Note to Examiner

To whom it may concern, i have labelled the titles of my posts to indicate which ones i have produced alone and which ones where produced as a group. The titles containing 'LG TD BH KD' have been created as a group as they are the initials of our names. Posts without initials in the title have solely been created by me.

Final Music Video 'LG TD BH KD'

A2 Media studies - Ed Sheeran & P Money - Lego Hou

Evaluation Question 4

Throughout the production process of creating our music video i have gained many skills within the world of media technology. These skills made it a lot easier for me to complete and aid my blog. 

The technologies i used were;

-Blogger
-Facebook
-YouTube
-Camera and recorder
-Smart phone
-Slide share
-Photoshop
-Apple Macs
-iMovie

Blogger

I used blogger to keep a visual log of everything i completed throughout my coursework for Media Studies A2. In AS studies i used blogger to keep a blog so was already pretty familiar with how to use the software which gave me a big advantage when producing my blog for this year. On my blog is everything i have done this year including the planning and research stage, ancillary tasks, evaluation questions and the actual music video.

Facebook

I used the social networking website 'Facebook' to share my survey to improve audience research, by using Facebook it was aimed at a large audience so i was able to gain my results quickly. I also used Facebook to keep in contact with our group using a chat. During outside of school sometimes we were not able to see each other so would have to wait until a school day, however we worked around this and Facebook made this possible.

YouTube

YouTube was a very important technology i used while doing this years coursework. It allowed me to research existing video to understand them better, to get a feel into what type of music video we wanted to create and give me more ideas. I also used YouTube to upload the final version of the music video also the audience feedback interviews. YouTube also helped us showcase the video as know it is online it will receive more attention pick up more views and promote itself. This creates synergy by using many different social networks which will help to increase sales and for it to be more successful.

Camera and recorder

The camera was one of the most important part of our video. Without a camera it would not have been possible to film the music video, take pictures of locations, audience feedback and the showcase. Our group decided to use my camera because we wanted to use its 720hp video quality rather than borrowing one from the school, which would of been harder to obtain, whereas mine was freely available at anytime.

Smart phone

Using my mobile phone throughout the project gave me a big advantage as it had many of the applications i used installed on it, such as YouTube, Facebook and Blogger. I also used my phone to contact my group at anytime. Having blogger on my phone was helpful as i could blog from anywhere at anytime which helped when the Macs would unexpectedly freeze. My mobile was also very useful to research any information i needed to find out. If i needed to use my phone to take photos of any locations or story boarding etc.

Photoshop

I had some previous experience of using Photoshop from when i created the poster for my AS Media Studies project last year. I used Photoshop to create all parts of my ancillary task including my Digipak and my magazine advert. There was many effects to use in Photoshop to create the best designs i could. Also there was a lot of fonts to use when creating the titles 'Lego House'. 

Apple Macs

The Applemac computers are the most vital part of the project as they provided important software such as iMovie and Photoshop in which we used to complete the music video, audience feedback and ancillary tasks. There was some technical errors due to the Macs freezing at the most inconvenient times another problem we encountered was the sever delaying the editing process. I also used the Macs to complete most of my initial research and most of my blog.

iMovie

iMovie was another important piece of technology used within my coursework. It was used by all members of our group when editing the music video. It was also used in the editing of the audience feedback. i find the iMovie software relatively easy to use with clear instructions so was a good application to edit out video with, also other members of our group are very talented at using it. the video took a lot of playing around with, re-arranging clips, using different effects and matching different visuals with the lyrics but eventually we had a finished video we are happy with as it looks rather professional.

Slideshare

I had some brief knowledge of slideshare from last year, but i had never properly used it previously. It is a very useful website as you can upload power-point presentations from Microsoft or browse other students slideshares to gain vital research. I used slideshare to complete question 1 of my evaluation, I then embedded the slideshare into my blog so it can be viewed on my blog without going onto the main website. 

Evaluation Question 3

Question 3 - What have you learned from audience feedback?

Audience feedback video created as a group 'LG TD BH KD'
The rest of this post was written by myself.

We asked certain members of the showcase audience three different questions about our video, to achieve a better understanding of how they viewed the video.

