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I hope you enjoy our music video and my blog!

Evaluation Q1

Question 1 - In what ways does your music video and digipak use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Here myself, Lana and Joely created Prezi answered the first evaluation question:

Evaluation Question One on Prezi

Evaluation Q2

Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your music video, your digipak and album advert?

When given the task to produce a digipak and magazine advertisement in link with my music video, I assumed the best option was to look at professional CD covers and packages as well as effective music posters/advertisements in order to gain an understanding of what exactly I had to create. I looked at various artists - mainly ones in the Indie/Alternative genre, after doing some thorough research I noticed that the most visually effective digipaks were understated yet original with not too much on the page but enough for their target audience to appeal to. A great deal of artists stuck with one main image for both their CD and their poster and that is what I intended to do as well - as seen with Lana Del Rey's Born To Die poster and CD. This way, it was ensured to have a sense of continuity and synergy between all products. 

My final digipak

I ensured that my completed digipak had a recognisable element of consistency throughout, in order for it to visually look both impressive and professional. As one of our original thoughts for our music video was the idea of being 'watched', I thought the fisheye effect would work particularly well on the front cover. The female against the brick wall can be seen to signify different codes according to how you view the image - my intention was to symbolise female empowerment (the strong arm movement), nevertheless, it can also be seen as vulnerability (facing towards the ground) and not in confident view of the camera. 

I liked the theme of a brick wall as it was urban styled and fit perfectly with the genre of our music video - quite Indie style. I kept the brick background on each page of my digipak yet changed the picture for all - my back page played on the running shot in my actual music video, alongside rhe fist inner page where the shot of myself, Lana and Joely is repeated with HUNT THE NOISE on top of us. My inspiration for the page where my CD will be placed was given to be my the artist Banksy (as shown below) - it was my own creation of the image and is in fact, implied towards the end of our music video where we suggested that our female character is 'pushed off the edge' - leaving a cliffhanger for our audience to simply decide for themselves.

Devlin's Urban city background represents the type of music expected to be on his album

CD page influenced by Banksky's thought-provoking brick wall painting

Images taken for digipak/advertisment

In order to create my digipak, I took various photos against this brick wall so I would then be able to choose suitable images for each page. I ended up choosing an image where I was not facing the camera - creating a sense of ambiguity - tying in brilliantly with our main theme of identity.

My magazine advertisement also holds the same constant theme as my CD digipak - I used the same image on the front, however used a different effect on it using a picture editing website pixrl.com. I kept the font and colour scheme the exact same as the one used in our music video, therefore, making it recognised by our audience who perhaps has seen the poster but not the music video and vise versa. As NME are a well known and respected Indie label dedicated to music, I decided to include a quote from them alongside 5 stars showing verification and giving the brand a positive status to viewers of the advertisement. 

Evaluation Q3

Question 3 - How did you use media technology in the construction and research and planning stages of your music video?

Here is a iMovie video of us recording the screen using Quicktime Player to show our research and planning and how we constructed our music video. 

Evaluation Q4

Question 4 - What have you learnt from audience feedback?

Our target audience was predominately youth of both genders, who would associate themselves with the band and the underlying message expressed in our music video. We applied a multiplatform strategy to promote and retrieve feedback from our target audience and also appeal to a wider range of the public. By creating specific pages for Hunt the Noise on Twitter, Youtube and Facebook allowed us to draw a vast amount of information.

Shown below are some of the feedback we have received from fans about our new music video, it also shows how much popularity we are getting by the amount of followers we gain.

We also pitched our initial ideas to the rest of our class via Prezi. This was extremely effective as we were able to plot thoughts of storylines, settings and costume all into this one treatment and then see our teacher's and classmate's reactions to them - we asked questions at the end on what they liked and what we could perhaps develop. It was an extremely interesting way to express what we intended to create and hear other people's views on it.

When attempted to decide a band brand name out of so many ideas, we struggled slightly and so we carried out a survey on paper which we handed out to classmates and other people in the school. It was a quick and easy way to come to a final conclusion as to what our brand name would be and as presented below - the majority (40%) voted for Hunt The Noise.

