Final Group Digipak

Final Group Magazine Advert

Final Group Music Video

Final Music Video

Evaluation - Question 3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

It is extremely important to evaluate your work because that way it helps you view your work as one whole thing and therefore allows you to highlight the strength and weaknesses you faced throughout your whole project. This then allows you to make any last minute changes in order to get your work better than it is.
Audience feedback is the most vital part of your production as you need to know if your work has appealed to them or not. This is important because the only reason a music video will be successful is if it appealed to the audience. Also, we would have needed to conform the generic conventions of a pop music video which I think we did.

We decided, as a group, that uploading our music video on to YouTube would be the best place to showcase our music video. YouTube is one of the biggest music sharing websites in the world that gets 100 million video views per year from a variety of people. It also allows people to communicate their thoughts on individual videos and what they feel about the video. YouTube also allows everyone to ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ the video which informs the person that uploaded the video how many people liked it and how many people dislike it. Therefore; as for us the comments that the people write will interest us a lot because it will consist of conductive criticism which will give us an understanding of how our video comes across to our target audience. The audience’s comments are useful as, for example, if they don’t like a particular image or clip we have used, they could tell us and we could change it about to make it better to suit what our audience want.

The comments we received on our video consisted of both negative and positive feedback. One of the positive comments we received was…
(“The male in the music video surprisingly reminds me of James Arthur”.)
This was a good comment to us as it made us feel as though our targets had been met by making our artists image exactly how we had it in mind.
Another positive comment we received was…
(“The argument scene looked very realistic”.)
This was also another effective comment as it made our music video seem very professional as the acting within it was good.
However we also received some negative comments which we looked at as constructive criticism and reflected on it well.
One of the negative comments we received was…
(“The burning of cards look very unrealistic”)
This helped us a lot seeing as after reading that comment we went and re-filmed the burning of the cards and it  turned out very effective. Another bit of conductive criticism we received was that...
(“There wasn't enough effects used”)
After reading that, my group and i sat down to discuss what other effects could be used. We then included different effects like rain, to show pathetic fallacy and also a dream effect for the flashbacks. Overall this made our video very effective and successful.

As a media producer the comments we received, overall, made us feel as though our video was a success. This is due to the fact that the majority of comments we got were positive, which made us believe that our video was a success.

As a group we sat down together and discussed all the comments we received and reflected upon them.  Firstly, we put up a rough cut on YouTube which is a rough copy of our music video, and this was to get feedback from our audience. So when they commented their thoughts on our video and gave us conductive criticism, we reflected on it and made changes on our video to make it better.

Evaluation - Question 1

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

My A2 coursework consisted of a combination of both group work alongside individual work.

My A2 brief was to re-create a music video which was at least up to 5 minutes long; followed by creating ancillary products in order to promote my artists.  For the ancillary products, I was asked to create a magazine advert and a digipak by using particular software such as Photoshop.  As a class we then got ourselves into groups of 4 to 5 people as it was a group project. My group consisted of Jagoda, Jamie and Lauren. As Lauren and I worked together last year on our AS media project, which was creating an opening sequence of a thriller; we thought that we would work well together this year as well to create a piece as successful as our first one was. Together we decided to pair up with Jamie and Jagoda as all 4 of us has a similar idea on what sort of genre we wanted to follow and what kind of music video we wanted to re-create.

My role within my group mainly consisted of filming and editing. However each of us had input of how to co-ordinate the mise-en-scene within the music video.  This consisted of us coming up with ideas of what locations would be effective to use and what costumes and iconography would be conventional to the pop genre.
As Jagoda and Jamie spent much of their time acting within the music video, Lauren and I were each taking turns filming in our own ways, so we both got to film and use the camera shots that we thought would look better. Therefore we got variety of different shots and from many different angles and when it came to editing we had a selection to choose from.

Overall, I feel that as a group we all worked very well together seeing as it was the first time us 4 came together to work as a team. From the beginning of our project it was very clear what everyone's strengths and weaknesses were seeing as we spoke about them as a group, then it was also mentioned who would be doing what within the production, therefore seeing as well all had our own allocated duties there were no confusions or disagreements on what everyone would be doing throughout the process. We regularly held very productive group meetings to take some time out in order to listen to everyone’s ideas and give everyone set jobs on what they need to work on. This included story boards, filming schedules and editing.

