I emailed Columbia Records, who are the producers of my chosen song 'Norgaard' by The Vaccines, asking permission to use the song in my music video. I explained that I would be using the song solely for coursework.

Evaluation - Question 4

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
This year in my A2 Coursework I have created a blog on Blogger.com to use as a portfolio for my coursework, which is not something I have used before. Despite initially struggling with such a sway or recording and displaying my work I found that this has been extremely useful for me in many ways. Using an online blog means that I am able to access my work from anywhere, and constantly able to update it and access past posts with ease. Furthermore, it has allowed me to be much more creative with how I display my work, for example I have created video diary posts and used websites such as SlideShare to post power points I have created. Prezi, the online presentation program was perhaps the biggest help for me this year as using it allows me to be very creative with how I display work, and I can easily embed it into my blog. I also began to use the free screen recorder Cam Studio, for video for my blog and in these evaluation documentaries, as it allows you to record yourself doing your work and thus show how I came about my media products.
In terms of the planning stages, I found myself easily able to access existing music videos due to sites such as YouTube, meaning I could research a wide variety of videos and analyse them without much hassle. The inspiration for my digipak and magazine advert also came from the internet when I searched images of cameras on Google and found an image of a camera with a smashed up lens, thus the internet was a valuable resource for ideas and inspiration for me.
To take the images for my ancillary tasks and the footage for my music video I used a variety of equipment. For the location shoot of my main actress I used a Canon 550D camera, as it allowed me to shoot in extreme detail and play with the depth of field to create more visually interesting effects. This is an example of the advanced media technology I used in my coursework as I was able to take them out from the school over the weekend to conduct my shoots. However, I used a different camera for my green screen shots as I wished to shoot in HD to get the best possible footage. I also used my iPhone throughout these shoots and
smashing up the camera to record me conducting the shoots, as this was easy for others to use and provided good enough footage.
I used Adobe Photoshop CS3 in the construction of my two ancillary tasks, my digipak and my magazine advert. In these I added text, and used drop shadows to make them appear more professional and realistic. I also played around with the lighting, saturation and highlights of the images to get a more edgy, visually appealing effect on each image. Using such a program was much easier and more effective than using a program such as paint, as it has a huge variety of effects ad tools, and allows you to manipulate the image itself not just add things to it.
I used Adobe Premiere Pro to create my music video and put it together before exporting it into Adobe After Effects, but I also used it in the evaluation stages to create these evaluation documentaries. In regards the to construction of my music video I used the advanced program on Adobe After Effects Pro to manipulate the footage I had gained and make it more visually interesting but adding the cartoon effect. I will show you how I came about this effect with an example clip from my video. I firstly removed the green screen from all the performance clips and places a mid yellow solid behind them instead, then continued to desaturate the footage, whilst leavening a colour in clips where there was one bright dominant colour in the frame. This made my video look more appealing to my target audience, making it appear more edgy and recognisable as an indie/rock music video. I then made the performers appear more like a cartoon by using the effect ‘posterise’ which I changed to a level of around 4 on every clip. I continued to make the performers appear to be on scraps of paper and standing out from the background by adding a black outline and white solid behind each of them, in addition to a drop shadow to add to the 3D effect that makes them appear on top of the background. After this, I decided to posterise the time on selected clips, mainly the footage of Sam playing the red guitar giving it a jerky effect. I decided to embrace the zeitgeist of this decade of internet and social media sites by taking advantage of web version 2.0 and the audiences ability to interact with the media. I firstly created a group on Facebook in my planning stages that included all those involved in my music video, so I was able to contact them all easily, send tem documents such as the brief and actor release sheets and keep them updated in terms of progress and shoots. This also allowed them to
reply with any questions or concerns they had, and give me feedback on my video and ideas as many of them would fit into my target audience profile. The social networking site was also useful after the construction of my product, as I created a fan page for the band, and those who ‘liked’ the page would then be able to exclusively view the video the weekend before its actual release. This would encourage fans to join the page, resulting in viral advertising in addition to the internet ‘buzz’ that may be created around the product. Viral advertising is especially effective as it can reach a huge audience worldwide and is essentially free as you do not have to create any physical products that involve printing. It will also help me reach my target audience who are young and thus likely to be using the internet and social media sites.
This is also the case with the sites such as YouTube and Vimeo, which allowed me to upload the various cuts of my music video with ease and distribute them effectively to not just a local audience but worldwide. Such sites also remove the need to hire a media producer or advertiser to release it publicly and to a wide audience.