In order to attain specific feedback, I decided to post a question on Facebook alongside our finished music video asking 'Is our music video professional enough to be shown on a music channel?' 

I produced this bar chart online after receiving a significant amount of replies from friends and family. This method of presenting the data collected is very clear and evidently shows that the majority of Facebook users/fans do think our music video is professional enough to be shown on a music channel.

We also asked A2 Media students what they thought of the music video produced - we thought this would be a brilliant way to gain a genuine response with a selection of people who are already familiar with Media. Here are two other Media students who kindly offered to be filmed - the others agreed to writing down their opinions instead!





Here are some quotes of what other students said:
What worked well -

"The use of lighting in the close up lip syncing shots were particularly effective - loved the edited colour scheme, very quirky!"
"I liked the whole idea that we couldn't see the individuals in the masks"
"The shots of the balloons and sunset were exactly to the beat - amazing!"
"It was far from cliche, very original take on today's youth"
"The spinning shot is without a doubt the winning shot - how did you even do that?"
"Great lip syncing"
"I liked seeing great quality video quality and then shaky hand held shots - fit very well together"
"This could be shown on MTV!"
"I liked the beginning part of the music video - you don't see it often, however made it very professional looking...also gave me a good insight into what had gone on with the character previously"
What could have been improved -
"More lip syncing shots!"
"If the music video was a little longer - I wanted to watch some more!"
"The actual music video song came in quite harshly after the montage at the beginning"
"Nothing...it was fantastic"
"A clearer outcome at the end - what happened exactly?"
"More of a performance element"
Did you understand the concept/storyline - 
"The break up of a relationship having a positive effect on the girl"
"Expressing the today's younger generation and showing them having fun?!"
"Clear understanding, however the ending confused me slightly - did she jump?'
"Having fun with friends instead of spending sad times with an abusive boyfriend"
"I didn't fully understand the concept...however I just didn't need to - visually brilliant"


We asked 42 friends/family and students of Enfield County School what they thought the genre of our music video was after watching it - here is a bar chart I created after collecting my findings:

This is definitely the feedback we intended on receiving, as our genre is Indie/Alternative and that obviously came through when our broad audience watched it. I can see why there may have been slight Pop or Electro elements, as the beat of the song towards the end was quite Electro-y. Here are some key words I put into a Wordle relating to themes which our audience picked up on whilst watching our music video. This is definitely positive feedback as these words are exactly what we intended for our audience to gain a sense of.

Hunt The Noise - Dreams

WE HAVE FINALLY FINISHED OUR MUSIC VIDEO, SIT BACK AND ENJOY!

Music Video Teaser!

I've noticed that many successful artists and music videos tend to have teaser videos before the full length video is released to the public. This is a brilliant way to create excitement and suspense for the target audience by showing snippets of the song!
Justin Beiber has also had a music teaser made for his hit Boyfriend - an already highly viewed song before the actual music video has even been released:

The Beat of our Song

We discovered that in order for our music video to look as professional as possible, everything must be on the beat to the music. In particular with our song, which has a very strong beat at the end where the lyrics finish, we have ensured to cut up certain clips of the balloons and the sunset and change the colouring in order to fit the timing of the song. 

Filming Day 5

On Friday, we managed to capture the finishing shots for our music video! It was mainly focused on the character for our music video - myself - where I was made to 'hang' on the edge of a building (reflectively), stand in the middle of an isolated space whilst a car drove round me and play with sparklers.  We're excited to upload the footage next week and finally put everything together fully, as Friday is the big deadline!!

MTV Titles

Our music video is almost complete and to add the finishing touches, we decided to add MTV titles which include the artist/band name and song name on the left hand side of the screen to allow viewers to know what is currently playing.

We have also included the record label company - we chose Pollution Records as this is a word associated with an Urban/London setting where our music video is based. We chose to include the website name to ensure our viewers could access other videos and information about the band.

Print Screens of Music Video

Here are a range of printscreens from my music video under the catergories of Creativity, Post-Production (editing), Research & Planning, Conventions from Real Media Texts and Digital Technology.

