The End

This blog is now finished and I have completed my music video project. I've really enjoyed working with my group and I'm really happy with all 3 tasks, I think there are all really professional and I'm sad this is my last ever media coursework project!

byeee xxx

Question 4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction, and research, planning and evaluation stages?

We took pictures of all the equipment that we have used throughout the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages of our task. New technologies have been highly important in every aspect of this project and have given us lots of different and exciting opportunities to display, interact and produce our music video project.



Camera

Overall the use of new technology has been highly important throughout our project. It allowed us to produce the highest quality video that we could and for us this was very important. As ' The Fix' were a fresh new young boy band it helped draw appeal to the video and added to the glossiness. I think new technology particularly during the construction have allowed us to create something that looks really professional due to the high quality the HD cameras ( we shot in Full 1080p HD) and tapes gave us compared to last year as we used SD cameras ( SD 480p). We also pretended that our video was shot in 21:9 wide-angled lense, by cropping the top of the video which was in just 16.9 widescreen( that was what we used last year). We did this by using tape on the top and bottom of the camera's digital display 

Adobe
Adobe CS3 Photoshop allowed us so many different effects we could edit, colour correct, brighten and enhance photos this helped our project to look more glamorous and more professional. It allowed all our pictures and album cover to really stand out and look really good.

Adobe Premier Pro again opened up such a hugh opportunity and without it the standard of our video would not have been the same. We could render, razor, used slow motion, repeated, enhance colours and overall make our video as good as possible.As it was digital editing software we could cut up and place clips where we wanted. It's really easy to use and allowed us to be creative try new things and achieve a really high quality music video. Last year we only used one video track however this year we added timelines and video tracks on top of eachother which allowed us place lots of footage for the same section of song.
Lights

Lights were so important for the construction of the video. We had the huge studio floor lights in the Seward Studio at school which working with the hired haze machine transformed the seward studio as it scattered the lights and looked so professional. The lights were something that a lot of the audience feedback did pick up on and they worked well. On location we also used the three-point studio lighting set. Last year we only used 2 pag lights although they worked for us the lights we used on this project were 10 times better we could use huge studio lights.

Internet
Finally as for blogger, youtube, facebook they have been a major factor across the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages. They have allowed easy communication with my group we could post on blogger and share ideas and give eachother information, it kept all our work in one place and really highlights the progression in technology. Facebook and youtube have given us the wide reach that we really needed. It gives us a platform to the audience we could post to friends our video, recieve feedback allow people to view our work and without it our project would have been very different! I think last year we didn't use our blog enough for communication but this year we have used it much more we were able to post work on the group blog and share ideas really easily. We also used wix.com for making our web page, this was really quick and easy as it was flash based, the navigation around the site was easy to pick up and we were able to add pictures, videos and make our site interactive.


Overall I think our project has been a great success. We have all worked so hard as a group to achieve what we have, we split tasks between us we have communicated well and I have really enjoyed this project. I am so pleased with the album cover, the website and especially the music video they all look so professional and I am so happy with them. This project has been hard work but also so rewarding and I am very pleased with the outcome.

Question 3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

This video was recorded on the day of our screening which was held in the media block. We had a huge turnout and this was the way in which we could learn how well our music video was from the audience feedback we could recieve from this and other private viewings.


Here is a selection of our questionaires which were filled out at out audience screening session.

The audience feedback we have recieved for our music video has been really positive and it has helped us acknowledge wether we achieved the right market and if the audience were able to understand and involve themselves with the video.
The screening gave us the best feedback, although maybe we did not have an equal balance of all our target audiences as we lacked younger girls and gay men. However we still learnt a lot and there were really obvious trends which we received from the feedback and overall everyone really liked the video
Obvious trends that we noticed from the questionaires were

• General trends: Screaming girls, boybands, money, fun, funny
• Best parts: Lighting, Individual Shots, different boys withing the boyband, the glanes and close ups
• Was it professional- Pretty much everyone said yes
• General rating 8, 9, 10 out of 10

Only negatives we really recived were to do with parts of the boys lipsyncing, dance moves and people wanted to see more Tom Owen. However these were in the minority and some people even said nothing needed to be improved. I agree that perhaps things could have slightly been improved but I do feel for things like dance moves not being perfect we did compromise and make the editing really sharp, we used so many varieities of different shot types, and we worked hard on making the appearence really professional.

