Final Product: Music Video

Digipak

My final digipak uses the blurred effect I created, with the Ironman standing out. All the writing on the cover represents the colour theme throughout the website and music video as well with red and gold fonts. 

The inside cover consists of two images of 'Connor James'. I used the erase tool and magic tool to delete any background of a curtain. I chose to have a black background to make the artist stand out a lot more. In the bottom left corner I wrote a thank you to the production team.

Website - http://gabsdj.wix.com/connerjames

Evaluation Question 4 - Digital Technologies

My A2 media studies project consisted of the creation of a digipak, website and music video which each, in turn, required large amounts of research and planning. My blog in itself is a direct portrayal of how media technologies has provided me with the ability to create an interesting and enjoyable display of the work I have done over the year. 

The most crucial digital technology that we used was the internet; we spent months researching online what audiences liked in their artists and understanding style and image. We used sites such as Wikipedia to get a formal statistical understanding of what the average person liked about their artist but we used social media as our main case for understanding what the major fans liked and disliked. We used Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube to see what people were saying about famous performers. We searched the comment section on YouTube of music videos that had been uploaded, and typed in celebrities names on Twitter and Facebook to see what people were writing about them. We also looked at articles that had been posted online about the singers and checked what people were commenting on websites such as www.dailymail.com. All of these websites also aided us in understanding what the fashion was at the moment, what styles were in, what artists were wearing and most importantly what the public thought of those outfits. 

Without the internet we wouldn’t have been able to search artists’ websites or made our own. We used a website called www.wix.com, this is yet another example of an online Media Technology. WIX is a programme that allows you to create and distribute your own online website. I was able to add elemtents such as images, videos and links onto the websites and social media. It is an easy to use website that allowed us to make a website from scratch for our artist in a professional manor. To create our website we looked into websites for people such as Bruno Mars, Olly Murs, Ed Sheeran and many others. From their websites we were able to understand what we appreciated the most and what we didn’t like very much. Through this analysis we understood that we shouldn’t complicate our website too much and make it user-friendly.

 The internet also managed to help us when it came to location, we used Google maps to plan our a route for our filming day. We wanted to create a structure of how the day would pan out and Google maps made that a lot easier, we were able to pin-point where we would film and when.

 Another important piece of digital technology was our mobile phones. We used our phones to video the interviews we conducted with member of people representing our target audience. We were able to film, edit and upload our content from our phones which shows how important they were. From the interviews we managed to gain an insight into our target audience and understand what they looked for in an artist. 

Our phones were also very helpful when it came to filming our animatic. We drew a picture of each scene and then took a picture of each drawing, then we were able to edit the images together and place them with the audio of the song so we could see when there would be a cut to the beat and when the narrative and performance bits would be. This is a lot more advanced than AS because during AS we just took a couple picture of a drawn out storyboard, this required little effort and thought and didn’t aid the overall product.

 During AS we used an older and less advanced camera than in A2, for our music video we used a GoPro and a DSLR camera to make sure we got as many shots as possible and crisp, good quality shots. This made it a lot easier to compile shots and choose our favourites too. In AS our filming skills were a lot worse and the fact that the camera wasn’t great quality didn’t help that so it made editing a lot more complicated.

 For AS we used imovie which is a much simpler and less advanced editing software whereas for our music video we used Adobe Premiere Pro which is a great software that aided the production of our music video a lot. We used the colour corrector tool to enhance the colours of each shot. We used the cut and separate tool the most to make sure each scene was cut to a beat and the lip-syncing all matched up.

 For our digipak we used Coral Photopaint/Draw/photoshop to edit pictures we had taken during a photoshoot and during our filming days. These enabled us to create a professional album cover for our artist.

All these technologies were useful for me because I am a prosumer. They were all free to use which was good for us because it made our pre-production and post-production much easier. I create things and share them through the internet whilst I also consume things that other people have made. All of these things that I have talked about have encouraged and helped me construct and research my music video, digipak and website. 

By using digital media technologies I have used technological convergence to ensure that I have produced three products as part of a successful campaign. My use of YouTube, Wix and Blogger has enabled me to become a prosumer, a creator of media products to a near professional standard. Digital technology has given me opportunities to upload, share and distribute my products. It is also interactive as my audience have been able to feedback, like and comment on my products using features such as, Survey Monkey, YouTube and Facebook comments, this is important as it gives an understanding of media in the online age which overall helped the creation of my media products.