             

              

99 Problems - Fast Pace Shots

Whilst trying to put our music video into chronological order in pace with the beat of our song, it can actually be very difficult. After looking at Jay Z's 99 problem video, it is clear he has put quick shots and clips in beat of the music and it has made it a little easier when arranging our video to visually experience how fast each has to be. 

Production Journal - Friday 16th March

This week has consisted of us putting together what we have so far. It has definitely been successful as we have put the beginning altogether in pace with the music and created our karaoke video as well so we can film those shots this weekend.

Media Trip to Richmix

Yesterday my media class and myself went to a trip regarding the written exam section of our A2. It was extremely helpful, as collective identity was something I was not completely clued up on.

    In particular, I found this powerpoint that chief examiner, Pete Fraser created summed up exactly what we need to know and learn before the exam. We were also fortunate enough to have the ____ of the Inbetweeners talk about the progamme/film where we were able to discuss how he chose the certain roles of characters and what exactly he was trying to represent of Youth. 

Organising Meeting Times

We organised meeting times using digital technology from our phones, it is a quick and easy way to communicate and here is a screen shot of our phones:

Preparing for Karaoke Shots

Yesterday we created the video of the lyrics of our song so we can do another day's filming, where we will show voyeurism and young people singing along to karaoke. 

Colour Change

This is a tiny 3 second snippet of what we were editing earlier. As seen in the Redlight video - we managed to split a piece of footage up into tiny bits and change the colouring - it is both effective and quite quirky, adding a vivid bit of colour into our music video. 

Putting It Together

We finally started putting our entire beginning of our music video together on Friday! We have a real range of bits that we storyboarded originally. We decided to begin our music video with an establishing shot of a building as we see this is commonly done in most videos typical to our genre. The relationship between girl and boy is also shown in quickly by quick snapshots of being pushed aside - alike to Rihanna's We Found Love - the initial 6 seconds of our music video does not begin with the song but begins with a windy sound we managed to find on the LGFL sound website.

Filming Day 4 - Wall Shots

Yesterday we managed to film our wall shots - where I had to run across a brick wall in the dark. We wanted to create this effect to represent escapism and freedom - we particularly wanted it to be a night shot, as everything is much more mysterious and we were able to produce a good deal of light from having the beams on in Lanas car. We filmed still shots of Joely, Lana and myself in a still shot, where we were wearing masks. We had the idea that when editing the running piece of footage - it could quickly cut to these still shots. Overall, it was again another successful filming session. 

Magazine Advertisement Final

After doing my audience feedback, it definitely confirmed my choice in the advert I was going to pick and it is evident to see a distinctive link between digipak. I'm sure it will appeal to my main audience, as it has an underlying message conveying a sense of escapism and feminism, relating to our music video. The gesture of the woman in the background can be seen to symbolise vulnerability, however it can alternatively show independence and strong-will as her identity is unknown. My advert has all the information it needs, yet does not appear over cluttered and represents the message clearly. I have managed to express realism through my advert, as it carries a quote from a famous Indie/Alternative magazine. 

Filming Day 3 - Room Shots

This weekend has been spent getting some more filming done! We have done the majority of our 'room shots', showing the relationship between boy and girl in our video. It was definitely a successful day, however, we do have some more shots we need to complete later on in the week. Footage of filming day 3 will be uploaded soon. 

Audience Feedback

After doing three possible magazine advertisements for Hunt The Noise's album - I decided to ask 24 people who I consider to be my target audience which one they prefer. 

WHICH MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENT DO YOU PREFER?

I collected my feedback by simply asking this question and then putting all my data onto a tally chart, this has been very effective as I can clearly see that Mag Advert 3 is most preferred and is the one I am going to be using!

Magazine Advertisement Choices

Here are three of my advertisements I have created - they all have quite big differences between them and I am going to get some audience feedback to help decide on my final choice. 


