Question 4 Evaluation Emily Phillips

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


Our first stage of the production process was to make sure way we had an efficient way to record our progress throughout the production and so we created a blog on blogger.com as group. This proved to be extremely useful as each post was shown clearly and was easy to label so that each member of the group knew what posts were theirs. It also kept all the stages together on our own website that was easy to access at anytime and at any computer so we could work towards the project as individuals as well as a team.


The next stage was to research; before making decisions on the type of genre we wanted for our music video or what song we wanted to use we wanted to make sure we looked at as many options as possible. Due to our own preferences as a group we knew that our final music video had to be with the pop genre as this was the music we listened to the most and were most familiar with.


We therefore thought that the best way to gain inspiration for choosing a song would be to look at what was popular in the charts at the time. The websites we mainly used for this was the official MTV website and youtube. In this case, you tube proved to be more useful as as well as showing the music video, it also had lists of other videos either by the same artist or in the same genre which gave us a wider range of videos to look at.


After the research was done and we had gathered as much information as possible about different artists and their music videos, we used a website called wordle that was a creative way to present some of our ideas.


Thorough research and organised presentation of ideas allowed us to them begin the filming process; in regards to the hardware used, a modern HD Video Recorder. The HD effect meant that all the footage that we wanted to shoot would have a crystal clear image of the highest quality. The new camera was also equipped with many effects that we could experiment with whist filming; this included what the right white balance looked like, what images looked the best in focus, and how far could we zoom in/out to create as many different angles as possible. The camera was accompanied at all times by a tri-pod that made our shots of a high quality as the camera was always aligned correctly. To make the picture even better on screen we were lucky enough to get a hold of some professional filming lights. These lights proved to be crucial to the filming process and contributed incredibly to the quality of the shots. Not only did they allow the artist to be clearer in the shots, they created interesting and bold effects, particularly when the light were in front of the camera in dark surroundings (the garage shot shown below).

Once we had all our footage, we used final cut express to edit our video, being a alien program to all team members, we experimented with cutting to the beat of a song using final cut’s marker technique an the Razor Tool icon. We also experimented with the effects that this program provided such as the fading technique or changing the tempo of a shot.


When creating our ancillary texts, photoshop proved to be the most successful, I personally found it difficult to understand at first however after watching some tutorials and a few cases of trial and error, the CD managed to look effective and professional. Although not mentioned to our team member who posed for the photo, the airbrush tool was very useful because from a production company’s point of view, the representation of the artist had to be clear without blemishes in order to be seen as an idol. Also, the colour change tool was very useful as it allowed us to make our ancillary texts look professional and effective.

The skills that I have acquired through the entire process I would have liked to already have had at the beginning, particularly with final cut express and photoshop as the process would have been quicker and easier, allowing me time to experiment further even though I am extremely happy with our final outcome.


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Question 3 Evaluation Emily Phillips

3.What have you learned from your audience feedback?


Although Laura Mulvey’s “Male Gaze” theory states how company’s assume the audience to be heterosexual males that pressure the sexual objectification of women, we thought less of the way she looked and more about what she represented. We therefore concluded that our target audience would be 17 year old girls with interests such as fashion, music and socialising with her friends. We decided that someone with interests such as these would be likely to listen to the pop music genre; a girl is also more likely to enjoy the music of our chosen artist and buy the album as our target was to make her easy to relate to for this chosen audience.


Research before filming led us to a website called BARB. This website provides weekly UK audience figures for all UK television channels. This gave us an idea of what music channels were the most popular and who had the largest audience

From BARB we discovered that Viva was the most popular music channel as it reaches the largest audience numbers than any other well-known music channel. This is mainly due to it’s accessibility on free view and also because it shows the most popular music of variant genres. We feel that as a music company, we would want our video to be shown and viewed by many on this channel because of its high ratings as well as its large audience figures.


The audience feedback stage proved to be extremely useful not only to our final products, but to the way I worked with my group as a team; very often we found ourselves having different opinions when it came to the editing process of our music video: we all had different shots that we liked the most and could not agree on how often these shots should appear in the music video. When choosing the shot types and angles that we felt would fit nicely into our video, the audience feedback allowed us to truly see what shots worked best and whereabouts they should be placed in the music video. We found ourselves sometimes relying on the opinions of others whenever our group could not agree as the answers from our audience often steered towards one idea that they felt was the strongest and would allow our music video to be successful.


