Final post

I've really enjoyed working on this project and with my group and am pleased with the outcome of the 3 tasks we had to complete.
This blog is now closed and this is my final post.
Bye!

Evaluation - Question 4

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

Throughout our whole project, new media technology was crucial in every stage right from research and planning all the way to production and evaluation.

Camera:

This year we shot our footage in HD compared to SD last year which makes a huge difference to the whole look of the video. The quality is far better and it makes it look glossy and professional.

Adobe Premiere Pro

Adobe Premier Pro was an excellent program for us to use for our music video. Having used it last year for our thrillers, we had had practice with the program and so were able to experiment more rather than just get to grips with the basics.
Navigating around the program was fairly easy and there were many tools we could use to make our video just the way we wanted it to be.

Here is a short slideshow showing some of the tools used to create our video:

Adobe Premiere Pro

Adobe Photoshop:

Photoshop was crucial in order to create our album cover. The shots we had taken were good however they looked much more professional once airbrushed and adobe Photoshop allowed us to do this. I came across a simple tutorial which I followed and then altered some settings depending on the particular photo I was editing. An example of a photo can be found in my previous editing post here. Photoshop allowed us to enhance our photos to make the look more professional. We used different layer effects and edited the brightness and contrast to really make our photos stand out.

Internet:

The internet has been used in every stage of our project. Firstly in research and planning and all the way through to production and finally the evaluation. The main websites we have used have been Blogger, Facebook, Youtube and Wix. Blogger has been the main platform for all our work and a way in which our group could work together particularly on the group blog and communicate with each other. We would be able to post ideas for the entire group to see. As well as using Blogger to communicate, we had a message thread on Facebook between the three of us which we could send messages and links back and forth.

Facebook also allowed us to stay in contact with our artist and we would be able to message him and let him know all the details. We also used Facebook to set up an event for our screening and invite people to view gaining a wide audience over our social network.




Without Youtube, we would have not been able to view previous videos and get our inspiration. We were able to compare and contrast videos and get ideas for our own. Youtube also allows us to share our video with the world through the latymermedia channel.

Finally, Wix was our website creator. It was a flash based site which allowed us to create our own website for our artist. It was easy to navigate around and you could really experiment and create a professional looking website.

Evaluation - Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

VIDEO

For our audience screening we set up an event on Facebook in order to invite people to come and view our video. This was an easy way to alert everyone of the screening.

We printed out a set of questionnaires for our audience to fill in. From these, we were able to get their feedback and what they thought of our video.

Here is an example:

Having these questionnaires has been really useful as we have seen whether or not we achieved what we set out to achieve and targeted the correct audience. At our screening, we had a variety of boys and girls however they were all between the ages of 15-17 therefore the upper limit of our target audience was missing. Despite this, we were still able to see patterns across the particular audience group.

The themes people picked out were generally centered around love and relationships. We wanted our video to be simple yet effective which is why we moved away from the whole narrative idea. This would have shown our particular themes easier however the lyrics of the song and just by having the one dancer and artist in the video also got this across.

A lot of people on the questionnaire said they would have preferred if there wasn't any smoke in the video. Looking back, i do think the smoke is effective in parts, for example i really like the look of this shot:

However i do agree that it was rather distracting at times and we could have just stuck to the contrasted backgrounds.

WEBSITE:

Our comments on the website were really positive. Everyone said that it was easy to navigate and contained all the information they needed. Lots of people liked the colour scheme and layout.

Many people said the videos page was especially good.

They commented on the fact they were able to see exclusive videos and listen to other tracks from the artist.
Also people liked the store page.

They said we had worked well on creating the hoodies for the store.

Some negatives were that we could have added more news onto the news page and created a totally separate page for the tour, however everyone said we had done well to make the website look professional.

ALBUM:

Our album cover recieved the best feedback as everyone said it looked exactly like a real album cover. Most peoples favourite was the inside cover page as they said the glowing effect was especially good.

From the feedback from our video, website and album cover we have learnt that we did manage to appeal to our audience as we got positive responses to our three products.

Evaluation - Question 2

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

Our video, website and album cover work together in order to brand and market our products and this was essential to ensure a link between the three products.

Our video was modern, performance based and was set in a studio with the main selling point being the artist himself. We did have a back up dancer as this was common in the RnB genre.

We used the artist’s identity in order to sell our products therefore our ancillary texts use a lot of imagery and key shots of the artist in order to grab audiences attention. We have an extreme close up of the artist on the front cover of the album which is immediately attention grabbing and there is an image of him on every cover.