A music video is usually referred to as a 'short film' that is created for many different reasons. Some of these reasons consist of representing an artist, to attract a particular audience, to show conventions of the different music genre and to build a relationship with the artist. To me, a music video is something that is created to help the audience understand the song more. This represents Goodwin's theory as his theory mentions that lyrics said by an artist usually relate to what the audience can visually see on screen. 

As a group, the music genre we decided to follow was pop which stands for popular music. This just means that the music will be aimed at a more mainstream audience. We decided that this would be the best genre to use as it will be targeted at a broader audience and also we already have quite an understanding of the genre as all 4 of us in the group enjoy listening to it. Pop music videos have many codes and conventions.  Some of these codes and conventions consist of the artists coming across as happy and content with life. The song lyrics used within the pop genre normally  tend to be based around love or relationships and usually remain in a time limit between 3-5 minutes. An instrument used a lot in the pop genre usually consists of a guitar, therefore the artist we decided to do was James Arthur as he is very well known for winning X-factor in 2012. The song we decided to do was impossible and which is about love so the song and artist we chose convey generic conventions of the pop genre. 

We decided to re-create a music video to James Arthur’s song Impossible and overall I think our music video turned out to be quite successful. The music video we created was based around love and a relationship which conveys the generic conventions of the pop genre. Within the music video we show our artist, named Callum Blake singing in various locations as the performance aspect to our video. As for the narrative part of it, we decided to show a girl going through a box full of memories of her past relationship. Within the video we show flash backs of her and her boyfriend going from happy to breaking up. This was effective as it shows a breakup which is something that would intrigue our target audience. 

We used lots of interesting iconography to help our video look more effective. We used a pack of cards within our music video as significance to show the breakdown of the relationship. We showed many clips of the boy and girl both playing cards together and we shows a full view of a pyramid of cards. Towards the end we decided to burn the cards down within our music video to show the breakdown of the relationship. This was extremely effective. I believe that our Ancillary products turned out to be more successful than our music video as we spent so much time changing the music video narrative, so in result were very limited for time when filming our actual narrative for our music video. As for the ancillary products we spent a lot of time and effort creating our digipak and magazine adverts so therefore they turned out very successful.

Evaluation - Question 2

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

Evaluation - Question 4

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stage?

My magazine advert (Completed)

Analysis of my magazine advert

In order to create my own effective magazine advert, a lot of research had to be done to find out the codes and conventions of a magazine advert from the pop genre. After researching and analyzing two magazine adverts of my own choice, I then went on to creating a paper design of what i wanted my magazine advert to look like.

This was used as a basic plan to create a rough idea of how I wanted to present my magazine advert and how i wanted the layout to be.
My paper design consisted of the artists name written at the top of the A4 piece of paper going across the page. On the right side of the page, I had written "Presents.. His Debut Album.. Ft his new single.. IMPOSSIBLE." The left side of the page consisted of an image of just his face, and the bottom right had a 'King' and 'Queen' card in the corner of the page on fire. This was an effective design due to the fact that the cards and the fire are significant within our music video.

After creating my basic paper plan of my magazine advert, I then went on to creating my final magazine advert on Photoshop.Whilst working on Photoshop, i was testing out all of the different tools and effects i could use to create my magazine advert. As Photoshop was such a time consuming and complex software to use, i made a few changes to my layout. One of the things i had changed was the use of the image. I decided to change it to my artist holding the guitar because it was more conventional and significant to the pop music genre and the music video to my song impossible. The fact that the artist is holding the guitar shows that he is multi-talented and that music is his passion.
One of the other changes i made was getting rid of the cards and the fire. The reason i decided to to use this was because when i tried out the cards and the flame, it made the magazine advert look cheap and less effective, therefore i decided not to use it and to keep my magazine advert plain and simple.
The use of color that i used was mainly black and white, This is because i decided that if i kept the colors dull and simple, the artist and his image would stand out a lot more.

Digipak

Digipak analysis

What is the purpose of a digipak?