One shot which did catch the attention of most people was the very first shots with lights coming up in time to each beat of the music. We did work hard on this shot and the spotlights are really effective it helps introduce the boys individually as well as within the group.

General feedback from the website and album cover have also been really good. Although we didn't have a set questionaires I've shown a lot of different people and they have all really liked them.

WEBSITE

• Liked the indivual twitters and profiles of each boy
• Liked all the shots that we used and the wide variety
• Thought the welcome page made it look really professional and anchored the album cover well
• Like the colour scheme and fonts used
• Liked how interactive it was and different cross platforms
• Improvements could have been made on the store page

ALBUM COVER

• Front cover- really popular, interesting and works well, simple
• Like all the shots
• Noticed by lots that they are wearing the same clothes in every shot but some thought this further enhanced it
• Looks professional- this is very important
• The style is really obvious
• Like that photos are used across all parts because the boys are all about the 'look'

I think our feedback has confirmed we did reach the audience that we wanted and across all three tasks the genre, the styling and the feel we went for has worked and is really clear and obvious. From our audience feedback I think it shows there is always room from improvement. With more time perhaps we could have fulfilled something greater but having worked within a time slot we have achieved something really professional. The main product and ancillary texts all serve the correct purpose and the audience highlighted  how well all 3 work together and anchor eachother.

Here is some profiles of our audience and who we had in mind when creating all 3 tasks:

Question 2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Our main product was obviously the music video and as a group we decided a website and an album cover for our ancillary texts would best suit the genre and marketing that we wanted to achieve.

Music Video

Album Cover

Website

Our main product; the music video; worked really well and using audience feedback I feel we did  achieve what we set out to do which was to sell and appeal to our target audience. Our music video is very modern, and the focus throughout is on the appearence of the boys within the band. The main product was very fun, stylish and we wanted to promote both a boyband and the individuals within the boyband .

So using our ancillary texts we have used lots of imagery of the boys as this is ultimately how we want to the sell their music. So on our website we have lots of shots of the boys as a group, we have individual profiles, pictures and twitters. On the album cover we have made the front cover from individual shots of the boys but placed them togther. The front cover as well as the 2 inside faces and back cover all feature lots of different shots of the boys and this ties in with the focus the main music video has and begins to create branding.

Although not something we may have done, the boys in the music video and both ancillary texts are wearing the same clothing, this again is very striking it provides a clear, bold feature that is easily recognisaible and links together nicley all 3 products.

We have used a set colour scheme and a unique texts across our webiste and album cover which creates synergy and allows them to work together. We went for a blue/ grey/ black colour scheme which brands the music video really well as we used blue filter lights in all the studio parts. Having looked at 'The Wanted' website they have a set text which is continually used on all there new albums and is kept the same constantly on their website, so if we were to make another album the text we have used would probably be kept the same because its creating band indentity and it's something the audience are able to recognise and be familiar with.  On both the websites of JLS and The Wanted they have used very similar colour schemes such as blues, and greys which reflects our website as well and seems to be a common feature for boybands.
The website has a welcome page which you have to click to get onto the website and on this we have placed the album cover and therefore you have to look at it. The website therefore helps promote the album cover and again achieves a strong image that the audience can link together and understand.

I think the mood across the music video, website and album cover works together and achieves an effective tie in. We wanted the boys to be about 'the look' but as they are young boys we wanted to characterise them as fun. Therfore we have lots of 'comical' photos on the inside of our album cover and in the gallery on the website and we are cleary able to see there comical side from the video which was picked up easily from our audience screening. However we also have there stylish, sexy side as throuhoight the video we haev close ups of the boys 'pouting' and being very serious. Are website and album cover both feature very posed photos which works for a boyband and appeals to the target audience.

Choosing to do a pop boyband was a brave choice to begin with as they are very current with bands such as 'One Direction', 'JLS' and 'The Wanted' very popular in the music industry today. However looking at there album covers, music videos, and website I think all of our products reach a certain degree of professionalism as  they are quite similar to ours. Therfore I feel the combination of our main product and ancillary texts are effective.

Cross marketing platform was key to our branding and selling of our 3 texts. I think to further enhance this and to create a bigger platform and gain a wider reach a viral marketing campaign would have been really effective. On the website we do have other interactive oppotunites but in terms of another text which could have work with our other products, a marketing viral campaign would have worked well. With a mainstream target audience we could have explored using the internet more to further brand the band.

