Evaluation - Part 5: How I used new media technology in my research, planning, construction & evaluation stages

Evaluation - Part 4: What I learnt from my audience feedback

Evaluation - Part 3: How effective the combination of my main products and ancillary texts is

Synergy: My partner and I tried to create synergy through the locations and background images in our work. To do this we used some of the RECCI IMAGES  that we took whilst filming our music video for both the DIGIPAK and MAGAZINE ADVERT . We felt that this would would connect the all three texts and give the audience something to use to help find the products, e.g. when in a record store the audience looking for the digipak will know from the band's music video and magazine advert that the images on the digipak will include trees and leaves, making the product easy to find.

Alongside this, in all three texts the band members are wearing the same clothing, adding to the synergy.

Also, In order to combine my main product, my music video, to my ancillary texts, my digipak and magazine advert, I carried the music videos CHARITY SYNERGY through to my ancillary texts to ensure that all of the texts connoted the calm, reflective tone and serious themes that the band holds. For both ancillary products I added the Samaritans logo and in the digipak I added a thank you message to Samaritans, which informs readers about what Samaritans is and what they do. My partner and I felt that using a charity would help express the serious themes that the band reflects upon in their work, through the charity we chose, as we felt that this would help reflect the band's style of being less manufactured and more credible and organic. In a way, my partner and I tried to use synergy in the texts as a way of expressing the band's mode of address.

                         

Mode of address:
My partner and I wanted to have the band connect with the audience and tried to do this in several ways. Firstly, we wanted the tone of the video to connect and be relatable to the audience, to this we decided to include to different tones to the video, excited and depressed, so that we could open the target audience up and relate to audiences who are in different moods. Secondly, we asked are actors to stand and perform, in the performance, scenes in a relaxed and playful manner. We asked them to do this, so that we could communicate to the audience the young, natural style of the band and make the band appealing to there target audience, through showing the band's style, through there body language, of being ordinary, fun loving people. Alongside this, we decided to use young actors to play the roles of the band members, as are TARGET AUDIENCE is young, we felt this would make the band more relatable to them and show that they are just like them, through there childlike body language, e.g. playing in leaves, and stylish, young clothing, e.g. converse, worn by the male guitarist.

Representation of the artist:
As my partner and I decided to use the recci images from our music video as images for the digipak and magazine advert, ensuring that the representation of the artist/band combined our music video to our digipak and magazine advert was not to difficult. As we had planned to take some recci images when filming the video and later decide if we wanted to use them in our ancillary texts, we asked the actors to wear very specific clothing and shoes when we PREPARED TO FILM, to ensure that they would fit right with each texts and be able to represent the band. My partner and I wanted to give the representation of a young, indie band that, at the same time, has quite a lot of depth and have passion in their lyrics. To do this we had the band wear stereotypical indie costumes, e.g. checkered shirts and Doc Martens. To connote that the band had depth and meaning to their lyrics we used the natural lighting in the LOCATION of filming. My partner and I felt this light would reflect the band's serious nature, as the natural lighting connoted a dark, mysterious and moody environment, which reflected into the people in it. As we filmed the video in Hainualt forest, on a cold but sunny day, we had the opportunity to use the lighting to our advantage, by using the lighting to create a dark, emotionally atmosphere to the set location and therefore to the images, which connoted the band's depth and helped show the idea that the band is credible, natural and not manufactured. This representation was shown through the main product and the ancillary texts through the use of the same or similar pictures in each texts and the same font used for both ancillary text.

House style/branding:

My partner and I used similar images in all three of our texts to help connote the band's style and make them easily recognisable as a brand. For example, we decided to carry the forest location from our music video through to the other to texts. We used this mise-en-scene to connote to the audience the calm side of the band, which allowed us to contrast against the emotional tones of the narrative scenes at the same time. To give the band a strong branding and show their calm, but childlike style, we decided to go for a colour pallet of oranges and greens. We felt that these colours would emphasis the autumnal feel of the band's products and connote their raw and simple style throughout their texts.

Themes:

The themes in the performance scenes of the music video centred around bullying and domestic abuse and we tried to pull together the music video with the ancillary texts through including features of the music video in the ancillary texts, e.g. the Samaritan symbol. In contrast, the themes in the performance scenes included, having fun, nature and friendship. To draw the later themes to the ancillary texts we used images of the band throwing leaves in the air and mucking around in the magazine advert and digipak.  

Evaluation - Part 2: how my media product uses, develops or challenges froms & conventions of real media products

My partner and I also took inspiration from Kelly Rowland's song 'stole'. However were unable to include this into the video above due to converting issues.





My partner and I gained inspiration for this video, particularly from the close-ups used in the videos performance scenes, as we realised that through this style of shot the characterise emotion and the overall tone of the video could be connoted very well. My partner and I had a look at a variety of music videos and realised that, in those were the narrative was emphasised more over the performance scenes, there was more close-ups used in the narrative scenes. Therefore, we tried to stick to this convention of a narrative emphasised music video, such as Kelly Rowland's 'Stole', and used close-ups mostly in the narrative scenes.
Although we did challenge the usually conventions of a music video, where there is a balance of both narrative and performance, e.g. Nickelback's 'Ill come for you', by deciding to use close-ups mainly in the narrative scenes. When researching music videos my partner and I found that, when the tone of the song is sad, it's video usually contains many close-ups of the artist's face, to help connote this tone.In this way, we did challenge the conventions of a music video. We decided to do this, because we wanted the emotion to come across in the narrative scenes and to make the performance scenes more calm, simple and childlike.

Evaluation - Part 1, The Brief

The brief we were working to was:

A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:
- A website homepage of the band:
- A digipak for the album's releases (option picked)
- A magazine advertisement for the digipak (option picked)


The artist we picked was 50 LEAVES, who were an indie band from Manchester, made up of four young men. However, they have now split up. We found this band on http://www.unsigned.com/ and then emailed the band on the contact address we found on their unsigned.com page to gain permission to use the band for our work.


50 leaves song 'Man on Fire' was not the song I had originally chosen to complete my brief with. I had chosen FRANK LEDAY'S song 'In This Life' which was the song I had created a POWERPOINT pitch on, to show the type of aspects I would include in my music video for the artist. However, after discussing my PowerPoint with my partner, we felt that it may be more accessible to create a video for a young indie band, as finding actors of a young age, with a indie style to them, would be less difficult than finding an actor similar to Frank Leday. This was because Frank Leday has a country style and is around 45.
My partner an I also felt that we could be more creative with the music video, digipak and music video if we used 50 leaves as the tone of the song allowed us to play around with how emotionally or upbeat we wanted the music video to be.

(Production) - Reflection blog week 14

This week:
The deadline for all three texts was this week, so my partner and I worked hard to add the finishing touches to our work to make it stand out, but still fit the conventions of either a music video, magazine advert or digipak.

Music video:
My partner and I had completed most of our MUSIC VIDEO for 50 leaves song 'Man on Fire' last week. So this week we have been adding final touches, e.g. adding the charity synergy to all three texts.

Charity synergy:
We decided to use the more simple design that we had created for the CHARITY SYNERGY. As we wanted our music video to stand only without the synergy we added a shot at the end of our work to connote that the band collaborated with Samaritans on the video.

Magazine advert:

- My partner and I decided to add a yellow colour to our stars as we felt this fit the conventions of a magazine advert better, compared to white stars.

- We also added a blur outline to the text to make it stand out more from the multicoloured picture behind it.

To the magazine advert my partner and I removed the HMV logo and made the other logos bigger. We thought this best because using the HMV logo may connote to our audience that we are incorporated with HMV, which is not the case.  We also changed the style of how we placed our main text, deciding to have the text more to the right of the advert. We feel this works best as the writing still stands out, but now takes less away from the main image. My partner and I have added the Samaritans to all three texts, to carry the message on from the music video.

My partner and I added a green border to the magazine advert to give the advert a bold outline, whilst still connoting the naturalistic, relaxed feel of the band.

To the picture of the advert my partner and I played around with the contrast and brightness to see how we could make the picture stand out more and, as in all three of the texts we wanted to establish lighting as an important aspect of the bands style, we wanted to make sure that the shading and brightness from the sun reflections contrasted against each other. Alongside this, of course, we knew that the band members still needed to stand out against the location. We thought that a good way to do this was to pick certain features of the band members and try to emphasis these features, like we did in the music video and digipak. For example, the girl band member is wearing Doc Marten, a feature we used in both our digipak and music video, so we made sure that when we played around with the contrast of the image we could still make out the show type. Also we wanted to make sure that both guitarist's hair stood out. For example. in the music video the sun shines through the make guitarist curly hair in an over-the-shoulder shot, adding to the lighting aspect, so we wanted to carry this through all three texts.

Digipak:

The final edit of our DIGIPAK  just need a few changes to it this week to make it fit                                                                                                                                                                My partner and I changed the picture on the CD side of our digipak, as we felt that this picture connected more with the band than the picture of just the location.

the conventions of a music video and stand out. 

Like with the magazine advert, my partner and I added the Samaritans logo to the digipak. We also added  ore detail to the thank you message to give the bands audience a better understanding of what Samaritans is and does. Alongside this we put Samaritans logo and contact details, to push through the charities message and connote to the audiencee that this is a charity that 50 Leaves is totally behind. To make the message stand out, my pattern and I turned around the contrast of the picture. The image on this side of the digipak is also the image we used for our magazine advert, as we felt by using the same picture it would help connote all three texts and make the bands style clear tot the audience.

Discs:

My partner and I created the CD and DVDs for the digipak this week and we feel that they are OK, but not brilliant. My partner and I wanted to make the discs for the digipak quite simple, as not to take a way from the designs of the digipak itself. We happy with the look of the discs, for the time we had left ourselves to create them. However, my partner and I feel that if we add given ourselves some more time concentrating on this aspect of our digipak, it could have been a bit better.

 

(Production) - Final magazine advert