Evaluation - Question 3

Question 3 on Prezi

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback proved itself to be vital in the process of creating my coursework products, much more so than I first anticipated. It is perfect for getting the opinions of my core and secondary target audiences and see how the product would actually appeal to them, and thus how effective and successful it is. I also found that getting feedback from a different perspective, particularly one from the outside of those who have worked on the music video to be important when my own thoughts were unsure, or they would reply with something I had not previously thought of.

Every decision I made, I had to ensure I kept my target audience in mind and focused on how they would react and be appealed to by these choices. My target audience consists of both genders, however with a slightly female skew as I feel the majority of indie music has a dominant male audience, thus there may be a gap in the current market. They would be teenagers and young adults, from around the ages of 15 to 25 who are fans of indie/rock music; this would make up my core target audience. My secondary audience would be people of both genders and all ages who are fans of indie/rock music. In terms of psychographics, my target audience is likely to be individualists, or mainstreamers believing themselves to be individualists as these are commonly fans of the indie rock genre.

One of my first forms of audience feedback was through polls that I posted on my blog, asking people to vote on the answer they felt most applied to them. These included:

What do you feel is the most important aspect of a successful music video?

     - Location

     - Actors/Performance

     - The concept behind the video

Do you feel it is important for the artist to be shown in a music video?

     - Yes

     - No

Do you feel it is important for the artist to be shown in a digipak and magazine advert?

     - Yes

     - No

Where do you usually watch music videos?

    - YouTube

    - Other websites online

    - Music channels on TV

I found that this was perhaps one of the most useful forms of audience feedback for me, as it was easy to spread to a variety of people unlike having to handout forms or film responses. It also resulted in me gaining quick clear, quantitative data that was very straightforward to interpret unlike other forms of feedback where respondents could be unclear in their answer.

One of the key things I learnt from my audience feedback was that I did not necessarily need to create an intro to the song, as my respondents from both my core target audience and my media studies class responded that they felt it was effective as it is, and that creating an intro may actually take away the fast snappy of the song which they felt was very effective. As I was previously set on creating an introduction to the song as I was concerned about the song length, this made a big impact on my music video, especially in that it gave me more time to work on the video itself and perfect the cuts and shots without having to worry about creating an introduction.

I gained feedback from my first drafts on the Facebook group I created, of which all those involved in my music video are members. As a result, I gained audience feedback from the actors, but people who also do media studies and members of my core target audience. I posted each product onto the page and asked them to comment their opinions on how effective it was and how to improve it. Much of my feedback was very positive, but a reoccurring point was that the magazine advert did not quite look professional enough, it spears to be lacking some detail. I took this into account, and decided that more text such as the producers company and institutional information would make it look more professional and overcome this problem. After completing these steps I reposted the magazine advert onto the group wall to receive comments on if it was now more suitable, which my respondents said it was. This feedback I received was very useful in that it identified a problem I had not previously thought of, despite knowing I could still improve my product. It was also very clear as to what the problem was, in addition to praising the aspects they thought were effective, thus as a result I would ensure not to change these aspects. Using Facebook as a way to get feedback was beneficial in that people who had been involved in the video could give feedback in addition to other members of the group, and it was fairly easy to collect together as I could access it from anywhere with the internet. Furthermore, I found that people tended to be more truthful in their responses when they were simply commenting on a product online, as opposed to me filming their response face to face where I found they sometimes felt more uncomfortable being critical of my work and only said what I had done well, and did not give me ways to improve.

I also received audience feedback in written form, by sending out an audience feedback form and asking people to fill it in. One of the key changes this kind of feedback resulted in is that I changed my video from being entirely shot on location to part green screen. Many people suggested I have struggle with having so many actors to organise in a busy location such as London, as it would be difficult to get them all there, be prepared for any problems or dangers and still be able to shoot effectively. Consequently I decided to only shoot the extreme close up shots of my main actress of location, and instead get my actors to perform in front of the green screen at school. This made it significantly easier as I was able to get actors to come in on different occasions and I was able to shoot after school, during breaks and free periods. Due to the organisation being easier and less stressful, I was left able to focus on the footage I was gaining. A further advantage of shooting in school was that I had my teachers nearby if I had any problems with the camera, or wanted initial feedback on the set up of my shoot.