The questions we asked were;

- How do you feel after watching the video?

-What message do you think the video got across?

-What do you think could be improved about it?

The feedback from questions one told us a couple of things. I thought that our video would portray a emotional type of feel and that the audience agreed. It was reassuring to find out that the audience could see what we tried to do with the video, they found it moving which was the exact feeling we tried to put across. This furthered the idea that the audience had a character they could relate to which was another key part of our music video. The audience saw the video through the use of visuals matching the lyrics of the track which matches Goodwin's theory which seemed to be the case with our video. Our music video also uses the gratification theory as the audience can relate to the character and real life situations which gratifies needs.

Question two helped me identify if the type of feelings we tried to put across were obvious. We found out that it had as many of the audience we asked told us that the video was about the relation between Karl and his dad, they found that he was feeling lonely, sad and isolated or trapped. The audience also noticed some visual representations we used in certain shots which we hoped the audience would see.

The third question helped us identify what went wrong with our video from the audiences point of view and what improvements we could make to better the video. It was surprising that the audience didn't find that we could make a vast amount of improvements, the main one being not to repeat the clips so many times. The feedback we gained from the audience gave us more confidence and made us feel that our video had succeeded.

Evaluation Question 2

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

For our main task we had to create a music video for a song of our choice, we chose P Money and Ed Sheerans ‘Lego House’. We also had to create a Digipak and a magazine advert for the digipak alongside this. In order to make an effective combination of our main and ancillary tasks we need to consider different themes that we wanted to convey in our products.

We saw it was important to ensure that our target audiences were the same between the three products so we decided to research into music videos that shared a similar target audience as Lego House. We looked at these videos and magazine adverts; we also looked at posters released with the digipaks themselves. However there were few posters released with digipaks.

Just as real media companies would I created a promotional poster to advertise the digipak. I also designed the whole digipak packaging; which followed the conventions of other digipaks.

The poster and digipak work very well in convergence with each other, there are clear links between them both such as the clothing, mood etc. I think they compliment each other very well.

These are the magazine advert and digipak next to eachother;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Karl (the main character) has been represented very similarly in each task (film, poster, digipak) which is that he is an urban rapper, but also has real feelings and emotions such as depression which is shown throughout the video, linking in with the lyrics of the song. We did this to target the audience in a specific way so they can relate to the main character, such as his emotions and the way he dresses, rap and hip-hop fans will recognize the way he dresses. The digipak, film and poster all follow the same themes and issues so they compliment each other in the understanding of the underlying issues presented throughout.

This strategy of selling music product is called synergy, which relates to the products working in convergence with each other to advertise something or sell the overall package to an audience. This strategy plays an instrumental role in the selling of music and the artist related products throughout the music industry on a global scale. This is because it is a proven sales technique and is much more success to be seen if multiple products are on multiple media platforms, all promoting the same thing, rather than just one on its own which can be only then be seen by a limited audience.

My three products are very good at complimenting each other due to their theming and colour schemes that are very similar in all three. I also used images, which are very similar in all products that show Karl in the same emotion and wearing the same style of clothing, In order to maintain that same visual image throughout all aspects of the full promotional package.

The use of similar theme, structure and imagery makes the products as an overall package much more effective because it means that when one is seen, it promotes another of the products, leading to a large viewing audience because those that do not see the video, may see the digipak in a shop or even a website, which may then lead to them wanting to view other aspects of the package.

 If I had to improve my marketing package if I had the opportunity to do it again I would create a website to go along side my digipak, magazine advert and film. The digipak would have a web address on the back which would take you to the website which would have the music video on it, after the video there would be a advert for the digipak using the magazine advert. These would then work in convergence with each other making it more successful overall. The
 website would use the same font and themes to sync with the digipak and poster. The website would have features such as ‘Meet the artist’ and ‘About the artist’ page. These would interest any audience that wants to explore further into the artists world. This would be a further promotion technique and would have a bigger chance in people seeing the advert or digipak therefore boosting sales.