The audience’s feedback also proved to be very constructive in which it allowed to help us to greatly improve our work throughout the whole process. During the planning stage we conveyed our ideas to our classmates, the feedback they gave to us provided some inspiration for new ideas that would help to make our music video more exciting and interesting. At the early stages of the production process we constructed a survey that allowed us to organise our feedback successfully so that whenever we were stuck at an idea, we could look to see if there were possible ways to develop this idea. This also helped when it came to possible costume and make-up ideas where people with different tastes and styles all came together to help create many looks for the characters in the music video and also helped us come up with some ideas for the music video settings.


 The main thing I learned about having audience feedback is how easy it is to miss tiny mistakes. When editing our music video, we did not notice occasional moments where the lip movement was out of sync this was mainly because we were watching it repeatedly without looking for any mistakes. However, as soon as it was pointed out from our audience, the mistakes became more obvious and recognisable to us therefore allowing our music video to seem as authentic as possible. This was also the case when it came to editing the poster and CD covers on photoshop; when a change to the face on the cover didnt look realistic, we had to ask other opinions of those who had not seen the photo before it was edited as we felt we were at a disadvantage knowing what the original looked like. We felt that the audience feedback even helped to speed the editing process up as the group were not at a constant debate.




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Question 2 Evaluation Emily Phillips

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

When making the ancillary texts, we thought mostly about Richard Dyre’s “Star Theory”; we had to think about how the artist would want to be represented, what ideology they would want to create for themselves and what kind of relationship they want with their fans. We knew that we had to have a strong link between what we produced and so we used the lyrics to help us with our ideas.

The lyrics mainly express the feeling of great regret, and with the feeling of regret comes confusion and questions: why did I say what I said? What was going through my head at the time? What can I now say to make things right again? We wanted to show this mainly in the music video in which we added a quirky conceptual idea into the music video. The music video is filled with different, characters that show strange actions that convey the strange happenings occurring in the artist’s mind; throughout the video, mimes, ballerinas and violinists appear randomly to convey this confusion. The deep regret she feels takes her back to her childhood before she made such a mistake; this is shown through the tea party scene. The scene reflects the feeling of wanting to turn back time and start over but in an over exaggerated, twisted way, making it the most important part of the music video.


The poster


Every music production company would want their artist to stand out from the others to sell more records and earn the company a lot of money. In order to gain awareness of the artist’s upcoming album, advertising is crucial.


We called the album contractions because this linked well into the message of the song. Dyre’s “Star Theory” also states how artists want to be seen as normal people and so by having a title like contradictions, it shows her portraying herself as a vulnerable young woman who has made, and is still making mistakes like any other person.


For the poster we wanted to focus on the artist being easy to relate to and so by having her hair tied away from her face shows this “bareness” of her identity; because she is showing her vulnerability as a normal person. We decided to make the image black and white as it gives off the idea that the emotions she is burdened with are timeless and can happen to anyone at any time.


However, again thinking about the demands of a record company we did want this poster to stand out and to we made her lips a light purple. We chose the lips as the lyrics from “Nobody’s Perfect” reflect that it was what came from her lips that started so may problems for her. It was also the chance to create the artist’s ideology.




The Inside Covers


In order to link the poster with the CD handout we thought that a persistent colour scheme the colours that we used alone would be therefore be recognisable and immediately associated with the album and the work of the artist.



The crucial tea party scene enabled us to create an effective link between the main music video and the CD cover. The images behind the CD and in between the front and back cover shows sections taken from the table at the twisted, surreal tea party shown in the music video. Inside the tea cups are lipsticks instead of tea, a reflection of the mad confusion going on in the artist’s mind over what has happened but it also reflects he artist wanting to better herself after what has happened. Using the same effect as the poster, we made the image black and white and made the object needing the focus purple. By making the lipsticks purple we have made yet another link to the artist’s mouth; the route of her problems and her message of the album.