A digipak is special style of CD packaging. It is usually in the style of a book and is used for many reasons. Some of these reasons consist of promoting an album, to make a CD eye-catching, to tell us something about the musician and the music behind it, to express an image and many more.
A digipak usually consists of 4 to 6 different sections of card; each explaining something about the artist or the album. The 1st part of a digipak is usually a simple image of the artist and their name. This is usually the front cover, therefore it should be effective but simple. The 2nd section consists of the CD which should contain an image of the artist or song list, as it should attract the audiences eye. The 3rd section would be a personal note written by the artist, talking about what inspired him/her to become a singer and thank their family and friends for the hope. Artist also tend to thank their fans to come across as appreciative and grateful. The 4th and 6th part of the digipak would be images of the artist from different angles to allow them to become more noticed by the audience and also allows the audience to build a relationship with the artist through images. Finally the  5th part contains a play list to show what songs are on the CD.

How is a digipak different to a CD album?

Their is quite a difference between a digipak and a CD album as the digipak usually comes across and more complex and provides the audience with more personal information of the artist. In result, this allows the audience to gain a better understanding of the artist and his/her background, which therefore allows the audience to build a relationship with the artist. CD albums usually consist of just a song list and a CD itself with no more details and images within it. Therefore it shows that a digipak contain higher quality images and has a lot more meaning behind it. Digipak's may also consist of a bonus track where as most CD albums wouldn't, all of this just shows that digipak's are more likely to attract an audience.

Group digipak

Group Digipak

We held a group meeting in order to consider each individual group members digipak's and together we decided that using a mixture of Jagoda's and Lauren's digipak would create an effective digipak seeing as their digipaks were more conventional to the pop genre and it had a lot more significance to our music video.

The first slide of this digipak consisted of our artist standing in an isolated street by himself holding the guitar. On top of our artists image is his name written in a simple font and color. This was chosen due to the fact that we were trying to give of the impression that he is an ordinary guy seeing as that would be conventional to the pop genre.

The third slide consists of a simple and personal thank you note written by the artist. Most digipaks tend to have a thank you note primarily because it gives the artist the chance to tell the audience how they feel and to personally thank the people that helped them release the album. We chose this layout and format for the thank you note because it was very simple but effective seeing as it has so much to it. Although it is just a simple black background and white writing, the iconography and effects used help make it seem extremely professional. The guitar is used to emphasize how the artist is very multi-talented and also to show his passion for music. The fire is used for effect and also because its significant within our music video.

The fifth slide consisted of the song list of all the singles within our artists album. This slide has the 'King' and 'Queen' cards with the song list on them. This was a creative idea because the cards have great significance within our music video. As a group we decided to use a pyramid of cards and burn them down to show the break down of a relationship. Therefore using the cards in the digipak to write the song list on helped create our digipak so it has more significance to music video.

Four of the slides within this digipak consists of a picture of the artist. Each picture shows him holding his guitar in a different way and all the pictures are from a different camera shot and angle. The fact that we are showing the guitar so much makes our digipak conventional to the pop genre and also makes our artist come across as musical. Having 4 different pictures from 4 different angles within the digipak also helps the audience develop a relationship with the artist through the photos. Seeing as each picture shows his facial expressions, that also helps the audience understand a bit about the artist through the images.

Group magazine advert

Group Magazine Advert

Magazine advert analysis

Magazine Analysis

What is the purpose of a magazine advert?

A magazine advert is a particular section in a magazine that is dedicated to advertise something, for sale or to promote its cause. In the case of music it usually is to sell the music, or promote the artist/band to its target audience. The only useful way that the music, artist or band will be easily promoted to its target audience is if they use the correct magazine to advertise within. This means the song genre should match the magazine. However one of the main reasons for a magazine advert is to create awareness of an artist

Analyse the following magazine advert.

The image of Plan B is a mid shot which allows the audience to see more than just his face. The mid shot allows the audience to focus on his costume and iconography as well as his facial expressions. Within his image he is holding a microphone on a stand which is also visible and this could be shown to let the audience know that it is his passion to sing. On top of the artists image is a text his name written in big writing. This allows the audience to focus on his level of importance within this magazine advert as his name stands out. Therefore it becomes clear to the audience that the magazine advert is trying to promote the artist.