Evaluation Question 1

Richard Dyer's Star Theory

Richard Dyers star theory is the idea that icons and celebrities are manufactured by institutions for financial profit. He believes that stars are created to represent 'real people' experiencing real emotions and feelings. Stars are manufactured by the music industry to serve one purpose; to make money out of the audience, who respond to various elements of a stars personality by buying their records and becoming fans.

His theory is broke up into three sections;

- Audiences and Institutions
- Character/Personality
- Culture

Audience and Institutions

Starts are made for money purposes alone. Increasing the brand identity benefits the institution as they become a household name increasing sales in all of the media platforms. The institution then models the artist around the target audience they choose. An example of this would be Lady GaGa, according to Richard Dyer, was modelled around fashion forward people so that the audience can relate to her as a person and also to her music. In our music video we increased Karl's brand identity by using a costume that is very similar to the rap and hip-hop genre so the audience of these genres would recognise his fashion sense and relate.

Character/Personality

Dyer suggests that the characters are represented through their roles in the films. He suggests that the screenwriters make 2nd personalities for the person. This is purely for the financial benefits and to attract the audience, he suggests that this is the only reasoning behind the character choices. He also says that it could take several films to create these feelings for a person. He gets across the point that it is much easier to make these feelings in the music scene rather than the film industry. In our music video we have tried to represent Karl to suit the audience rather than our own idea.

Culture

The culture of the artist is what attracts the audience and enhances their 'star quality'. There star quality is how the person is seen off screen as well as on screen. Their personality off screen is a huge part of how the audience reacts towards them. The audience of the star will be influenced by how the person reacts and will in some cases will try and duplicate some of the things they do or try and duplicate their looks. This means that the audience may take a liking to the persons look such as their hairstyle or the way they dress and try and replicate it themselves. In our music video Karl is wearing clothing very stereotypical of the rap genre hopefully this will encourage males to dress like our main character.

Titles - different sizes, colours and styles

These are a brainstorm of fonts i could have used on my digipak and magazine advert.

After this i decided to use the fourth font down
, but edited the writing so it had 'wavy, pointed' corners.

Finished Magazine advert

This is my magazine advert i created to advertise our digipak, it includes an image of Karl who is representing P Money, the main singer in the song.

Creating the magazine advertisement

These are the screenshots of me creating the digipak ...

Process of development and decisions made

These are screenshots of the editing process and choosing shots to using in certain parts. It also shows why we chose the specific shots in time with what lyrics. There is also some shots of random objects known as filler shots, usually used when there is no lyrics just the instrumental or when no lyrics have a narrative meaning in compliance with the video.

At first our music video was decided to be a cameo and not include a narrative story. After discussion and consideration of how difficult this could be to achieve we reconsidered our ideas and planned to create a narrative video for the song. We already had a lot of footage of Karl rapping the choruses at this point so we kept these shots.

We returned to film the narrative scenes, these included four main shots which would tell a story in alliance with the lyrics. These shots are:

1) The main character arguing with his dad in the car. - This tells us that his relationship with his poor and they constantly fight, this making him upset as the lyrics suggest.

2) Him looking at his reflection in the mirror. - Showing that he doesn't feel himself and is lost.

3) Writing lyrics and not being happy with them and throwing them into a bin. - He is upset and cannot focus on writing good lyrics, this upsets him as he throws them into the bin.

4) Receiving a text from his dad saying he doesn't want to see him. - His dad doesn't want to see him after arguing the day before in the car, he feels he is "out of touch" with his dad.

I have grouped these screenshots into different parts of the video to make this post easier to read. These are what the groups mean - 

1 = Shots and editing relating to his argument with his dad in the car.

2 = Shots and editing relating to him looking at his reflection in the mirror.

3 = Shots and editing relating to him writing lyrics.

4 = Shots and editing of him texting his dad.

5 = Filler shots.

6 = Shots and editing of the main character singing the lyrics, cameo shots.

7 = Shots and editing for the chorus.

8 = Shots from the first cut when Ben was singing the chorus, representing Ed Sheeran singing it.

Group 4

Group 4

Group 4

Group 5

Group 5

Group 2

Group 6

Group 3

Group 1

Group 1

Group 4 

Group 4

Group 5 

Group 5

Group 5

Group 7

Group 3

Group 6

Group 8

Group 5

Group 6

Group 8