Q4-how did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

When we were searching for an unsigned artist to use we looked on unsigned.com, this is a website that has a list off all the unsigned artists for each genre. We first searched for a genre that we liked and that we wanted to use. We had to make sure that we didn’t have any copyright issues so we used unsigned.com to find an artist that we could easily contact and an band that we knew wouldn’t have any copyright issues. We first searched for the artist that we had found on Facebook and we then looked into the band more by learning about them and searching for songs that we could use.

When we came to contacting the band we first emailed the band manager who then forwarded our email to one of the band members who got back to us. They asked us to send them the video before it went live and to give them all the necessary credit in the description.

 

We then had to go on YouTube to research other promos from other bands in the same genre to make sure that we had some inspiration and we had a small basis for us to start brainstorming ideas for our music promo. The bands that we looked at for our main inspiration were the libertines, the arctic monkeys and the strokes. We looked at successful music promos that they had created and we looked which of their conventions had worked well and which ideas we could use and which ideas we could adapt and change to use for our music promo. We also used Spotify in our research as this gave us quick and easy access to bands from the indie rock genre, the advantage of these  is that they give suggested artists and videos that you can watch which broaden your viewing and give you more to see and give new artists in that genre.

The editing software that we used to edit our music promo was final cut pro X. We decided that we would not use IMovie again as we realised that  we could add more effects to the production this year if we used final cut pro X. We decided that the music promo would look more effective if we used final cut pro as some of the effects and editing techniques that we used aren’t available on IMovie so we had to use different editing software.

 

Our video shooting skills have developed greatly as in last year’s production we didn’t use many different camera shots or different camera skills. However this year we decided that we would try and get as many  different kinds of shots that we could and we would different techniques with the camera instead of just having normal steady shots we tried to use different techniques. One of the techniques we used was called gimbal. This is where you find the balance point of the tripod and you balance it on your fingers, it gives the effect that the camera is steady but it makes it much easier to do tracking shots as you can walk with the camera being really steady instead of trying to hold the tripod steady the entire time you are walking, it also means that it is much easier to keep the camera in focus because it sways up and down a little instead of moving around.

We have learnt lots of new editing techniques since the last time we edited, because we had to move from one software to another we had to try and learn the new techniques that we could use on the new software. We learnt that we could add in the effects that we used at the start of the video, we used the two window shots to create a dramatic start that showed all of the band members. We developed our fast paced editing and our cutting to the beat, we had to have the shots cutting in time with the music. We did this well as once the pace of the music speeds us we made sure that we quickly cut between shots so that the audience didn’t get bored and so that they didn’t have to look at one shot for too long.

Having to create both a music poster and a digipack we had to use photoshop a lot more so we ended up developing some new skills that we didn’t learn with the previous year’s task. We learnt how to do lots of different effects and we learned how to make the poster and digipack look more professional. We learnt how to the music poster should be laid out, we then had to put the photos onto the music poster and edit them to improve the lighting and the effect of the pictures.

When we were filming we came across some problems that we had to deal with, when we first filmed and we looked back at our footage we discovered that some of our footage was unusable as the night time shots were too grainy, this meant that they weren’t good quality and we then had to go and re film some shots during the day when it was lighter and the shots were clearer so it looked like a more professional production. When we were filming the performance section of our music promo we had to make sure that it wasn’t too dark and you could see the performers and that it wasn’t very dark, we had to add extra lights in behind the camera to make sure that it was bright enough and clear enough with the lighting being good enough to see everything in the shot.

Created with Padlet

Another skill that I have improved on is my Photoshop skills, which we used to make our magazine advert and digipak. Here is a tutorial on how we edited our materials.