The artist Plan B has been represented in an unusual way as his identity in his magazine advert has been slightly  hidden. He is shown as a dark shadow, however his clothes are quite visible, this could be due to the fact that it shows off his style which appears as very smart, slick and also shows him of as quite a high class. The fact that he is wearing a suit and tie slightly gives of the impression that he thinks extremely highly of himself as a person and he come across as very confident.

The colors used within this magazine advert consists of black, red and white. The red could be used to passion and love as his album that he released was based around love. This is shown from his main song "She said".  However the use of dark colors, for example, black, is usually used to connote sadness, darkness and in some cases, death. This shows a great contrast as it keeps the audience stuck in two minds, Seeing as his picture is very serious, it leaves them thinking whether its to do with death or love. 

This analysis of Plan B's magazine advert will help me when creating my own magazine advert because it has helped me highlight all the important conventions of a pop genre. When i will create my own magazine advert, i will include a large image of the artist on the left hand corner of a page and cards burning on the right. I will be using a plain black background as it highlights the artists image a lot more.This allows the audience to focus more on the image of the artist then other things going on around him. I will be using plain white text to write the artists name above which will be simple and straight forward to show that the artist is an ordinary man. 

Storyboards

Storyboards

What is the purpose of a storyboard?
Storyboards are a series of photos and drawings that outline the sequence of scenes and clips in any type of video. Storyboards are useful for many reasons. Some of these reasons consist of; Helping to manage time, seeing as the storyboards also contains description of what camera shots will be used, what items will be needed and also what will be going on in each of these scenes. A storyboard consists of quite a bit of detailed information. This information includes; Scene description, Camera techniques, Audio, iconography,location,actors and what editing will be used.

How did you use your primary and secondary research that you carried out, to plan your music video?
The primary and secondary research we carried out as a group helped us a lot when creating a music video as we all gained a greater understanding of what our audience were expecting to see and also gave us an idea of what is expected within a music video.

The primary research we conducted consisted of us creating a questionnaire with 10 questions that we handed out to 40 different people. The questionnaires contained questions which asked our target audience what they would like to see in a music video, their favorite music genre, their favorite singer and many other questions all to do with music videos. This broadened our knowledge on how to create a music video as it gave us a variety of information on what we could include in our video. Another piece of primary research that we carried out was Vox pops. Here we just picked 5 different people at random and asked them 5 questions about  music videos and what they would expect to see in a pop music video.We asked open questions which gave us qualitative data. This gave us; as a group,  very informative answers and helped us come up with ideas about what genre we would follow and what artist we would use.

The secondary research we carried out consisted of doing lots of research into different theories, other music artists and many music videos. We started off by looking into two theories. One was Goodwin's theory which was about how lyrics of a song and the you see on the music video relate. The other theory we looked into was Richard Dyer's theory which was explaining how artists/stars are more like an object and not a person.
Other secondary research consisted off looking on the internet for different typed of music genres and the generic conventions of a pop music video in order to make out music video a success.

How did you and your group storyboard your music video?
In order to make our group storyboard a success, as a group we decided to hold a meeting in order to discuss what we wanted to include in our music video. By discussing what we want to include within our music video, it helps us decide what scenes we would like to put in our video which therefore helps us create our storyboards and separate each scene. This was also very useful as it gave us a chance as a group to discuss what camera shots we will be using along with what the narrative for each individual section would be.

How did you share the responsibility?
When discussing our storyboards as a group, the input was equal from all members of the group. Together we spoke about the narrative we will be using and we each spent time discussing what camera shots will be used and what location will be used. We then decided that only two members of the group should create the storyboards whilst the other two members of the group worked on other things like the filming scheduled. We decided that this was a good idea as we felt as though it wouldn't take 4 people to create a storyboard.

Did you follow your storyboards, or did you make changes?
When it came down to filming our music video, we all stuck to the storyboards which was very efficient as it saved us a lot of time. As we all knew where we was going on to film and on what day along with all the camera shots we will be using, it saved us time and prevented us as a group from getting so stressed thinking about last minute locations etc.

