Album Promotional Poster
Wednesday 23 April 2014
Feedback and Change to Final Video
My final video had Emma's recording track on. After discussing with my teachers and tutors asking for their advice on the product, due to the fact in parts the tuning wasn't completely perfect, we decided that it would be best to remove this vocal.
The following two videos show the change. As I do have a section in the video that needed women's vocals to match the footage I edited this back in for a couple of seconds on iMovie.
After change:
The following two videos show the change. As I do have a section in the video that needed women's vocals to match the footage I edited this back in for a couple of seconds on iMovie.
After change:
Evaluation Questions
After completing the planning and research stages of my A2 Media Studies requirements and also completing the three required final pieces, I have to write a formal written evaluation on my work and the process. The questions I am required to answer are the following:
- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
- How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
- What have you learned from your audience feedback?
- How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
I will be answering these using a variety of different media platforms.
Evaluation Question One: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I chose to produce a music promo package for an already established song. The song I chose was "Cody Simpson - On my mind". I took the original video and sound and remixed the narrative, the style and the genre of the song slightly through digital manipulations. I undertook planning and research stages to create my production and once finished the final version of my video uploaded it to Youtube.com. I then chose to create a six panel digipak for my fictional artist and a magazine advertisement to then help promote the products. Below I will evaluate my media texts on the effectiveness of use of conventions, how the products work cohesively and the use of digital media during all stages of production, I will contrast this with audience feedback.
The original song is very upbeat, bouncy, happy and about finding that person you have had on your mind for a sometime. The narrative of the video is Cody himself in a supermarket when with a group of friends finds a polaroid picture of a girl. He is then on a search with his friends to find this girl whilst you see the girl and her friends also in the supermarket. After advertising her face with a time and place to meet they come together at a theatre at the end.
I followed the original conventions of the original video slightly with the images of the love interest, the search and the ending of the two meeting however I haven't followed any of the camera shots, styling, mise en scene or the style of music either.
Before I started looking at other options such as using covers or replications of his own song from Cody I looked at iTunes and the acoustic pop that is available and the songs within them.
Music and Soundtrack
I chose to replace the original with the acoustic cover that Cody also performs with Tyler Ward. This is an unconventional thing to do in terms of replacing the pop classic with a cover however it fit the purpose of my concepts more and what I wanted to portray as a music video. I then made it more unconventional even further with the fact I adde extra layers of tracks onto this cover to add a female vocal.
This would be very unconventional and it is rarely done, therefore to make it conventional to my genre I added it on top and then portrayed it as a bonus track featuring a boy (Jamie) to make it make sense and connect as a package.
I feel this was successful and although isn't conventional to do with a music video felt it matched my work appropriately.
Witihin my music video I used a wide range of conventions to make my work look as professional as possible. As I have stated in my genre conventions post earlier in the year, there is always a connection and a link between the lyrics of the song and the visuals, this is common to keep a solid narrative. This also creates a link between the artist and the song selling not only the product to the audience but the artists too. Having the artist or an actor perform in the video is essential to sell the artist as an individual, the cinematography and editing used is usually related to the video and cut or shot in time with the beat. This allows the audience to connect with the dominant personality of the video. I have done this through a presentation to show you:
Camera Shots
My Main Influence - Romantic meeting video inspiration
Love Story was one of my inspirations for creating a fairytale daydream. When I was younger and saw this video I felt as though I wished I could be that princess like character in the video therefore I felt that this music video for my a2 piece was the perfect opportunity to pass on that feeling.
These are all conventional pop camera shots of a romantic meeting. Other video inspirations of mine were artists such as Katy Perry.
I looked at her video 'Thinking of You' This is where I got the inspiration to do my 180 degree pan shot.
Carly Rae Jepson - Tonight i'm getting over you
This is another inspirational video for the romantic meeting shots as, just like the Katy Perry and Taylor Swift shots, are conventional pop video shots. The arm wrap or hand on the cheek shots are the main features when you see a couple in a video that connotes a romantic connection.
I wanted to capture these moments that are conventional in the music videos I have looked at.
The meeting was different to the one in Taylor's music video as I wanted it this way. I wanted to see both people and both expressions when they came together as a duo. That way I could cut straight to a close up or a pan of the couple once they had met. I felt an over the shoulder shot wasn't as appropriate as the one I chose and filmed with a simple mode of address.
