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

During the process of our coursework we used a wide variety of new media technologies. The internet was the most useful in terms of research, planning and evaluation my coursework. I began with useful search engines such as Google and Bing to find out about the artist, the genre and similar artists. Wikipedia was also an important website we used to find out about Kate miller Heidke, the awards shes won and her previous musical history.

A picture of us during the research stage

After this process of biography research, we wanted to find music videos of Kate Miller Heidke and the other artists we researched. The obvious choice was Youtube where there are over 67.5 million users in the U.S.A alone. I also wanted to listen to these artists reuglarly and listen to their albums, so i downloaded Spotify and became a member of Last FM - where i could listen to more unique individual artists.

The first part of planning my music video meant that i had to take pictures of where i was filming and the actors i would choose to play my part. I took these pictures using a compact digital camera and then uploaded them onto the blog. We then wrote out our initial ideas on photoshop to make it easier to upload on the blog. After this we decided to make story boards to further plan out our initial ideas and to make sure i could display them on the blog i used a scanner.

When the contruction stage took place we used an Sony HD camera, a tripod and a dolly. This meant we could get the best shots possibe without any shakes, as well as stready pans, zooms and tilts. Once we had all the footage we needed it was time for the editing stage, where we used two different programmes - imovie and final cut pro. They were easy to get used to, but because of the vast amount of footage we had, the editing seemed daunting. We started the video with quick jump cutting of Abi moving around the bench, making sure that each cut was on the beat of the song. This is an important convention of any music video that we feel we followed. Furthermore we faced problems during the editing process because our footage was not good enough to fill the narrative part of the film. However this was then combatted when we filmed again getting the footage we needed.

After most of the film was done, we concentrated on the construction of the CD cover and advertisement. For this we used Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, both programmes we had never used before and therefore was new to the whole process. The first part was taking the pictures that we wanted, we used the Sony HD camera to take the pictures so that it was easy to upload. We took pictures of a close up of Abi's face, a picture of the three girls together and then many pictures of Abi around the pitch for the inside cover. After this we uploaded them onto the brand new macs that have been very useful during the whole coursework process. We got used to the two programmes and started the front cover of the digipack - adding the close up of Abi's face and the three girls together in the background. After we complelted our first drafe we felt it needed change and so changed the font and made the overall cover lighter. The inside cover was the next target adding all the photos of Abi around the pitch - resulting in lots of layers,because of the number pictures we added. After this was done we had to stretch the photo to fit the double page of the digipack. The new technologies we used for creating the digipack and advertisement certainly helped us to creat two proffesional products.

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

When contemplating initial ideas for our music video it was very important that we focused on the main theme of the song and the style of the characters and mis-en-scene. This style certainly develops many forms and conventions of other music videos that are of a similar style. The mis-en-scene is obviously a huge part of any music video and with this done poorly a music video can look unprofessional and will not fit the style of the song. We feel that we concentrated a lot on the mis-en-scene, however there were some parts that we did not pay enough attention to.


Conventions of a CD cover of a similar genre ¬
Previously in the blog I have looked at CD covers such as Lady GaGa and La Roux that I feel that I have used, developed and challenged. Here are further examples of similar CD covers that show the conventions of the pop genre.


Conventions we used for the CD cover


• As you can see we have used many conventions from both the La roux album and lady GaGa. In all four-album covers there head takes up most of the cover. We used this convention too some respect by having a close up of Abi on the left side of the album cover. Making them the main part of the cover therefore makes the artists very noticeable.
• Another convention we used was the choice of font and how we purposely selected it to suit the rest of the album. The font of Lady Gaga’s album certainly suits it’s celebrity style and so we choose a quirky font to match the quirky style of the song and music video.
• Another convention of an album cover we used was the position of the singer. When looking at other artists it was more often than not centred either at the top or bottom of the cover. Although this may seem obvious many artists choose to position the title in a different place due to the picture or even not have their name on the front cover at all.
• The back cover was also pretty conventional with the song list taking up most of the space on the front cover and the picture not really being very important. The song list is obviously the most important part of the back cover and therefore the font choice and colour is again very important – it needs to be readable but also stand out. We feel that our back cover does this. We made sure that the writing was readable by making it a standard white and making sure none of the background distorted the writing.
• The barcode and extra information is also an important feature of any back cover and is therefore why we added that. We made sure there was enough room for these features by altering the song list.




Conventions we developed & challenged for the CD cover


• The background of our album cover has challenged many other artists in the same genre who have simply just used a plain colour with some lighting, it is not very noticeable and instead the artist is made the centre of attention. However on the other album covers the background is certainly not very noticeable. Therefore we challenged the convention of the background by making it an important scenic shot. This is very different to the other albums – La Roux’s is a simple red background. Compared to ours where we used a sketchy effect from photoshop on a scenic background of tress and part of the hockey pitch. Obviously the lighting of our cover is used in photoshop and we feel it looks very effective. The gradient tool was used regularly to add lighting from different angles – adding a natural sunlight to the front cover.
• We also developed other album covers of the same genre by adding three secondary characters that were used in the music video to display Abi as unpopular & clumsy. However this personality is not really seen in our album cover because it was only the theme in one song and not a recurring theme. The same can be said in Kate Miller Heidke video of The Last Day on the Earth in which the video follows a lonely theme which is not seen on the album cover (Little Eve) – which is colourful.
• We also developed the convention of the back cover by adding Kate Miller Heidke’s name in same colour and font as on the front cover. We did not find many artists had done this and thought that it added more to the back cover.