Tutorial on Research

Tutorial on Planning




The very first step of our planning was to get permission for the use of the song we selected. To do this, we emailed the representatives of The Amazons and they were happy for us to create a promo for their song, providing we sent them the video before it was listed on YouTube and gave them the necessary credit in the description. The next step was to assign production roles and create a pre-production schedule, so each group knew clearly which tasks they were responsible for. These tasks were presented using Prezi and Padlet respectively. We then deconstructed the lyrics in order to see what themes were contained within the song, which in turn enabled us to come up with some initial ideas that were presented in the format of a PowerPoint presentation to a group of people, who then gave us feedback. After our idea was settled upon, work on the shot list and storyboard could begin. When they were complete, they were uploaded simply as images. We also pitched our final idea using Prezi to gain further feedback, and give us a clearer picture of what we needed to film. An analysis of the mise-en-scene we wished to include in our promo was also completed using Moovly and, along with this, so was the location scouting. To get the images of our locations, we used Google Maps. We then did a risk assessment of these locations to ensure they were safe to film in. This was completed in Word. Before we went out to film, a filming schedule was produced in order to maximise our efficiency and ensure no time was wasted. As with all the other sections, all of the planning was uploaded and presented on Blogger.

Q3-What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Feedback for initial idea

We created a PowerPoint presentation to showcase our three ideas to the audience, once we had created these slides we then had to show them to our audience so that they could give us feedback and decide on which one they preferred.

As you can see, the preferred idea was number two. The concept is that there are band members doing normal everyday activities but in junk food costumes and there is also some performance.

 

Once we had presented these ideas and we received the feedback from our audience we decided that idea 2 was our best idea so that is the idea that we went with and that is what we used for our final idea. The audience preferred idea 2 to the other ideas because it allowed for greater audience interaction as they got to see the band members and got to see the link with the costumes and the song name “Junk Food Forever”

Feedback of ancillary tasks

Whilst creating our Music poster and Digipack we had three ideas for each ancillary task, we didn’t know which we preferred so we created a poll everywhere so that our audience could vote on which one they preferred out of the three ideas.

   

This poll everywhere shows the three choices that the audience had to choose from for our music poster ideas. Idea three was our least popular so we decided not to use that one as we knew that our audience wouldn’t like it. Option two was also not very popular but it was more popular for the audience so we would consider between that and idea one. Idea one was the audiences favourite and received 57% of the votes. This meant that it had the most votes by a lot so we chose idea one to use for our final music poster.

 

 

These were the initial ideas that we had for the music poster, as we couldn’t decide on which one we preferred we decide that we had to use a poll everywhere  to find the audiences favourite poster. From our results the first idea was the favourite so that’s the one that we used.    The first idea was the one that we used and the other two ideas are very similar, they all contain the same information in the same places just with a slightly different layout. Idea two featured the band members in normal clothing and idea three featured the band members playing their instruments in the food costumes.

We also we also did a poll everywhere to decide on which one of our three digipack ideas we would use. Idea one was the clear favourite with 71% of the votes, we decided that we use this idea as it was a clear favourite by the audience. It was the favourite as it had the synergetic link with the other promotional material. The first idea also was the best for the audience as it was unique but it still gave the audience all the information that they needed.

These were our initial ideas so we had to decide on one of them, as we couldn’t we used the poll everywhere which showed that the audiences favourite idea was the first one so that was the idea that we decided on using. All three of the ideas were very similar, the other two ideas that we didn’t use had the same layout and the information in the same places however they didn’t have the band members in their own panels with names so it didn’t allow for as much audience interaction.

 





Created with Padlet 



Feedback on ancillaries

For our first draft of our ancillary tasks we received verbal feedback from our teachers. They told us that they liked the ancillary tasks but the improvements that they gave us were that we needed to add more convergence with the links to social media to make it look more professional. They told us that we needed to add more to some of the panels of the Digipack as they didn’t look full enough and there wasn’t enough for the audience to look at on it. They also told us that we had to add something unique to the ancillary tasks as they weren’t original enough.

