EVALUATION Q4: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Music Video

Audience Feedback

 

By using vimeo we was able to upload our music video, and others can rate and comment on it. This allowed us to see other people’s opinions. The Link below will give you direct acess to Vimeo where you'll find our video, and you can see all ratings and comments we have recieved.


http://vimeo.com/32958025

Looking at all of feedback that we received on our music video I can see that people mostly enjoyed the box editing, as the found it interesting to watch. Other positive feedback was also about the slow motion effect, the zoom in on the house, the way the moving apart on the sofa was edited. We also received some negative comments on the amount of shots, as we didn’t have a very wide variety of different shots. Another thing someone didn’t like was the lighting in the begging as they believed it was too bright and some of the letters couldn’t be seen. Looking at our feedback it’s clear to see what we could have changed. Most importantly would be the variety of shots, as it gets a bit repetitive and this could be boring for the viewer. We could have also included more movement as our artist is very static which could again get a little boring. What i’ve personally learned from the feedback we received is that we should have filmed in different places so that it could be more interesting for the viewer, I believe that if we added a wider diversity of shots then our music video would be of a higher standards. If we could improve it now, then this would definitely be the most important thing to fix. The feedback does make me look at our music video in a different light, as there is some particular things that people liked and disliked that I didn’t particularly notice beforehand, but now that they have been pointed out I can understand their comments. An example of this is the comment we received about the beggining of our music video and how some of the letters couldn’t be read because of the light, which I hadn’t noticed before but after that I could see that there might be some difficulty for people to see it from watching the first time.

Digipak
  Audience Feedback


Marcella Rob - 'I really like the your chosen theme, i think that all the colours blend in vey well and it works really good with the main photographs and the graphics. The layout is also visually good and clear. The only improvement I would say is to make the font a darker colour and maybe a bit more simple.'

Mary Walshe - 'I liked the design and layout, and how you made it look pretty and professional.'

Yasemin Guzel - 'I like how the shirt matches the background. But i dont like the effect which has been put over the whole of the digipak.'

The feedback that I received on my digipak was very positive and helpful. Looking at the feedback as a whole there wasn’t much that I could improve on. As I received mixed negative and positive comments, this meant that if I was to have changed one thing to please one person another person wouldn’t have liked it. An example of this is the scrunched up effect, as Marcella says ‘'I really like the your chosen theme ... and the graphics’ and Mary says ‘'I liked the design and layout’ which is contradicted with Yasemin’s comment ‘But i dont like the effect which has been put over the whole of the digipak.’  This shows that there is a mixture of feelings towards this particular editing effect. I received other positive comments like ‘I think that all the colours blend in very well and it works really good with the main photographs and the graphics. The layout is also visually good and clear.’, 'I liked ... how you made it look pretty and professional.' and 'I like how the shirt matches the background.’. I also received a comment on how I could improve my digipak ‘I would say is to make the font a darker colour and maybe a bit more simple’  this was very helpful as from this specific feedback I can see where I could have improved my work in order to make it more clear and for it to look even better. From all the feedback I received I can see that there isn’t a lot I could have changed. Personally I think that if I made the font more clear by changing the colour or font, my work would look more professional and the text would be easier to read. What I’ve learned from this feedback is that maybe I should have made the design even more simple, as some people may think it looks a bit clattered. If I could improve my work now, I would definitely change the fonts used on the front panel for the artist name and album as I don’t personally think they look good. The feedback that I received has definitely made me look at my digipak in a different light as there are things which I don’t personally like which other people thought was a positive contribution towards the digipak.

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Audience Feedback

Mary Walshe - 'I liked the colour scheme and mixture of photographs. But i think that you should have made the photographs natural.'

Yasemin Guzel - 'I like the font and the way it's all set out. I also like how the shirt of the artist matched the background. But like i said about the digipak i don't like the effect over it.'   

