EVALUATION - QUESTION THREE

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

To get feedback on my music video I wrote out a questionnaire which had questions in it which included things that I was perhaps worried about or unsure of within my video. 

The questions were as follows:

- How old are you? 

- What age range do you think the video is for?

- Did you enjoy the video?

- Is it repetitive?

- Did you understand the links between the song and the video?

- Did you notice the cut off at the end?

I asked for more quantitative data as this would be easier to analyse and get more efficient results from. 

I asked the respondents age to work out later on when they answered the third question if their age group would have enjoyed it as well. 

I asked the second question to see what the respondents perception of the target audience was.

I asked the third question to gauge whether the age group of the person answering the question enjoyed the video as well. 

I asked the question about repetition as I thought in the back of my mind that it probably was.

I asked the question about the links between the video and the song to see what their perception of that would be.

I was worried about the cut off at the end so I specifically asked about that to see if they had noticed it or it was simply my own awareness of it. 

The results

I asked 20 people who I thought were of a variety of different age ranges to answer the questionnaire to make it as fair as possible. 

The first question showed us that I had asked a range of ages although the vast majority were teenagers. Five of the group were older (what I did differently to the rest of my groups in my class was to ask people that did not do media and were not in my class meaning that I got fair unbiased results). 

In relation to the second question most believed it was for their age range or for people up to their mid-twenties ( this was my expected result). 

The five adults of whom I asked this question responded that they believed the music and the video wasn't for them. There was too much going on but not enough content to stop it being repetitive. However in the part where there were lyrics on the screen the older age group said they liked that as otherwise they found it hard to understand the words. The teenagers themselves liked the song but felt the same way about the video as the older groups had done but they specifically didn't like the part where they lyrics were written out as they said there wasn't enough content. 

Sadly the answer to this question was rather resounding as a yes. I was not surprised as I had thought this might be the case. 

Some of the respondents (mainly the younger ones) saw a relationship between the song and video, in guessing that the male prevalent character (me) was in fact possibly Justin.  

Around 10% of the younger respondents noticed the slight change at the end of the song whereas none of the older groups did but as they are not my target audience I guess their perception was less important. 

Sadly within all of these answers and possible changes there were one or two mistakes which were unavoidable and could not be changed such as, the repetitive nature of the footage. Sadly the footage which was gathered previously was not enough and as members of the people in the original video were no longer available there was never an opportunity to capture more footage. This also applies to the cut-off at the end of the song as if it was not cut the song would have been longer and it would have been embarrassingly repetitive. 

With my digipak and magazine ads it was a more cheerful experience as the feedback which I received said that minimal to no changes were necessary and the only change I did make was taking one of two black squares inside the digipak and turning one into the band logo's yellow colour so it would be a better link between the two products. 

EVALUATION - QUESTION TWO

How effective is the combination of your main products and ancillary texts?


For the music video we decided at first to do a video for two of our friends who performed together occasionally, we decided that this would be a good idea as they lived nearby which would allow us to be able to film easily as we were all within easy reach of each other. This meant things could have been re-filmed if necessary, allowing for the best product. 
Sadly as we got into the second week of out shooting schedule we still hadn't received a song from them so we decided to take it upon ourselves to write and perform our own song, we had been thinking about forming some sort of group so this was a good opportunity. We managed to write our own song but sadly this had taken up far too much time for us to be able to justify it, this was our first mistake as it meant that we obviously had much less time to spend on the video which I feel largely impacted my video. 


So we were left with creating the music video for 'Autumn Term' and our song 'Layers'. This was the Debut single and this was heavily highlighted throughout the ancillary products. We decided that we wanted to try something different than just a performance video of a narrative based so we had seen the concept of long exposure shots used to create text within the stop-motion shots  using lights etc, so we attempted to contact Toby Lockerbie several times to no avail. But we eventually worked out how to use the shots were constructed which allowed us to experiment but after realising that it would take far too long to do all of the words to an acceptable level, we settled on the shaking text which I managed to finish within two weeks. 


One of the main things realised throughout this project was that relating the ancillary texts to the video was much more simple than the other way around. So I decided to base my digipak and magazine ad around the video instead of vice-versa. 