The holding of hands
The holding of the hands shot is something people find personal, when the fingers are interlinked people find it more of a passionate thing to do than hold with fingers closed. I did the close up of the hands after looking at not only Taylor Swift' music video but also Demi Lovato - Give your heart a break. I felt this video showed the hands in a very nice position however for my context of narrative and the situation of my talent it was best to have a more subtle approach. I added a cross dissolve with my hand image, a close up and a more zoomed out shot to emphasise the coming together of their hands. Following the narrative she doesn't know him in reality as more than a passer by she has a lot of feelings for therefore a full embrace of the two would be slightly off course for my narrative and could portray relationship characteristics.
The final image I looked at when planning for the end of my music video was the shot of the realisation. Taylor swift has her own realisation here as she sees her love interest outside of the location she met him in. In the narratives case this is similar however in different situations. Although the print screen of Taylor view doesn't portray it very well, they both have good endings.
This is another strong convention of Pop music videos, they have happy endings. This is due to the upbeat and positive nature they portray to their audience. Pop artist can generally be followed, idolised and listened to by extremely young ages therefore they, as role models, wouldn't be able to provide negative views all the time as in that particular industry they wouldn't make money.
The whole first section of my music video didn't come from looking at any other ideas or other peoples music video's. I understood pop conventions through camera shots of getting specifically the close ups of the situation to describe the narrative and took my knowledge into my own hands. Following no storyboard due to a sudden change of plan, no previously created work and no inspiration apart from my imagination this time, I went about the videos with the attitude of 'Would I like to see that on a screen? Would I watch it again? Does it show expression and describe the narrative enough?'
I used the stereotypical mise en scene of a college to film the drop of the books/papers footage. For many years this trick has been used in romantic comedy's to true chick flicks along side music videos all the time. It is a way for one person to get eye contact with another whilst picking up the items after a nervous drop or fall of props. I wanted to include this as it is featured in things that all age groups will be aware of therefore people will think they will know whats coming ahead, that's when the plot twist of the dream comes in.
Colleges, schools and hallways are very common. They are often used as a 'do not do' instruction for many students as they are repeated over and over again. I was fully aware of this however as a convention of the style of narrative, video, genre and setting the school hallways was perfect for my knock of the papers footage.
I found this video after creating my video and uploading it to my page as it showed up in similar videos, this has the type of drop I had in mind when creating my music video:
I used this idea and came up with the closing and opening of the eyes in my narrative as the lyrics also correspond to the actions I have created for them.
Polaroid Ideas, Research and Editing
When thinking about how I was going to involve Lily's (Elle's) feelings for her love interest in the view on a slightly extreme level and came up with the diary I wanted to include the technique I used in my transition task or similar to portray this. One Direction performed something similar in their video of old family photographs. They used the originals and produced the same setting but with the characters in the photographs later grown up, This was then pushed further to come to life, see video at 0:54:00 seconds.
Another way I could of portrayed this to match others conventions is how I made my starter task of the year with Katie Smith. We created polaroids physically with card and then took photographs of them, We then put the videos we recorded inside them via the editing suites to make it look as if the photograph was playing. One character was frozen inside and the artist was performing around them.
I felt this would of worked well however as I didn't want the videos to replicate memories but for them to replicate the imagination I needed a different way of looking at it.
To not be conventional and for my video to challenge conventions I produced drawing type images in the polaroids as if Elle as Lily had drawn them and then played them in her head of what could of happened between the couple. I deliberately did this and explained this through the use of colour to my audience. Very dull, almost black and white being reality and colour being the dream.
I chose to use the drawing on a polaroid and the Zoom editing in Final Cut Pro on my macbook to make it look as if the audience are physically getting zoomed into the picture to see what happens. I also did this so that the camera is on an eye line match of the diary.
Colour
I used colour in my video to represent different periods of time, different locations, situations and the different between Elle's imagination as Lily and the reality that she lives.
I thought showing my video this way will make my complicated narrative hopefully easier to understand with this concept. I felt that changing conventions in pop music videos will make it more interesting. As I already challenged the conventions of a pop music video with my sub genre cover and extra vocal layer on the soundtrack, in order to keep that slight sub genre and it making sense I was therefore going to have to edit my video so that it backs up both sides. The main genre being Pop but a slight input from independent sources with the type of acoustic sound.
I think the colours therefore represent this.
