Evaluation

The brief of my media project was to create a promotion package for the release of an album, this had to include a music promotion video, a cover for its release as part of a CD/DVD digipak and a magazine advertisement for the digipack. As I was having to create a music promotion video the first thing that I thought would be the most efficient thing to do was to research into music videos, to see the different forms and conventions that music videos use and how I could use them within my video, I also looked at how particular genres where shown in videos and also different narrative structures, I did this by choosing 3 music videos and analysing them effectively. The videos I chose to analyse where jack penate’s have I been a fool? (2007, XL recordings), Taio Cruze- Break your heart(2009, Mercury records) and Becyonce’s If I where a Boy(2008, Columbia Records), this is because each video shows a different genre and also has clear narrative structures. For My ancillary texts I also researched into other media texts such as album covers and magazine CD advertisements to see what forms and conventions these usually use and how they engaged the audience. During my planning and research I also created a poll on my blog asking the audience which music they preferred, this was so I created a music video with the genre that most of the public where wanting to see out of; Indie, Hip-hop, R&B, Rap and rock, I also asked questions like if they enjoyed watching music videos and if so where they where most likely to watch them also their ages and gender . My audience Feedback showed that both Hip-Hop and R&B was the most popular with a tied result therefore I chose the song ‘Ghost in the machine’ by B.O.B( 2010), which has elements of both R&B and hip-hop within the genre and also rap, However I knew that I wouldn’t want to be using the usual forms and conventions of an R&B/Hip-Hop music video and that I would however want to challenge some of them.

When creating my media products I obviously wanted to use and develop forms and conventions of real media products. The first part of my project which I created was my music video. The first thing I had to decided for one of the codes and conventions of my product was what style I wanted my music video to be in out of; Narrative, Performance, a mixture of both narrative and performance, cameo, abstract and animation, I had to chose one of these styles as this is the way that the different story-lines, emotions and meanings are portrayed to the audience. During my research of music videos I found that most music videos would use the performance style which is where the band/artist is lip syncing to their music track and acting out a certain performance or dance etc, I decided that for my music video i did not want to do this and that I would however use the narrative style when creating my music video therefore you could say I was challenging this form and convention of music videos. The reason I chose to do a narrative approach is that the idea of the story in my music video was about a girl who was feeling life was out of her control due to self indulgence and felt the only way to deal with it was to escape in some way, therefore I felt doing this as a narrative style would be a lot more powerful to the audience and would also leave them been able to make their own assumptions to what the story is about and how it actually ends. I also would like to use temporal order within my music video, this is where the plot does not always show us events in chronological order for example how events would happen in real life, usually when a music video uses temporal order it is when it does a either a flash back or a flash forward, I was influenced to use this technique from Beyonce Knows music video 'If I where a Boy' (2008) and would like to use a flashback scene in my music video of my characters partying. The theory behind this narrative structure is Allen Cameron who came up with anochronic narratives which involve the use of flashbacks/flash forwards, with no clear dominance between the narrative threads. These narratives often repeat scenes directly or via a different perspective.

Another convention that I have used is a range of camera angles, I have noticed that in a lot of narrative music videos close ups of the artist have been used to show the artist as this is normally one of the main reasons audiences watch music videos, however I have not actually interpreted an actual artist in my music video I used to close ups to show the emotions of the character and to try and show some meanings of the song, for example at the beginning of my music video the camera does an extreme close up of my main character this shows the audience that this is the main character in my music video and also that she is feeling confused, anxious and a little delirious. I have also used establishing shots of locations such as Hessle Foreshore, Hessle Graveyard and Staten Island as looking at music video's from the genre that I am doing they tend to show the different locations in which the music video is set in. I have also used Tilts, Tracking shots and low angle shots to try and get the whole chaotic situation across to the audience when the girl is consuming drugs and alcohol. I also deliberately hand held the camera at certain points during my filming to add a little bit of shakiness to the footage this is because I wanted to get the feeling across that the girl had no control and that she was all over the place, I think having the camera still would have made it look like the girl had some control over what she was doing which is not what I wanted my narrative to communicate to the audience.