Advert 1

This was the first attempt at creating my advertisement, decided to keep the same picture as on my CD cover to have some consistency within the entire package. I did however change the effect of the picture and gave the impression as if lights were being shined onto the woman in focus. I personally find this one very basic - not many colours - and just a very straight to the point advertisement. I ensured to include the release date, the single we are using for our music video and other various ways to access the band through iTunes and websites.

Advert 2

My second attempt became slightly more colourful. I used a corally-pink to complement the brick colour and soften the harsh scratchy effect I used for the background image. I do quite like this advertisement, as the writing is not overlapping the woman. I also included some quotes from certain magazines - ones which I know will appeal to my target audience. The quotes work particularly well to viewers who see this advertisement, as it can appeal to them even more into purchasing the new album because it comes from a well-known authoritative source.  

Advert 3

The last advert I produced has a slightly retro-y slant to it due to the white film print border and the font of the writing. There were definitely influences from the old "Keep Calm or Carry On" posters and my advertisement can also be considered to represent the band in a British way. I used a different effect for the image, where paint/scratches appears splattered on top - it can be seen as giving a Feminist look and 'standing up for ourselves' with the hand gesture on the wall juxtaposed with the messy overlay of the image. Again, I used the corally-pink to stand out from the rest, positioning the text at an angle that the viewer immediately captures. I included a quote from NME - a indie style magazine relating to the genre for our music video. 

Audience Theory

AUDIENCE THEORY

1. What, or Who, is an audience?

An audience is a gathering of listeners; the people addressed by a piece of media such as a newspaper, magazine, television, DVD, radio or the internet. Any device such as a mobile phone, ipod are also able to carry and distribute the media texts. A media text is planned with a specific audience in mind, our music video is targeting youths and young adults, we are likely to have video published on YouTube and high status channels such as MTV.

2. Audience Research 1 - Demographics

This is a statistical data relating the population and popular groups within it, they define these groups by their income and status. It is clear to see by looking at the chart below that our music video will be targeting Group B – “Creative and media people” and Group E “Unemployed, students, pensions, casual workers”. This is due to us appealing to people who tend to watch music videos of unique style e.g. media people and also those youths who tend to be unemployed or students.

These demographics are based on the National Readership Survey’s social-economic grades – www.nrs.co.uk

3. Audience Research 2 - Psychographics

This is the study and classification of people according to their attitudes, aspirations and other psychological criteria, allowing an assessment to be made on their viewing and spending habits.

The advertising agency Young and Rubican invented a successful psychographic profile known as their 4C’s Marketing Model – www.4cs.yr.com

4C = Cross Cultural Consumer Characterisation

4. Hierarchy of Needs

American psychologist, Maslow suggested we all have different layers of needs and that we have to achieve a certain amount until we move onto the next layer. The necessities are be able to eat and sleep in safety before we move onto more complex needs e.g. getting married.

The top of his pyramid states ‘Self actualisation’, which is the realisation or fulfilment of one’s talents and potentialities. 

Maslow's theory can be seen to be related to media, particularly advertisers and institution that carry advertising. These advertisers and institutions must know how to grab the audience's attention by certain media texts by increasing their self esteem and earning the respect from others if they consume these products. 

5. Audience Research 3

Specialist companies often investigate audiences in order to retrieve necessary information about them to report back to media producers. Audiences, however, have been proven to be far too sophisticated and are undifferentiated to a media stimulus - they are in fact, passive. Audience is an unquestioning, powerless mass that have no choice but to be influenced. The pre-conceptions of the audience can act as a powerful filter of media messages. However, this theory has been judged for being too simplistic and does not take into consideration people's individuality. 

6. Audience Theory 2 - Cultivation Theory

This theory also treats the audience as passive, suggesting that repeated exposure to the same message (advertisement) can put an imprint into the audience's attitudes and values. De-sensitisation = makes someone feel less shocked or distressed at scenes of cruelty, violence or suffering by over exposure to such images. However, this theory has also been judged as there is no real evidence that this leads audiences to being less shocked by real violence/killings. 