Conventions of a Advertisement of a similar genre

As you can see our advert shows some similarities to that of Lady Gaga and other pop artists.

Conventions of a Pop Music Video


We challenged the conventions of a music video by having a unique idea which we have related to the text. To challenge the conventions of the kind of character you would have in a music video we chose to have our main character as a clumsy outsider who can’t play hockey. This contrasts to the usual hit music videos that have attractive young woman as the main focus of the video. Such as, Brtiney Spears;

 
Mis-en-scene –We used costumes to symbolise how Abi was left out of the group of girls who wear all wearing the same outfit. Abi is left in the changing room deciding what to wear as she wasn’t good enough to wear the same kit as the other three girls. This was subverting the typical genre of pretty girls always fitting in and being popular because Abi the main actress is attractive yet still disclosed from the group. We also used different colour hair bands as the tempo of the music and the different colours of Abi’s tops added colour to the costumes. We used natural lighting outside and when we filmed in the changing room it was slightly dimmer to contrast with the natural outside lighting. We used the conventions of a typical actress from music videos to create the look of the girls playing hockey. With lots of make up and the main girl having eye shadow and rave paint on her face. We did this to show the video was to do with fitting in and how the main girl tried to copy the others so they would accept her.  
Setting – As our video was based around hockey we filmed outside on the hockey pitch and in the changing room.

Editing – As the music was fast paced and it had a strong beat throughout the song we had to speed up some of clips to go with the beat. Such as when Abi was hitting the ball and when she was walking down to the pitch. This is an alternative we used instead of cutting out irrelevant information we sped it up to make it go with the music and the temp of the song. We also edited certain scenes so Abi moved position on every beat to add variety to the shots. As it is very conventional for music videos to jump cut to the beat of the song we did this in our video. We also sped some images up and put them in a different order to create variety and avoid repetitive shots.

Camerawork – We used a variety of shots in our music video such as ariel shots to look down on Abi as she was singing the lyrics, cutting to close ups and shots from the side of her. We varied our shots outside with full shots of the pathway to close ups of the stick. These are typical conventions from pop music videos which are used to create a fast paced, fun and easy to watch video. Another typical convention of a music video is the cut from a long shot of the character to a close up of the singing. We used this convention while Abi was in the changing room. 

Comparison with other Music videos
Girls Can't Catch - Keep Your Head Up

Girls Can’t Catch | MySpace Music Videos   

We feel that this music video by Girls Can't Catch is a good way to show how we have used and challenged conventions of a pop music video. Conventions that we used that are also clear in this video are the close up's of the main singer or singers to represent the main character(s). Furthermore the fast editing pace in both our music video and Girls Can't Catch shows the theme of competing in both music video's. Another convention that is clear we used is the setting - which was obviously very important to set the scene and the plot of the music video. Costumes in both our video and Girls Can't Catch is a further necessity and convention we used.

However there are also conventions we challenged in our music video - most obviously (as previously mentioned) the blonde, good looking girl being unpopular and clumsy throughout the music video. This is obviously challenging other famous pop videos where the Main singer is the most popular girl showing attitude and dancing etc. This is certainly shown in many of Brittany Spears music videos where she shows star image and voyeurism. Furthermore we again challenged a convention seen in many pop videos by having no boys with the girls and instead only including girls. This convention can be very important in pop videos to further show the main characters popularity. Both these conventions we challenged are certainly shown in Brittany Spear's most famous pop video "Hit me Baby One More Time"

 

Advertisement and CD cover conclusion – The most important aspect of the advertisement and CD cover is that it’s the first thing peoples eye are drawn to. Using bright colours and an attractive girl on the front ensures that the socio demographic group we were aiming the CD at are attracted to it. We used bold writing and an interesting font so you could see the artist clearly. We also put the singer on the front cover so people would recognise the singer, this is done with millions of CD covers. For example;  

We also used the background of the girls in the background to show some background to the songs and the music video. We used synergy by having the advertisement the same background and lots of images of the main singer. We also used the same font to advertise it so people would be able to see it in the shops and see the similarities.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

With 100% of people saying that they enjoyed the music video and 16 out of 18 people giving it a 7 or 8 out of 10 the analysis of our feedback started off well. However, 70 % of people who watched our film were between 15 and 24 which meant that we wouldn’t get a broad amount of feedback from different ages. However, this doesn’t affect our audience feedback as our main target audience is 15 – 24 years of age.

