Tuesday, 28 April 2015

My role in the group | Overview

When planning the video, we decided to plan the settings/locations and the costumes and props as a group because we wanted everyones opinion. We felt if one person had to plan this it would be a lot of pressure on them and the rest of the group may not look what they have produced so we planned as a group. We also planned what would be happening in each of the scenes for the video because we were all wanted each others opinions.

Outside of the group I acted as one of the actresses in our music video and lip-synced along to the song. We also used my camera to film for the black and white scenes that were filmed at my house with a black and white sheet that I had purchased previously. By using my camera for these shots we were able to produce a high quality video and also we were able to experiment with both hand held camera shots and steady camera shots as I had the access to a tripod when filming these scenes. Once we had filmed the footage for the music video and we started to import the footage, I downloaded the song off the internet to include in the music video.

I also edited the whole music video from beginning to the end. I was the one to edit the video because I knew how to use Final Cut Express due to working with it in our previous project for AS. Knowing how to use the software meant I could experiment with the footage and create some interesting shots for the music video. During the editing process of the video I made sure to ask my other group members what they thought of the video to get everyones opinion. In the video I experimented with the different filters and transitions to make the video interesting and eye-catching and enjoyable to watch. Then once the video was edited, I exported the video and uploaded it onto my personal YouTube account to gain more views and gain feedback from a variety of different people.

Friday, 24 April 2015

4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? | Evaluation


 
 Overall:
 
We decided not to film any shots for the stage scene due to the limited time we had, and also one of the actresses was away throughout some of the weeks when we could have filmed. We also didn't have the permission to use the stage to film due to it already being booked for different events. Although we originally wanted these scenes in our video we didn't feel like they were too important as we found replacements for the footage quite easily like experimenting with the different effects and filters that were available to us through the editing software. I don't think the stage scenes would have made a big difference to our final product, as the scenes we have work well together.
 
When looking back at the planning stages of the video, due to one of the members of the group being absent, we needed to find a way to communicate with her about our ideas and progress. We decided to use the technology available to us and contact her through 'FaceTime' on our phones. This was useful as we were able to discuss with her some of our ideas and the progress we had made with props and costumes. However, it was easier when we were all together as a group to discuss the ideas, but we were glad that we found a way to communicate with one another.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback? | Evaluation

We created a questionnaire to collect some audience feedback on our music video to see people's opinion on it. Through this questionnaire we wanted to gain both positive and negative feedback to see what people liked about it and what we could improve. We have asked a range of ages to get an older generations view on the video as well as our target audience which is around 16 and 21 years old.

We asked a 17 year old female, which is suited to our target audience.
We can see that she has viewed the video and she feels it fits in with the pop genre conventions. She has also seen that the video is a performance based one which is what we wanted to portray in the video. She is a little unsure about the actresses in the video looked natural and she feels we could improve on this to make our video look more professional.

To improve, based on the answers in this particular questionnaire, we should use more camera shots and maybe experiment with other themes or features rather than just having the power paint. This could mean she felt the video was a little repetitive, which is something we could improve on. However, the video is repetitive due to us wanting to exaggerate the powder paint theme. We have tried to use as many different camera shots as possible within our video, however we could have experimented with the angles of the shots a bit more. She gave the editing of the video a score of 10, which shows that she enjoyed the editing techniques we used, but also it shows we have greatly improved in our editing from our AS level project. The female states that she didn't like the song choice, but the reason for this is because it isn't her favourite genre, which is understandable as not everyone will like the same genre as one another. She said she wouldn't purchase the video on iTunes due to her not really purchasing videos, and she gave the video a score of 9 which we are very pleased with as it shows that she enjoyed it.

We then asked a 27 year old female, which is a little older than our target audience. This female said that she felt our video was a pop genre and it was a performance based video which is good as we know the audience outside of our target audience can tell what our video is portraying. She said that we should have included dancing in the video, due to it being a pop video and dancing is usually seen in the pop genre. This would give our video more of a pop vibe because the dancing would suit the conventions of a pop music video, and a girl group. The audience member said one of the actresses scrunches her face when the powder paint is being thrown at her, and this should be improved to make it look more natural and professional. If we had a bigger time schedule, we would re-film some of the powder paint shots and make sure both actresses look natural and composed, but since we were on a short time scale, and the filming process was fairly complicated we decided not to re-film. The female gave the editing a score of 9 which again shows that we have improved on our editing skills from our last unit. She has also given the music video a score of 10 which we are very happy about especially since this audience member is a little out of our target audience.