Another important convention of a music video is making sure people understand the genre, I would say that I have both used and challenged the genre for my music video. Some of the forms and conventions I have used from the R7b/Hip-hop genre are; Firstly I have made my music video black and white which is often seen in music videos of this genre, I have portrayed emotions which is often seen in female R&B stars, I have portrayed the use of drugs and alcohol which again is often seen in hip-hop videos to do this I had props such as a bottle of Vodka filled with water, Red wine bottles, icing sugar which was acting as cocaine, mints as pills and shot glasses these props where an important part of my mise-en scene as the video's narrative is around a girls addiction to drugs also portraying the likes of expensive drugs such as cocaine suggests the girls wealthy as she can afford these things therefore this links back to both the R&B and hip-hop genre. I have also used an attractive characters within my music video which is another convention of my genre, however I have challenged this a little, as in most music videos of this genre females are used and portrayed in a sexual manor in very limited clothing however in my music video I wanted the female character to be taken seriously therefore I did not have her wearing too revelling clothes however I did have her wearing high wasted shorts and a short dress within some scenes as bare skin is also a convention in the RnB and hip-hop genre, I also have 3 girls dancing in the party scene during my music video which also links back to both genres.

I have also used editing within my video as this was essential to put all my narrative together, on the party scene of my music video I used many cross dissolves and speeded my video footage up which portrayed to the audience the whole chaotic energy within the situation and also a connotation for how the main character was feeling in her mind, I have also used jump cuts which take the audience from the past to the present within my music video narrative, I have also slowed down the parts of my music video which are in the present so the audience can try and see clearly that the character is feeling lost and at a dead end and in a really bad state of mind and how she no longer feels she had the freedom that she did when she was with friends indulging on drugs and alcohol.

The target audience for my music video was for people 16-24 as first off all they need to be old enough to understand references to drugs and alcohol and also I think the younger generation are more likely to understand the themes that are been portrayed in my music video which are ideologies like wanting to escape from everyday life and not knowing what to do with yourself anymore. I don't think my music video will be particularly be appealing to older audiences as older people already have the idea that teens in this day of society or all living a drug and alcohol fuelled lifestyle therefore it would be a hegemony of what they perceive teens to be like these days.

The analysis for my music video is located on my blog at the following link; http://leoniemedia.blogspot.com/2011/04/final-music-video.html

Once my video was finished the next thing I began to create was the digipak which is a cover release for my music video therefore it seemed the right idea to somehow link the images that would be on my digipak to my music video. Before I started to create my digipak I researched into three different album front covers these where T Pains ‘Three ringz’ (2008), Rihanna’s ‘Loud’ (2010, def jam recordings) and Kanye West ‘Love Lockdown’ (2008). Researching into these album covers made me clear what the usual forms and conventions was for these kinds of products, this include stuff like one main image which tended to be the main focus of the album, the artists name which tended to be in a bold font and of course the album name which was usually situated in a large font making it noticeable for the audience.

This is the front cover of my 6 panelled digipak. I have used the conventions of having a main image which takes up the audiences focus, on most album covers you would have a main image of the artist themselves but as I don’t actually feature an artist within my music video this was not possible therefore my choice was to do an extreme close up a girls mouth with her tongue out with the use of mise-en scene been a mint to portray the use of an ecstasy pill in her mouth, I edited the main photo image into black and white, this was because in my video the part when my character is self indulging on drugs and alcohol is in black and white therefore I felt it would be a good idea to change this image into black and white as it corresponds with the video, also shows the dark side to drugs and alcohol and also expresses how the character was feeling during the video which was been at a dark place in life. Another form and convention which I have used is having the album title in a bold font, the font which I used was centurary gothic and placed it just above her mouth where it would be noticeable for the audience to see. I named my album ‘Guilty pleasures’ because the video is based around a young girl who is dealing with a drug addiction and gets both pleasure and pain from her addiction therefore I feel the title ‘guilty pleasures’ corresponds with the music video as the girl enjoys what she is doing but does realise that what she is doing is not the right way for her to live therefore the drugs and alcohol is a guilty pleasure to her. Also as the girl has suicidal thoughts throughout the video which she still gets a little pleasure from also corresponds with the album name. The final form and convention which I have used on my album front is having the artists name on the front cover. My artists name which is ‘Jared Jay’ is placed under the album title in a white font as I feel it was a good contrast was the blackness of the image and the album title and that it stands out more to the audience which as good as when audiences are looking at albums they need to know who the artist is. I made the name ‘Jared Jay’ up as obviously when doing this project you are not allowed to use the real artists name due to copyright reasons, I came up with the name ‘Jared Jay’ as I felt that when it came to doing my magazine advertisement and spines for my digipak I would be able to abbreviate the name into ‘JJ’ which I feel fits well with the hip-hop/R&B genre.