I chose not to use full black and white as I felt that this would deflect some elements of my video and not highlight them such as the diary and the papers at school, the costumes slightly from the two of them also was something I didn't want to burn out.
I used colour in my video to represent different periods of time, different locations, situations and the different between Elle's imagination as Lily and the reality that she lives.
I thought showing my video this way will make my complicated narrative hopefully easier to understand with this concept. I felt that changing conventions in pop music videos will make it more interesting. As I already challenged the conventions of a pop music video with my sub genre cover and extra vocal layer on the soundtrack, in order to keep that slight sub genre and it making sense I was therefore going to have to edit my video so that it backs up both sides. The main genre being Pop but a slight input from independent sources with the type of acoustic sound.
I think the colours therefore represent this.
I chose not to use full black and white as I felt that this would deflect some elements of my video and not highlight them such as the diary and the papers at school, the costumes slightly from the two of them also was something I didn't want to burn out.
Editing
The most commonly used conventional editing techniques that feature in pop music videos are jump cutting. This is so that when an artist swaps locations from one place to a completely different place is it normal to do so and the audience would not question it as it is a convention. Jump cuts are better at making the locations stand out rather than using transitions in editing such as a cross dissolve or fade which would blend the two locations together. Reaction shots are captures, slowed down and sped up in the editing process to express the relationship between two or more characters. Another important convention is that the pace of the editing goes in conjunction with the movement, This means it would be in sync with the beat of the track so the music video fits well with the music.
A convention also of music videos is the editing of the artist, due to me not having the software to be able to do that to a great deal or not having the skills to be capable of doing so I applied makeup an adjusted hair as I went along in my shooting. I wanted a very natural look on Elle and Jamie as they both are portrayed still fairly young in the video possibly around the age of 16/17. It is a very young based video therefore having harsh makeup and dark images passes off the wrong idea and wrong ideologies of my talent.
I did boost my colours in the video to a high saturation for the dream and -0.82 on iMovie for colour reduction in the reality sections.
Digipak
- Barcode
- Copyright Infringements
- Artist Webpage
- Dates of year
- Label logos
- Tracklist
- Album Title
As seen in 'The Making of my Ancillary Text'
This back cover from Britney spears was my inspiration for the back cover of my own digipak.
I used the bottom set of copyright information as a guide as to what to write on my own to make it look professional and keep verisimilitude between my design and other pieces people use in the industry. I first positioned the writing on a side as I thought it would be most beneficial in this area however later changed it again back to its original position due to the use of space and using the digipak template net measurements.
The measurements were then fitted and the composition of the piece was shifted for this to match a professional digipak by the net.
I made sure whilst creating my CD's I had full logos, emblems, copyright messages and information on to make my products look as professional as possible.
In order to be able to create a professional looking CD to go inside my digipak I researched music labels (see other post for Chosen Music Label.) I wanted to create a realistic digipak that could be sold in shops as a product that could fit in with a pop genre however have an alternative styling edge to it. I have created my CD's with the following products:
I also knew from previous research that Michael Jackson was also signed to the label Epic which is my chosen record label a subsidiary of Sony. The smaller label has some of the biggest well known artist in the work therefore I knew all their work would look professional. I took from this the style of the emblem and coding on the right hand side.
I want my work to mimic an original disk therefore by finding logos or creating with the text tool I was able to compose one of my own that is original.
The CD template I found on www.wizbit.com above was a huge help for me because I didn't know how to set out a CD before taking on this task. After googling and finding the wizbit disk I knew exactly where to place my imagery and text. With this in mind I started to design my copyright writing with the use of pathways on Photoshop CS6.
I did this on the inside of the disk rim, I put the copyright signs on the inside due to this been the conventional thing to do on a CD.
The disks from Sony also feature the collection of writing, symbols and emblem logos on the right hand side therefore this is where I placed mine. I used the logos below to collaborate and compose them as a group on my disk. I have used this on both my CD's however in different places due to the detail on my disk photography.
Tracklist conventions;
All information is on 'Creating my Tracklist'. The track list I created was fully inspired by likes of my favourite pop artists. I searched their albums in google to find all of the names of every track ever written by them in their albums. I found this very useful as I could browse all of the names and as well as make my own up, I could look for inspiration or take romantic or life related track names to build up my playlist. I looked at Britney Spears's album back to set this out before going to dafont,com to retrieve font styles to manipulate them in Photoshop.