 

Feedback on final production and ancillaries

When we were receiving feedback on our final production we received both Facebook comments and we did a Focus group to gain feedback on our final tasks. The questions that we asked in our focus group were, do you like our video? (Thumbs up or thumbs down) What are the strongest aspects? (Written down) what are the best features of the ancillaries? (Circle) is there a clear link between the ancillaries and the promo? (Thumbs up or thumbs down) Any improvements (Written down) would you recommend it to a friend? (Thumbs up or thumbs down) this gave us the feedback that we needed on our final pieces. It gave us a range of different answers and it gave us a range of feedback on the different parts of our ancillary.

The questions that we asked the candidates were:

-Do you like our video?
-What are the strongest aspects of the promo?
-What are the best features of the ancillaries?
-Is there are clear link between the ancillaries and promo?
-Are there any improvements?
-Would you recommend it to a friend?

These are the answers that we got back from the focus group, from these answers we discovered that all of the people questioned all enjoyed the music promo, we also found that the disjuncture parts of the video worked really well along with the editing used in the promo. We gathered that the best feature of the ancillary was the band members wearing the food costumes. Also they said that there was a clear link between the ancillaries and the promo. When we asked the people if there were any improvements most of them said no which is very good feedback for us. All of the people we questioned said that they would recommend the promo to a friend.

 

We also shared it on Facebook and these are the comments that we received.

Q2-How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

 

Our three promotional products help to promote our artist and their song Junk Food Forever. The music video and both the music poster and Digipack all work together by having the same theme throughout. The main theme in the video is the food costumes and this then runs through to the Digipack and music poster as we are in our costumes in the photos for the ancillary tasks. By combining the ancillaries and the music video well we used good synergy to make it look more like a professional production.

 

We also had to make sure that the band members were consistent throughout all of the three tasks. This consistent image is called synergy and our products had a strong synergistic link. We did this by making sure that in both the ancillary tasks the band members were wearing the same clothing, this showed good continuity throughout the three pieces of media. We also had to make sure that the band members had the same clothing that they had In the ancillaries that they had in the music videos.

 

The designs of the three promotional products represent our band in a unique way. It shows them in their normal clothes and it shows them in the costumes, we wanted to show a contrast between the two costumes and between the two different ancillary tasks they band members have the costumes on in one and off in the other. You can also see the different emotion and expressions on the band members faces. Most music posters and Digipack of indie rock bands contain shots of the band together in a certain location or just a colour background. We wanted to try and use some conventions of the indie rock genre by having the band members together in the photos, yet we also wanted to have some originality and have our own unique features in the ancillaries.

 

Our three promotional products all link synergistically, there is a clear link between all three of the products and this is displayed in the theme of them all, we kept the background the same in both the music poster and the Digipack. The main synergy between the two ancillary tasks is the costumes and the themes. We made sure that throughout all of the photos in both of the texts that all of the band members had the same costumes on which shows the continuity and the visual links between the ancillary tasks. The main themes in the ancillary tasks are a conceptual link, they are clear for the audience to see and they follow the conventions of a real music poster and Digipack by making it clear and easy for the audience to see that it links with the continuity of the same colour background and the font sizes and colour were kept the same throughout. If we don’t keep these the same then the continuity would be poor and the synergy of the pieces would not be good and the promotional pieces wouldn’t look like they were professionally done.  As you can see from the music poster and the Digipack the background colour is the same which gives it the consistent theme through the different products, this is called synergy. As you can see we used the same colour scheme and font in all of the products. This meant that our audience could connect with the band as they could follow the consistency and synergistically.  

 

Created with Padlet

This is our music poster for The Amazons Junk Food Forever. We wanted to follow conventions of music poster in the indie rock genre, we took inspiration from the other indie rock bands such as the libertines, the arctic monkeys and the strokes as these are all big bands in the indie rock genre. We started by looking at their music posters and seeing what elements we could use and what elements we wanted to change. We wanted to have some of our own individuality in the poster whilst still following some conventions of the genre. We had all of the band members placed in the middle of the poster as that seemed to be very effective and all of the bands that we looked to for inspiration use this technique. Individually this promotional piece works well as the audience can see the all of the places that they can follow the band and they can clearly see how they can keep up to date with the band. The audience can also see where about they can buy the song from so they know exactly where to go to get the song. The convergence used on the poster helps it to be effective, it allows the audience to see which social media sites the band use and it lets them follow them on which ever social media sites they have.