We chose to ask someone who is younger than our target audience to see how she felt about our video, so we asked a 14 year old female. This person could tell it was a performance based video and agreed that the video is of the pop genre. She also said both actresses look natural throughout the video which is good as it makes the video look more professional. However, she did say that the actresses needed to show more power in their emotions when lip syncing the chorus, which is a good point as the song is quite dramatic and it needs to be seen through their body language and emotions. This is something we could improve on if we were to re-film certain shots of the video. This audience member gave our editing a score of 8 and gave the video a score of 7, which is a good score due to us having a strict time scale and it's our first time creating a music video. Having these results from a 14 year old is good as it shows us that people outside of our target audience enjoyed the video, and maybe means we could push ourselves to try and achieve a bigger target audience.

We decided to ask members of the older generation to see what their opinions on the video were, starting with a 49 year old female. She saw that our video was performance based and it was of the pop genre, which is good as it let's us know that people of all ages recognise the video as pop and understand what we are trying to portray. Much like one of the other audience members we asked, she felt the shots of the actress scrunching up her face in the powder paint scenes needed to be re-filmed or edited slightly as it makes the video look a little bit unprofessional and less natural. She felt the exploding balloons with the powder paint was the most effective part of the video as it showed a dramatic effect and created a contrast between the colours shown throughout the video. She stated that she would buy the video off of iTunes which is good considering she is not in our target audience, which shows that even audience members of the older generation enjoy our video. This means that we could try and branch out to different age groups in our target audience.

We then asked a 51 year old female due to them being of the older generation as well to see their views and opinions. She said that she felt our video was of the pop genre and agreed that it was performance based. She also mentioned that the actresses were natural throughout the video, except for the powder paint scenes where they could have been seen as a little more relaxed and natural. She gave the editing of the video a score of 8 showing us that the video isn't too repetitive and we have used the editing in an effective way, which is what we wanted the outcome to turn out like. She said she wouldn't purchase our video on iTunes, but she gave the video a score of 9 showing that she enjoyed the video overall.

Getting members of the older generation to fill out the questionnaire shows that music artists may have a specific target audience age, but members outside of that age range may also enjoy the video as well.
Here are a couple of other questionnaires we had filled out by males to see what the other gender thought of our video.

 
Audience members will interpret the  video differently and we know this by looking at Stuart Hall's reception theory. Most of the feedback we gained from the questionnaires were from females, and although we have varied the age ranges, we haven't varied the genders equally. The two males who did fill out our questionnaire have stated a few negative aspects of our video showing there opinion. Our song choice is composed by a girl group and the music video we created was aimed towards a female audience. This means, by asking males, we have some critical feedback about our video.
 
The video we created has gone against the stereotype of females being seen as 'sex objects' like they would usually in pop music videos. Our intention was to create a sense of 'girl power' throughout the video to make females look strong and independent rather than being seen as an object. We decided to give the actresses a natural but trendy look by wearing appropriate costumes and a fair amount of make-up rather than dressing in skimpy outfits with make-up plastered onto their faces. We did this so our target audience can come away after watching the video and take the message of female independence with them.



Thursday, 23 April 2015

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? | Evaluation

Combination of ancillary texts:

For the promotional package we decided to use the front cover of our album for the background image of the poster. This includes the image of the powder paint, the album name and the group name with the specific font we chose to use. We thought this was a good idea as the poster is used to promote the album and by using the same image and the same font we felt it would promote the album very effectively.

The promotional poster is a complex version of the album cover due to the extra features we needed to add onto it. When adding text onto the poster, we needed to think about what colour they would be. This is because we didn't want the text to over power the background image, but we also didn't want the text to be unclear, we needed to find a clear balance of colour. We added the release date of the album underneath the name so it would be clear and what attract our target audience to not only the release date but to the name of the artist and album as well. We chose to show this in white font and a black outline to add some contrast to the poster, and to also make it eye-catching and different to the album cover. We used the colours white, pink and purple for our additional text underneath the release date as we thought the colours matched the colours of the background image. The names of the singles in the additional information are in seen in pink and purple to highlight the tracks that are featured on the album. This was done to add interest to the poster and entice the audience to purchase the album. The colours we have used throughout our work show a link and they are all eye catching to our target audience. We chose to use feminine colours due to our target audience mainly being young females. We feel as though these colours represent the group and create a recognisable image for the group.

Combination of ancillary texts with our music video:

Due to our ancillary texts being based on the image of the power paint and not the faces of our music artists, it might be a little hard for us to show some clear comparisons between our video and album cover.





