Evaluation Question 4.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

In the cinema, the reaction from everyone was positive after our music video was shown. Clapping and cheers which made my group and I feel good about our video. I personally thought that our video was amazing, so the reaction from everyone reassured me of this. When asking people after what they thought, people said they really liked it, I couldn't record them there and then as they were quick comments and feed backs but everyone was being really nice and enjoyed watching our music video.

Teacher and Class feedback.... after showing our rough cut.



From this we felt happy with our editing as comments were made about how good our cutting and pace was in the video.

"It was good" 
"editing was just really smashing" 
"clear, cut, concise image"

A negative comment was about the darkness of some of the clips, this was because we filmed late at night around 6 so it was nearly pitch black - to improve from this we re - filmed some of our clips and did some projection shots to replace some of the dark footage 

Here is feedback from our friend, Alisha.

Here are a couple of V - Logs while we were filming, we were consistently updating what we were doing and where we were at with our filming.

This was one of our first V - Logs that we did showing us after we visited a few locations and practised recording some shots for our video. This was just to get a feel of what it would be like when were actually recording our real footage for our music 
video.

This was one of the last V - Logs we did of the last day we were all out together filming, this was when we didn't realise how some of our footage came out dark so technically it wasn't our last day filming, however on that day we were out from morning to night and did get a lot done. 

After showing my sister our music video, this is what she had to say...



After hearing what my sister had to say, I think it was really positive and felt our camera work and editing was successfully done and portrayed well to the audience. Im happy with the comment about how our music video stood out because my sister watched a few of the videos and felt ours was one of the best, which is really good. Listening to my sisters comment on what we could of improved on - I think slow motion could of given a deeper effect in terms of portraying emotion as the chorus lyrics are more sad and upsetting in a way, but apart from that, our video was extremely good. 

Personally, I thought our music video was a huge success. I think you know how good your video would be given the time and effort you put in, and my group and I were filming consistently day after day, sometimes we spent the whole day out going from location to location which wasn't always easy with the horrible, cold weather. But we pulled through and kept filming, because we knew in the end it would all pay off. Everyday, before filming, I remember packing several outfits as we would go to more then one location and had to change outfits. There have been a lot of good memories and it will be fun to look back on one day and remember all the laughs, myself, Tina and Christelle had.

Ancillary products


Feedback From My Group On My Ancillary products..... 

After listening to these comments, I feel extremely pleased with my Digipak and Advertisement. My use of colours contrasted well with each other and the images I used complemented each other also. It's also good to hear that the pop feel came across in my ancillary work as it is important when reaching out to audiences, as they will know what genre it is by the look of the album.

Evaluation Question 3.

Evaluation Question 2.

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

We were always looking to use synergy across our media products. We had a low budget so couldn't use something designer clothes or gold chain as the clothes would be too expensive and a gold chain would be more a convention for R&B but we are a pop group so thought sunglasses would be better. The aim was to make sunglasses our synergy, for example when the artist would perfrom and go to interviews, they will be seen with the sungalsses on which will be there key signature. This will make them more recognsiable to the public and fans. 

Although sunglasses are popular for many artist, we thought it would look good for our artist aswell and looked well in the video. Also the sunglasses are a different style to what other singers used. So even though we were influenced by these singers, we made sure to not copy exaclty and had a different style. 

Here is a short clip showing our use of synergy in our music video " Excuse my rude".

The syngery of sunglasses are also conveyed through my Digipak and Advertisement.

Also the clothes and setting in the pictures on the album are also seen in the music video, this shows an interlink between my digipak and advertisement to our music video.

Here are two clips showing the clothes on my Digipak and Advertisement in our music video too.
Also these clips show the use of our synergy too. 

The audience will recognise straight away that the artist are from our music video 'Excuse my Rude' and also my ancillary products as the same clothes and sunglasses are being presented. Also the artist would be easily recognisable by there faces. Most importantly, the syngery we used ( sunglasses ) works well in noticing our artist as the group XO.

I think our main target audience which is 16 - 24 year old females would defienelty make a connection bewteen the music video and Digipak/advertisement because of how successful they are in interlinking with eachother. For example, by wearing outfits which were in the video on the album cover would spark audeinces to realise where they have seen the clothes before.

Evaluation Question 1.

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

Relating to Andrew Goodwin's theory - Our music video consisted of Amplification as the lyrics connect to our video and adds layer of meaning.



A good example of this is 'Disturbia' by Rihanna, I think it fits with Andrew's theory of Amplification because of what the video displays. For example, the use of mise en scene, costume and make up. Combined they are all dark and dull and lyrically the words are fierce and strong.  Most actions in the video are out of the ordinary. One of the most distinct things is the setting as I   believe the black background links with the lyrics and song name.

In relation to my music video, I think our lyrics and actions in the video successfully use the amplification technique as our video adds meaning that does not oppose the lyrics but adds layers of meaning to the whole video. For example in our video, the way our artist are singing to the useless, worthless boys is shown through their own experience which is presented in the video as a projection shot where the expression on the artist face is because of the bad break up, which is displayed as a separate video behind the artist.  This shows how our lyrics connects to the video and what is presented through it. 