Photoshoot

Why is it important to carry out a photo shoot when creating a digipak & magazine advert?
A photos shoot is vital as the images taken of the artist are used to create a digipak and magazine advert. This is an important aspect when in the process of promoting an artist as the images are what allows the artist to be recognized and noticed by the audience. Not only do the photos give the artist an identity but also allow the audience to gain an understanding of what genre the artist is from. This can be shown through the mise-en-scene within the picture as costume and settings is what gives away what genre the artist is from. Doing a photo shoot will allow us as a group to work together and decide on a digipak and magazine advert to create which will allow us to promote the album. 

What images did you take and why?

As a group we took many different pictures from a variety of different camera shots and angels. At first the images we used consisted of us taking screen shots throughout our music video of the artist from many different angles and locations such as a high angle of the artist and his guitar, a close up of just the artists face, a mid shot of the artist looking down at his guitar and a long shot of the artist sitting down holding his guitar and looking straight into the camera. However we later realized that the pictures we tried using were not very effective and therefore we later done a photo shoot which consisted of pictures of the artist standing up with his guitar. One thing we were very vary about was making sure we included all mise-en-scene which allowed everyone to see the artists costumes, props and location. 

Where will your images be used and why? (digipak or advert)
The images taken from the photo shoot will be used for our ancillary product such as the digipak and magazine adverts. Our magazine advert will consist of a picture of our artist which would have been edited using photo shop. This image will contain limited information of the album, when it will come out and also the singles it contains. 

The other images taken during the photo shoot will be used for the digipak.
A digipak is the packaging used for a CD which consists of 3 different items. One of which will be the list of song titles, another which would be the CD and one which would be a thank you note written by the artist. 

We will be using a variety of different pictures for each individual item. 
For the magazine advert i chose to use an image of the artist standing up holding/looking down to his guitar. 
For the digipak we will be using a close up of the artists face for the CD cover and a small long shot picture of the artist sitting down on a chair holding his guitar to place in the corner of the thank you note. 

How are your images conventional to your genre?
Our images are conventional to our genre as we are using many long shots to show the artists costume. Our artists costume consists of him wearing a checkered red jacket and jeans and this is conventional to the pop genre as many artists in the pop genre are presented as ordinary. We also done many mid shots of the artist holding his guitar which is also conventional to our genre seeing as the guitar conforms stereotypical conventions of the pop genre. 

How do your images portray the artist?
As our images are conventional to the pop genre, our artist is portrayed as an ordinary man. This is shown mostly through the mise-en-scene as the costume is very simple and basic and also the location in which the images are taken are a simple black or white back ground. This allows the audience to focus more on the artists image rather then the location which is why we decided to create a very basic and simplistic image. 

Here is an image which i had edited and created for my magazine advert. All this editing was done on photo shop. I started of by getting an image of the artist and cropping around it to get an image of just the artist holding his guitar. I then pasted the image on to a simple black background and input another layer to include the text.

Creating images on photo shop made me realize how time consuming and complex 
it actually is.

Rough cut (Completed)

Rough Cut 

Why is a rough cut important to consider?
A rough cut is important to consider because it allows the public to view your music video and give you feedback on what changes need to be made to ensure your music video is at its best.  This is useful as the comments on the music video are so precise it allows you to create a video that fulfills what your target audience want to see. A rough cut consists of the music video as a whole including all the intended scenes, however at this stage, the editing aspect of it isn't complete as it does not consist of any filters and effects. This is down to the target audience to decide what they want to see.

Why is it important to consider audience feedback?
Audience feedback is one of the key things when it comes to media as the audience is what makes a persons work credible. An audience is also what makes the music video a popular and a well known product. The reasons for creating a music video or some sort of film is usually for audiences entertainment therefore it is important to consider target audience feedback as it gives us effective information on what we can change and develop within our music video to make it better and more enjoyable for our audience to watch.

How did you receive your audience feedback?
As a group we decided to post our video on to YouTube as it is now one of the worlds biggest video sharing website. It gets over 1 billion users visiting the website each month so we thought that our video could reach at least 100 views and that we would receive a reasonable amount of feedback. Therefore we uploaded our music video on to YouTube which is where we gained our audience feedback. Although we didn't do any interviews with our audience, we did show our media class our music video and asked them if they could give us some conductive criticism on what they believe we could improve and change. This was also useful as the feedback was given from a group of people that are working on a similar project as us and that are also in the process of recreating a music video. Another benefit of asking our class what they thought is that they matched the age group that we were targeting our music video at.