Forms and conventions of a full 6 panelled digipak includes having a back cover a front cover which I have already spoke about above, 2 spines, 2 CDS and 4 other panels. The back cover of my digipak has used the forms and conventions by having the album title at the top of the back cover, album track names and number and also a barcode which shows voyeuristic aspects to real digipak products. The background colour of my back cover is just black as I feel this relates back to my music video also I have used quite a few photo images on my other panels of my digipak therefore I felt it would be better just to have a plane background as I feel it made it look more effective and less cluttered. The track names on the back cover of my digipak are not made up by myself but do however come from the album ‘The adventures of Bobby Ray’ (2009) which is the album of the original singer of the music track on my music video.

The image above shows my final 6 panelled digipak. The image in the upper left hand corner which is the inside right of the digipak shows an image of a table with the mise en scene of drugs and alcohol to create this image I used props such as icing sugar to detonate cocaine, mints to portray ecstasy pills and other props such as wine glasses and shot glasses, I used this close up image as it is taken from my music video and reflects what the album is all about with the album title been guilty pleasures. In this image I also turned down the contrast to make the image look a bit more dark and edgy to the audience as when I first took the image it was far too bright and didn’t give the right meaning off to the audience. The inside centre right image is also an image that the audience will recognise from my music video, the image is a medium cut away shot as it is not only showing the subject of the drugs and alcohol but also the three girls, I manipulated this image by first turning it all black and white and then turning the drugs and alcohol and two of my characters back into colour. I left the third character in black and white this is because this is the main character within my music video which the audience should be able to recognise from my music video, I left it black and white as unlike the other two characters she feels as though what she is doing isn’t right anymore and that she is no longer get the same buzz as she used to, unlike her friends who are supposedly loving every minute off it. The image is again a recreation of a shot which is in my music video which is therefore linking both media texts. The inside left panel is a close up image of a wine glass, a shot glass ‘cocaine and pills’ to create this mise en scene I used the same props as I did in the other images, although this image is not actually recreated from a shot in my image it still links by having the same drugs and alcohol from the music video also for the mise en scene of this video I scattered all my props about to create a kind of scattered, reckless look which links back to my music video in the same way that I have used camera angles. The final panel of my digipak just shows a black background with the made up artist name in bold century gothic font. I did this as I already felt there where to many images of the same thing within my panel and that anymore would just make it appear to cluttered therefore I felt it would be better to have a plain black background with the artists name as up to that point in my creation of the digipak I hadn’t really established the artist name much except for the front cover of my digipak so I felt I would make it more established to the audience by making it big and bold, the black and white colour scheme links back to the front cover and also back to my video. The target audience for my digipak is the same as my music video as those who do not find the video very appealing are likely to feel the same about the digipak as the same theme runs throughout both texts.

After I had created my CD cover release I then created my magazine advertisement which is promoting the album. Before I created the magazine advertisement I researched into other album promotion posters these where ( do this tonight)

I have used all the usual forms and conventions of a magazine advertisement these include a masthead of the album name and artist, a website address which usually relates to the record company or artist appropriate, a main image which is likely to link to the album which you are promoting in some way and also text which provides detail of what is included in the album and terms and conditions etc. I first started of by getting my main image, the main image that I finalised on was a an image using props such as a bottle of blossom hill red wine, a wine glass with wine spilling out, mints and paraceptamol as pills, icing sugar as cocaine and a credit card, these items where all placed on a black marble kitchen top to make the colours stand out, also the blackness of the marble also links back to the black and white edits in both my music video and digipak. I then added the album title and artist name to my main image, in bold white fonts with the font been century gothic as this is the same font that I used on my digipak. In the far left hand corner I added ‘www.jaredjaymusic.com to make the poster look more realistic as this is a basic convention from advertisement posters. I then added text in the same font of century gothic however this time not in bold but just regular explaining what the album pack includes which again is something I saw on all advertisements when reading. I have used the same fonts and also images which tie in with both my digipak and video therefore the audience will easily be able to tell that all three of these media products match each other and are promoting each other.