The feedback on the third draft of my music video also had a significant impact on my final product, thus was extremely useful to me in improving my coursework. My respondents suggested that I included more effects in the video, such as arrows and text to fit with the fast pace of the song. This therefore led me to add a variety of add ons in Adobe After Effects, gradually building up from no effects to arrows to what is almost an explosion of text, lines and arrows towards the end of the song, which I felt made it substantially more effective.

I received video feedback praising my products, however I often found that respondents were more reluctant to be critical of my work as it was face to face, thus they tended to say the things they liked more than giving me points on which they thought I could improve. Therefore, although it was good to be able to record some visual feedback, I generally found this less helpful than the written, online feedback where the respondent felt more comfortable giving negative points.

Overall, I feel that the audience feedback I received was key in the process of creating my products, and without it I would have struggled to indentify things to improve and foresee potential problems. It was also very encouraging to me, as they did not only point out aspects I needed to include but also the parts they liked and thought were very effective.

Evaluation - Question 2

Question2

View more PowerPoint from Becca Smith

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

During my similar product research, I learned that the majority of artists, particularly those of the indie/rock genre tend to have a unifying theme throughout their products, often a similar style is used throughout their videos, album covers, merchandising and advertisements. For example, the American indie/rock band Surfer Blood’s album and single covers appear to be two different pictures combined into one using a variety of techniques, and this seems to occur throughout their products. Furthermore, British indie rock band White Lies tends to use somewhat strange, gritty and unsettling images with dark lighting and heavy shadows throughout its products, its videos are also somewhat unnerving and always very open to interpretation for the audience.

The predominant purpose of a music video is advertising both the song and the artist, in order to give them more exposure and publicity, as a form of expanding the audience’s profile. It is also a chance for the song to be presented to the audience in a visual form, linking to the theorist Andrew Goodwin who argued that the content of a music video related to aspects of the song such as the lyrics. Furthermore, in certain genres such as pop, hip hop and R n B, a music video presents the opportunity for the artist to display other talents they may have such as dancing or other modes of performing, though this is not usually the case in my chosen genre of indie/rock. Overall, the preliminary purpose of a music video in all genres is for advertising, and causing some form of reaction from the audience resulting in the song, band and video being memorable for said audience.

In regards to my ancillary task of a magazine advert, its role is to advertise the album and the artist together. After analysing existing magazine adverts, I came to conclusion that it must be extremely eye catching and appealing to the audience in order to get their attention when competing with other adverts and articles in a magazine. I therefore decided to use a bold, stencil front, all in capital letters to display the band’s name and the song title, using the colours black and red in order to catch the audience’s eye. I also added drop shadows to make the advert stand out even more. I used this same text in the same position in my digipak to show the album title and band name, therefore almost creating a band logo, and certainly beginning o create a house style. I also felt it had to reflect the overall feel and features of the band, giving the audience an insight into the band before they have even listened to them. I reflected the quirky, fun ideology of the band through the image, which was the camera smashed up with the film coming out the lens, which I felt was visually interesting and quite abstract, thus causing the audience to think about the meaning and making it more memorable.

The main purpose of a digipak is to sell the album to its target audience, in addition to providing any important information about the band, album and record label. The front cover of the digipak is vital as it is mainly used to advertise the album and appeal to the audience, thus convincing them to buy the product. Through my research I found that the front cover must be eye catching and stand out, but perhaps less so that the magazine advert, thus I changed the colour of the text ‘Norgaard’ from red to grey as it felt it fitted better with the colours of the image, and the bright eye catching red was not necessarily needed. I used the same camera as in the magazine advert, which I think helped the audience recognise that these products are part of the same promotional package.

As a result of this research I decided to create my own unifying theme throughout my three products, which was the notion of looking and watching others. My music video features a somewhat voyeuristic portrayal of my main actress, she appears unaware of the camera as she is not performing in any way but merely doing normal actions such as putting on makeup. This is also enforced by the slightly shaky, home video movement of the camera, I decided against using a tripod to steady the camera work as I felt this made it feel more realistic for the audience to be watching her. My digipak and magazine adverts consist of images of an old camera that is in various stages of being smashed up, thus keeping with the theme of looking and watching. However it could be argued these images are a rejection of the notion of looking due to the smashed lens, therefore leaving the audience to their own interpretation.

I also found colour schemes to be a vital part of creating this unifying theme and house style throughout a musicians products, Foster The People predominantly used the colours of yellow, black and white in the creation of products from their most recent album ‘Torches’. Therefore I decided that a colour scheme reflecting the genre and the band was vital, and finally settled upon red black and white. These are colours that are typical of the indie/rock genre, and may act as a form of key iconography to attract fans as they will recognise immediately that the products are of said genre. Red is successful in appealing to my target audience as it is a symbolic sign of passion, being rebellious and reckless, all traits that are held highly by the indie/rock ideology, and traits that are displayed throughout my products.