7. Audience Theory 3 - Two Step Flow Theory

Katz and Lazarsfeld assume a more active audience, suggesting that the messages from the media move in two different ways. Individuals who are opinion leaders receive messages from the media and pass on their on interpretation in addition to the actual content. It is filtered through the opinion leaders who then pass it on to a more passive audience. The audience mediate the information recieved directly from the media with the ideas and thoughts expressed by opinion leaders and that is how it turns out to be a 'two step flow', not a direct process. This can be compared to Twitter where we are able to 'Follow' people and see the latest 'Trends', all these influences have an effect on our attitudes towards media text. 

8. Audience Theory 4 - Active Audiences

This is the active audience is newer and more realistic than the older model- it sees the audience as individuals who interact with the communication process and use media texts for their own gratification and purposes. 

"We behave differently because we are different people from different background with many different attitudes, values, experiences and ideas"

9. Audience Theory 5 - Uses and Gratifications Model

This model suggests that media audiences are active and make active decisions about what they consume in relation to what they appeal to (socially, culturally). This also shows that certain groups are isolated, whereas others are grabbed depends on what they like (e.g. music genre). Blumier and Katz summed this up:

"Media usage can be explained in that it provides gratifications (meaning it satisfies needs) related to the satisfaction of social and psychological needs"

Audiences choose to watch programmes that make them feel good, our music video will have elements of escapism and feminism within it and our target audience will watch it to gain a sense of gratification as well as information. 

Blumier and Katz (1975)

- Surveillance: our need to know what is going on (in relation to Maslow's security theory). Also able to keep up to date with dangers and news in order to satisfy our curiosity and feel safer. In link with our music video, it will be a very modern take on the song we are doing, our audience may appeal to it simply for curiosity of what costumes we will be wearing. 

- Personal Relationship/Social Interaction: our need to interact with others. Our audience for our music video may form a virtual relationship with the character in our video as she/he may sympathise with them. 

- Personal Identity: our need to define our identity and sense of self. Our music video is completely in link with this criteria, as it is based on youths discovering their true selfs and the conflict between teenager and adult.

- Diversion: the need for escape, entertainment and relaxation. Our music video will hopefully bring a sense of satisfaction to our viewers and they will enjoy watching it recreationally.

Magazine Advertisement Research

As part of our music video promo, we have been asked to design a magazine advertisement. It must show a consistent style between the genre of our video and my previous Digipak. I decided to research into my genre and find other artist's published magazine advertisements and analyse the way in which they put together their 'image'. 

                                         

Despite being quite a simplistic poster, the Kooks manage to convey their band image in a quirky way. The image itself is very relaxed, as all the band members appear 'unposed' and they also represent the British by being covered in the England flag, allowing their British audience to relate to them. The blue and red in the flag is emphasised by the ticket release date titles. They also advertise neatly in the corner their new album and give their fans other ways to access their music.

Rihanna's image is of great importance within the media, this allows her audience to appeal to her music as well her 'look'. This album advert shows an outrageous picture of Rihanna, appearing vulnerable in a deserted surrounding - this can be seen as juxtaposing with the fact she is dressed sexually and sporting a crazy hair colour. Alike to the advert I will be creating, it is of quite neutral plain colours, however includes accents of vibrance which catches the viewer's eye. The simplistic, rounded font is one I previously used in my Digipak and will use in my advert, as it appears sophisticated and professional.

Alike to our band - being three 'female DJs' - we are not known as individuals and our music video will not show us in a commercialised way as traditional 'famous artists' such as Rihianna. Nero - producers of a dubstep/drum&bass/house style of music also represent themselves as unknown individuals as this image below clearly displays. The silhouettes indicate a sense of strength/power to the audience as they appear protected. The style of their font is also used as a common logo for them, showing a futuristic approach in order to attract their target audience. 

Final Express Lesson

On Monday's lesson, we were fortunate to have someone from the UCL come into our lesson and teach us about Final Cut Express as we are very basic with the programme! We were able to tell her what techniques we needed to learn about such as how to do the introduction where our footage slides open on the screen and we luckily managed it! We were also taught about the split screen, green screen and about all the different features of the programme. It is extremely complex so we are going to try and do everything on iMovie first and then do the more complicated things on Final Cut and add the extras after we have completed our music video.

