Evaluation

Evaluation

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

Instead of challenging conventions we decided to follow the conventions of a music video. As we researched the conventions we found that they worked well and we wanted to do something similar to the videos we had researched such as; Rihanna, Katy Perry and Leona Lewis.  Typically a pop video would use a lot of close ups and quick shots to create the star image and as our artist is a ‘new artist’ we intended to create a video which would allow our star image to grow like Rihanna’s and Katy’s. If you look at their first albums covers and songs then you can see how much their image has changed. These two images are from their first album covers which in comparison to their latest album covers their star image has changed a lot since they started out.

 

After looking at this we wanted a star image that is able to progress and change through time. Our influence mainly came from these two artists as they are big in the mainstream music industry, we wanted something conventional that we knew the audience would like and that would have a large fan base. In the music videos that we looked at for inspiration we found the shots were very quick and there was a large range in shots and movement, so we tried to show this in our music video we used , panning, close ups, long shots and medium shots.

Our products conform entirely to audience expectations, especially as our target audience is 15-25 year olds who like to listen to pop music which is very mainstream, because we saw this as an opportunity to get a larger fan base than something which is aiming for a more niche audience. The audience want to see the star lip syncing in a music video which focuses mainly on the star, they also expect quite a glamorous production which involves costume changes and style changes which i think we have covered. We used the seasons to show how long the emotion lasts so the audience can really connect with the song and how the artist is ‘feeling’ because the scenes switch from autumn to winter to spring in my opinion it allows the audience to see the star as more of a ‘real person’ because people don’t tend to get over things quickly, they stick in memories for ages and by creating something that appears to last for a long time i think we have achieved a connection with the audience and followed there expectations. I also think the montage of shots in the middle shows a link the amount of time the emotion has lasted.

 We have also challenged them in comparison with other artists because artists appear untouchable and superior, we wanted to make our artist seem more approachable and seem like someone that is easy to connect with. We also challenge audience expectations because our star image is typically folk looking how ever the music is more pop, which i think would make it appeal to more people because it has the look of a folk album/song but the sound of a pop song. This does follow with current fashion as this is a look that people tend to go with this folk look in spring/summer.

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

We wanted to make the video production and the ancillary texts really similar so the audience would notice the link between the first video and the first album which would help to build a star image. This would also help the audience identify with the star and create a fan base. The folk look which we have gone for in the spring/summer part of the video is very similar to the digi-pack photographs as we have kept the same folk look throughout, this means that the star appeals to two different types of people mainstream listeners and folk listeners because the song is very pop and mainstream whereas the look is very country/folk. This means that the artist will attract more people.  Using the same typography creates a thematic link between the digi-pack and the poster. We used a font from www.dafont.com  (the font’s on word and Photoshop were to generic) called Candy INC.  this was then carried through from the digi-pack to the poster creating a link and a logo which can be recognised.

           

As you can see the font continues and flows into each product as does the country feel.  This all helps to advertise the star and help the audience connect and get a feel for the style.  The country look is very much in fashion at the moment so this will influence the audience to carry off this look which could become a trade mark look for the star ‘Jade Lillistone’. People are more likely to notice the digipack if they have seen the poster due to it being featured on the poster and due to the style being kept the same throughout.  The digipack photos and the video have all been created outside creating a link with nature which I believe makes the star seem more real to the audience because no harsh studio lighting has been used which makes the star seem untouchable.  

