Our Music Video!

Album Advert.

Digipak Panels.

The first panel that we created was the panel that would be behind the disk. This picture is of tom wearing the mask. We added a filter called cut-out to this but turned down the settings so that you could still see Toms face properly. This goes with conventions of digipaks as the leadsinger is usually on the panel behind the disk. We had tom wearing a werewolf mask due to the name of the album being the one we made the music video for and he was wearing the mask throughout the video.







                                                                                 
The front cover of our album involved Tom wearing a werewolf mask. We used green coloured font obviously because the name of the album is 'GREEN eyed monster' so we thought it would be fitting to make the colour green. We again used the filter called 'cut-out' as we thought it made the front cover unique.

Digipak.

Evaluation Question 1.

In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenege Forms And Conventions of Real Media Products?

We used the shot of the guitar many times throughout the music videos as it is a frequently used shot in any indie/rock music video. This is a big convention in this type of genre as the fans are able to see the band playing the guitar and makes it effective especially if there is a guitar solo, this is because their fans get to witness them playing the solo. These shots are rarely shown in pop music videos as them playing instruments is not true to their identity as a band or artist.

This is a very common shot in all music videos. It is a shot of the lead singer/ the actor lip syncing looks into the camera while singing as it allows the viewer to feel that the singer is staring at them or even singing to them. This also brings more focus to the lyrics of the song as there isn't much to look at visually so the viewer listens more to the lyrics.
This is a shot that is used and most commonly seen in a music video including a band or multiple members. Normally the lead singer will be at the front and then the other members would then be behind playing their instruments. These are almost in every rock music videos.

This shot is usually used in a movie. Normally for a romantic reuniting of two people who haven't seen each other or have been separated for some reason. This is the reason why used it as it shows our two actors are in love with each other. This shot breaks conventions as this shot is rarely used in music videos.

This shot is rarely used in the genre of music videos but more commonly seen in more pop music videos than indie/rock. This is usually used as a product placement shot to improve the funds which they will earn of the music video. However we did not use this shot for this we used it to further instate that the woman was little red riding hood and the werewolf had a relationship with her.


This shot is very similar to the entire band shot however it is at a different angle. This make the shot more intimate as you are closer to the separate band members as there are less members on show however it still leaves the impression that all the band members are performing.


This shot again completley breaks convention as this shot is usually found in romantic genres of films and music. Which this song is neither.

Evaluation Question 2.

How Effective is the Combination of your Main Product and Ancillary Texts (DVD digipak magaine advert)?

When making our music video and digipaks/advert we made clear links between the two so that the viewer is able to link the music video and the album together and if you were to like the video and saw the album in the shop you would recognise it and are more likely to buy the album. An example of the links which we used is the werewolf mask was all over the video and also features on the front cover/ back cover of our album. Many of the pictures taken was taken in the area in which we filmed the video so the audience again recognises the links easily. It is very common for an artist to maintain a theme throughout the album, music videos and tours. Artist do this so that the audience recognise them quickly and makes it less confusing for the audience.

Evaluation Question 3

What have you Learned from your Audience Feedback?

This Wordle was created to show the importance of what the audience wanted to see in our music videos. The words were taken from our audience research which we conducted such as the Vox Pops, Focus Groups, Survey, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. The size of the word is dependent on the amount of times it was mentioned in the audience research so the word 'creative' is the biggest word there as it was the word which was mentioned the most. This is useful as we can judge which element people like to see in a music video and be able to apply that to our idea for a music video.

The four screenshots are from the Vox Pop which we created when researching for music videos. This gave us a good idea for what people like to see in a music video and helped us when we was brainstorming our idea for our music videos. We kept in mind all the ideas in which the people who took the Vox Pop said they liked in music videos so that it would impress them (our target audience).





































 This is the audience feedback which we received when we showed the music video to a group of media students which was applying for higher level media courses. So having this feedback allowed us to get many different opinions from people all over the country. This helped us find different things wrong with the music videos which we had not noticed before.

This was our focus group where we asked two students their opinions on our music video ideas and which ones were creative and original. After telling them the three ideas which we had come up with the told us that the best idea was the third idea. This idea was the Werewolf idea. From this we then asked if there was improvements that we could make to the idea which we then did.

Evaluation Question 4.

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

Our Tools

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

In the construction, research, planning and evaluating section of our music video product we used many different technologies some of which are:

• Tripod 
• Camera 
• Photoshop 
• Blogger 
• iPhone
• Survey Monkey
• Mac

Construction

We used Tripod, Camera, Mac, iPhone, and Photoshop in the construction of our music video each one had a specific purpose to us and without them we may not of been able to complete our music video, digipak and advert to a high standard like we did. 