Ann Gould's Representation of Youth

In 1999, Ann Gould identified six key stereotypes in the representation of youth. These were:

• Rebellious
• Sexual
• Nihilistic
• Self-Destructive
• Artificial Tribe
• Violent

These theory goes particularly well with our music video, as some of those elements are shown heavily. Despite, having an underlying positive reflection on youth as opposed to conforming to the typical stereotype shown by Ann Gould - we attempted to represent youth as free and unconcerned of what they should be.

Production Journal - 3rd Feb

Friday's lesson was spent refreshing our ideas and basically making detailed notes and decisions on what was next to film. We have decided that we are going to film this on Thursday where we are all going to feature in the filming.

Digital Technology Essay Draft

“Describe and evaluate your skills development in digital technology from AS to A2”

At AS, I was involved in producing a two minute thriller film opening, it is clear to see at A2 level, I have developed my skills both individually and when working as a team. My progression in digital technology has enabled me to be part of creating a much more mastered piece of film.

Whilst creating my AS film opening, the digital technology I used was rather basic. We were fixed with using iMovie, as what we were producing did not require complex effects and we did not have the required knowledge to use specialised programs. This year, however, we were fortunate to have a Final Cut Express workshop to help learn about the full advantages we could get out of this in order to make our music video as original as possible. For instance, we constructed the split screen by using this in order to build a greater visual effect as well as it also being part of our underlying plot. I have used Photoshop to design my Digipak, as my skills in this program have developed, as opposed to AS where I made the film company logos using a simpler program, Paint and carried out straightforward operations such as converting an image into black and white.

As the Flip is not of great quality, we tended to only film the ‘behind the scenes’ footage of our music video, whereas last year we actually used it to film our opening. This year, my group and I filmed using various types of cameras in order to have the best standard of footage by using the new Panasonic HD cameras. For example, in order to conform to our Indie/Alternative genre, we established our settings by filming a variety of panning shots of city and scenic shots as we had previously seen in famous music videos on YouTube. The downfall, however, with this hardware is the fact they run out of battery and this can be a real inconvenience when filming in a deserted location. A piece of technology I had with me at all times is my mobile phone, this was extremely useful when finding practical shooting locations so I could upload raw pictures onto my Blog and it was constantly used when organizing filming days.

As part of my research and planning, I ensured that I found well-fitting secondary source pictures in relation to the music video we aimed to create. I used websites other than ‘Google Images’ and used quirky picture websites such as ‘We Heart It’ and ‘Deviant Art’.  Other than finding inspiring images, I used YouTube a great deal in order to benefit from other artists’ music videos and fully appreciate the approaches they have taken in order to attract certain audiences and reactions.

In order to form a more realistic result of our brand band for Hunt the Noise, I created a Twitter page for their fans. This technique would not only allow fans to ‘follow’ them to find out useful information e.g. upcoming tour dates but it also adds a personal aspect for fans.  This enables the public to see what their favourite bands are doing, view their uploaded pictures and even have the opportunity to ask them questions.

During AS, we did not have a chance to use the green screen, however, this year it has come in very valuable in our music video, particularly when experimenting with several backgrounds. Although, we did have some software problems when attempting to upload the footage and edit onto it, which resulted in a fault of the green fabric we bought.

In conclusion, my skills in digital technology have developed enormously in both the software and hardware that I have used when putting together my music video. I now have the capacity to carry forward the fundamental knowledge I have learnt from AS and A2 which will permit me to start my next project.

Similar Ideas

This newly released song caught my attention when I was watching the music video, as it seems to include quite of a lot of the techniques we've used as well as the ideas we already have! The idea of having quick flashes within our shots, the change from black and white to colour and the long scenic establishing shots of buildings. Theres a point in this video (around 0.17/0.18) where the colour changes from black and white to pink in quick flashes, which I think is particularly effective particularly if the change occurs on the beat of the song. I really enjoy the music video to this, as the beat of the song goes really well with the video and the timing of all the shots is really focused on, which is what we aim to achieve in our own.