Having said that I do think the combination of our main product and two ancillary texts work really well there is clear synergy between them and each one helps the other. Just by looking at them the styles, the image, the clothing, the texts, the character that we have emphasised in all three products is very clear, bold and strong and we have made it very clear so that the audience could easily recognise them. I think we created a very stong brand identity and I think the band look very reall and very professional. The  products work together and help tie in our whole marketing campaign

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and coventions of real media products

Here is a video response to this question:





Question 1

These are videos that we referenced when creating our music video:

JLS - One Shot on MUZU.


The Wanted - All Time Low on MUZU.


JLS - Beat Again on MUZU.

These are the album cover we referenced:

Goodwin Anaylsis

Our music video on the whole generally stuck to the main conventions of a music video. Comparing our music video with Andrew Goodwin's theory there are many comparisions.

GENRE
Firstly our music video was very obviously pop. We wanted this to be very obvious and therefore we used set dance routines, matching moves, colour co ordinated clothing, the song was very obviously pop as it was upbeat, very fun, we had beauty shots, looks at the camera, focus on them, very stylised.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LYRICS AND VISUALS
Many of the visuals are used to illustrate the lyrics and there are a number of shots which empasises this relationship.This is very typical of a pop boyand it appeals to the audience it doesnt complicate things and its really obvious. There is no narrative in our music video so I think it is important the lyrics are made visual.
Examples

'Getting down'

'Get paid'

'all around'

'jump in my ride'

'just got paid'

'nodding ya head'

'idolise'

'down'

WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MUSIC AND VISUALS

• We continually cut the video to the beat to the music- example first shot
• Throughout the whole song the editing it sharp quick straight cuts in order to fit with music, as the pace is kept constant throughout the editing is kept constant throughout and this helps emphasise the music and the beat of the song

ARE THERE CLOSE-UPS OF THE ARTIST AND STAR IMAGE MOTIFS?

• As a record company we would be looking to sell this video on the basis of the boybands looks and the styling and idviduals images.
• So we have made our boyband very sylish, quite sexy, although we don't empahsise the body as much as some boybands we have a lot of shots of  them indivdually posing.
• As this is a debut single we have got lots of close ups of each member to introduce them as an individual and we have also got lots of close ups of them as a group to represent them as a new boyband
• We have  made the boys as visually attractive as possible in order to appeal to the target audience and sell there record

EXAMPLES

IS THERE REFERENCE TO THE NOTION OF LOOKING

• This video is all about 'the look' however it subverts the gender thoery as we are not using the female body to atrract the audience instead we use the males image
• We were very aware of this when we were filming and got all the boys doing 'the look'
• We didnt perhaps use the boys in a sexual way but we are trying to appeal to the audience from there looks so they way in which they look up does need to be quite sexy and attractive
• Our costume does imply sexualised display as we made them wear quite tight tshirts and we had them have there buttons undone and low to show skin, I think this helps when attracting the right female audience
• This is very typical of a pop boyband genre

EXAMPLES

IS THE MUSIC VIDEO PERFORMANCE-BASED, NARRATIVE BASED, OR CONCEPT-BASED?

• This video is very much perfomance based there is a the money concept that is realated to through the suits and the posh housing but it is not at all narrative-based. Its all about showing off the band and the whole video is made up of just them. Their dance routines allow them to perform throughout which entices the audience and gives centre of attention on them throughout the video.

Music Video

The video has now been up on youtube for 4 days now
We've had 768 views and 8 likes which is good to see and we have also had really good comments.
Here was one that I posted to my group from an ex-latymer student:

Media Screening Session

Today we had our media screening session and it went really well. We had a huge turn out and the room was full. We handed out around 30 questionaires although we had a lot more people then that. We got questionaires from both males and females as this would help with the feedback.

The general response was really good with most people scoring the video 9 or 10 out of 10. We had a lot of positive comments and genre and themes were easily recognised. Generally the video appealed to more girls from the feedbcak but this was obviously expected

Below is an example of a questionaire:

Here was the facebook event page that we made for the screening. I made it from my account so we had to go through and choose all the people to invite and it ended up around 300 people. This was a good communication to our audience and allowed them to know details etc of the screening.