Overall I think the combination of my main product and the ancillary texts has been done to an efficient level. All of my products are linked in some way and I fell if the audience where to look at all three in front of them they would easily be able to see the connections between all three products. When creating my products I knew that I would deliberately want to combine all my products in someway, therefore when I was taking and manipulating images this was always in my mind. My images i knew defiantly needed to link back to my video, therefore I recreated the party scene from my music videos as this include symbolic items from the video such as drugs and alcohol which I knew would be instantly recognizable to the audience however when recreating these scenes i didn't want them to be an exact replica of the music video as I wanted the image to capture a kind of unorganized, messed about mise- en scene as this would connate more of my characters energy towards their life saying that they are reckless and carefree whereas I feel if the mise-en scene had have been more organized the images would not have had the same energy. There is also a colour scheme which runs throughout my main product and ancillary texts. In my music video the colour edits from normal colour to black and white this is because it is showing the past and present of my characters situation however I also thought that the black and white colour scheme matched well as it showed an ideology of a dark situation which indulging in drugs is scene as, also it reflects the main characters dark depressed mood, the black and white colour scheme can also be seen on my digpak therefore these both link to each other as my front cover was a black and white image of one of my characters taking drugs also the back cover of my album was a black background with a white font. You can also see the same characters that are in my video on part of my digipak so again this will be noticeable to the audience. My video, digipak and magazine advertisement poster all use the theme of drugs and alcohol so overall I would say this is the most obvious theme within my product which is connecting them all together, my audience feedback also showed that on a rating of 1-5 with one been the least that they found the main products and the two ancillary texts to be extremely effective together with most people putting it at a 4 on the effectiveness scale.

To get my audience feedback I created an audience feedback survey, an example of this is available to see on my blog. The audience feedback survey asked a variety of questions to do with my music video and the two existing ancillary texts, the questions covered things such as the understanding of the narrative, using and challenging the genre, improvements and effectiveness of my main product and ancillary texts as a whole.

The people I asked where mainly off my target audience, both male and female around the ages of 17-21, with the exclusion of one person. Most of my audience feedback came from people who are at Wyke sixth form college which means they are all of a higher education standard and either studying AS or A2 subjects with mainly one of them been the subject media. I feel that the audience that i gained audience feedback are of the younger generation they are more likely to be interested in my music genre and are more likely to watch music videos and form their own meanings and opinions from them rather then the other age ranges. I also think that these aged people are more likely to be subjected to the media a lot more and feel they have more to say about it. I did not however want my results to be biased therefore I asked other people for audience feedback of different age ranges and also different occupations so I could get a true idea of what people though of my products, what I could learn from their answers and how overall I could improve.

Out of everyone I asked everyone said that they could understand the narrative of my music video and also that they felt that they could create their own conclusions up about what the story is about and how it actually ends, which I think is a good appraisal for me as I intend to leave the ending ambiguous to the audience as it did have a multiple different scenarios that could have happened to the girl the main one been suicidal death however other endings could have been that she escaped from what she was doing or it all been a phase she was going through with features of imagination. All of my audience feedback also agreed that they could recognise basic forms and conventions from real life music videos in my music video as they recognised basic cinematography and editing processes. My audience feedback also showed that people thought I had both used and challenged the forms and conventions of my genre, the majority of people on a scale of 1-4 with 4 been the least thought I had used the forms and conventions correctly with an even amount of number also thinking that I had challenged them in some ways to, having a high response of people think I used the forms and conventions of my chosen genre surprised me a little as I thought I mainly challenged them.

On my audience feedback survey I asked the question which of the following would you like to see, or see more or within my music video with the options; Lip syncing, more performance or more structured narrative. Most people said they would like to see more performance closely followed by lip syncing. I also asked what people like the most about my music video I got a variety of different responses but what came up the most amount of times was that they really enjoyed the narrative of my music video and the way it hits different emotions and also the colour edits from black to white as they feel they could tell what was happening in the past and the present. I also asked on my audience feedback sheet what did they not like about my video all but two people said nothing, the two other people said one that they didn't like the cemetery scene and would rather see something a bit more uplifting and the other person commented that they did not like how heavily made up my main character was in the first scene. As for not liking the cemetery scene I can understand that it may be a bit depressing however my music video is hitting the point of a real issue of drugs in todays society so i felt it added to the effectiveness overall. The final question in which I asked about what they would like to see improved on my music video showed that people would have liked to have seen a more positive outcome from a negative situation, more involvement of characters, a performance element i.e. lip syncing or a dance and also not repeating clips as much.

Looking at my audience feedback from my ancillary texts I have learnt that all my audience think my other two media products match my music video with mainly a 4 on my rating scale. The audiences reasons for thinking all three products where appropriate to each other where that it makes a good connection through mise-en scene, it shows a lot of what you see in the video and that they match the same themes as the music video. I have also learned that the element that people liked the most about my ancillary texts is that the images are very strongly linked to my video and that they can understand the whole concept of the 'guilty pleasures' concept. What people didn't like was that my CD and DVD did not have images on them. Overall people said they liked my magazine advertisement more then my CD cover release therefore I have learnt that, that is something I could look to improve.