Looking at the feedback which I received on my advertisement seems very similar to the one on my digipak. I received positive comments like ‘'I liked the colour scheme and mixture of photographs’ and 'I like the font and the way it's all set out. I also like how the shirt of the artist matched the background’. I also received a negative comment on my choice of edit which was used ‘But I think that you should have made the photographs natural.' and ‘i don't like the effect over it’. From all the feedback I received I can see that there isn’t a lot I could have changed, but the scrunched up effect. However if I was to change this in my advertisement then it wouldn’t link with my digipak and clear connection would not be seen through my ancillary work. Personally I think that if I was to change the editing effect on my advertisement it would make it look dull and uninteresting. However as two people have made the same negative comment, to improve my advertisement I could maybe tone it down, as this would make the photographs look more natural. I’ve learned from this feedback that I should have made my advertisement more simple, as this would maybe appeal to more people. The feedback that I received has certainly made me look at my advert in a different light as there was both negative and positive comments which I didn’t expect, so now that they have been pointed out I can understand to why someone would think this.

Considering my target audience I believe that I have questioned a similar group of people in order to obtain audience feedback. My artist’s music and therefore my music video and ancillary work are focused to attract young women and teenagers. So looking at my audience feedback I believe that is quite accurate to the reaction I would receive.

EVALUATION Q3: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

To film our music video we used brand new state of the art camera's which allowed us to get a better quality of filming. The camera also allowed to focus each shot manually, which was very helpful as it made our shots look better. The zoom in/out effect on the camera allowed us to zoom into the house for our opening shot effectively, it was smooth throughout. Having two memory cards was very helpful as if one got full up, it would automatically start using the second one, so we didn't have to worry about running out of space. Also on the camera there is an option to delete clips so if there were any un-needed clips and we were running out of space we could delete them.

Blogger allowed me to keep a record of the progression I was making during the creating of my music video and ancillary products. Both my planning and research was recorded on blogger, during the process. I posted all of my ideas and inspirations on blogger so that I won’t forget them and this helped me to keep all my work organised and in one place. This was way my teachers could also see how I was getting on wth my work.

We used the internet for research purposes throughout our project. We used different websites at different times in order to help us plan. For example before and throughout filming our music video we used youtube to look at other music videos so that we could get inspired. This was in fact very helpful as  it allowed us to get ideas on different shots and editing techniques. For example our idea of split editing came from watching Beyonce's 'Countdown' music video. When doing research on the real artist of the song we used her official website, which helped us to find out more information about the artist, some personal like photos and information about her music and some more open like tour dates. Before starting to create my own digipak i used google in order to look at other digipaks of the same genre, which helped me to see what kind of conventions I had to include.

Creating a digital storyboard

(closer view of what our storyboard looked like)

After drawing out our storyboard and the taking pictures of each shot we then put it into final cut pro so that we could create an animatic storyboard, we also added our chosen song so we had an idea of how long each shot will be. This was very helpful in the editing process as we had already planned where each shot should go and around how long it should be. Even though we made some changes from our original idea, the anamatic storyboard was very useful. Below you can see the animatic storyboard.

Final Cut Pro was a very important media technology for the construction of our music video. We used it in order to edit together our music video. Final Cut allowed us to edit our music video to qualified standards. It also allowed us to use a number of different edits in order to make our music video look better and more eye-catching. For example the use of ‘chroma key’ editing which allowed us to use the green screen. Below you can see a video which I made showing how I used the ‘chroma key’. I believe that this edit was very helpful in making our music video more interesting to the audience.

Another edit which I think was very important in making our music video look better and more lively was the change in colour. I did this by adding a video filter called ‘Colour Corrector’. This allowed us to edit the lighting of the shots, in the video below you can see how I done this in our music video. By changing the colour of the shots it made our video brighter and more vibrant, and this would more enjoyable for the audience.

 

In order to construct my ancillary products I used the programme Photoshop. In the images below you can see the different stages of each product being made. Photoshop was very useful and once getting the hang of it, it was quite straightforward to use. Through the process of making my ancillary products I changed my mind a couple of time, as you can see in the images below, and as i saved my work as a Photoshop file I could edit as many times as I wanted which was very useful.

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Back Panel

Front Panel

As you can see in all my ancillary work, I carried on the same idea throughout of the scrunched paper effect. This was done on Photoshop, below you can see a step by step of how I created this effect.

EVALUATION Q2: How effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary texts (digipak and advertisement)?