I settled on a video that would show the artists which would settle the need for a performance piece and using the band I also created. Meaning that anyone who saw the video would recognise them as part of the band if they saw them elsewhere (recognition being an important part of any unsigned band). Also it helps the audience and fans feel perhaps more connected to the artists, which can be difficult and lacking for other artists such as Deadmau5 with his trademark mask. However I thought that a concept video would fit in most with the small but ever-growing in popularity  genre 'indie-rock'. As they are (in my opinion) the least used in today's music videos. I had a basic idea of the structure of the video which would be that we would be following 'Justin ' around on a normal day of his and it starts out with him hanging out with friends and it makes numerous references to drugs and alcohol which grow in size throughout the video highlighting his spiral into 'madness'. Then it all climaxes with the chorus and the intensity of which the text shakes and the high volume of the music.


Digipak

When it comes to the combination of the digipak and the video I tried to really put across the idea of America and how that is a huge part of the characters life. So firstly I left the area where the band name was blank, this meant that it does resemble the American flag but is a subtle reference and not glaringly obvious. Again in the translucent pictures which would make up the 'stripes' part of the American flag you can recognise certain aspects and landmarks of America, such as: Times Square, Hard Rock Cafe, One World Trade Centre (the new 9/11 memorial) and the view from the top of the Empire State Building. The largest part of the digipak's link with the video is the same as the magazine ad's which is the faces of the two band members on the inside of the digipak. This is I believe the most helpful tool for recognition with the fans as when you open the digipak the first and only thing you see is the faaces of the two people in the video you also saw. This leaves no mysteries as to who the people were in the video or who the people were singing the song and doesn't involve asking friends or looking all over the internet for answers, which would deter many other possible fans.


Another aspect to consider, which is an advantage to having two band members, both male and female is that it may attract both male and female audience regardless of sexual orientation or gender. For instance an example of this could be when Rhianna does collaborations with other male artists which draws a new audience in, not just the audience for music but for people who are attracted to the artists themselves. So I have taken this idea and  applied it to both of my ancillary texts. 


I thought it was prudent to look at every aspect of the digipak and find ways of combining it with the magazine ad. just to make it that much easier for the audience to link the two together. One of the main ways in which I have done this (which has been previously mentioned within the blog) is the font and band logo. The band logo is made up of the same fonts and colours and merely structured it differently (I merely changed the structure for practice reasons as if I had put the words Autumn and Term above each other on the spine it would have been unreadable and therefore far less professional looking) in both the front cover and spine of the digipak and the magazine ad. Again the audience can link these two together. I have done the same with the song just to make it as easy to recognise as possible, I have created a song logo which appears in both the magazine ad. and the digipak. 


Finally, as previously mentioned in the blog the largest connection there is between the digipak and the music video is in fact also one of the most subtle ones; the pictures which are translucent within the digipak show many different types of shots i.e. some dark, some light, some with and some without friends. This may appear random but in fact there is a very specific point to this which links to the video. In the video and the song lyrics it shows our character 'Justin' going through hell at night and waking up in the morning to spend his day at school. We re-iterate this in the structure of the pictures on the digipak. As you can see at the top the first pictures are in the dark running about with friends and the pictures are mostly too small to get any specific detail and are unclear. But as we progress downwards through the pictures they become larger and therefore more easily visible and understandable until we get to the bottom when the pictures are the largest they have been and the most clear - they are also in the daytime for the first time. This may seem random but in fact shows 'Justin's' progression from night to day. At night everything is indistinguishable and hard to understand but when he wakes up in the morning everything is clear and he can finally 'see'. 

EVALUATION - QUESTION ONE

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Forms and conventions are the different techniques used in different ways to create meaning in media products such as videos. They take a number of forms; technical forms include camera useage, lighting, sounds, editing and genre and symbolic ones include how the video is shot, the way the actors are used and the general mise-en-scene.

My video both uses and challenges these conventions and forms as whilst I wanted people to recognise elements of them I also wanted to make something new which might make people think and challenge some of the elements as well. 

The lyrics we used were very much a biography of the main character, it involved discussing the activities which he engaged in throughout and also in chronological order of what he did. So, for instance it starts off with all his school activities and moves onto what he does in the night-time.
"Focal point of all his peers" 
"Lovely christian boy crunching bones on the soccer team". So obviously using the idea of describing the person in question  to our advantage. Then the lyrics turn darker and we can see the other side to Justin. 
"Justin's now in front of a mirror, he's taken off his skin to reveal a life within"
"Futures in a whiskey bottle what can you do? Cocaine has got him seeing double of me and you".


