Question 4 - How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Question 4 from Beckyscott1234

Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Throughout the courses of production and evaluation we took the feedback from different audiences. At the start of this course, I had to look into the types of audiences who would watch the music video. The first bit of feedback we got was the questionnaire. This was designed to initially tell us whether our audience was more male or female based, or what age was more engaged with this genre.  Our group sat down and we carefully chose questions what would give us the answers we needed. By using the questionnaires we could establish what conventions the audiences would enjoy. When sending out the questionnaire I aimed to get about 20 responses because, this meant I could get a variety of answers. As well as asking questions what would help me find the information about audiences, I also asked questions what would help me with the construction of the music video.

Some questions that really helped during research were If the artist/ band are featured in the music video, do you find this more appealing?; 60% answered yes, this helped us construct the performance side. Additionally,after further research into the genre we discovered that the band was very important to this genre. Another way the feedback helped us was through the question;In a music video, what would you prefer the artist/ band to wear? A very small sample said something unique. We disagreed with this feedback because after looking at case studies like; Lawson, we found that the Casual (Jean) look was more fitted to the music. Although it was helpful to get this research we decided to agree with the case studies. Throughout the research stage many people helped us improve our first image. Another question I asked people was;what other artists do you think can link to our artist; After asking this people said “Lawson, The Script, Room 94, 30 seconds to mars, 5 seconds of summer We found that this audience feedback was the most effective when trying to find screenshots. Each question we asked was designed to help in the construction process.

Furthermore, when the first set of feedback was sent out we found out that people preferred sub-genres to just plain genres. Since we knew more about the pop and rock genre, we decided that we should merge these two and find a sub genre. So the audience feedback was effective because, without the feedback we may not have gone for a sub genre. As well as a questionnaire, we also filmed a focus group so we could get a more detailed opinion of the music video we had planned. We asked 3 people, a set of questions and we wanted them to go into detail. We asked would you want the music video to be more performance of narrative based? All of them agreed that a balance was the best, when in the construction stage we made sure there was a fair share of being narrative and performance. When filming our video and making our storyboard/shot list we always checked the ratio between narrative and performance. I believe our final product was a successful ratio between narrative and performance. According to Goodwins theory he believes there should be a good balance between these aspects.


When we finished our first draft we decided to get feedback from our class peers. We asked 8 people whether they enjoyed it, if so what were the positives and what were the negatives. Although people gave compliments, they gave us some next steps which we were happy to take on body. Some people said the narrative needs to be more natural as in parts of the narrative the performance didn't look believable.



We found the focus group to be effective as people were honest and gave a lot of constructive criticism which proved to be a problem with questionnaires as the participants would usually rush the questionnaire and therefore the results aren't very reliable so therefore it wouldn't be very effective with our audience feedback and wouldn't affect our music video or ancillary text ideas. This is why we listened more to the response have on this like the one what said they should wear casual clothings, everyone agreed that casual clothing is the best, we took it one step further and had the other band members in checked tops and the lead singer in a t shirt, just so he would stick out more. We found this very affective.

To conclude, we used Lawson, The Script and 5 seconds of summer as our main case studies. Before agreeing with each decision we also asked for peer feedback, like the focus group and questionnaire. We only asked our targert aiudience with is teenage boys and girls. Although, we chose a lot of things the feedback helped us gain a more knowledgable span. Unlike last year were we only done a questionnaire. Additionally this year we had 2 theories we could use.




 

Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

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

 

 

 

­When creating the Digipak and the magazine advert, we need to make sure there was a good combination between the two. We didn’t use the same photos like some artists but we played on the same colour, same font, same people, etc. We use other case studies to back up the like; The Script, 5 seconds of summer, Lawson and Room 94.

One way you can see the connection between the two is through the use of font, we got the font of DaFont. We used it on both because it is our band logo. A convention of the band was to be seeing the name not the brand that’s why it was important to have a good logo so people will remember it. A case study we use to support this was Lawson, Lawson always use the same logo. Everyone knows there logo because it is on everything, they focus on the name and not the face unlike Rihanna who only focuses on her face. Her face sells the CD’s but that is a convention of that genre.

 

Another connection you can see between the products are the colours used, both ancillary texts are black and white with red ish writing (picture below). We chose to use red because when hearing the song it sounds very romantic so it is important to run that theme all the way through the texts. The text we used to pick the colours was Lawson but we used Ellie Goulding cd and magazine advert to show the colour combination between the two. She uses bright gold colours because his album is called light and everyone knows her for her bright hair. This is a joint convention of all genres because all artists want links between their products.

 

Another way you can see they are connected is through the costume choice, we have the band members wearing the same clothes as they were in all products. This was very important. We decided to have the two other members of the band is checked tops and the lead singer in a plain t shirt. This worked out well because people said he is the first person they pay attention to. This is the idea we wanted. (Magazine advert above).