Our website homepage has a background image of the artist and also other images throughout the site. For example on our bio page we have another shot and our gallery contains multiple images for audiences to look through.

Our main colour scheme was black, white and purple and this is consistent throughout all our products.

For our website, we chose black as our background colour so that white would stand out and so would the purple. I think these three colours worked very effectively together and were aesthetically pleasing.

The colour scheme on the video was black and white. We used contrasting white and black backgrounds with black costumes. There was no purple visible in our video as we introduced this colour for our ancillary texts.

For our album, the theme of purple is very prominent. It is visible on every page of the album. On the front our artist is wearing a purple hoody, on our back cover, we have used purple for the text. On our inside covers we have used a purple background on one, and a purple glowing outline on the other. These mixed with black, in my opinion creates a very striking theme of colours.

We have used a unique font throughout both the website and album cover and this stands our across both products. By having the similar colour scheme and fonts, this creates synergy between the two products and links them.

We chose a bold font so that it would stand out and be striking.

Our logo is also visible on both the album cover and website linking the two together.

Our website acts as the home for viewers to access everything from artist profiles to our album and music video. The music video is on the homepage so it is clear and stands out. There are also links to purchase the album and therefore our website provides interactivity for audiences and also links together our three products.

Evaluation - Question 1

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

The genre of our music video is R’n’B. Some characterisctics in music videos of that genre include:

Fades, which are common transitions of the genre
Glamorous lifestyle
Pace of cutting matches the beat
Low key lighting and shadow
Duration of shots tends to be longer in verses so that audiences can really listen to the lyrics
Female dancers

I have looked at Goodwins theory in order to comapre our music video with this particular theory.

WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LYRICS AND VISUALS?

In our video, there are shots which relate to the lyrics of the song where the artist is acting out the lyrics. There is no narrative in our video therefore the lyrics are shown visually through performance. Here are a few example of where the shots and lyrics match.

'Me'

'Remember'

'Sky'

 'Number 1'

WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MUSIC AND VISUALS?

Throughout the song, the video cuts in time to the beat. Also, at some points, the visuals correspond to the beats in the music. For example, some of the dance moves match the rhythm of the music like this clip below:

Throughout the song, the music pace is constant along with the video and editing. The editing is made up of quick cuts which all stay in time to the beat which helps emphasise it.

ARE THERE CLOSE-UPS OF THE ARTIST AND STAR IMAGE MOTIFS?

At the very beginning of our video, we have extreme close ups of the artist.

These close upsslowly reveal parts of the artist and draw in audiences to want to see more.



IS THERE REFERENCE TO THE NOTION OF LOOKING?

Our video is performance based so our artist is mostly adressing the camera. This captivates audiences and draws them in. The shot below does this particularly well as the artist is pointing to the audiences.

I also looked at our video from the view of another theory.

Vernallis Theory

Reflections

Our project is finished! We got our music video signed off today along with our album cover and website. I'm relieved that everything is all finished and am looking forward to our screening of the video.

Reflections

ucTwo days till the deadline!

Our video is practically done and we are just adding the finishing touches. I'm really pleased with the outcome and when comparing it to our original footage without any editing, the difference is actually huge so i'm pleased with what we have been able to achieve.

Our album cover is finished and our website is coming along nicely with just a few pages left to fill. I think we should be ready for the deadline on Friday so then we can sort out our screening in order to get our feedback. I'm quite excited for showing our video to audiences but everything needs to be finished first so its time to crack on!

Reflections

Only just over a week left! I really feel that as a group, we have really progressed with our video and it is almost finished with just a few effects and finishing touches needed.

Our album cover is also looking good and we just need to add song titles and complete the back cover.

We have the most work to do on our website however we have the main frame so we just need to add in al the information and photos.

I'm quite excited to see the finished product of everything all together so this week has got to include a lot of hard work to make sure we get everything done.

Reflections

A couple a weeks into editing and i think things are going really well and our video is starting to take shape. It's been a lot of hard work as our long shots contained the background so we had to remove it which was quite difficult but the after effect is just what we were hoping for.

We've pieced together the beginning and end and are now filling in the middle and including a wide variety of shots. It's been fun editing although at times stressful and time consuming, however it's all been worth it as so far, i think it's looking really good and i think we're working well together.

We haven't started properly on our album cover yet and we haven't begun our website however we plan to by the end of the week. I'm hoping we do manage to get started so we will be able to finish in time and include everything we want to especially with the website.

Editing

Today i tried editing a few of our promo shots that we took on the day to use for our album cover and website.