Our album package has a theme of power paint on the main images, and also we have powder paint included in the fact files behind the information. This is because we have quite a few shots in the music video of powder paint through the balloon scenes and the scenes where the band members are getting powder paint thrown at them. We have done this because we felt like the powder paint matched the name of the song 'Louder' through the effect powder paint has when it has exploded. Having the powder paint as the main theme has allowed us to promote the song and gain audience awareness.

 
 
 
The images above are print screens from the music video we created, showing the theme of powder paint which is carried throughout the whole video and throughout our ancillary texts. We've done this to create a link between our music video and our ancillary texts, which will in turn help the audience recognise the different powder paint images when they watch the video.
 
Once the products had been completed we created a questionnaire in order to view the publics thoughts on our ancillary texts and the video, and whether they were well combined.
 



 
From the answers we collected, we found that our ancillary texts linked in well with our music video because we have the running theme of the powder paint and the bright colours within both elements of the product. This is useful as it shows a positive representation of our music video and the fact that song the music video is to is the top of the track list helps advertise the song a little more. This means that the audience will be able to spot the link of the powder paint theme. Also from the feedback we found some people found it difficult to read the lyrics on the lyric sheet due to the coloured background we used. In order to improve this we will need to either edit the background to make it less eye-catching or we will need to find another background to use. Or we will need to chose a different font so the lyrics are more noticeable against the background. I think we could have made the lyric sheet a bit more eye-catching and interesting to view like the fact files as it could attract a larger audience. We could have added the title of the song on the page while using our signature font so the audience know the name of the song and know it's our bands product.

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

What we did:

When creating the video we used the programme 'Final Cut Express' to edit the footage. We used this programme for our AS media coursework, which meant we knew how it worked and it would be quite straight forward to work. By using this programme we were able to experiment with different filters and transitions as we knew how to access them. In the video we wanted to experiment with the different filters that were available to us, and we wanted to change the colours in some of the clips. We used the colour corrector filter when changing the colours of our footage, and we used this to make our footage look more realistic and to balance the colour.

We also wanted to create a split screen in our video, and by using this programme this was easy to do. With the help of the internet we found out how to create the split screen and added it into the video using the footage we filmed. The split screen added some entertainment to the video, and also made it look more interesting. We used multiple different shots in our music video, the majority being close up shots. We also edited the footage in a quick pace to make the footage go along with the fast paced music. The lip syncing was fairly easy to place in the video due to us singing along to the song when filming the footage.



When creating the Digipak, which involved the creation of the album artwork, we used the programme 'Photoshop' to edit the images we had taken. A few of us had used this programme previously in other subjects, so we knew how to use it for advance editing. Also the programme isn't too hard to work out, so it was easy to use for someone who hadn't used it before. By using this programme we were able to experiment with the different colours that were available to us and we were able to experiment with the different filters as well. We wanted to keep the powder paint theme in both our music video and our Digipak, so we needed to have a paint effect. We searched on the internet and found a few different brushes that we downloaded to use on our album cover. This was useful as it allowed us to experiment with different images and different colours within the brushes to add some interest to the album cover.

We decided to go against the stereotypical pop genre convention of having the music artist on the front cover. This is because we wanted the powder paint to be the main overall theme across the Digipak and the music video, and we thought it would help advance our target audience slightly.
We made the colours on our album pink, purple, blue and green to help towards reaching our planned target audience and ranging out to different genders as well. The photo we used was a photo of the powder paint mess we had after filming footage, and we decided to use that to our advantage. After editing the colours slightly and adding some brushes to the image, it was completed and we all were really happy with the outcome of the image.

Real videos VS our video:
  In the Little Mix music video, 'Move', they use a variety of different shots showing the music artists, but the shots they use more often are close-up shots. We decided to use quite a few close-up shots in our music video because we wanted to show our music artists to gain some interest to the video. We also chose to shot multiple different close-up shots because we wanted to add some drama to the video, which is similar to the use of close-ups in 'Move' as it creates drama. Little Mix's song is up tempo and the edits of the video are cut at a quick pace to add to the drama, which is similar to ours as we have edited the shots to go with the music and make it look fun and dramatic through the quick cuts. Close ups are usually used in pop genre music videos, so we took this convention of a pop video and added it into ours to show the pop genre, and attract our target audience.