Front Cover Conventions:
I made sure I followed conventional characteristics of my genre in my front cover however believe that my sub genre of an alternative acoustic came more into this through my personality. Generally the front cover of a digipak has an eye catching image that is connected to the lyrics of the album, the track list or the artist themselves. I did exactly this. I featured Elle, as Lily, on the front of the cover using mixed media techniques. I used photography along side photoshop digital manipulation and illustration of my own combined to create an image of her I was able to use for my cover. Inspirations for my front cover were:
As a graphic designer I love this style of work as it mixes my favourite types of platform/mediums together. I love the colour involved in the one above however knew I wanted to keep mine subtle and with in a house style that I chose of black, white, gold and the occasional use of red.
Following these illustrative design conventions of the sub genre I collaborated with my pop piece I drew my own ideas coming out of Elle's head. These are mixed media based also after being digitally manipulated into photoshop. I wanted to, like the one above, show the girls personality and imagination through the image, following the conventions I feel I have done this successfully.Poster:
I didn't particularly have any inspirations for my poster I simply worked with what fit however felt it would be best to use one photographic image to catch the eye of my audience but not using anything too graphic. Simple but effective was the approach I was going for. I knew that Ellie Goulding's poster had this convention therefore I looked at her work before constructing mine.
I set my image and title similar to Ellie's and then worked my own work around them in Photoshop CS6. I looked at existing posters, also that are on my blog, and found the most common conventions to place on an album release poster. These were a rating of some sort from a company, where it is available to purchase from, a quote about the album or digipak, the release date, music label logo and a web address for the artists. I therefore made sure I had all of these on my product.
I positioned it and added colour to at least two parts of the text on the poster as I felt that this stood out and the colour was following my house style keeping continuity. I felt if I promote the artists webpage and the release date in the colour this is what the audience are going to look at first if this was eye level on a poster.To test this theory I put the poster into various locations to see if it would be eye catching enough to the audience, this is conventional for posters to be advertised for promotion. I felt these images were most appropriate for my work as that is where they could be advertised in real life situations.
Evaluation Question Two: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary text?
Digipak
For my digipak I have used a structure following the theme of the imagination. I drew out the front cover alongside using mixed media to create the backing of my actress and the titles. I drew this, this way so that there was a wide variety of things that young girls think about being symbolised; love, affection, chance connoted by the pack of cards, roses to connote romance, an anchor to connect family roots as well as actions to define the passion inside her album and in the song I have used for my music video 'On My Mind'. I chose to use this mode of address as it relates to the audience as consumers and I feel that placing the drawings above her head and composing it the way I did will show the fact she is thinking of them, I chose Imagine as my album title for that very reason. I believed that Imagine was a great title for my promotional package due to the fact that is what people in my target audience age group tend to do. I felt it had a pure anchorage to the word and clearly defines my packages and each product. Ages ranging from 16-26 are the ages that people are most likely to enjoy their time exploring the world, looking for fun and expanding in their future careers. It is a time to find love before settling down with a family for most.I wanted to use and create a video like this because it appeals to the younger generation as it is a fairytale like video with a soft pop genre. An alternative sub-genre perhaps due to the conventions taken from both genres. I also feel this could appeal to the older generation because it is very stereotypical and the actor and actress in my video is not of a young age, I feel this could work in my advantage and relate to consumers around the similar age group of late teenagers. I think that my media texts have a strong ideology due to the content, appeal of consumers and the group source of the steoreotype; Pop individuals.
Music exists in many forms and has become not only the essence of auditory curiosity but something that has manipulated and influenced people in a visual sense. These musical traits when combined drives stereotypes to exist, indifferent to society and its ways. Music affects what people like and how they look and act. As Levitin puts it in This Is Your Brain on Music, “Each musical genre has its own set of rules and its own form. The more we listen, the more those rules become instantiated in memory” (233). What Levitin is saying is that as we listen to certain music, our moods, actions, and appearance will develop certain characteristics or rules that pertain to a type of music. Stereotypes are inescapable but necessary for people if they choose to use them as a learning experience about the world around them. Tessa Perkins, steoreotypes theorist (1979) quoted one of her five identified assumptions that not all stereotypes are negative. I do not feel that the stereotype that I have conveyed to my audience of the POP stereotype as a negative one. By using a fairytale style video with a feminine gaze I feel I have successfully shown the stereotype for the romantic pop consumers and it will relate to existing products such as Taylor Swift - Love Story.