We chose not to use illustration or disjuncture as we want to create meaningful videos as his video is aimed at the boy who caused heartbreak - lots of emotion and attitude to show and portray this to the audience. 

In relation to Carol Vernallis, her idea of continuity is usually broken by the use of editing which our video consist a lot of.

A video which inspired me to use different and unique special effects was Micheal Jackson,
' Leave me alone'. This video was useful in seeing how effects worked and how they make your video look more fun and distinct.



An example of edits we used were special effects - Bad Tv

Colour correction - We used the colour correction effect to make our video brightness and colour stand out more, making certain clips more distinct then others.

Also Vernallis suggest that the use of base tracks changes the convention and breaks the continuity of music video. We also used base tracks throughout our video which gave sense of structure and continuity or repeated locations being differently.

A video which inspired me to use base tracks and how to use them was Beyonce's song  - 'De Ja Vu'

The different use of base tracks made the video have a faster pace, especially in the chorus, which was also the effect it gave to our music video.

Here are a few clips to demonstrate how our base tracks made our video have a good, steady fast pace.

These clips show the first and second verse, with 2 different base tracks in each.

Clip 1 - Camden, near the lake and brick lane 

Clip 2 - Piccadilly circus and Granary square 

I also thought camera work was important, 
and while filming, I was constantly thinking 
about if we had a good range of camera angles. Before going out to film, I looked through a lot of music videos to get some ideas, here are some shots that influenced me to use in my own video.

Close ups, 
High angle shots, 
Medium close ups and 
extreme close ups ( lips )

Did we stick to the conventions of our genre - POP ?

I think we stuck to the conventions of a pop music video. For example, our use of bright lighting and mostly bright costumes. which makes the video stand out more and also appeals to our target audience being mainly youths and young women. Also in pop videos, the artist are usually young and energetic which is the case in our music video with our artist being 17/18. There is usually synchronised dancing in pop videos which is usually performed by females, this is also the case in our video as we had a short dance routine. Lastly, the costume for the singers in pop videos are usually fashionable and vibrant which makes them relatable to the younger audience as fashion is usually important to them.

Here is a clip of a typical pop group doing their dance routine in their music video "move".

So overall, we stuck to the conventions on a pop video.

I looked at Rihanna's Loud album for inpsiration. What I took from this example, was a consistant colour scheme, and to have a photo going across the inside of the album/digipak. Also the advertisment uses the same photo as the album cover which I also did as it looked like it worked well and was the best photo to use as it showed our artist in a good way with our synergy - sunglasses/black shades.

In reference to my Digipak, and advertisement, I definitely wanted to make it colourful and bright to stand out but also to stick to the convention of the pop genre.

Especially for the front covert, I stuck to using 3 colours, Purple, orange and black. I thought particularly the purple and orange were bright. I thought from this you could recognise the genre of the artist being pop. 

For the inside of the album, I used another colourful photo to go across. Even though it does not really match the colours on the front of the album, there is still a variation of different green, blue, white and black shades. Also the natural lighting makes the photo overall more vibrant. 

The advertisement is similar to my album cover as it has the same colour scheme and a very similar photo. I kept it simple and think it illustrates the album in a good way. It is bright and colourful so sticks to the convention of the pop genre. 

Final Digipak and Advertisement

Front and back of the Digipak.

Inside of the Digipak.

Advertisment for my Digipak.

I think the process of making the Digipak was difficult because it took me time to think how I was going to design the panels. However once you know what your doing, the process becomes easier because you have a set plan to follow which makes the process althogether quicker.

I was overall happy with my work, and I feel I produced the best I could. I put time and effort into it and also my teachers helped me when I was stuck so a big thankyou to them. 

Front and Back cover

This is what i've produced for the front and back cover of the digipak, I feel the back is quite plain with all the white space, but I wasn't too sure what else to put? 

Advertisement for Album

This is the advertisement i created, I made sure to use similar colours as my Digipak so you can see it matches and fits together. I wasn't sure what else to put on the advertisement, so this is it so far. 

inside of digipak

This is the inside of the digipak, with a photo going across both panels and over laying the cd. 

I wasn't too sure what to have on the left hand side, so i left it for now. But I was thinking some sort of writing ?

Back cover of my digipak

I decided to use purple as a colour scheme in addition to the orange and black. and have a overglowing shadow of a light purple to make it stand out more. 

Also I thought a nice little star to make the back cover have a little more to it, and it's not too random because on the album cover of one of the artist, you can slightly see on her top, there is a star. 

Here is a close up of the star on the artist top.                 (album cover picture)

This is what the star looks like 

included in the tracklist area. 

I used this pattern for the back, I thought it was quite unique and fun to put the artist in the polygon.

Altogether it looks like this....

 Front cover of my Digipak 

I decided to use this picture as my front cover as it shows the two artist equally and there is good use of our synergy of the sunglasses. 