As my chosen song came from The Vaccines debut album, I decided to play upon the fact they were new and relatively unknown. I therefore kept their identities hidden throughout my main and ancillary tasks, not featuring images of them in any of my products; I believe it has created a feel on anonymity. This will firstly cause the audience to focus upon the music itself, which is key to the indie/rock genre ideology, but then will cause curiosity in the audience as to what the band actually look like. This also immediately contrasts with my unifying theme of looking and voyeurism,

Overall I feel that my main and ancillary tasks are successful as independent products, but even more so when combined together to create a promotional package. I think the unifying theme and house style make them more effective as it means they being it aspects of each other that may not have been noticed by the audience if they were presented separately from one another, and the audience can easily recognise they are all from the same band. However if I were to create another product to fit into the promotional package I feel this with heighten their success as a combination of products.

Evaluation - Question 1

Question1 from Rebecca Smith on Vimeo.

 

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

For the main task of my A2 media coursework, I created a music video as part of a promotional package, which also included my ancillary tasks of producing a magazine advert and a digipak. I chose ‘Norgaard’ by The Vaccines as my chosen song, a stereotypical song from the indie/rock genre. The main purpose of a music video is to promote the artist and the record as a form of advertising, in addition to expanding their profile. It also allows the song to be presented in a visual form, thus may give a further meaning or understanding of the song to the audience.

In order the fully understand the typical forms and conventions of indie/rock music videos I not only research into them, but studied and researched existing music videos of this genre. The indie/rock music genre has a wide variety of conventions, perhaps due to the fact that originality and individuality, pushing the boundaries and rebelliousness are all important to its ideology thus as a result its videos try to incorporate these and become quite different from one another. Therefore they are usually quirky and visually interesting. I conformed to this convention by being as creative as possible in my music video, using a variety of props such as balloons and silly string, and making my actors appear like cut out pieced of paper and looking almost like cartoons. They often tend to be split between narrative and performance based. This is very much the case in my video, which uses this convention of combining narrative (my main actress shown getting ready and applying makeup) and performance (various actors miming and dancing to the camera).

It is not unusual for the artist to not be featured in an indie/rock music video, as the attitude tends to be that the music itself is more important and the artist, unlike pop music it does not promote the artist as a ‘star’. This is evident in my music video as the artist is not featured, instead a group of actors are miming along to the song and performing to the camera, enforcing the idea that the band are not beautiful, famous stars but simply normal people, which is crucial to the indie/rock ideology. Furthermore, as the song comes from The Vaccines debut album I decided to play upon the fact the band were new and relatively unknown when it came out, thus by hiding their identities it may cause curiosity in the audience as to who they actually are and what they look like, making them more memorable.

Music videos of the genre are often black and white, or creatively lay around with colour such as The Cribs ‘I’m a Realist’, which gave me the initial idea for effects used during the performance sections of my video. I decoloured all these shots, then in the shots where there was one bright prominent colour, such as the red guitar in shots of Sam, I left this colour to make it more quirky and certain aspects stand out from the page.

A further key feature of indie music videos is equality between the sexes, it does not tend to objectify and exploit women in the way that is seen in hip hop videos, where the women are usually extremely passive and merely there for males, instead they are shown as independent and powerful. This is especially the case with female fronted bands such as Paramore and We Are In The Crowd, where it can even be the male members appear less powerful than the women, for example as seen in Paramore’s Playing God. My video does not show my female actors in provocative poses or costumes, in fact the performers are very much presented equally to the male performers, there is no difference in their presentation to the audience, thus conforms to this convention of indie/rock music videos. However, the shots of my main actresses may be interpreted as not showing her as equal and relate to Laura Mulvey’s theory of the ‘Male Gaze’, where she argues women are given the status of an object , due to the control of the camera being dominated by heterosexual men. As she is only shown through the use of close ups and extreme close ups, this may be interpreted as objectifying her as it does not portray her as a whole person, but in some lingering shots as a pair of eyes and lips etc. She also appears unaware of the camera and that she is being watched, as she is not performing in any way, and I further enforced this but deciding not to use a tripod to steady the camera work in every shot. I felt this gave it an more intimate, realistic feeling for the audience as opposed to all the shots of her being perfectly still and thus appearing to be the work of a professional. I did however se the tripod in some shots so that the shaky camera did not get irritating or take away from the successfulness of the video. She is also presented getting ready and putting on makeup, thus perhaps suggesting that the role of females is to look beautiful, and be viewed through the male voyeuristic perspective of the camera. Therefore, though in some aspects of my video I conform to the conventions of gender equality in the indoor/rock genre; other parts may be seen to challenge them.