I enjoyed working with a chosen soundtrack with my personal alterations as it fitted two genres. This gave me a chance to explore both media texts and make something very different and striking to both of the genres instead of sticking to just one style of media text. The mixing of the genres is uncommon realistically in the music industry however main artists still do this, their work is seen sometimes as a type of collectable or rare merchandise for things such as my ancillary text as it is not seen that often.
I have created a music video promo, a digipak and a magazine advert in support of the video release. I attempted to create an effective combination between all three products by giving them shared elements for example the font. I used dafont.com for my prime use of texts before further manipulating them in Photoshop CS6. I wanted to set two styles therefore I felt these two styles
would be most appropriate for what I wanted to do. Although on paper here they do not look as if they would go I felt they could connect if the top font was smaller and would be used for subheadings. I also felt I could use this for her name whilst I could use the bottom font for my artists album title.
It is very important to keep continuity in house style therefore for all the the production I stuck to using these two fonts from dafont.com only. I also needed a font style for the CD copyright statements therefore I used Cambria for those sections of my ancillary text. I have used Cambria throughout all of my work as I felt it is also, alongside the dafont texts, a professional looking text that doesn't have Serif features such as the curls in the letters but a straight forward sharp cut lettering style that is clear for the audience to read with a simple structure.
I chose these fonts over the rest as I felt it related to my music video well with it being a feminine style, delicate with a gentle storyline I didn't want to chose a dark, bold font as this wouldn't of been as effective as it is with my chosen ones now.
The bottom font I used for my titles I feel has an edge to it. The swirls connote dream like characteristics as it fits with the stereotypes of people twirling or falling into dreams seen in things such as Alice in Wonderland. I believed it was effective to join all three of my products together with as it is a very decorative font that resembles female features.
Another thing I wanted to connect together was the colour scheme of all of my three products. After
I used simple colours and added an element of art to express the power yet simplicity of the texts. Unlike many pop texts the pose of my artist is elegant yet describes the narrative clearly.
My location I believe is what pieces my three products together the most. The fact I went to great lengths to be able to produce the dream/fairytale like scenes with the costumes that they both were wearing really makes the piece more extravagant to the eye and could possibly be the element what makes the audience want to watch it again. The location building colour matches my colour scheme, there are a lot of woodland, trees and a big lake to set the scene of being in the country side and also there is the fountain that I have set my actress in front of at the beginning of my dream section. All this mise en scene collaborated with my narrative is what gave me the ideas I had to create the ancillary the way I did. I feel that I have successfully made the package as a whole effective with the use of conventions, colour scheme, house style and mise en scene.
After having completed my digipak, see 'The Making of My Ancillary Text' I had to reopen the PSD files in photoshop of my finished pieces, flatten the images so that all the layers were in one place and I then copied the picture and pasted it on my template and edit>scale>transform so that it would fit in the box. I did this for all sections but had to resize several images so that they were not stretched or to large.
The combination of my main product, ancillary text digipak and promotional poster in the reality could lead to cross form synergy or cross media convergence, This means different types of media coming together to create related merchandise for example. My products have a running house style of the gold scheme in all three products therefore you can tell as music package that they all fit together and come from the same album "Imagine". This house style then becomes a recognisable product and fans and audiophiles see them as a collectable of their favourite artists. I feel that all three of my products would work on the pop market and also possibly the alternative market as they are sophisticated but still show the youth that I am portraying in the music video to represent my target audience; the texts would sell well in my opinion due to it having a very different approach on the genre that is uncommon for the pop industry to see.
My target audience are in social group E so I would price my Digipak at £11.99 which is an affordable price for teens aged 16-24. I as a teen in this age category and demographic wouldn't probably buy an album for more than this price unless it was a special occasion or I got paid from a part time job because a lot of people in this category are students. Students have little money to live on after paying fees therefore I feel this price would be appropriate enough for this selected demographic. I would advertise my video and soundtrack on iTunes for £2.99 again an affordable price for the single choice on what they would like to view. My poster would feature in magazines such as Billboard; big pop magazines so that they attract a wider audience meaning larger artists recognition selling more merchandise products etc.
Evaluation Question Three: What have you learned from your audience feedback?