 

 

 

These were three of our main inspirations for the music poster, we chose these bands and posters because they’re three of the largest bands in our genre. We wanted to try and follow some of these conventions  whilst still having our own unique feature. The first thing that we noticed was that in all of poster there was at least one if not all of the band members featured on the poster. We wanted to adhere to this convention so we decided to have all of our band members featured in our video and in our band. We also saw that they used dates on the music poster to let the audience know where and when they’re touring,  we adhered to this convention. What these posters also did was put in the other locations for their tours we didn’t adhered to this convention, instead we subverted it as we didn’t feel like the band would add tour dates on the specific music video poster.

 

 

This is our digipack for The Amazons –Junk Food Forever. We had to make sure that we covered all of the panels on the digipack. We wanted to have our own unique features on the digipack, we did this by having the part where the cd would go as a pizza as this gives us a link to the song lyrics and the song name with the pizza as the cd holder. We had the conventions of the indie rock genre by having the lyrics on one panel and all of the band members dressed normally on the other panels so that the audience can get an idea of how they look normally without the costumes on. We had the band members next to their signatures to give the digipack some authenticity. Throughout all of our promotional material we used very simple font as we don’t want the audience to have to struggle to read the writing.

The main thing that linked from the poster, digipack and the music video was the theme, the background colour and font. We had to make sure that we had a consistent style throughout the video , poster and digipack. We also had the links of the costume between them, we used the idea form the song title and the lyrics “Junk Food Forever” we had all the band members posing in both the costumes and in normal clothing. We had them in the food costumes to give the synergy of the different products. We had the band members in the normal clothing as that gives the audience something about them that they can relate to. It  allows for much closer communication with the band and the audience.   

 

Q1-In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

If a music video uses both narrative and performance then often actors are used in the narrative section so that in the performance it is just the band members. This means that the narrative tells a story of the song. We do have both narrative and performance in our video however we decided that we wouldn’t have the band members for the performance only, we decided that we would have band members in both the narrative and the performance. This meant that we adhered to the conventions of some common indie rock music videos but we also subverted some of the conventions of the music genre. However in some indie rock music videos the main performer is also the main band member or just one of the other band members. This means that our video adheres to some of the stereotypes of indie rock. Often when the lyrics are telling a story the actors are also the band members because they have to have continuity in the lyrics and the video. Another important factor of actors in music videos is their appearance. No matter what the genre the actors have to look appealing to the audience of the genre. Different actors from different genres wear different clothing, in indie rock genre the actors are often young and they look “perfect” they are often the perfect image of what people want to see. This is how bands and artists attract the target audience as they have actors that they want to see so they are more likely to watch the video again and recommend it to. They also sometimes use just normal actors to give the audience something that they can relate to so that they have a better connection with the band and the actors. In our video we decided that we wouldn’t have different actors for the performance and the narrative. We decided that we would use the band members in the video for both the narrative and the performance because then the audience can have a better connection with the band so that they feel connected so they will want to learn more about the band and they will be much more likely to go back and watch the video again and watch different videos of the band.

 

Influences for our video

We only had two main influences for our music promo. They were can’t stop by the red hot chilli peppers and golden retriever by super furry animals. We chose these to use as they are both from the same genre as our chosen artist, indie rock. Also both of the videos that we chose to look at for inspiration used the same style of video as us, this style is disjuncture. Both of the videos and bands are successful so we knew that if we followed similar conventions of these bands and videos that we could make our own video successful.

 

 

Directors Commentary