What feedback did you receive?
Most of the feedback we received from our target audience turned out to be very constructive, however we received a mix of both negative and positive comments but majority of our comments were positive.

How will the feedback assist you with finalizing your music video?
The feedback we received will assist us as a group when finalizing our music video as, we held a group meeting straight after receiving our feedback and discussed what changed needed to be made. As a group we sat down and reflected on the comments and conductive criticism we received and spoke about what else we need to include to make our video better. One of the changed that we decided together as a group was that we needed to input some filters in our video to prevent the camera shots having such a great jump between them and therefore this would allow our music video to run smoothly.

Filming Schedule

Why is a filming schedule important to have?

A filming schedule is very important to have as it keeps all members of the group aware of what days filming will take place and what will be going on in each of the different days. A filming schedule is very detailed as it contains information like the date we will be filming, location, iconography and the different shots we will be using.
Before creating a film schedule we held a group meeting where we all sat down together and discussed the days we will be free to film. After finding out when everyone was free we discussed what needed to be film and what location we will be filming in as well as costumes so when it comes to us filming, as a group we will be prepared.

Did you follow the filming schedule?

As a group we did follow the filming schedule, however we had to make a slight few changes. One of the changes we had to make was the costume as when we went to the white cliffs of Dover, it turned out that there were no changing rooms and the weather was awful. Therefore as a group we decided that it would be best if our artist remained in the same costume. Another problem we had encountered as a group was when we had scheduled the burning cards scene, we had the wrong set of cards and they were glossed, therefore they didn't burn. So in that case we had to buy a new pack of cards and reschedule a day to burn them. 

Overall we stuck by everything else we had scheduled and over all our filming was a success.

Shot	Date & time	Location	Content /Action	Shot type & Duration	Costume/ hair/ make up	Iconography	Personnel	Equipment
	01.11.13 12:00 pm	White cliffs of Dover	Artist performing i.e. miming to the lyrics as well as playing the guitar	Mid shot, long shot	Artist Costume:  casual clothing consisting of jeans and jacket Hair: Natural Make-up: Natural	Guitar	Artist Camera person Location manager Director	Digital camera, batteries, tripod, memory card
	07.11.13 15.05 pm	Drama studio	Artist performing with the guitar	Mid shot, Long shot, Side angle	Artist Costume:  casual clothing consisting of jeans and checked shirt	Guitar, stool	Artist Camera person Location manager Director	Digital camera, batteries, tripod, memory card
	21.11.13 16:00 pm	Indoors - bedroom scene	Male and female featured in the video will be seen playing cards & their relationship will be made clear to the audience	Mid shot, Long shot	Male: jeans and top Female: leggings and long sleeve top	Cards	Actors Camera person Location manager Director	Digital camera, batteries, tripod, memory card
	25.11.13 15:00 pm	Outdoor - Various locations	Flashbacks of male and female in a happy relationship	Tracking shot	Male: jeans and coat Female: leggings coat	-	Actors Camera person Location manager Director	Digital camera, batteries, tripod, memory card
	27.11.13 17:00 pm	Indoor - kitchen	Cards will be built up in a tower and set alight	Close up, mid shot	-	Cards	Camera person Location manager Director	Digital camera, batteries, tripod, memory card
	03.12.13 15.05 pm	Indoor - living room	Female is seen unpacking a box filled with photos of her and the male together	Close up	Casual clothing	Cards	Camera person Location manager Director Female actress	Digital camera, batteries, tripod, memory card
	05.12.13	Outdoor 12:00 pm	The male and female will be seen arguing	Long shot	Male: jeans and coat Female: leggings coat	IPhone	Camera person Location manager Director Actors	Digital camera, batteries, tripod, memory card
	06.12.13	Car 13:00 pm	Arguing scene between male and female	Mid shot, Low angle	Male: jeans and coat Female: leggings coat	Car	Camera person Location manager Director Actors	Digital camera, batteries, tripod, memory card