To gain feedback on my three products I created I wanted to ask at least five questions on my work before I completed my whole video. This is based upon my last draft before completing it.
The questions I first set up to retrieve before I completed my final version were:
- How old are you? (What demographic do you fit into?)
- How effective do you find all three of my products together?
- What do you think my narrative is?
- What could I do to improve my video?
- Would you watch it again?
I got two eighteen year olds doing the same course as me to first evaluate my work due to the fact they understand media terminology and I wanted to capture a perspective from somebody who knows what processed I have been through before I ask people who are new to the software, style and projects I go through to get to a final piece.
From this information they gave me I was more than happy to take the feedback on board and work on my version final a2 music video. The five questions that I set gave me an overall evaluation of the draft to give me enough information to produce a final piece that will be more improved. Once I had finished my video I then produced another set of questions that were more developed that I sent across social networking in order to get feedback on my work in more detail. The questions I designed for the draft were then short enough for me to turn into a survey via surveymonkey.com. This was a huge advantage for me because then it meant that I could transfer, work on and send the survey via a link. I felt this Wyke Sixth Form College to take the short survey to give me ideas and information on what to improve on. I took a video of Brandon and Lauren because I felt this would give me more of an understanding if I could talk to them about it, also in detail once the video had ended. I was more aware then of what I needed to do to create a successful final video.
The questions that I have created with the six responses on them:
My Responses:
There were three main points that I took from the improvements of media music video feedback, these were; making the narrative clearer and editing or adding a new overlay on the soundtrack. There was a suggestion in the feedback about how to make the narrative clearer by inputting a section of my actress looking at her love interest and watching him without him knowing. To see this from an audience's point of view it would make the narrative I intentionally created for my video more understandable.
The soundtrack however is something that I would have to retake however as I only had time to record emma's voice recording within the last week of the deadline this wouldn't be possible to retake unfortunately. This is due to recording Annie's voice the first couple of times over christmas.
The fact that nobody said they wouldn't watch my video again is a good sign and shows that people have enjoyed the piece that I have created. This has made me happy about my product and hopefully after finishing the full video and then getting more feedback from my final video I will be able to feel more confident about my final piece, if the results are similar.
Once I had completed my video I posted it to Youtube. In order to get a more detailed set of feedbacks from people I looked at people's work from the year above me to see what they had asked people about their products they made. This gave me an insight into what I could write alongside the comments and questions I already had prepared. I looked at Jennie Brighton's blog, a previous Wyke College media student and she gave me ideas on what to ask about the products as a package and the poster. For example if all the information was visible that is needed on the poster and if the package as if the three products all reflect one another.
I created another survey on survey monkey.com about my finished product and the outcomes of it. Once I put all my questions into a survey I sent the survey out via a link that people go click and go directly to answer my questions. I posted this on the social media sites Twitter.com and Facebook.com, I also posted it to friends though private inboxed to see if they would do the survey for me.
I created the survey for my final video on survey monkey. The link is the following.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5V7P2HV
My Final Video:
The questions I put into the survey:
1. Are you male or female?
2. How old are you?
3. After watching the music video I have made what do you think the story (narrative) is of the music video?
4. Do you think the music video reflects the lyrics of the song?
5. What genre do you think the music video is?
6. Did you enjoy watching the music video? If not, what would you improve about my video?
7. Would you buy my music video on iTunes?
8. After looking at my Digipak do you think it reflects the music video and the song? If yes how?
9. Does the magazine advertisement include all of the information you would need? If not what's missing?
10. Does the music video, digipak and magazine advertisement all show continuity and reflect one another?
My responses from the survey:
I have learnt that my final promotional package is a successful piece of work that I believe I could sell as a real product due to reading the feedback that I have received from peers on surveymonkey.com. With 77% of my audience feedback being from females I had to take into account that it could be biased opinions as my video, from an outsiders point of view is seen as being targeted more at a female audience. The fairytale type video is something that girls would be more appealed to therefore I tried to get more males to answer my survey never the less people were too busy so I have to result with what I had from the ten feedbacks.
Due to my target audience being quite a wide age I sent my surveys to my social networking sites as that is the age group that I have as friends. This means that I am directing messaging my target audience which my video to get feedback from. There was one older selections within my feedback but the majority were all the same age as me; 16-18 years of age.