Evaluation Question 3 - Audience Feedback

Once we had finished our music video we presented it to a focus group, we asked open questions to get thorough data and feedback and we also gave them all questionnaires to get more specific answers of what we wanted to know about the music video.

Qualitative research is information that is gathered that is not in a numerical form. Common examples include, diary accounts, open-ended questionnaires interviews and observations.

Quantitative research gathers information in a numerical form. This information can be collated into groups, categories and and orders. this type of data can be used to construct graphs and tables.

The questions that we asked included:

Did you enjoy the music video? - what worked well?
What would you change?
What was the narrative of the video?
Does the video fit the genre of music
Do you think the video was cut to the beat?
Do you like the editing?

We were presenting our final piece so we knew the focus group would only be picking out the smallest of details to be changed or to criticise because we had already followed the feedback previously received. The main feedback that we received was very positive. People had lots of good things to say for example how upbeat, original and amusing the video was. 


The points from our feedback that stood out the most was the divided preferences, we found that the reason the boys enjoyed the video and the bits the liked the best was the superhero, narrative element, from our research we were aware that there would be a preference of boys towards the superhero because it seemed that at one point or another in most of their lives they wanted to be a superhero therefore watching someone else dress up and pretend to be a superhero gave them a nostalgic type of feeling. 

The girls on the other hand enjoyed the performance element a lot, we found that the casting of our character Connor James was very good as most people appreciated his young and charming vibe while at the same time finding him very attractive. This was one of the aims of the music video, we wanted to appeal to all 12-20 year olds of both genders. Therefore we incorporated the information we found out during research into how to interest all types of audiences.


During the focus group we wanted to know if the group was able to decode the idea of the music video. We had encoded a narrative into our video that we felt portrayed itself very clearly. When asked what they had thought the video was about they were able to give clear answers based around the idea of 'A superhero in London' and 'The child in all of us'. These answers showed us that they were able to de-construct the meaning of the video very easily to understand what we had wanted them to about the video. It also shows that we had been successful in constructing a music video that our target audience were able to connect with and enjoy.

Some thoughts that were given included, switching the shots around a bit to make the video more upbeat and jumpy. We had previously thought about this idea but felt that it did not fit with the tempo of the song and that it look messy and unprofessional when we tried to cut shots not in time with the beat. 

Another idea was to end the video with the superhero going back to his home to give it a cyclical feel and tie off the ends, we felt that although it was a good idea we preferred to leave the narrative out in the open, we wanted to end it on an artistic shot of the Ironman character as we felt he represented the fun and exciting side to the music video.

The aspect of the music video that got the most praise was the editing side of it. People appreciated the way the narrative flowed and the way the performance interjected at specific times throughout. They thought the jump cuts created an upbeat vibe and made it exciting. They felt the lip-syncing was accurate and the cuts were on a beat. The enhanced colour in the narrative side was found to be very appealing and noteworthy.

However, another comment that was made about editing was the fact that we could have included a wider variety of shot types for the performance element. We had used mainly close-ups on the face and chest area of our star Connor james for the sole reason of attracting our target audience.

We asked each member to rate the video out of 10 and the average mark was 8.5/10.

Finally, we also posted a survey monkey which was available for anyone who had seen the video to answer, the results are as follows:

Lastly, After uploading the video to YouTube we were able to analyse the demographics and view count that our video received. From this we were able to see that our main target audience was a considerable viewer of our video. This is important as we had been successful in creating a media product for a specific target audience.

Here is a video of groups of people representing our target audience responding to questions we drafted to better understand the types of things our audience likes.

Evaluation Question 2 - Promotional campaign

Our star, Connor James, fits the conventions of a normal pop/rock artist. We researched many artists of similar genre, age and gender to find out what people found most appealing about the artists. A few artists similar to Connor include Olly Murs, Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran and Cody Simpson. We got inspiration from these artists, the way they acted, dressed and played up to the camera during their music videos; all of these factors helped us to create the perfect pop star.

We wanted Connor to be portrayed as a charismatic, charming, fun and energetic character, these were the key elements we wanted to put on our star’s image because from researching the similar artists we found that these were the most talked about and enjoyed qualities displayed.