Having a Tripod allowed us to create steady shots which you see throughout our music video. We also used a monopod when we wanted to get a smooth camera movement this was especially useful when filming the band sequence as it allowed us to get a different variety of shots. Obviously we used a camera to film our music videos if we did not have one there would be no music video.

We then also had to use the Mac's so that we was able to edit the music video on Final Cut Express which is only available on apple products like Mac's. Also through using the Mac's we was able to use photoshop, while creating our digipak and advert, as all adobe products were installed on the Mac's that we was using so we was able to use one of the best photo editing programs to edit our digipaks and adverts to make it the best we could.

Research

While researching other music videos and also getting audience research we had to use other forms media technologies to be able to research effectively. We used a lot of programs for the research such as;

• YouTube 
• SurveyMonkey
• Vox Pops
• Focus Groups
• Facebook 
• Twitter

All these programs and activities were very important when we was gathering audience research as it helped us fine-tune our ideas, get feedback on our ideas, and find out what the public like in their music videos. 

We YouTube in many ways while researching the main one was looking at the top 100 music videos and looking how successful they was. However we also used YouTube to get feedback on our rough copy of the music videos so that if there was anything people thought we could improve we would. To further our knowledge in audience research we also used SurveyMonkey which is a internet program which allows us to create a  survey and then post it on Facebook and Twitter for people to fill out. This gave us good knowledge in our target audience and allowed us to make improvements into our idea for the music video. 

We also created a few activities, again to help improve our knowledge in our target audience and what they wanted to see in our music video. So we created a Vox Pop where we asked people who was the target audience for our music video and asked them what they liked seeing in music videos. Then we created a focus group to first decide our final idea and the get any improvements on the chosen idea. 

Planning

When planning for the creation of our music videos we did not use many of the new media technologies available to use and we just used a iPhone and Final cut express.

We used these so that we was able to create an animatic. The animatic was done by creating a storyboard and then taking pictures individually with an iPhone, once these were taken we placed them in Final Cut and put the song over the top of it. This was to get a feel of how our music video would play out and if we needed to add any more scenes to it. 

Evaluation 

While we was evaluating we used many different internet programs to present our answers to the evaluation question in a number of different ways. Including; 

• Prezi
• Video Representations 
• Animoto 
• Photoshop 
• Wordle 

We used Prezi to help analyse our digipak and our advert and compare them to other, This was very useful as in prezi you are able to but many pictures side by side which makes it easier to analyse and makes it look more presentable. 

We also used Video Representations, for example at the top of this blog post, this was so that we could quickly explain the answers and give a quick summary of our answer to the evaluation question. This is helpful if someone did not have much time to read the whole post they could watch the video and very quickly get the summary of which the blog post explains. To create this we also had to use Final Cut Express and obviously a camera. 

Animoto is also a good internet program which I used to show some of the new media technologies and how I used them in the creation of my music video. This was very useful to show the media technologies in a fun way keeping the reader engaged in my blog. We also used photoshop when we had to compare parts of our music videos with others, using photoshop made it very easy to make it look presentable and also made it easy to compare the two pictures. 

Finally we used wordle. Wordle is an internet program in which you place all the key words which was said in the vox pops/ focus group. Any words that get repeated and Wordle makes that word larger in the final picture. This gives us an idea of what people wanted to see as the more people that said a word the bigger it would be and the more important to the music video it would be. 

Media Genre Theory

Definition of Genre; the word 'genre' is borrowed from French and derived from Latin and Greek- in all three its basic meaning is: Kind, Sort Class. There are many different types of genres including:

• Horror
• Rom-Com
• Comedy 
• Action
• Sci-fi

Each of these genres have their own characteristic to make them into this type of genre. For example a Sci-fi film will have futuristic elements to it which makes it a Sci-fi movie. 

Audiences find that having genres for films very satisfying as they are able to have an understanding of the film and what it entails from the genre which it is in. This means that they will have expectations for the film in the genre which may be fulfilled and they may take pleasure in predicting what will happen next. A Film that shows this is Scream as a scene in the film shows a character telling everyone the rules of a horror film and then shows these rules coming happening. This is also an example of postmodernism. 

Audiences recognize the key elements or conventions of a genre which they then respond accordinly to. These key elements are called paradigms. The two types of paradigms are:

• Iconographic: signs and symbols (e.g. the costume, props, settings in a Western)
• Structural: the way a text is put together and the shape it takes and how structures in the text deal with issues such as ideology and gender. (e.g. how gender is represented in a Rom-com)

There are paradigms present in my music video, like the lip syncing and all the band sequences of us playing instruments,  these are apart of the Iconographic paradigms. This is because you see this is nearly all music videos. Band sequences where the instruments are being played mainly happens in indie genre of music videos which is what our is.