Overall my audience feedback has given me considerable insight into what people think about my media products, if they like them and what I could do to make them like them that little bit more. I am happy with most of my results as most of the audience have picked up most of the things that I have tried to engaged with in my media product and put across to the audience in subtle ways. I have also liked that the audience have given me constructive criticism as now I know where I would need to improve if I wanted my target audience to like it 100%.

When doing this project I have used many media technologies to create my music promotion pack. The first stage of this project that I did was researching different media texts. To do this I first needed to have something where I could electronically store my research so that I could go back to it and view it when I wanted, therefore I created a blog on the internet where I could easily post my research and just as easily view it whenever I needed to. Another way I have needed to use the internet is by researching different media texts for this I used www.youtube.com to look at other media videos so that I could analyse them, I also researched album covers and album promotion posters for my ancillary texts, I did this by looking on Google images which is again using the internet. Also once I had storyboarded my images and drawn up my plans for my ancillary texts I had to scan them on to the computer and post them on my blog. I also used a video camera to film my footage for my video, the video camera that I used was a Cannon DC 7.4V, it was clearly important that I had to use a video camera for my music video otherwise I would not have been able to film the footage for my music video properly, it was quite hard getting used to how the video camera worked as I had never really used one before therefore I was not familiar with how to actually use the video camera to its full advantages and film properly, but once having a few tries I gained the hang of it and was able to use it properly and carry out the right camera angles I needed.

Once I had all the footage I needed it was clear that I would need to edit what I had together to actually create my music video, to do this I used the editing suite Adobe Premier Pro where I uploaded the footage I had taken from the video camera, once it was uploaded I used the editing technology to create my music video. An example of a technical process i completed on the editing suite was syncing my music to my video footage material, at first this was very difficult as certain parts of the song where not in sync with the video footage however once I had worked out how to use the timeline properly I found myself able to change the speed of duration down on the film footage which enabled to get my footage in sync with the music.

At first I found editing very complicated to do as I had very limited knowledge on how to use adobe premier pro so didn’t really know how to use it at first, however once I was shown the basics I found it very easy and extremely useful in putting my music video together, I was able to add video transitions for example cut dissolves and sound to my video and change the which I obviously wouldn’t have been able to do without this technology. Once I had my music video finished I then imported it to my memory stick and created a YouTube account which let me have a HTML code for my music video therefore I was able to post it on my blog, therefore again this is an example of how I have used technology when I have been creating my media project. I also have used Adobe Photoshop CS3 to edit the images I have taken for my ancillary texts and actually created my album pack on Photoshop, I found this easy to do as I used Photoshop last year for my music magazine media project therefore I was familiar with the program. I took my images on my own digital camera which is a Samsung ST50, as this is my own camera I knew exactly how to use it, I am also very familiar with how to upload my own images so again came across no problems with this technology during my project.

Overall technology has had a massive impact on my media product and I have basically had to use some form of technology with every part of my project therefore without the use of technology it would have been impossible. I think the major advantage of having technology when doing this project was the non-Linear editing. Non-Linear editing made it so much easier for me to get my video footage in the order I wanted it to go in, having none Linear editing means that I could upload all of my video footage and no matter what order I had filmed it in move it around the time line wherever I wanted. If I where not have been able to use Non Linear editing I would have had to have had my video footage in chronological order and every time I wanted to change something would have to start all over again which would have proved very time consuming and very frustrating therefore I feel privileged to have been able to use this form of editing. One disadvantage I would say about having all this technology to create this kind of project is that there is just far to much you can do and experiment with which makes you feel like you have to try and use every possible bit of technology you can, for example on the editing suite there are many many many video and transitions and video effects that you can add to your video footage which made me feel that I was never quite satisfied with what I had and that I would be able to find something more better and more effective when really all I was doing was wasting time.

Overall the media project has been one of my most challenging pieces of work yet that required a lot of time and a lot of effort. I think before I started the project I was very naive to how much thought, time and effort has to go into this piece of work and can honestly say was actually shocked at how much time it took me to create everything overall. Although I did find it hard work, I also found it extremely enjoyable and enjoyed watching the outcomes as all my project began coming together. I have also learnt a lot of skill development throughout the project and can identify both my strengths and weaknesses and would know exactly what to do and what to change if I ever where to do something like this again. I now know how important technology is in this and how you need to stick to forms and conventions if you want to make something work properly but also challenge them in certain ways to make it unique and different to the audiences, I also realise now how time consuming this is and if I where to do this again know that I would plan my time a lot more carefully.