FINISHED PRODUCTS TOGETHER

Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge conventions of a real media product?

BRIEF SELF ANALYSIS


MUSIC VIDEO CONVENTIONS




MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENT

After looking at the conventions of a typical magazine advertisement, I made sure I adapted these on my product. The most important elements of an advertisement is for the artist and album name to be bold and noticeable, and although I have used the same text throughout, by making my band name large and bold it is very noticeable, but the poster still looks simple and professional. The image is conventionally always of the artist, so I decided to take a screengrab from my video to use my on my advertisement, as not only does this follow conventions, it also reinforces the fact that my performer is also the artist of my song. By including Spotify and itunes on my advertisement emphasizes the fact that the album is available on all platforms to people worldwide, which will help build a mass audience and although for this genre that is not always what the artist wants, other platforms will always be displayed on advertisements so I decided to have them on mine. The release date was vital as the main function of the advert is to promote the album and encourage people to buy it. The only generally conventional thing that I did not include on my advertisement was names of some songs included on the album. This is usually done so people have a rough idea of what songs are going to appear however I do not think it is always necessary as people tend to buy an album for the artist and not a particular song, as it is easy to buy a single song online, with no need to purchase the full album. Overall I think I have really used and developed conventions on my magazine advertisement, and it would not look out of place in an actual magazine.

DIGIPACK
I am actually using an unconventional form of digipack, as not many albums use a 6 panel case. However despite this, it still follows the main conventions of any CD case:

• The artist name and album name on the front cover
• The track number and name on the back
• Inserts such as a booklet or Thank-you messages on the inside of the cover
• Images of either the artist or related images
• Barcode, record label logo, reference number and copyright message

I made sure I incorporated all of these onto my product, to make it as professional as possible. For the front, like most albums, I used an image of my artist and then several related images throughout the digipack. I listed the tracks on the back of the pack, along with a barcode and the copyright mesaage. I decided to place the record label logo on both the back of the pack and on the spine (along with the reference number here), and I also included the logo on the disks. It is important to include the record label logo everywhere as they are the most important people behind the artist. Instead of a booklet I decided to have a small thank-you page on the inside left of the digipack, along with another related image. Usually the album cover concides with the promotional advertisement so I followed the same colour scheme of black, white, and a pinkish red throughout both of my ancillary texts. When it came to my ancillary texts, I chose to conform to most conventions throughout and did not really ignore any of them, as using the conventions should lead to a successful product.

GENRE THEORY
David Chandler (2001) argues that genre refers to a distinctive type of text, and all genres have their own specific mise-en-scene, narratives and characters in order for the audience to recognize the genre. In order to incorporate this into my product I ensured that I undertook intensive research into the conventions of the indie genre, and adapted them into my own work. A key indication that my video falls within the indie genre was the mise-en-scene I used, for example the locations I filmed at, such as the woods, and the simple costumes the actors were wearing. The simplistic effects indicate that the video was produced with a low budget, and this is typical of indie music videos as usually they belong to an independent record label who do not have a lot of funding. Another theorist, Barry Keith Grant (1995) stated that all genres have sub-genres which are more select and allow audiences to easily recognise the genre through features of the sub genre. The melancholy tone is a sub genre of an indie video, and my choice of locations and colours support the implied tone, and therefore allowed the audience to immediately recognise the genre and identify with it.

Q2) How effective is the combination of your main products and ancillary texts?

NARRATIVE THEORY

In order to make both my ancillary texts and main product link effectively, they all adhere to aspects of narrative theory.  Despite not actually having a clear narrative running throughout my video, it still has key elements of narrative theory. Sven Carlsson (1999) claims that music videos fall into two categories; performance and conceptual, and my video is entirely conceptual. A conceptual video can have either a clear narrative or abstract base, and my video is completely abstract yet the basic meaning behind it is still clear; the love between two people. My video follows Carlssons theory as it does have a very loose visual story, but fits comfortably into the conceptual category. My ancillary texts all feature elements from my video, and it could be argued that the three products combined also follow the conceptual category, especially in the digipack as the silhouettes such as the guns have an ambiguous meaning but relate to the album in some way. Another theorist, Michael Shore (1984) states that music videos are made up of recycled styles, and in some ways my video and products conform to this. Although my product is original, I followed most conventions of an indie video, such as the location I used, and took inspiration from other videos. The shots which were in reverse were inspired by 'Breezeblocks' by Alt J, and the black and white feature from Arctic Monkeys 'R U Mine', so in theory, elements of my video have simple been taken from other videos. My product rejects Todorov's equilibrium model, as he states a narrative contains a beginning, a disruption and a resolution which my video does not feature as it is not a clear narrative conceptual video (Carlsson).