Also i likes the contrast of colours used and will reflect this onto the Font.

I used this type of layout to show the artist and the album name. Sticking to a theme of black and orange to reflect a nice contrast with the album cover (photo). 

Overall, this is what the front of my cover looks like, I am happy with it as even though it is quite simple, it shows the artist distinctly and the artist name is big and noticeable along with the album name slightly smaller. This sticks to the convention of an album cover as the artist name is the biggest text.

Rough idea of my Digipak

Front and back cover of my digipak, displaying the artist, XO and the track list on the back with the company label, barcode and record company rights/agreement. 

This is the inside of the Digipak , where there will be a picture going across of the artist shown in a distinct way to show the creative, funky side of the artist.  The picture will also go over the cd as a part of it.

A rough layout of the advertisement to show off the artist which will be found in a number of pop magazines.The bottom right hand corner shows a picture of the artist but this is now going to replaced with the actual debut album.

Analysing..

Analysing past Digipaks to see what they did successfully and what could of been improved. 

Also Getting ideas from them which I could use in my own Digipak. 

These are the 3 Digipaks I analysed, I thought they all were different and had there own style of display defining the individuality of their artist. 

Practice Digipak...

This is practise of A digipak to get a feel of what it would be like to create one for my own artist. Also now I know more how to use photoshop making the whole process easier so when It's time to do my own it should not take too long. 

This one was not near finished as I wanted to add effect to the girls face making it stand out more. 

But this was helpful as I could experiment with the different font styles and colour coordination with both covers.

Analysing Digipaks

JESSIE J - "ALIVE'

The Album covers main image focuses on Jessie's face to show and brand her, also when its on the shelves, the face will stand out from the rest of the albums and she will be recognisable as people walk by. This type of framing is common for pop genres.  Also the white background allows Jessie to stand out more with the studio setting effect.  The back cover shows the back of Jessie's head with her hands on it. The main image is again plain which emphasises the plain theme of the digipak.  It also shows off her recently shaved head for red nose day.

Example of framing work on pop albums

                                                                                               

The size of the album name 'Alive' is much Bigger then the artist name drawing the audiences attention to the title as everyone knows who Jessie is, the font is black which is unconventional for the pop genre. However it contrasts nice with the white studio background allowing it to stand out.

The advertisements to introduce and sell Jessie's album shows her album itself and is also presented plain and white like her album with black handwriting also like her album font.

It shows her album release date, some of her tour dates and featuring singles on the album.


Jessie J's song 'Wild' is perfect to reflect her album, with the whole black and white theme, also the studio spotlight used in her album cover is also the background setting in her music video.

MILEY CYRUS - 
'CAN'T BE  TAMED'









The front cover shows Miley all grown up from her clothes to the expression on her face. The background is very plain with perhaps a spotlight on her, giving her full attention. The whole album is outlined around dark khaki green and black colours. Also the album name itself shows her being the opposite to innocent along with the rest of her leather look and feisty attitude portrayed through her face and hand positioning 

The font is very bold in capitals, her name is doubled the album name and is centred on the covert. The font is somewhat rough and seems like it's stamped on it.

The back cover is also very bold. The font looks washed out with the contrasting of black and white to make it stand out. There are no paces, the font is bold, it feels like the songs are screaming off the page.

The music video for 'Can't be tamed' shows the dark bold colours throughout the video as like Miley's album cover.
The video also shows her being wild and feisty portraying the attitude she holds on the album cover.
The whole music video over emphasises Miley's extravagant look matching her leather wet look on the album cover. 

RIHANNA - 'LOUD'

The dominant bright colours throughout the whole digipak is warm and hot colours. The used of red shows connotations of love, lust and luck This reflects Rhianna as an artist and portrays her album well " LOUD'. Especially the use of red screams out at you. The close up of her on the album is fierce and very bold with the use of the colour red.

The writing being in white calms down the dominate use of red on the album. 

Also the light use of pastel colours to display the songs on the back cover is very subtle compared to the rest of the album which contrasts nicely and is less important then Rihanna herself. The album

I think the album looks elegant and feminine with the use of the flowers and Rhianna looking flawless and is branded well to be recognisable to fans.

The advertisement for Rihanna's album is also in red, no surprise there. And reflects her album well with the same use of colours. Rihanna pictured on the fields is in resemblance to her music video, 'Only girl in the world' as her whole video is filmed with her running around on fields.
It also shows the release date with her name 'RIHANNA' being the biggest text on there to sell the her, the artist.





The music video for 'Only girl in the world' is a perfect representation of the album 'loud' as the music video is her on the album but actually moving. The bright colours are emphasised in the music video with red used in every shot, and the video being all about her like her album cover photo as it is an extreme close up of her face.  

MY FINAL SAY

The whole experience has been so much fun and challenging at times but I'm so proud of my group, Christelle and Tina. I think we worked amazingly well together and kept going when it was cold, dark and wet outside!
 I just hope all the hard work pays off and I guess the cinema showing won't be too embarrassing... ... Hope not anyway