The song we used in the production was quite a sad song about trust, we wanted to create an atmosphere which showed self-reflection on the past as this is what many people do when moving on from a bad experience, the fact the video shows us the seasons means that the audience can see the realness of the stars emotions because it shows that the emotion runs from the autumn to the spring making it very realistic. We didn’t want the video to be depressing and moody we wanted it to reflect the song lyrics; we have the star laughing and looking very thoughtful throughout the video , therefore creating a thematic stylistic link between the video product and the ancillary texts  I feel that we have successfully created a star image and carried out  a link between the products which will indeed help to market and advertise the star in a way that will appeal to the target audience, the mood is very self-reflective which I believe works as artists like Adele have a very large fan base her music is very self-reflective and analytical of her past just like our star.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Our audience feedback was very helpful as it allowed us to amend anything that the audience thought ‘didn’t work’, which will help us to appeal to our target audience. We gained our feedback two different ways, one was through showing our production to our peer group as they were all in our target audience range of 15-25 the second was through handing out questionnaires however we found this was less helpful because people had no motivation to actually fill it in.  We found that we got most of our constructive criticism from our peer group. They told us that some of the shots looked to amateur because of the background so we removed these shots and replaced them with close ups of facial features which I believe work a lot better as it also enabled the audience to connect with the emotion of the song.  Also whilst watching it they commented on the lip sync being slightly out which we struggled with but made it the best we possibly could after, we also originally had a strong vignette around the whole video which I wasn’t too sure on anyway and the peer group confirmed that it didn’t work and again made the video look amateur and unprofessional.

The questionnaire proved unsuccessful as we only managed to get three back which had been filled out, these showed that the target audience liked the video and thought it worked for the audience we were aiming it at, however from these we did not get any constructive criticism.

After a member of staff viewed our video we found that the snow scenes needed to be colour corrected individually as we’d colour corrected them all at once the snow had a slight pink tint to it making it obvious that the video had been colour corrected it so we tried to colour correct all the snow scenes so that the snow was whiter and more realistic than previous. He also stated that we needed more lip syncing because some verses in the song lacked lip sync and again made it appear very amateur.

Through our audience feedback we were able to change any technical problems and potential problems which may affect our target audience. All of our data was Qualitative data as we could gain more personal responses however we were unable to acquire a large number of responses which made it hard for us to be sure that our video was something that would appeal to our target audience, however by following the conventions and showing peers our rough cut I believe we achieved an appealing video.  If I was able to do my audience feedback again I gain quantative data as I would have been able to get a lot more feedback.

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

The blog enabled us to review and refine our work it allowed us to edit posts with ease and collate all our work in one place which made it easy for us to keep our work in a safe place which could be viewed in a digital way, it also was a tool to help the whole group as we could refer to each other’s blogs and see what they had been doing towards the production this stopped any work from being done twice and wasting time.

With media technology we were able to construct our video using industry standard software , final cut pro allowed us to use techniques and effects that movie editors would use. Using this over IMovie which was another option on the mac meant that our video looked more professional as IMovie is a very limited piece of software, we could also use final cut pro to edit our music as we wanted to speed it up and shorten it, we were able to do this using the ‘cut tool’ and the music transitions such as the cross fade. We wouldn’t of been able to colour correct our video if we had of used IMovie also the transitions would have looked less professional, without final cut pro we would not have been able to make a professional looking production, some of the lip syncing shots had to be sped up which was easy enough to do because we had the software and support to enable us to speed it up to fit with the music.

For our Digipack and Poster we used Photoshop cs5 which is another industry standard product, this allowed us to edit the photos and add text, bar codes, links, and logos to our products. I was also able to use filters to make it look vintage and brighter which again all helps in making the production look professional. Photoshop allowed us to download our own fonts and sample colours from the photograph to make everything link together as I wanted the text colour to be very light but I wanted it to stand out so I chose a colour that was featured on the dress to keep the link there but also to make it stand out. Photoshop also allowed us to use drop shadows to make titles and words really stand out. I found Photoshop a very complex programme but easy to use, changing the levels and adding curves was very easy to do and it made the photos look so much more professional.

Having the use of an IMac made everything really easy to use it also allowed us to use screen shots to document our progress in our video and to show evidence of this on our blog it also allowed us to surf the internet quickly whilst having a number of different programmes open at once which was handy if we needed some inspiration from other videos.