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Question 1 Evaluation Emily Phillips

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

Before we produced our media product, we considered Andrew Goodwin’s “Dancing in the Distraction Factory” (Routledge 1992) and the theories it explored. One of Goodwin’s theories state that all music videos demonstrate genre characteristics meaning that one could associate the music video with its genre without even listening to the music.


We thought about what area of a typical pop music video we should focus on and with the help from many different pop icons and their music videos such as Nicki Minaj’s “Super Bass” and Katy Perry’s “Waking up in Vegas” we discovered that that most pop genre music videos mainly consist of a performance and a narrative.

We chose “Nobody’s Perfect” by Jessie J, a typical song of the pop genre which allowed us to easily include the discovered pop characteristics into our music video. When thinking about the narrative of the music video, we listened to the lyrics; the song had a definite narrative about a girl who has lost a close friend because of something she said and how she regrets saying it. 


Another theory from Goodwin’s analysis states that there is a relationship between lyrics, narrative and visuals within a music video which is illustrative, amplified or contradictory. In our music video we have tried to illustrate this narrative throughout the music video; in many shots, her friend that was standing next to her would suddenly disappear and she found herself unhappy and alone. Another shot shows how we have amplified some of the lyrics in which alongside the lyrics ‘tears falling from my eyes’, a shot of crying eyes with fully ruined eye make-up is shown.This allowed our video to conform with a typical pop music video in which the narrative was both illustrated and amplified.

The music video also consisted of many performance shots, when filming we had to consider Goodwin’s theory of how the record company label would include the need for close-ups but we also had to consider Laura Mulvey’s “The Male Gaze”; in a typical female pop video, the artist shows herself as an object with flirtatious looks into the camera or the positioning of their body as the audience positioning is assumed to be a heterosexual man. Many shots, therefore, have these close ups of her face and also costumes that show off the artist as a figure of sexual objectification. However, the costumes also relate to Richard Dyer’s “Star Theory” in which the artist or “star” wants to align themselves with ideology; in this case the modern, quirky clothing that she wears throughout the video associates her with the pop genre but also gives her a unique style.

One aspect of our media video almost challenges a certain characteristic of what the audience would typically see for the pop genre; there are very few music videos that also contain a conceptual idea as well as a narrative/performance, particularly from a female pop artist. When looking at Goodwin’s analysis and thinking about the relationship between the visuals and the lyrics, we decided to create an idea of a grown young woman re-living her childhood in a twisted yet quirky way. We developed this through the setting of the video and the props used. The majority of the shots were filmed in an old victorian house that resembled a child’s playhouse, creating the idea that this artist is happier pretending and playing tea parties because the reality would bring her back to deep regret she feels.

Therefore, when looking at our finished music video, all aspects of our music video conforms with the main characteristics of a pop genre music video, we have added our own little twist to make it stand out.




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Evaluation Question 4 Victoria Bray

Evaluation – Question 4 Victoria Bray

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

Within our production, we used a large number of different technologies for all aspects of creation.

When researching, we used a number of internet search engines and websites. These included; YouTube to look at other videos and gain inspiration from videos of similar genres; the website BARB (Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board) to gain figures on viewings on certain music video channels in the UK; we also used search engines such as Google in order to research for the preparation of our video with images and information on the artist whose music we used; another website we used was Wordle, this we used in order to mind map our ideas, themes and issues we wanted to include in the video, in a more creative and visual way.

Among these websites Blogger was the one used mostly in order to make record of our video development, we posted any research we did for it alongside evidence of meetings and filming sessions, discussions and planning for the final video and digipack was also posted.

 To add to this, we also used a range of software in order to create our piece, including mostly the use of Final Cut and Photo Shop. 

The Final Cut software was used in order  to create and edit our video, we practiced the editing process with a short music video exercise and also created an animatic storyboard for us to follow and get a good idea of what we wanted the finished video to look like. The most common features of this programme we used were the razor tool and the easy use of markers in order to have precision when cutting shots on a specific beat or at a specific time. Final Cut helped our music video to look professional. We used Photo Shop to create our digipack CD covers and our magazine advert. After taking the pictures we fo und the use of the software difficult to grasp at first but after some practice of we managed to get good pictures out of it. We used a lot of the airbrush tool and the colour change tool in order to get the best effect on the pictures and to help there be cohesion throughout the pieces.