I wanted to get a good airbursh effect to make it look professional but not too fake. I followed a tutorial and messed around with photoshop to finally get the effect i wanted.

Here is the before and after:

Shoot Day!

opYesterday was our shoot day. The whole day whizzed past but we managed to do everything we wanted to do. Knyt was really good and proffessional and we had runners to help us so that all made the day run smoother.

I was nervous on the day performing at the start but it was enjoyable and in the end a lot of fun.

I think we worked really effectively as a group and managed our time well.

Here are some shots of the day:

Reflections

Today we confirmed our studio and booked it! We are using the Mind Studio in Bow.
We've also bought all our costumes and props and have everything prepared for our shoot day next week during half term however we do need a final group meeting to confirm our shot log and make sure we have included everything.
I'm really excited about the shoot next week although it has been quite stressful but i'm sure we will be able to get everything sorted.

Here are some photos of the costume we have ordered:

As i am the dancer in the music video, i prepared a dvd of dance moves to show to the rest of my goup so we could go through and select the ones we wanted for our video.

Here are a few shots from the sequence made:

Reflections

Before we were about to present our proposal, we has second thoughts on our track choice and thought our plan B might be the better option.

However after some discussion, we decided we could make our plan A work by removing the club scene and shooting in a studio instead.

The studio we have found and our considering using has many different places we could shoot in so this allows us variety in our shots.

We've already come up with some ideas and i already think our new ideas are better than our original with the club scenes so i'm glad with the way the group is progressing.

Track Ideas

Even though our group has selected a track we would like to use, we need a plan B incase our idea falls through.

We discussed for our plan B that we wanted to pick a different style compared to our first choice. We wanted either a girl band or female artist with a fairly upbeat song.

Here are other possible tracks that i think could be suitable.

Marketing Campaign

The band's website that I have chosen to analyse is JLS.

I am going to be looking at their website and their campaign for their previous album and their upcoming one.

Their website is : http://www.jlsofficial.com/gb/

JLS are part of Sony Music Entertainment UK LTD and also to Epic Records. These two institution names are on the website at the bottom for people to be able to see they are a signed band.

The main function of the website is to sell the band to audiences which is done mainly by the boys themselves by their looks and personalities.



The main image of the website is of the boys and it dominates the homepage. It stands out immediately as soon as you are on the page. The boy's are all posing with serious faces and have been styled in a model-like way to look as attractive as possible. The whole scene of them in the car in posh suits makes them look very handsome and definately appealing to the target audience of teenage girls.  

The website is very much desgined in suitable ways to appeal to their teenage girl audience.The band have a video blog on their homepage. This allows audiences to watch messages the band have left for their fans. This is an example of how the boys are using their personalities to entice their audience. The boy's fun and cheeky personalities are shown through the videos and will grab attention of their audiences. Also in some of the videos, the boys dress up and therefore are presenting themselves in a stylish way which wil also grab audiences attention. The video player also begina automatically therefore immediately grabbing the attention of anyone who visits the site.

There is also the opportunity to view the band's individual profiles. This is a common feature of a boy band website as it allows audiences to have a favourite and find out more about particular members.

Also, from the photo you can see there are links to Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and other pages all related to the band. This allows the audience to be interactive and have access to these other sites, further promoting the band and appealing to broader audiences.

There is also the opportunity for fans to become members of the site. By their slogan 'membes have more fun' there is more encouragement for people to join.

There is also a chance to get the JLS newsletter and sign up further encouraging audiences to become more involved with the band and their products.

All these options above are ways which have been used to market the band through the website.

The website also has a pop up player which allows people to listen to the bands music. This is promoting their songs and allowing audiences to listen to their album and singles online. 

There are also news and events links to keep the audience updated with appearances and tour dates.

There are many opportunities for the audience to be able to buy into the band.

They are promoting their debut single and have links to other companies such as Amazon and Itunes for the audience to buy it now.

There is also the opportunity to pre-order the upcoming album and the dvd. This is allowing the audience to be able to get it first.

  

Audiences can also buy into the band by purchasing tickets to their upcoming tours. There are lists of tour dates on the website and links to allow you to buy tickets now.

  

 Another way to buy into the band is by visiting their online store which offers merchandise surrounding the band. There are clothes, accessories and posters available to purchase.

Overall, the entire website is using the band's look and personalities in order to gain attention from audiences. They have a big focus on the band itself shown through the multiple galleries and videos but also on the music, shown through the promotion of the album and also the importance of winning awards for their music.