From this the audience can see this will be a video with a concept used successfully many times in music videos and show the spiral of Justin's demise, but instead of it being one long steady process, it repeats itself on a daily basis.


The accompanying music with the video you can see that the first few shots move along with the  beat, this is to set the main rhythm for throughout the video but as we go into the verses the bass line speeds up and therefore so do the pictures and therefore so does the video itself. The verse speed throughout the song is fairly fast-paced despite the lyrical speed being much slower. This means that when we see the contrast in the speed of the chorus we can use this as an example of the contrast in Justin's life between how he is in the daytime and the night time. Also the effects used on the lead singers voice give it a shaky feel which matches into the shaking text used on the choruses.


Genre is a difficult part  of my video to define, this is because i feel that my video touches over several different genres with different aspects of each coming through in the video. But, if I were to choose the most prevalent genres I would have to go with rock and indie. 
Rock, because the chorus visuals are loud and 'in your face'; there is an idea of no frills as the white stands out plainly from the black. Also as previously mentioned the vibrato in the effects of the voice match up with the 'shaking' lyrics. 
Indie, I would have to say is not because of how the video was made but actually the concept of the video and the fact that it (the idea of pictures telling a story in a music video)  is rarely done. 


The use of camerawork within the music video is limited by the fact that all of the images comprise either items added in post-production using final cut express or that the majority of my shots are in fact still taken from a camera. But within these stills the overall effect is raw and 'unpolished', again this is to create the effect of realism and to take away the ideas of 'fakeness' and acting. This allows the majority of viewers and fans (who I assume are not all actors) to relate to the people in the video and using the camera angles as a POV (point of view) perspective in order to make them feel as if they are there experiencing life with us. 


The concept of intertextuality wasn't really thought over as a large part of my video. I decided to try and be as original as possible. But as with anything the idea that no-one else has done it before or that it is completely original is usually very rare. So when I came to the end of my video I found that my story is similar to two other stories. Despite the different years in which they occurred and the different sub-texts they are very similar. The first is the story of Jekyll and Hyde, the story of a normal gentle scientist respected in society transforming into this unrecognisable murderous beast in the nighttime. 
The second is much more relateable to music lovers and maybe people that haven't read the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and this is the video concept for Chase and Status's 'Let You Go'. Their video shows the life of a Jeremy Kyle-esque presenter who during the day attempts to 'fix' people's lives or judges them for cheating or doing drugs etc but during the night-time turns into someone who does what he spends his days chastising people for. This includes alcoholism, drugs, sleeping with married women and prostitutes. 
One thing to remember about both of these stories is that while Mr Hyde was a disgraceful being that committed atrocities he in fact had no choice to be what he was as it was out of his control. Whereas 'Jeremy Kyle' from Chase and Status is completely autonomous in his action. He chooses to behave the way he does. This links into my video as I feel my main character is in  fact I believe in the middle of these two, while my character does have the choice to be who he wants to be it is described in the song that he lives in a trailer with his alcoholic, addict father while his mother is away selling herself in Vegas so it is difficult to justify completely blaming Justin's actions upon him alone while not also incorporating his environment. 

My digipak was firstly based around the idea of our video taking place in America. I decided this not only because it tied in but also because I had recently been on a trip to New York and therefore would be able to create a piece of completely original work not using pictures that anybody else had taken. The layout of my digipak is a subtle homage to the American flag in that there is a separation between where the stars and stripes would be. The entire image itself was created on Photoshop - the pictures which are shown on the front cover represent a typical day in the life of my character. This is because at the top of the page the pictures are small and hard to get any detail from but as it progresses down the page the pictures start to become larger and therefor clearer and start to include daytime shots rather than just nighttime. My main image is made up of the sunset and consequently the silhouette of a boy around the age of Justin who is supposedly the main character (the audience may not realise who the main character is at this point). With this image using photoshop I adjusted the contrast of certain colours in this image (in this particular case, the sun) to emphasise the colour and give it an explosion-like quality emphasising how Justin is a 'ticking time bomb'. 
I have created a band logo which features prominently throughout the digipak and the magazine ad. It contains the two most occurring colours in the digipack and is also what I based my magazine ad. around.  By using all the same colours throughout I have created a strong brand identity, something which distributors and merchandisers can appreciate and that fans can recognise and relate to. I decided as it was a 'debut' that I would create a logo for the song itself therefore as the song is called Layers I chose a font and simply made five  different copies and placed them over each other and changed each of the layers' colours to both the American flag, red, white and blue, and the bands' shade of yellow and black.


