about what needed to be filmed next and where because all the timings were written down.
We had schedules to keep to when it came to filming, storyboarding and meeting up in school to edit our film. However since there are some times when members of the group are unable to make those set times/dates then its difficult to have everybody together, however the whole group tried their hardest, all of us gave up our free time in order to plan our production be it times to film or drawing on the storyboard.

There were very few disagreements between the team members because individually we are all quite open people and were willing to listen to each others ideas whilst still inputting our own views. Its important to have a group that get along since its easier to make sure that everyone involved likes the final product, if members weren’t in a position to comment and get involved it could jeopardise our product since people that are uncomfortable wont be able to contribute as much as they might want to and could be depriving our product of their skills.

There will always be things that you want to change when you see the final product, problems with the setting could have resulted in the mishaps with the backdrop showing its edges in the clips since this would not have happened had we stuck to the original location. Things like the grainy image cannot necessarily be helped since we had limited resources and the quality of camera had its boundaries and our videos our bound to look less professional since we have only ever made two productions at school.

I think that if we were to do the whole thing again then it is likely that we will spend even more time on planning and research. I also think that filming will take more time since we did have to return and film again on another date, had we spent more time then we could have had more shots and replaced the bad ones with other options.

My Advertisement

This is my Magazine Advertisement.
I have used a different image to the ones on my album cover to make sure that the audience know that the same picture is not overused. The font is the same though to try and create a image in the audiences minds so that the next time they see scrabble writing they instinctively think of my band and album/digipak.

The information I have included on my advertisement are;

• The Date of release; this information provides the audience with a date to which they can obtain the Album, this is important since they need to be aware of when it is available.

• OUT NOW!; This huge heading catches people's eyes and will attract them to take a closer look and investigate what is out now, this means that more people will look at the advertisement and it will full fill its task.

• Reviews; This is a way of showing positive comments to the audience, allowing them to make up their own minds still, these two comments show that a popular magazine: 'NME' and radio presenter Scott Mills like it and this could influence their decision on whether to bother buying the album or not. Since both are popular then its like to work in a positive way and encourage more people to purchase the album.

Brand New Album Cover

Although i previously had finished my digipak, however after more research and also asking people what genre they thought my album cover was i have decided to change it once more, this is my FINAL digipak and i think that it is more 'Pop' than the previous two designs.

This is my new Album cover. The ways I have changed it are;

• The colour scheme; previously i used 'Black Leather' as the background, this made it more Gothic and i decided to change it to a light green since it gives the impression that its more light hearted and 'pop-py'
  
• I have altered the font; i decided that by not have a block colour creates a different font, the letters with holes in them like- O and P have been filled in and it creates a more rocky edge to the font.
• The Album name; I have changed the name of the album since 'Faking it' leads to a large amount of connotations, some possibly explicit, which is not the image that I wanted to represent in my album cover.
  

This is the inside of the front cover of my digipak.

• Amount of sides; I have reduced the number of sides on my digipak as i think that 6 sides is unnecessary and creates extra sides with usually useless and disregarded information on it
• Similarly to the front i have discarded the block black font and changed the dark leather background for a happier, brighter colour- light green.
  

These are the final two sides of my digipak;

• The green side is very similar to the previous designs, its just meant to hold the CD so the only difference is that its no longer black leather like the others, its light green.
• The back side still has the same image its just that it has been copied and flipped on to the other side of the side and made more transparent.
• I have used a font called 'Parade' and blocked our the letters that have holes like front cover on the names of the songs. This was inspired by Daniel Merriweather's album 'Love & War' which uses a similar font. It also inspired me to have the distorted pattern in which the titles are presented, which alike other album covers in the Pop/Rock genre.

This is my complete design and I am finally happy with the result, i think that it properly represents our music video and genre. With the colour, font and image i think that it will be clear to the audience what type of music to expect from this digipak


This is the Tab of my Album cover and an Image of the Four sides together: