Daniella's A2 Media Blog

Evaluation Question 4

00:29 | Labels: Evaluation

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

I believe that the combination works very well together as I tried to maintain a theme though out them all. I decided early on to make a colour scheme for all my media products, that was purple, green and navy. I would continue to use this on the digipack and the website. I think this links all the products well as it is quite a subtle way of relating all the productions together. Furthermore I also decided early on to have a theme of 'dreaming'. This was initially inspired by the decision to call my artist Reverie which basically means to daydream. I decided also fit this theme in any future productions for the artist. These themes are most prominent on the website:

These are some examples where the 'dream' theme (stars in background) and colour scheme (text, navigation bar etc.) were used within my artists website.

The theme of dreaming, although not an obvious theme, enables the audience to recognizes different products and see that they come from the same background artist with out either hearing a song or seeing an image of the artist.
Furthermore throughout all productions I tried to maintain the codes and conventions of the genre. This not only will help attract my target audience but also allow people who are new to the genre to get a better understanding of the genre and get a feel for what the genre has to hold.
Across all products I tried to maintain the desired image I wanted to create of my artist. This was one of subtlety. I didn't want my artists to be portrayed as barefaced and resounding but rather more modest. This is reflected in the simplicity in the design and construction of all of the products. Moreover I created a distinctive logo/name that I would use across all products:

I used a font from the website www.dafont.com called Handwriting draft for my artist logo. I then used an editing software called GNU Image Manipulation Software (GIMP 2.0) to add effects such as transparency and gradients.

I believe that using this logo across all platforms of products enables the artist to have a distinctive image that when seen away from the products will instantly make the viewer recognize the artist.

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Evaluation Question 3

11:33 | Labels: Evaluation

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I set out on gathering feedback on my final song choice, artist name and initial concept for my music video. firstly proposed the idea to a number of people by simply explaining the concept and then displaying the planning I had already undertook. I then gave them an questionnaire to fill out and return to me. I used these methods as I wanted to identify if my initial perception of my target audience was correct and if my media products were presenting themselves to the target audience to the desired effect.

I chose to use a questionnaire as it is a simple and practical way of collecting reliable information from a large number of people. The information collected is also often precise and so can be used effectively to make alterations to my media products. Also by simply talking to members of my target audience I could quickly receive information by making notes and once finished I could go through the notes and pick out what were the most popular ideas put forward and what ideas would be most realistic to achieve.

Music Video Concept Questionnaire

This is the basic initial questionnaire I used to get a general idea of what my target audience wanted to get out of my media product. I has very simple questions that I would go on to use when choosing what to do for my own media product. These simple questions would help me determine who my target audience is and what they want to see in a media product like mine. It also enables me to explore other groups of people that may not be interested in my product initially but may possibly be convinced to take more interest in such products in future.

The second piece of audience research I did was after I had made a draft production of my video. I then went on to show this draft to an audience and ask for feedback. I compiled 7 questions which I would ask after the audience had watched my product.

Here are the questions:
1. On a scale of 1 to 10 how much did you enjoy watching the video?

I decided to use this question first as it compels the audience to think on the spot as to what they think of my video. By using a simple scale, when asked, the audience needs to condense their whole perception of the video into one. By using a numerical scale I can determine the percentage of people who rated my video highest and who rated it the lowest, this enables me to make precise improvements to my product. This type of question is vital as it gives me an insight as to weather my product is doing its job, which is to entertain and be enjoyable to watch.

2. Did you find the video interesting or did it struggle to hold your attention?

This question is very alike to the first question as often if someone enjoys watching a video they are likely to find it interesting. For a music video to spark someones interest it needs to connect to their life directly. I left this question without a scale as I wanted the audience to elaborate on why the found it interesting or not. I could then make changes according to what ideas come up the most.

Would you want to watch the music video again?

This once again is very important as I wan my product to make a lasting impact on the audience and be a good, representative example of a music video from my chosen genre. This also gives me a definitive answer as to weather the audience really enjoyed my video or not.

What did you think of the camera work/editing/mise en scene?

This question is necessary as it firstly, tells me what exact moments in the video did the audience notice the most and if it had the desired effect. Secondly, it tells me weather the things I wanted the audience to notice or relate to were noticed and also if they were successful. Furthermore this also allows the audience to judge my video on its content and rather than look at the acting or focusing on the music being played. This gives me a technical insight as to weather the techniques I used were effective.

Did you like or dislike any particular aspect of the video?

This question gives the audience the opportunity to point out flaws in the video and give me their own opinion on how to improve it. This gives me the chance to make any drastic changes if many of the audience members agree on a particular flaw.

What parts of the video did you consider a success?

This question gives the audience to highlight the successes of the video and just generally praise the video for anything they thought went well.

Does the music video reflect the song, genre and artist?

This is a very important question, as it is the goal of every potential music video to do the song and the artist justice. If a music video reflects this correctly the music video will not only have purpose but also will help set the connotations of peoples first perception of the song or artist if they haven't seen them before.

Audience Feedback

Questionnaire

After giving out the questionnaires and receiving them back I had a much better idea of my target audience and exactly what they wanted out of a music video. for example the responses I received for the last question were very interesting. I asked 'If you could describe your 'ideal' music video, what would it consist of?'. I was expecting a wide range of responses but what I received was fascinating. The majority chose similar genres such as alternative, rock and pop/punk but the interesting aspect was that many of the female participants favored a narrative based music video whilst the males preferred performance based. This was also reflected in the section below where the participant can elaborate. Many females explained that they would prefer if the artist or another character had a pre-set narrative, that relates to the song and would develop over the duration of the video. They also like the idea of a mix of performance and narrative, for example one participant said "the best videos normally have the artist performing in some shots and then acting along with the narrative in the other shots. It makes it seem like the performance is the artists subconscious and the other shots are reality."

On the other hand the male participants evidently preferred a fast paced, performance based music video. The males explained that although narratives are interesting they can distract from the song and so dampen down its effectiveness. One quoted "A fast pace video with a upbeat, loud song would be best. This would easily hold my attention and definitely would encourage me to re watch the video"

This show a clear divide between male and female opinions but shows it is possible to converge various types of video to make a hybrid that ideally suits everyone's taste.

Q&A

After showing and audience my draft video I proposed to them the questions. I received a lot of positive feedback and some very helpful constructive criticism.

In general the feedback I received was positive but it was very helpful to have them watch the video and point out any fault within the video that I hadn't noticed so I could quickly correct them as best as I could. Furthermore the comments on camera work and editing were positive but also the viewers suggested possible editing techniques. I then went back and trialed these techniques and ended up using some for a particular clip that I found very effective.

Overall I found the audience very enlightening as not only did it help me understand the connotations and expectations of certain genres of music but also allowed me to delve into the ideas and concepts that really provoke peoples interest and curiosity that will keep drawing them back to watch a video once more.

Further more the question and answer session I had with the group of peers was very successful in helping me make the best out of my video.

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Evaluation Question 2

12:13 | Labels: Evaluation

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

Media technologies have been a vital aspect of the production, planning and research of my media product. From start to finish, new and developing technologies have been available to enhance my creations. The recent advances in software and online resources have been all the more beneficial to help present my product and construct it accordingly.

Research and Planning

The first aspect before embarking on creating this music video was research. I needed to know exactly what I was looking at doing in future, coming up with initial ideas that are effective and desirable for my target audience and correctly exhibit what I intended to put across.

The internet was crucial in this process as having access to so much useful information at the click of a mouse tremendously influenced how much I could research and how precisely I could plan. With the internet on my side I could undertake further research into the history of my chosen genre, this would further improve my knowledge of my chosen genre of Indie/Folk. Furthermore the research into similar bands was all the more accurate as I could access information very easily.

The use of blogger for the presentation of my portfolio reinforced my ideas and looking though the blog, a progression can be seen from the very first research to the evaluation. I believe having my portfolio on blogger was immensely beneficial as I could always access the blog and I could make changes to it where ever I go. So if an idea for the video came to me whilst I couldn't access my computer I could add it to my bog on my phone so no opportunities are lost.

I used many video sharing websites such as Youtube and Vimeo to look up the music videos of similar artists and gain inspiration for my own. I was also able to analyse them in great depth, which helped me look for the little details in similar music videos that make them unique. I also used a website called Spotify to share and listen to my chosen song and similar songs for free. This helped me greatly as not only could I listen to high quality songs so that I could time my video perfectly to the changes in the music but also I could share high quality music to my blog.

Here are three examples where the internet has helped me. The first is from Spotify. This allows me to share the songs on my blog, so anyone looking at my blog can understand what I may have written about and they can listen to themselves with very little buffering time. The second two are from Youtube this gives me a real insight into music videos already in existence and it allows me to see how good a video is depending on the feedback in the comments. This would ultimately help me to understand the do's and dont's when creating an music video and help me avoid them.

Planning is another vital part of the process of making this video. The internet also played a very important role in developing my product as I could instantly look over what I had done and make improvements. Furthermore I could very easily access crucial information about my chosen genre of indie/folk. Since this genre is fairly unknown if I had looked elsewhere it would be verging on impossible to find out large quantities of information that would benefit my production. During the process of planning my production I came across many other unknown artists of the genre and discovered some hidden gems of the genre. I followed the example set by these artists and aimed to create an artist that would have the similar effect as these had on me.

The most helpful source of information for indie/folk was from www.allmusic.com, I found this website very helpful when it came to finding the history and influences of the genre and to find evermore example artists of the same genre.

Production

Production is probably the most volatile part of the entire project. This is mainly because what looks good as an idea may not look very good though a camera. From start to finish the amount of different types of media products used was immense.