I then repeated the band and song logo on the spine of the digipak. I used this approach as I had seen it done on previous signed band's CD's and thought I would take that influence and use it in my own creation. The reverse of the digipak is the same image as the front but the wording is replaced with band members, songs,  web addresses etc. All of these are still compliant with the band's logo colour. 


The inside of the digipak is simply a picture of both of the artists. At first I just chose the pictures which are in use at the moment as models for where the actual pictures would and for what the actual pictures would look like. But I have decided that over the past week I have grown fond of them as they represent the artists well as they were taken for the purpose of education (College photos) and therefore were to be used in real-life scenarios plainly adding realism. Either side of those pictures are obviously the two band colours, red and black. 

This was also created on photoshop and the whole idea of it was based around the band colours and the two pictures in the digipak. After studying many various signed band advertisements I discovered that most used a mix of starred ratings and simple quotes from articles and reviews. So I decided to incorporate this idea. I had to clearly emphasise the idea that it was a debut and did that through the quote from the 'magazine article'. One of the other important things to think about when coming up with an artificial quote is the source of the quote and whether it is in-keeping with the genre of music. For instance 'Kerrang' is a mostly rock-based magazine and would not do a front-cover and/or heavily feature Britney Spears. I decided to go with three average magazines that would cover most of the music genres which were 'Q' , Mojo, and NME. This highlights my music quite well and captures the tone. 
The poster also features all of the 'legal' details such as copyright notices and band web addresses that the digipak also features. Lastly I included an itunes logo as an advert of where to purchase the song. I also changed the font colour and the logo colour of Apple to co-incide with my band's logo colours. 


In relation to the video I wish I had had the foresight to perhaps save more time for shooting in case the first shoot didn't go as well as planned (which was in fact the case) so overall I was less happy with my music video than I could have been. Also due to some unforseen circumstances within my team but I cannot solely lay the blame here. 


In relation to my digipak and magazine advert I couldn't have been happier, as all the elements came together well. The idea of band logo colours protruding through all areas and the speed at which it was completed and for the quality of which I achieved was great. 

Digipak Cover 1st Draft Analysis.

A short written analysis of my digipak cover's first draft.

Magazine Ad and Digipak

This is the first draft of my magazine advert. The first thing is that these are the pictures I will be using for the final advert. I have tried to keep the concept of the two font colours used in the logo going throughout the poster, for example when it comes to the reviews and the release dates.

These are also both of the pictures I will be using in my final piece. 

Digipak Cover Advances. Subliminal Cover Meanings.

Here you can see that I have progressed more with the spine and the back cover this week. I have used the same picture twice as the gap I created within the translucent New York pictures is used for the Album and Band name but also on the back cover it's perfect for the track list. This design was actually on purpose so it's great that it worked out this way. I have also included a copyright symbol, and band member list and links to the bands page on myspace (Fictional) and the YouTube page where all of the songs and videos are (Which is real). For the spine I simply used the same fonts as it is a logo I was trying to be consistent. I also just re-sized the 'Layers' logo so it fitted in. For the Picture in the spine I took a small part of the background picture (Namely the New York skyline where the sun bursts out) and stretched it which I think enhances the busting effect in this situation. For my other two inside over designs, I was going to have more of a focus on the artist and either have a picture of me and the other member one on the left side one covering the disc. Or, I am going to have the same to pictures but I am going to make it the size of a passport picture and make around 40 or 50 copies and 'Layer' them over each other either with both of them the right way up at the correct angle or a could change it so it creates a more wild and messy look, this is representative of how the main character in the video feels. I have been trying to subliminally show through simply the ideas of layers in the world around us, first with the layering of the two artists over each other but also through the use of the skyscrapers and how tall they are, and their floors, e.g. their layers...

Rough Music Video

Sadly this took far longer for me to do due to unforeseen circumstances so it is not quite to the standard of which I want it to be but luckily I managed to squeeze out a cut before the deadline.