As there is a higher percentage of men who watched our video this might mean that the feedback would be different if there was an even amount of male and female, however, this didn’t effect our results too much as many of the males agreed on aspects of our music video for example, that the theme match the song pace and style.

Due to the music video only getting 90% yes’ for the song matching our theme we relooked at our music video and changed some clips so that the clips changed on the beat so the music flowed more with the video. We then filmed more shots of the main actress Abi, giving it a more defined storyline so the theme would come together more.

As our music video is very fast paced with very quick editing it was hard to keep the music in sync with the singing. This is our biggest down fall in our video with only roughly 12% of the audience saying it was in sync and roughly 80% of people saying that it was mostly in sync with the music. This feedback was useful as we then went back to redo some of the music video which may have been slightly out of time to make the music video look more professional.

This pie chart shows that nearly half of our audience thinks that the main actors are the most important aspect of a music video and then the editing and then the setting. It was interesting to see that no one thought that the costume was an important aspect of a music video. I thought it was essential to have all the girls in the exact same outfits to make the video look more realistic but seeing the results I now realise that I should have concentrated more on the main actor and the setting than the costumes.

When asked what the most important aspects of a music video the audience thought that editing was the by far the most important. The results of the “two aspects which could be improved on” are reflected positively on this front because only 2 votes went towards editing. This shows that the editing of the video was successful and did not need to be improved on. The audience voted that costumes were the least essential aspect in a music video however, they this was the 3rd aspect that they thought should be improved in our video. This could show that on whole our music video was at a good standard and they therefore targeted the smaller aspects of the video i.e. the costumes. Even though 90% of the audience said earlier on in the questionnaire that the song went with the theme of the music video, the storyline came top on aspects to improve. This feedback shows that the feedback was inconsistent, however, when looking at our music video we decided to agree with the audience’s feedback. To make the music video have more of a story we changed a few scenes around and filmed the main character (Abi,) looking at the clock and then running down to the pitch to meet the girls. We also moved forward the scene where she couldn’t decide on what to wear to emphasise Abi struggling to fit in with the girls.

Due to the statistics earlier on in the questionnaire I was suspecting lip syncing to be the aspect the audience thought we most needed to work on, however, it was the 4th out of 7 aspects to be improved on. Camerawork was voted in just behind this. I thought this was accurate as we had a lot of variety in shots with close ups and different angles for this not to be one of the most important aspects for us to improve on.

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

The three products work very well together due to the fact that they compliment the main theme seen in the video and meet many of the conventions of the genre. We decided to carry on the theme of hockey within the album and advertisement to make the ancillary texts even more recognisable with the same costumes, characters and setting used in all three. Although all three products follow the same style, we feel that they will still be very interesting and relevant to our audience.

This is first of all obvious with the clear link between the video and the front cover of the album. Where we used a close up picture of Abi with the pink top and blue headband (also used in our music video) and a long shot of the girls who also featured a lot in the video. This direct link shows the audience that they can immediately recognise and link with the group of people in the video or album cover. Keeping the costumes the same was also a key part of the project and further shows that our three texts are very effective with the use of synergy. However problems were faced during filming – we lost the blue headband. Although it was not a vital part of the video it meant we could not use a different headband unless we changed the whole costume, so we did. To combat this problem and still make sure there was not problems with continuity we made it seem like our actress had just changed instead. This effect actually worked very well and adds a nice effect to the video. 

Moreover the inside cover, advertisement and one scene in the video all follow the same effect to further show that our combination of products is effective. The effect is many different pictures of our actress in different poses on the hockey pitch in her recognisable yellow and purple hockey kit. By using adobe photoshop it meant that we could cut out each individual picture of Abi and put them all in the same background, creating the effect that they were all on different parts of pitch in different poses. As you can see the inside cover and advertisement are very similar to again make our artist recognisable. 

When comparing how other well known artists of the same genre use synergy on their products we found out that they took the same approach as us. We rarely found any that used a different theme or style/font when comparing album covers with posters.

This is so that their target audience can recognise the link between the advertisement and album cover to make sure they will buy it. Here are some well known artists who use synergy with their products. 

As you can see the comparison between the Black Eyed Peas album – The END is almost identical. The exact same image and font our used and the only real difference is the size of the writing. This just shows that number 1 hit groups such as The Black Eyed Peas use synergy to advertise their products.

However when comparing artist’s music videos to the album cover or font they could be very different. Nevertheless there is good reason for this, it is because the music videos we watched were just one song of the album and therefore it would be unlikely to base a whole album on just one song. However some artists do follow this approach and it can create a very effective front cover. For example Beyonce’s hit single Single Ladies follows a very similar black and white style to her album cover for I Am.

We feel that the combination of our products is very effective because of the clear link between each product and the continuation of style seen in all three products. This has been done to have a direct effect on our audience and to make sure our artist is recognisible in all texts – this has certainly been done and hopefully done well with many conventions developed and challenged from the wide range of artists we have looked at.