Another convention of representation I have found throughout the indie/rock genre is that unlike much of the media, it tends to celebrate youth and recklessness, most likely as young people is its main target audience. For example, The Naked and Famous’s video for ‘Young Blood’ is a montage of young people having fun and being rebellious, but instead of condemning this and portraying it in a negative light, it shows young people in a very positive light. I tried to incorporate this into my product as I felt it would be extremely useful in appealing to my target audience, thus ensured it had a light-hearted reckless atmosphere. I also used props such as balloons; silly string and alphabetti spaghetti as these all have connotations of being young, and their use in the video illustrate the importance of youth and reckless fun.

I also studied Andrew Goodwin’s theory to give me more knowledge of music videos as a whole medium, not just defined by genre, and try to incorporate his theory into my product to make it more successful. His first point states music videos demonstrate genre characteristics, which I have outlined previously. He secondly states there to be a relationship between lyrics and visuals, which can be illustrative amplifying or contradicting. My music video features not only people singing the lyrics, but the meaning of the song is illustrated by the use of shots of the main girl getting ready. Certain lyrics such as ‘walking down the catwalk’ are accompanied by amplifying shots of the lyrics being acted out on screen, for example here a close up is used of her walking around in high heels. Furthermore, in the chorus the lyrics spell out her name, I have visually represented this by showing the letter on screen using a variety of props, such as signs being held by the actors and alphabetti spaghetti. My music video also fits with Goodwin’s third point of there being a relationship between music and visuals, as it features quick sudden cuts to match the fast pace of the song. In addition, MTV style editing is used, helping to keep the audience’s attention and involving rapid cuts between the two narratives. The next point states that the demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which occur throughout their work as a visual style. I have challenged this point, as though the main actress is only shown through close ups the band is never featured throughout my products. However, it can be argued a motif is created throughout my three products as they all focus on the theme of looking, and the digipak and magazine advert both feature images of the same smashed up camera. This leads me to the fifth statement argued by Goodwin, that there is frequently reference to notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body. The notion of looking is very much a theme throughout my promotional package, my music video uses it by showing the main actress only in close ups, which as I previously discussed can be interpreted as objectifying her. This combined with the images on my two ancillary tasks suggest I have conformed to and used this convention of music videos.

I followed a similar process for both my digipak as I did my music video, by researching what makes a successful digipak and the conventions of my chosen genre, in addition to researching and analysing existing products. I found that digipak covers of the indie/rock genre tend to be more creative than other genres, such as R n B covers which just tend to feature an image of the artist. Due to the fact that the indie/rock genre tends to be more focused on the music than the actual artist, their status and appearance, they are often not even featured on the cover. I also asked members of my target audience how they felt about the artist not being featured on any of the products, to which they responded that it was not the artist that was important to them, and this may also allowed my visually appealing creative devices to be used. I therefore decided against using an image of my artist on my digipak, keeping with this aspect of my music video and conforming to the conventions of my chosen genre. Furthermore, I decided my products would be more successful if I created a house style, and used the same theme of the notion of looking throughout all three. I also kept in mind the important aspects of the genres ideology, and displayed these through my chosen colour scheme of red black and white. Black and white are colours I frequently see in existing indie/rock products, whilst red connotates being passionate rebellious and energetic, all traits that are valued by the genre.

Research into magazine adverts led me to learn that their primary role is to promote the digipak and the band, raising awareness as well as convincing the audience to buy it when it comes out, as a form of advertising it is meant to cause interest without revealing too much information if the record has not yet been released. I kept to this convention by not showing an image of the digipak or revealing much information, but using an image of the same smashed up camera with the film coming out if the lens. This ensured it was visually interesting and would be memorable to the audience as it is quite unique.

Music Video Final

YouTube Link


Vimeo Link

Untitled from Rebecca Smith on Vimeo.
This is the final cut of my music video! Unfortunatly the quality from being uploaded to site such as Youtube and Vimeo is significantly lower in order for me to upload it to my blog, however the version I will burn onto my DVD will be much higher.

Magazine Advert Final