AUDIENCE THEORY

Bulmer and Katz, who put forward the uses and gratifications theory, state that the audience are motivated by a desire to fulfill, or gratify certain needs. The model is broken down into 4 different needs; surveillance, personal identity, personal relationships and diversion. Personal identity is the most important feature in music videos, and mine is no different. Although I didn't create a strong personal identity for my artist the age and gender may help the audience identify with the performer, and as she appears on all 3 of my products its helps to make the combination effective. It is not particularly conman for an indie artist to become a huge role model and inspire children everywhere, but the personal identity element is still prominent. Stuart Hall's reception theory states that media texts are encoded by the producer, which means that whoever creates the text fills it with messages and values, and then the text is decoded by the viewers. This is entirely true, as all 3 of my products are my own work, so any subtle messages that my products contain will have been created by me. When I created both my ancillary texts and video, due to the fact I did not have a clear narrative,  I did not intend to create any values or messages. However the basic theme running throughout the video is obviously to do with a relationship, but people could decode this in different ways.

REPRESENTATION THEORY
In terms of representation, in order to make my combination of products work together ffectively, I had to completely adhere to/reject certain theories. Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory is entirely rejected in my products, as not only am I completely against the sexualization of women in the media, there was also no need for any of it in my products at all. My products all do not conform to this theory, and is a perfect example that just because my product features a female performer, she does not need to be sexualized. Tessa Perkins states that in order for a stereotype to exist, it has got to have some truth within it, and this is true when it comes to my products. Usually, 'indie' artists conform to a stereotype when it comes to appearance, usually wearing vintage and unusual clothing in dark colours, along with simple hair and make-up. Both my performers in my video, and then the image of my female performer on my ancillary texts, conform to this stereotype as both are wearing dark clothes, with my female performer wearing slightly more unusual clothing, with her hair worn down. By ensuring that all 3 of my products adhere or reject to certain theories makes them work together as a combination very successfully.  

Q3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

In order to gain feedback from a younger audience, I also asked my 14 year old brother for his opinion on my video and ancillary texts,. (INSERT VIDEO HERE)

I felt that it was important for me to gain feedback from different ages of audience as although my genre may have a specifically older target audience, due to advancements in technology music videos are available to any one, any age, all over the world and I wanted to use this to my advantage

Overall, audience feedback has been a constant use throughout the whole process of planning, construction, and evaluation, and has really helped me develop my products. It aided me in confirming I made right decisions in my video, and also helped me make minor changes. Without feedback  I would have been left unsure on certain decisions, but now I can be sure I have made the right choices in order to create a professional combination of products.

Q4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

As part of this assignment, I used a huge number of media technologies. These included computer programmes, websites and equipment.

PROGRAMMES

• Adobe Premiere Pro
• Adobe Photoshop
• Microsoft Publisher
• Microsoft Powerpoint 
• Google Chrome
• Windows Movie Maker

WEBSITES

• Prezi.com
• slideshare.com
• blogger.com
• Wyke moodle
• Outlook
• youtube.com
• goanimate.com
• fontspace.com
• picmonkey.com

EQUIPMENT

• SD card
• Sony handy cam
• Tripod
• iPhone
• Edit Suite
• Mac
• Desktop Computer

TECHNOLOGIES IN CONSTRUCTION

TECHNOLOGIES USED IN RESEARCH

TECHNOLOGIES USED IN PLANNING

Audience Feedback

In order to gain some audience feedback, I posted my video on my Facebook page:

I was not expecting huge amounts of replies as nearly every single media student has posted their video on social media, and I am pretty sure people are getting tired of seeing them! However, I did receive a few comments and 6 likes, which was more than I was expecting. When posting on social media it's important to consider the 'peak' times for when everybody is active, and perhaps I did not pick the best time, and the evening would have been better.

I received a really useful comment from another media student Beth, in which she gave me her opinion of my video:

I also asked my 14 year old brother some questions in order to gain some more feedback, from a slightly younger audience;

Final Video Draft

(PLEASE WATCH ON THE SMALL SCREEN- Youtube has insanely decreased the quality and has cropped it to an unwanted size when watched on new window)

This is my final draft of my music video. Overall, I think that it is a successful product and was pretty much how I had imagined it. My main ideas of my video before construction were:

•  Simple, basic editing
• Majority black and white
• Simple transitions
• Ambiguous abstract narrative

I feel that I have achieved all of these features as there is not alot of editing throughout the video, with the 'additive dissolve' being the only transition used throughout. Apart from the ink clips, everything else is in black and white so therefore the ink colours contrast and stand out much more. The video follows an abstract narrative throughout, with no obvious story at all. I feel like there is still one or two small changes to make, as some shots last longer than originally intended. Apart from this, I am very happy with the video. 

Updated front cover of CD

One of the key elements of the digipack, magazine advertisement and video is that they all must fit together in some way. Although I think that I have mostly achieved this through the use of colours etc (the red in the video and the red on the advertisement) I felt my digipack did not fit fully. Smoke is an important aspect in the video so I have decided to try smoke silhouette instead of a splatter on the front cover of the CD case. I also changed the font to something slightly clearer.