The location is the same as in the video, although we didn’t have the school in the Digipak or the magazine advert. We keep the green background for the love scenes in the music video and the pictures in the ancillary texts. When we had the main guy singer we made sure the band were also here, that’s why we had the band outside in the ancillary texts. In the picture below, we can see the field area which also is shown on the magazine advert. The picture to the left is the Digipak and the one to the right is the music video.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Additionally as well as the band logo, we also have the name of the album on both ancillary texts. This was key so people knew the songs name. The script and Lawson also do this on their entire product. On their breakeven album they have the same colours and text of both texts. Before making the creative decisions we had to support it with the target audience and the case studies I have picked.

Another connection we didn’t have was having the girl on the ancillary texts, we didn’t feel the need to considering that she wasn’t in the band and they didn’t need to include her.

A final connection we didn’t have was the instruments. One convention was to have instruments on all the texts but we didn’t agree with this, we felt they would just become the instrument and not the person. The music video has instruments but the Digipak and magazine advert doesn’t. (Look in the video above).

To conclude we have connected all texts well but there were one or two things we didn’t keep the same because we thought if we did it wouldn’t look right. Overall our group and target audience like the final product, they said it was different but not to different that it feels alien.

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

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

 

Through the construction of our music video, we all kept in mind of the conventions. Our genre is pop rock, right at the beginning we looked into the conventions so we knew what was important when creating a video fit this genre. Although we researched the conventions we didn't always follow them.  Some conventions we followed were the "band" image. Throughout the video, we knew the music video must be split into two sections, narrative and performance. Each of these sides have conventions within them.
 
 

One convention we developed was the "band" image. We made sure that the performance and narrative side were equal. Within the performance side, it was significant to create this image,especially when thinking about this genre. We had to look at case studies, so we had ideas on the camera shots. Some other artists within genre were: The Script, Lawson, 5 Seconds of Summer, Room 94. All of these artists have one common factor, the "band" image. Since we had to make a digipak, a magazine advert and music video we needed to make sure this convention was portrayed throughout all three. In the images below, we can see some case studies our group used.


Another convention we needed to consider was the colour, we looked at The Script and Lawson. Both bands have used colour effects. Lawson had black and white with red writing. The Script used sepia with black writing. Our group agreed this was an important convention. We first planned to use sepia but we thought the song was more rocky, so we agreed that Lawson was a better image for the band we have. One thing we challenged was the text colour, originally it was red but we found it was too bright, our peers agreed so we turned it a little lighter which still had a good effect.

 

One convention we didn't follow when creating the ancillary texts was the instrument convention. In the genre we have picked, a typical convention is the instrument convention. When making the plan, we all agreed that the band image was more important. We believed that this convention wasn't the most important, we didn't want to make this decision without asking some peers. We asked some people who fitted out target audience, they said they worldwide to see something new so they said they would probably be more enticed by something different. As a group we are happy we didn't follow this convention. As you can see from the picture below there are no instruments and as you can see there are instruments in the video, but we still feel we made the best decision.

 

Another convention we stuck by was the narrative side, in a traditionally pop rock music video the narrative would be made up of a love story. At first we werent going to do this but after asking our target audience and looking at case studies, we found it was the best opition to have it. A main case study we used was Lawson, When she was mine. The picture on the left is from the case study I used and the pciture on the right is from our music video. So we were happy that we decided to follow this convention it turned out to be one of the better decisions.

 

Another part of Lawson, when she was mine we followed was the performance side. In this print screen we the band, Lawson all performing in what looks to be an abanded warehouse. Another case study was follows this convention is The Script. We didnt use an abonded warehouse, but we wanted to make it more like teenage love so we located it in a school hall, we used Teenage Dirtbag as a case study. When we originally heard this song we thought of teenage love so we played on that by having the young couple which means peopole can relate to and also having it in a school hall means the youth audience can relate to it.

 

 

 

We decided that since it is a relationship between the lead singer and the girl it has to be focused on him but having the balance of the other memebers. When we heard the song we heard certain sentences which we connotated in actions throughout the video. Like when they we will make it through, we hav the couple holding hands and walking together to emphazize the love between them. According to Andrew Goodwin, it is important to have the links between lyrics so we made sure we included that. Additionally when we had the feedback they said they wanted links. The Script and Lawson were the man bands who played on the lead singer and girl image. Below are some shots of the lead singer and the girl.

 

 

For our Digipak,  we decided to have the band apppear on most of the panes because it links to the band image. we included the band on 3 out of 6 panes. We included how band shots because it relates to the band image.

 

 

To conclude, our group have used a good share of conventions and they ones we havent used. We have backed up with reason why we havent included them. I will attach all the case studies I have used below.

 

 

 

Music video

Magazine advert

This is our final product, this is the Magazine Advert for Arrows to Athens, Alive.

Digipak

This is our final design for the Magazine Advert. This is for the product Arrows to Athens, Alive.