EVALUATION Q1: In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

MUSIC VIDEO

One convention of a music video that we used is the singer looked directly at the camera which we wanted to involve the viewer in performance. I believe that this worked very well as it captured the attention of the audience. This is very commonly seen in music videos and it works very well in attracting attention so this is why we were influenced to use this in our own music video.
Another very conventional technique that my group used is a base track, which meant that we kept coming back to the artist in more or less the same place. We repeated the same shots of the performer (some from different angles) in order to establish her as the artist. This is very often used in music videos, so that the audience are aware of who the performer is. An example of a music video that inspired us is Christina Perri's 'Jar of Hearts' where a base track is used in order to establish a new artist.

         Our Music Video                                                                          Christina Perri - Jar of Hearts

Me and my group were influenced by different videos, incorporating different editing techniques. One video that particularly inspired us from the start is Jay Sean’s ‘2012’ music video. Even though it isn’t the same genre, we believed that a particular editing technique they have used will look good in our music video. In ‘2012’ they use a zoom into the city, and we included this kind of idea at the beginning of our music video, from the outside of the house into the living room. As we got this idea from a music video of a different genre I would believe that this would be challenging the conventions of our own genre which is indie pop. We decided to do this in order to make it look more interesting to our audience. 

Carole Vernalis observed that edits in music videos come more frequently than they do in films. Many stand out as disjuncture and their editing seems to have a rhythmetic basis closely connected to the song. She believes that the usual rules of ‘continuity’ editing are broken in order to draw attention to what is on the screen. We follow this convention in our music video. An example of this is when we used split screen editing, we used this perticular edit as we thought it would grab the viewer’s attention. We were inspired to do this by Beyonce’s Countdown.  I think ‘Countdown’ was definitely very influential as the split editing was done very well, and made the music video itself more interesting and eye-catching.

Andrew Goodwin feels that traditional narrative analyses don’t apply to pop videos. He believes that there are three types of relations between songs and videos. Both illustration and amplification are involved in our music video. For example we use amplification through our mise-en scene which was influenced my Katy Perry’s ‘Thinking of You’. The lyrics in the song portray a relationship break up, which is exactly what our song is based on. So we decide to take the idea of setting out music video inside a house, as this would make it more personal and it portray the message we wanted. Amplificationis when a music video introduces new meanings that do not contradict with the lyrics but add layers of meaning, which is what we are doing with our choice of mise-en scene.

DIGIPAK

My digipak was inspired by Adele’s ‘21’. This is mainly because the design was very simple and elegant which portrayed the artist as serious, which is the message I also wanted to get across. Also the image the used of Adele was simple, and through the soft and graceful make-up she was wearing they convey femininity, and this shows her as a positive role model for females. Even though the music Adele makes is a little different, I believe that this was a good way to represent my own artist.

Another digipak which influenced me was Amy Macdonald’s ‘A Curious Thing’. I particularly liked this digipak because of the colour scheme, as it is very mellow and peaceful, it runs throughout both panels which I really liked. I tried to interpret this in my own work, as I believe that the colours portray the artist as normal and simple. The design is very simple but effective which is what attracted me to it. The image they have used of the artist influenced me as it was only of her face which showed that she wasn’t interested in attracting the male gaze, and it portrayed her as elegant and a serious musician. This is exactly how I wanted to represent my own artist. I tried to make my digipak conventional for its perticular genre, so this is why i tried to keep it elegant and not to clattered. I believe that i succeeded in making my digipak conventional judging from my two inspirations

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I wanted my advertisement to follow its genre convention. So i looked at number of different advertisement which were of the same genre. The one that influenced me the most was Ellie Goulding's as it very simple but at the same time it stands out. In her advertisement you cansee that they have included her achievements such as a number one album in the UK. Unlike this I included tour dates, which is also conventiol information. The image used is very simple which another thing i tried to take in on my own advertisent. I also followed all the normal conventions of advertisements, like including the record label, the artist name, when the album would come out and an image of the album it's self.