My digipak, website and music video all used a running theme that represented the main, Ironman character. The Ironman character represents a lot  of the qualities that we wanted Connor to be viewed as, when people see the character dressed in the superhero outfit they get a nostalgic feeling as most people remember a time that they wanted to be a superhero. Also the outfit is very colourful and the character is very playful throughout, this shows the fun and energetic traits. The website and digipak incorporate Ironman throughout the products which play as a reminder to the traits Ironman displays in the music video.

The genre of the music is pop/rock, this type of music appeals mainly to a young audience between 12-20, this is because the tempo of music from this genre fits well with a young and energetic lifestyle, most 12-20 year olds enjoy upbeat and simple music with lyrics that they can sing along to and apply to themselves.

The traits attributed to Connor James are very appealing to people in our target audience because they are traits that young girls look for in boys. Girls want to date him and the boys want to be like him. He is good looking and portrays a great personality that people are usually fond of.

Each product works well at selling the artist, for starters the music videos shows the audience what Connor is like in a stripped back performance, this is a large selling point because we wanted to sell him on his good looks and the way he performed to the camera. The website gives fans an opportunity to find out when he would be performing near them, shows a gallery of all his photo shoots and a variety of personal pictures, as well as being able to buy merchandise based on Connor. The digipak outside image shows a picture of Ironman with everything else blurred out, this encompasses the colourful and playful theme and shows more about Connor’s personality, the inside cover tries to sell Connor’s looks as there are two images of Connor on a plain black background.

The music videos relates to the target audience because it represents the child in all of us. We witness a person dress up in a superhero costume and spend the day in London attracting attention and enjoying himself. Most children at some point want to be a superhero, or dress like one, this means that when the watch the video they relate to the feeling of wanting to be a child again but know they would never do it themselves as it goes against social norms, making it even more enjoyable to watch.

The website is very easy to use and find, the simple, bright, block writing makes everything clear and visible. Each page has helpful information without too much going on making it hard to follow or distracting. We could make it more accessible by putting links on social media and promoting it more to fans online.

The video, digipak and website all have one strong main link and that is the colour scheme, each one follows a colour scheme of yellow and red, these are vibrant and obvious colours which are very appealing to a young audience. The digipak and website successfully promote the video as they show images of the Ironman character which are intriguing to unaware audiences.

We are promoting Connor James through the global, oligopoly Sony. Sony is an huge conglomerate that produces music for many artists including those similar to Connor. It is well-known for the high-quality products it produces and is a great company for an artist like Connor.

We are mainly using social media and adverts to promote Connor as an artist. We found that most people from our target audience spend a lot of time on sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat etc and therefore we believe that the best way to create a cohesive marketing campaign is to use social media. It is also a great way for fans to feels as though they can connect with their favourite artists in a direct and immediate way. They can share their opinions and feelings about the artist which makes it easier for us to understand what the fans want and therefore mould our marketing campaign in a way that will attract more people. We are also using other types of media such as magazines and TV interviews to make Connor James a house-hold name. 

Evaluation Question 1 - Conventions

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

Media theorist Keith Negus has conducted into the conventions of a music video. I have summarised his work into the following points: 

1. A possible narrative structure

2. A possible performance element

3. The ability to be able to disregard realism and use dis-continuity editing

4. Shots cut exactly to the beat of the track

5. Use of special effects (lighting, animation, CGI, in-camera effects)

6. A carefully constructed Mise en Scene appropriate to the content and tone of the track

7. The obvious and deliberate promotion of the artist's 'image' be it aesthetic, generic or ideological. The ‘image’ is sold as a specific product with a brand identity, ready for mass consumption 

8. The featuring of the artist within the media product (almost without exception)

9. A wide multitude of shot types, camera angles and movement

10. Repetition of reoccurring thematic elements and generically specific iconography (one crucial element often being dominant and theme for the media product)

Conventions are the traditional codes and  rules which dictate the way that something is usually done. These rules help audiences instantly recognise the genre of certain products. All forms of media use these conventions during the production of media products in order to give the audience what it wants to see. In relation to music videos, conventions are often based around  core elements such as camera work, editing, set design and cast. The genre of our band was pop punk/pop-rock. This means we used conventions within this genre of the music industry.

The following prezi and slideshares show how our media product/website and dig-pak, used, developed and challenged conventions