With regards to our use of hardware when making and creating our music video and accompanying pieces, we most frequently used an HD Video Recorder which gave any footage we wanted to shoot a crystal clear image of the highest quality. The camera was accompanied at all times by a tri-pod to 

ensure that all our footage was straight and level. To make the picture even better on screen we were lucky enough to get a hold of some professional filming lights to also create a certain mood or shadowing when necessary in a shot.

In terms of mistakes we made, we weren’t all very experienced when it came to using Final Cut and Photo Shop, I believe we should have practiced more with it and maybe done some video tutorials before we went into the editing process. Another glitch in the process we found was that we had to omit most of our outdoor shots due to uncertainty of the weather and the fact that we couldn’t use the lights outside so we would run the risk of our footage not looking the same all through in terms of its quality. Another mistake we made was not being able to organise more people to be in the video as characters to give a greater effect with regards to the narrative. However, with these issues we still managed to achieve our goal of completing the video and digipack on time and with us all being happy with the outcome and our audience feedback being mostly positive.




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Evaluation Question 3 Victoria

Evaluation – Question 3 Victoria Bray

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Initial target audience research

When we came up with the idea for our audience profile and key demographic we decided that the ideal audience member for our song/music video would be a 17 year old girl with interests that include; clothes shopping, listening to her favourite pop artists (Jessie J, Beyoncé, Rihanna, etc.) on her iPod, reading magazines such as Heat, Look, Cosmopolitan as well as watching shows such as the X Factor and going to concerts with her friends. We decided that someone with these interests and hobbies would fit best with our audience profile as they would be likely to listen to the pop music genre; a girl is also more likely to enjoy the music of Jessie J and buy the album as her songs tell stories and situations that girls can relate to. 

When doing our research before filming we went into detail looking at music channels and their viewing rates. As we were to create a pop music video we used a website called BARB which provides weekly UK audience figures for all UK television channels. From our research we found…

KISS TV

We thought that Kiss TV would be suitable to play our music video as they play all modern pop videos and this is the typical genre our video falls in to.

MTV HITS

MTV Hits is a one of the MTV family that specifies in pop music. HITS shows only the most popular songs around at that time within the pop genre.

4 MUSIC

4 Music is one of the most popular music channels to play pop music; this is due to the fact that it can reach a broad audience as it’s available on digital. It generally plays popular music of the time among TV shows so therefor e the station would play our music video.

VIVA

Viva is a very popular music channel as it reaches are large audience this is because it is accessible on free view so, as it shows the most popular music of variant genres (mainly focusing on pop) we feel that our video would be shown and viewed by many on this channel.

Some channels would be chosen to not air our video such as KERRANG, MTV Rocks, Vintage TV and more. This is mostly due to the fact that the genres of music played on the channels do not include that of the pop music genre.

We believe that the channels we have chosen to air our video are ones that will draw in our target audience and these will then be the people that would hopefully buy the track then the prospective album.

Audience Feedback

In terms of the audience feedback received from the final music video, we got many positive responses. We asked people in our media class alongside teachers, who are all different with different likes and interests so to get a fair opinion on the video. The group also included people that would fall into our target audience. They said we had good variations of shots, interesting location choices, a good and strong performance, effective make up choice, close ups that worked well and said that we had a good use of lighting and colouring.

It seemed that people partly understood the slight narrative of the video even though it is overpowered greatly by performance and concepts. This was due to specific shots when the performer is singing directly to the girl and when the performer and the girl are happy together then she is alone. As well as the shots when the characters are all happy and laughing and then the performer is seen alone and sad.  
From the feedback we gained we saw that people thought the camerawork was done well and effectively as people commented things such as, “the close ups of characters and performer worked nicely” and “I liked the variety of shots in various locations”.