Old Cover:

NEW COVER:

When looking at the two products together, I definitely think the second one is more effective. I have several smoke shots in my video so this will add consistency and continuity to my 3 products. I also experiemented using a red colour, as one of the few colours I have in my video is a red, however I did not think it looked as professional enough. Although I do think the second one looks more effective and professional, I am still not happy with it. It still does not fit in completely with the rest of my products, and I think I should really use an image of my performer on the cover. I decided upon this one to use on my front cover:

I then started experimenting with the image on publisher, and decided that the cover on my digipack really did need some colour on it, so I edited this image to the same colour as the image on my advertisement, and lowered the contrast slightly. I then added a white border to the image to make it stand out more on a white background and chose another font from fontspace 'ALLAGES' in white to use on the black background. This is my finished cover:

I am much happier with this cover, and think it looks really good on my digipack. The use of the same colour on both the digipack and advertisement adds continuity and the smoke element is a really prominent feature throughout all 3 products.

Ancillary Texts in Action

1) BUS STOP BOARD

2) MUSIC MAGAZINE

3) BILLBOARD

3) TIME SQUARE

4) SPOTIFY HOMEPAGE

5) ITUNES LIBRARY

In the current day, promotion of a product is as important as ever. Most songs are now illegally downloaded or streamed though programs such as Spotify, which makes virtually no money for the artist. It's important to advertise the album in as many places as possible in order to reach  a wide  audience and in turn, sell more of the product. Especially for an independent label this is really important, so to make sure my ancillary products would stand out in real life locations I have photo -shopped them into different possible places that a new album would typically feature. The more places the album is advertised the better, and I feel that my advertisement would stand out and attract buyers. The black on white colour makes the writing very eye-catching, so the most important aspects of the advertisement- the band name, the album name and the release date all stand out. The photo is very alluring, and in places like time square where everything is bright and colourful, a subtle ad would actually stand out more than the gaudy ones. By advertising the album everywhere, from a bus stop to a huge billboard, it reaches people everywhere and helps build a fan base and encourage people to buy the album.

Editing Tutorials

Prior to this project, I had never used Adobe Premier Pro before,and was very unsure how to use it. I knew I didn't want to have loads of complex editing in my video, however I still wanted to be able to make my clips back and white, change opacity, insert dissolving transitions, change the speed and duration, and reverse the clip. To learn how to do these, I used several websites and tutorials on Youtube, and once I had learnt the basics, I was able to do much more complex features, such as changing the entire colouration of clips using the channel mixer tool. It took a while to find tutorials and step by step guides that I could actually use, as for many you had to pay a monthly subscription fee or pay purely for the one tutorial.

EDITING HELP LINKS AND TUTORIALS

Finished Ancillary Texts

PROMOTIONAL ADVERTISEMENT TO APPEAR IN A MAGAZINE

6 PANEL DIGI-PACK WITH 2 CDS

Possible Photos for promotional advertisement

Instead of taking new photos for my advertisement, I have instead taken screen grabs from my media and am using these instead. I feel these will work very well as it is true  reflection of the artist, and the advertisement photo will not look too staged or posed. Out of these images, I really like the first one, as I feel the colour red has many connotations and could be considered quite ambiguous- this will therefore make the reader curious and more likely to buy the album. The editing throughout video has worked really well in terms of being able to pick an image, as I have managed to get some in between shots during a additive dissolve transition.

Video Draft

Ancillary Advertisement- experimenting with different images

Once I had decided on the basic layout of my advertisement, I tried it with all the different possible images that I could use. My basic layout used the font 'Trajan Pro' throughout- the same font as I used on my digi-pack in order to add consistency. It was important that all 3 products; the video, digipack and the advertisement all link in some way, and I feel like I have achieved this through the use of colours and fonts, along with the fact I used a screen grab from the video on my advert. My basic layout looked like this:

I chose not to include social media links, as I felt it took away the simplicity of the product. I made sure I included the record label logo, just as I did on the digi-pack, along with the digital platforms that the album will be available on, as this is keeping up to date with the target audience the album and video is for. I then tried each image within the layout to see what works best:

After looking at all the posters together, even though I like the black and white photos I feel like the advertisement certainly needs some colour to stand out, so for this reason I prefer the last one. Red works well with black and white so I see no reason to change the text colour at all, and I think as a whole advert, it works well and would catch eyes in a magazine. However, I really like the image on the second to last advertisement, so I attempted to colour that image the same as the reddy colour on the last one:

The colour ended up being not as vibrant with the recolouration and I feel it looks too faded to catch the eyes of readers. For this reason, I think I am going to keep the original red coloured image to use on my advertisement. 

Digi Pack Finished