Also in the Little Mix music video, 'Move', they use a variety of different shots showing the band together. This shot is used in music videos of a girl band, or a boy band, to attract the fans and the target audience. By having everyone together in one shot it gains the attention of the viewers as it shows the friendship of the girls. We decided to use a few group shots in our music video to show the band together and also to show the parts of the song where we are singing together. Doing this helps gain the attention of our following, and the target audience as they will see the girl band we have created together in the video. In their music video they use a lot of bright colours to make the video stand out, and the colours of their outfits contrast with the colour of the setting they are filming in front of. We decided to keep a lot of colour in our music video to attract the attention of our target audience. We have, however, used a mixture of colour and black and white shots to show some contrast within the colours.


In the music video to 'Change Your Life' by Little Mix, we noticed they have some footage, throughout the video, of when they went on tour. This means that the footage was previously filmed and also it shows the band outside of a music video setting. This makes the video look more relaxing and also increases the attraction of their following due to them wanting to see what the girl band get up to behind the scenes. We liked the concept of this as we liked the casualness of it, so we decided to add something similar at the beginning of the video. When filming we had a few moments where we forgot what we were singing, and also we filmed some footage of us talking and laughing before going to film. We used clips of this footage and added it to the title sequence to make the video a bit more casual, and also to attract the attention of our target audience.


When it came to costumes, we decided to go against the pop convention and challenge it slightly. The typical convention for pop genre are tight outfits and short as well showing some skin due to the 'male gaze' theory. In the original 'Louder' music video, the girl group wear short outfits that are showing quite a lot of skin, so we decided to go against that and wear casual clothes. The costumes we decided on in our video matches the location and the shot type. In the wood scenes we wore big fluffy coats and boots to go along with the outside location. In the powder paint scenes we wore black leggings and black tops to make the powder paint stand out and be the main attraction in those type of shots. In the black and white shots we wore outfits that contrasted to the background, but they were plain outfits and were quite casual. Going against the stereotypical tight clothing helped attract our audience as it brought some interest into our video.

Ancillary text comparison:

We have gone against and challenged a lot of the stereotypical conventions of a pop genre cd album cover. We decided against using an image of the band members in our video as we didn't want the main focus to be on the artists. We wanted the powder paint to be the main theme overall as we had included a lot of powder paint scenes in our video, we felt it was only right to keep the powder paint theme on our album cover. We took a photo of the powder paint and edited the colours slightly, and added some different effects on Photoshop to exaggerate the powder paint element of the album and the video. We still wanted the album to attract our target audience, so we decided to make the colours of the album feminine and attractive. We used a mixture of shades such as; pink, purple, blue, green and hints of yellow. These colours are quite bright and will bring the attention of our target audience. These colours are also seen in our music video so we are making links between the video and the album all throughout our work, which is what we wanted the outcome to be like.

The font we used is quite large and eye catching which means it will attract people to the album and also it will hopefully gain the attention of people that are outside of our target audience. When choosing the font we wanted something that we could use as a recognisable font. Most music artists have a font that is recognisable to them, this helps attract the audience to the album of the music artist as they know it is their work through the font. Neon Jungle also uses this technique with their band name on their album cover. They use the same font for their name in both their single cover and their album cover so their following recognise their album through the font. We then had to add the usual conventions of an album cover. These include the barcode, the record label logo and the copyright message. These are used to make them accessible in shops and the record label own the album so they are liable to challenge any copyright issues with this album.


Monday, 6 April 2015

Social Media Promotion | Feedback

For us to retrieve feedback on our music video we uploaded our project onto all of our social media platforms. We originally uploaded the video onto YouTube and shared that link on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr in order to get some feedback from the audience. The feedback we wanted was both positive and negative feedback so we knew what we did well and how we could improve. By sharing the video on our social media accounts we gained quite a lot of feedback that was useful when reviewing the video, and it meant we had a wider audience that would see our video and give us feedback.

Twitter


We shared the video on Twitter, but we have yet to gain any responses and any feedback on this platform. However, by sharing the link it means more people will find it on YouTube and give us feedback through that platform.

YouTube


We uploaded the video onto my personal YouTube channel as I already had some subscribers that would view the video. We gained quite a lot of feedback through this platform, and all of them being positive. We have gained quite a few views as well as likes with one dislike which is ok because it helps us know that not everyone enjoyed it which is fair as its their own opinion.

Facebook


We shared the video onto YouTube and gained one comment expressing positive views with a few likes. Due to the views on YouTube we know that some people have viewed the video, but they've decided to not share any feedback which is ok.

Overall, the majority of people enjoyed the video and are very impressed with what we have created.

Louder Music Video | FINAL

Here is the final product of our music video 'Louder'.