Final Advertisement

Final Digipak

People's Evaluation

Making Changes To My Advertisment

As you can see in the image below i have made changes to my advertisement. I have added the checked patter on the top and then faded it out. As i believe this adds something more to the advertisement as before it looked a bit dull. I also addded capitals to 'Album Out' as this again looked better.

I then also changed the order of the different logos, as it looks better when they're in a line, rather than them being all clattered in a corner. I also made the font of the contact information a little smaller.

Making the Text More Visible

After previously making changes to my font my teacher again said it wasn't clear to see. So therefore i changed the type of font i was using for the name of the album 'Foundations'.

My teacher said that again it wasn't easy to see from far, so I then added a green box underneath and faded it out. I believe that this has now made a bigger change and it can be seen from a distance.

Making Changes To My Digipak

As you can see below I have now changed the inside of my digipak. I have now changed the checked shirt for the cd only, and I believe it now looks less clattered.

I then also changed the colour and size of the font, and then moved it into the middle. This is a more conventional way of doing this.

However I think it looked a bit dull, so I then added the checked shirt on both the bottom and top of the left hand side of the inside and then faded them both out.

I then changed the colour of the artist's name on the CD, as some people said it blends in with some of the pattern.

 

Creating my Advertisement

Below you can see that i have started to create my advertisement. I have added the artist name, when the album is out, how to contact the artist, the tour dates, and the four images on the left hand side.

 

I have then also added the album cover, and the record label. I have also enlarged the artist's name so that it can stand out more. I have re-aranged where the contact information is as i think it looks better this way. As you can see I have also changed the places of where the tour would be taking place, as my artist is new and so she wouldn't perform in such big areas as the O2.

Below you can see I hace also added the itunes and hmv logo's.

Changing the Font Size of the Play List

As you can see above I have changed the size of the font on my play list, as i got comment from my teacher that it was to big and this wasn't conventional. But after changing it I believe that it does look better now that it is smaller and it is also still readable.

Changing the Size of my Font

As my teacher told me today that the albums name 'Foundations' isn't either very readable or eye caching from far. So I decided to enlarge it, as you can see below, I have enlarged both fonts so that it can be more noticeable.

Chosing my Final Font

This is the first font i tried, and as you can see its simple and easy to read. But i think that it is a bit boring and it want attract the buyer, so i decided to try the same font but with a different colour.

As you can see below i have now changed to colours to the album cover (Foundations). However i still dont think this looks good and i dont want to use to many different colours as this wont looks professional. So i decided i should change try changing font itself.

I decided to use a font called 'airplanes in the night sky' which i downloaded. I believe that this font works very well, as it is playful and it will portray the artist as fun and easy-going.

Below you can see how it looks as a whole on the album cover.

Creating my Advertisement

I have now i made a new start on my advertisement. I have again used the sequal of images, but instead of three, i have used four. Below you can see that i have again used the scrunched up effect. I have also added the artist name, and when the album will be out.

Changes

I thought that my digipak looked a bit uninteresting, so i decided i would make a change to both the front and inside. I thought it would be a good idea if i made a sequal of images and added them to both sides. Below you can see the edited images, where there is 3 images of the artist in a line.

I then added this picture to the back panel of my digipak, and i think this has really made a positive change, and i think it looks better than how i previously planned to have my back panel.

I then done the exact same thing for the inside of my digipak. But this time i used different images, as you can see in the print screens below.

I am beging to re-think my idea for the back panel, as i think its making my digipak look too clattered. So i am starting to consider just having a more plain background that would make the buyer focus more on the main image and it will make my digipak look less busy. 

Creating the Inside of My Digipak

Above you can see that i have started the inside of my digipak. I chose to use the pattern on the shirt the artist is wearing on the album cover.

Below you can see that i have edited the picture and it now looks more bright and professional.

I then added the scrunched up effect, like the one i have used on the front of the digipak.

I then added the added the template of where the CD would be, as you can see below.

After that I then put the intended text on the CD which is the name of the artist.

I decided that i wanted it wrap around the center, i used the wrap text tool to do this.

After this i then began to work on the other side of the inside, where i had planned to put different images which would be giving more personal information on the artist. However after actually starting it and seeing what it would look like i decided that i didn't like it, as it looked tacky.