Starting with the type of camera. I started filming with a Fujifilm finepix s6800 bridge camera. It soon became apparent after some test filming that the lighting of my shots and effects I wanted to achieve would not be possible on this camera. Due to the fact the camera couldn't pick up fine detain in lower lighting conditions and wouldn't focus. Which caused a large setback.

I then had to rethink the lighting of the shots and then decided to hire in a more powerful camera which unfortunately I didn't know the make of. But this made the quality of the footage, effects captured and shots undertaken more successful overall.

When it came to editing software I had had some experience before with video editing as a hobby. However after filming I discovered that the program I had previously used (Sony Vegas Movie Studio) wasn't powerful enough to render my footage in 1080p high definition, which once again posed a problem. But none the less I found a solution and decided to use the software which as on the computers at school which is Adobe Premiere Pro. This soon cured the problem and I could continue to edit my footage.

Adobe Premiere Pro turned out to be a very powerful program which allowed me to create professional looking effects effortlessly and easily look though the footage I had managed to capture. The program has a simple layout and allows the user to chop and change footage simply and effectively.

Overall media technologies have had a massive impact on how smoothly the production went, how precise the research was and how effective the planning was. Without media technologies producing high quality products with a professional look would be unbelievably hard in this day and age of advanced technology.

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Evaluation Question 1

13:05 | Labels: Evaluation

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

I first realized that to produce a successful music video for my chosen song I needed to conduct extensive research into my chosen songs genre and its conventions. The song I had chosen was of the indie/folk genre, which is generally a untouched genre of music with not many artists exhibiting conventions specific to this genre. So to make my research effective and to aid my own understanding of the genre I decided to research both the Indie and Folk genre individually and then combine aspects of the two to make my music video.The first action I took was to find artists of this genre that were relatively successful and to use their media products as inspiration for my own. Initially I was lost as how to find artists of the same genre until I looked into some songs I know of that sound alike to some songs in the genre. I discovered number of unknown artists of the genre and began to analyse their own media products.

This is one of the first successful songs of this genre that I came across and then went on to be the main inspiration for my own music video. I Also looked at other songs by the same artist, Gabrielle Aplin, and I found that many of her music videos had the same recurring themes. Things such as colour filters, acoustic guitars and vintage objects/locations. I really wanted to incorporate this into my own video as this is such an iconic look for a video in the modern world of masses of SFX, this simple look is very effective. Also after listening to many songs of the Indie/Folk genre and watching the videos I found that although the songs themselves tell a story, the music videos can be quite obscure and I think that is a vital aspect of a music video from that genre.I also decided to look into the history of the genre. I found that the Indie genre is relatively modern compared to Folk which has been around for much longer and is much more diverse. This contradictions of eras can be easily represented by simply putting something old in a modern setting or vice versa. I really liked the idea of having an old, small object as one of the focuses of the video. So I decided to invest in a vintage looking snow globe (since the

song is about winter)

In the indie/folk genre mise en scene is very important for establishing this contradiction between old and new. The room in which I filmed looked fairly modern with an upright piano. The mise en scene was mostly inspired from Gabrielle Alpin's music video for The power of love. The simplicity of the video and lack of any SFX exhibits the old aspects of the genre perfectly but also shows the new by the artist wearing what seems to be modern clothing and also the use of fairy lights and pyrotechnics is fairly modern.Furthermore the song itself doesn't naturally have a story line and so the video is once again very simple in the actual content and editing.The setting of the video is vital to establishing the feel of the video early on so the audience can connect and so the video can hold their attention. In the video for the power of love the settings is in a seemingly old, abandoned mansion. At first glance this doesn't have much relevance to the song but after doing some research into the background, it is clear that the setting has been used for a reason. The use of the old mansion represents folk music, a dying genre of music that is rarely heard of and is seldom in the the charts. The artist, however, represents indie music which is almost like a younger generation coming back to revive folk music.

Not only is this represented by the settings but also by the changes in lighting and props. For example from one shot to another the lighting changes dramatically from flat, lifeless colours to suddenly be lit up by strings of lights and sparks that make the shot look energetic and interesting. This is possibly a representative of the indie music genre putting the spark back into folk.

This realization spurred me on to use this in my own video, but in mine I decided to challenge what was used here and have the setting as the representation of the indie genre and the object as a representative of the folk genre. This is where the use of he vintage snow globe came into its own and the array of modern musical instruments and costume simply set the scene.Folk music originated in the 19th century and was sung by the lower classes to lift spirits in darker times, whilst indie music originated as a sub-genre from the genre indie rock. Although both were created from very different backgrounds both have very similar conventions and iconic sounds. I really wanted to express this undiscovered gem of music production through my video and use some common conventions effectively to make the audience make connections between the video and the genre.When it comes to shots and editing both are used scarcely as this would be unrepresentative of the genre. I decided to use a common technique used by videos of the indie folk genre. The use of long, drawn out shots with varying focal lengths to force the foreground and background in and out of focus for effect. This adds a lot of atmosphere to the video and really sets up the mood. In many of the videos I have watched from artists of this genre many if not all have used this technique.