Our digipack was positively received as well; people said they liked the colour scheme of black and white images with hints of colour. They found the images we used looked very artistic and professional. The text we used for the song titles were written in capitals and in a clear font so that it is easy to read but we varied the colours so to keep it interesting. This came off well it seems as there was no negative feedback from our CD case.

please see my Wix website presentation: 

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Evaluation Question 2 Victoria

Evaluation – Question 2 Victoria Bray

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

Music Video

We branded our music video by having a colour scheme of bright, bold colours. This is because we found that it was a common aspect within other videos of a similar genre such as Beyoncé’s Countdown video and Lady GaGa’s Telephone video. This is because having a variety of bold, bright colours makes the video eye-catching and memorable. It also portrays the light-hearted feel of the music and aims to have a “happy” effect on viewers, as they tend to be younger and dominantly female who will be drawn to the video with the help of the colouring.

When producing the video, we were inspired by other artists within the pop genre and their music videos. Beyoncé’s Countdown video is a main aspect of inspiration for our music video, this is bacause Beyoncé is a major icon within the pop 
genre. This music video in particular inspires me for the music video in terms of the use of bright colours, variant locations along with costume and make up that you wouldn't necessarily see in everyday life. From watching this video it 
made me realise how many costume and location changes we would have to include in order to get a similar effect that this video has. Katy Perry’s Hot n’ Cold video also inspired myself and the group for our own video. This is again through the bright colour schemes consisting of pinks and blues, as well as the clear, entertaining narrative that runs through it. The video portrays the light-hearted lyrics, which is something we set out to do from the beginning and this video gave us ideas on how to do so. The fact that the music begins and ends with acting helps set out the video with a strong narrative making it easier for younger audiences to understand as the pop genre is listened to by all age groups. We did try this but we felt that we would rather focus on the performance side of the video rather than the narrative.

 Digipack

In terms of the Digipack, we decided to contradict the video with regards to the colour scheme. Though we followed typical conventions of pop music in the video, we felt that the CD would stand out much more among other CDs as it is in black and white with only one colour apparent. We wanted to use the artist’s face as the cover as we would be selling the artist herself as she is the voice. The clean image shows purity and classiness of the artist which is something that the target audience of teen girls can relate to. The inside images also follow the conventions of the front and back covers, each being in black and white but having one aspect in bold purple, this created cohesion within the cover. 

The development of our CD cover began with different images of the artist, we decided which image we liked best for the cover and began to play around with it on PhotoShop, editing out blemishes as well as changing colours and deciding which one fitted best. We wondered what what we should change from black and white, we decided either lips, eyes or her eyebrows. Until deciding on the black and white with the lips in a bright purple colour as we feel directing attention towards the lips helps portray the idea that she is a singer and the mouth should always be the focal point. 

Because we didn’t want to completely disregard the idea of having something else in purple other than her eyes, we decided that we wanted to have her with light purple eyes for one of the inside covers. We felt that it was a powerful image and further shows the artist as different and contraversial. 

With the digipack we felt inspired by the Rolling Stones’ 40 Licks back cover with the way the song names were set out. Though this isnt a pop album we felt it gave the album an 
‘individual’ feel and that she is breaking into something new and different for her genre as she is a daring artist with an edge. We also felt inspired by Adele’s 21 album for the back cover with regards to the image. This gave us the original idea of having a black and white image of the artist on the cover and the layout of the back cover. 

Magazine Advert

When creating the magazine advert, we wanted to follow the conventions of our CD cover to further cohesion through the product. We chose to, again, focus the advert on the artist’s face so we wanted to use another close up image but again in black and white with only the artist’s lips in purple.  We followed conventions of a typical advert for an album with including the artist’s name, the artist’s image, the album name, ratings by other magazines, the production company logo and the iTunes logo to show that it is able to download. 
Again we began with the base image and edited it on the PhotoShop software to make the image clean and to get the correct colouring. We decided to have the image in the centre as it is the main focus of the advert, we want to sell the artist as a person as well as the album. We felt that the second thing to attract the audience’s attention would be the artist’s name so that they will then always associate the image with her name and remember her face when they hear one of her songs on the radio. 
The name of the allbum is obviously another important aspect of the advert. We kept the font of the text to be the same as that of the CD cover to, again give the whole product cohesion.

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