The narrative even after the adjustments after the draft was still debatable to my audience and there were mixed reviews. I learnt that people thought my talent complimented one another and for my genre and the soundtrack the narrative fit perfectly. However there was still mixed opinions about my final narrative due to the polaroid images in the diary, that represent the drawings and the images she wants in later life. The two opinions from the drafts still lie, one being "The girl is having flash backs of being with him and remembering there memories" and the other being "Love story, imagining someone popular would notice her. Fantasy fairytale"
Both of these narrative could work for my storyline however the second is the one that I chose to stage in my video. I learnt from this feedback that if I were to recreate or edit this video I would have to change this section and add something else such as her watching him, for the audience to grasp the full narrative I wanted to portray to them.
All of my responses came back with a yes to the next question which is the relationship of the lyrics and the video and if this is reflected. I am happy about this because once I changed narratives I had to revisit this and try work around the problem of having to connect the two together. I sat with the lyrics when I was mind mapping my video and thinking about what I could put in them. A technique I used was shutting my eyes and just listening to the song, see what came up and what I imagined. This is how I work in all art subjects and do the same in Dance to create my routines. It worked well for me and is how I produced a video connected to the lyrics. Due to the responses being positive for that question I learnt that I have been successful in that area of study.
I was very surprised with the responses to the question I asked about what genre people though my music video was. I tried to catch people out in the question as it is focused on a pop genre however I have alternative/indie elements within it. This making it a sub genre. I got one response back saying it would be a dance genre however I did not include any dance genre conventions in the video such as performance or a dance track. I felt that this therefore made me think about what people think mades each genre their genre and what makes them all individual to one another.
I asked my audience about what they thought I could improve on in my music video. Although there isn't time to make actual adjustments to the video I felt it was necessary to include so that I could find out what people would change about it. Over all a lot of people said they wouldn't change anything however I did get some individual responses that helped me. One said the fairytale section was particularly strong and that I should use more of that next time which was my favourite part to organise, film and edit. I have learnt that locational and mise en scene are my strongest points in media studies. I love mise en scene, pushing the boundaries with where I can film, what I can film and what costume and props to include in my shoots. This is also the case for photography as well, learning that I am strongest in this area if I were to make another piece this is the area I would stress in my video.
All but one person in my survey said they would buy the music video on iTunes. This made me wonder if it would of been one of the males in the survey due to the fact there are comments on each box that are slightly more critical and feel knowing most of the people who took my survey one of the males would be more prominent to do this. The video isn't to every bodies taste due to the corny style that I have decided to film it in. That is something people deal with on a day to day basis though, products not being to everybody's liking because everyone has different wants, needs, opinions and styles.
I asked my audience if my digipak reflected my music video and song. If it did then how did it, this was successful for me as I got to learn other peoples opinions on a work that I feel I have performed the strongest on. The responses here are the ones I felt most confident in a reflected exactly what I set out to show the audience. "Yes, I love the mix between the images and the drawings, it shows an alternative but eye catching style. It works well with the video because it matches the style and the house style there is. The colours and characters poses reflect the main video genre."
"Definitely. The world you created in your music video is portrayed in your artwork, the theme of fantasy and dreaming is ever present. It also compliments the sweet and innocent love song you have chosen to use."
The ninth question I asked the audience was if my magazine advertisement had all of the information
on that is needed for them to either purchase the product or find the product somewhere. All of the products said yes to this question however one made a comment about something optional I could add. I didn't think about this at the time of creation never the less it is a good idea and I could possibly think about using it most definitely."Yes, optional but a mini version of the album cover to full link both both products together." To put the cd front cover on the magazine would connect all three items together and it could also show consumers exactly what they're looking for in the shop or online and then they don't have to search for it. I learnt here that I would be saving time for potential customers and that I could try a design with the new style if I moved around the current layout of the magazine advert.
I asked the final question which was if all three of my products showed continuity and flows as a package (all reflected one another) I feel from all the responses I have had they do very much so. The comment here made me feel this especially as it is exactly what I was aiming for when creating the products: "Yes! The layout is interesting with the use of space around the character makes her the main focus point. The information is also clear and easily understandable." In conclusion I think that from the comments gathered from my surveys I produced as well as the videos I took of my peers I have produced a professional looking set of works that from my feedback I could later develop at a more advanced stage. I feel I have planned and executed my work well to others and produced a solid final piece that I could sell to the public.
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