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

In the construction of my media products, a new media I used was the programme Adobe Photoshop. This is an advancement from AS because I only used Final Cut Express to produce my final piece with no Digi pac to assist my work.

However by having previous experience in using Final Cut Express, I was able to use this media software in a more advantaged technique than I was in AS. This included editing individual clips of my narrative to have a glow and colour edit to separate them from our performance aspect which received a positive response from our audience as it made the difference a lot clearer to them to understand.

Throughout this project was the first time I have used Photoshop. I attended a workshop which allowed me to use this programme affectively straight away. This helped me create the design which my audience would benefit from the most. The feedback from my ancillary task told me this was the correct decision to make as my target market believed it was effective and connected well with my music video.

I developed my use of new media technologies since AS throughout my construction of the actual filming by using a Sony CX190 full HD camera. This camera made my footage a lot clearer and therefore gave a more professional appearance to my audience. By using the HD camera, I was able to create a music video that my audience anticipated and the professional appearance was reflected as a positive feature in my evaluation questionnaire.

The use of my iPhone enabled me collect anonymous audience feedback via Twitter and YouTube. I posted “Please take two minutes to give me some feedback on my A2 media piece” followed by the YouTube link. This was directly sent out to my 117 followers.
This made my audience feel more confident to leave feedback knowing it was anonymous with no pressure which lead to me receiving the YouTube comment saying "Really professional looking video; a perfect take on the style of Ed Sheeran". Not only did this new media technique help me spread my final product to my target audience, it also allowed me to collect audience research.

Audience research has featured greatly within my evaluation stages of this project. I would be unable to collect as much audience research as I have been able to without the use of YouTube. YouTube has allowed me to post my video publicly onto the website and share the link with my target market to receive the feedback which I required. The three individual people I asked were only able to give me their feedback because of the assistance of YouTube hosting my video.

The largest part of technology I used throughout my project was Blogger which I used to compose and present my blog effectively to display my coursework. This new media helped me host my coursework onto the Internet as well as organising it well to limit confusion. This media technology has also allowed me to link certain references from my evaluation to other elements of my coursework to reinforce certain elements of my work. This has helped my audience understand each stage of my production thoroughly with limited confusion.

All the new media technology I used throughout my media product have been used to their full advantage with my knowledge and skills and have helped me evolve my project into a product which my audience believe would be successful in the public market.

What have you learnt from your audience research?

Before I started my music video construction, I conducted a focus group on 6 people between the ages of 16-19. This influenced our project through research as it encouraged us to make a more creative narrative as we discovered this was important to our audience when watching a music video.

Once my final product had been produced I have created a questionnaire, received personal opinions and collected comments upon the actual YouTube clip.




 

 

These questionnaires taught me that we developed a clear connected between our video and Ed Sheeran's established style as all of my respondents answered yes due to use of prop and conventions we used.
I learnt that we were correct with our decision to use our main singer in our ancillary task and continue the mise-en-scene theme with our location as all my respondents believed that both our music video and ancillary task connected well as well as all of them answering that they possibly buy our single from our poster and thinking that our entire project promotes our artist and single well.

If I was to remake my video music, I would create a narrative which would be more widely relatable as not all of my respondents answered that they believe our narrative was relatable to them. However the questionnaire taught me that our respondents believed our performance element worked well and therefore we would not need to change this.



This audience feedback taught me that the decision to set our video within Ed Sheeran's style has been effective as this fan would buy the single because of it.



This audience feedback has taught me had challenging the convention of stereotypical narratives within our genre has proved worth while as this consumer remained interested because of it.



This audience research has taught me that our choice of location which connected to our genre was well received by our audience and that our narrative did appear relatable to some.

This comment:
"Really professional looking video; a perfect take on the style of Ed Sheeran"
has taught me that our product has been well recieved by the general public and with the convention we have used, developed and challenged from real media texts we have managed to successfully make our product look professional.

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

Gemma and I have used the same technique of a director's commentary style answer for our second evaluation question.
Gemma has spoke more than me again due to difficulities I suffer with concerning my voice box.
Our ideas were wrote together equally as the same as question one.

SCRIPT:

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

In our ancillary task and media piece, we decided to include certain elements which link both products together in the most effective way.

We focused on mise-en-scene as our most prominent link between our two texts because we believed this made our combination most effective. Our main singer’s guitar was the prop which we featured throughout the entire music video and the back cover of the album. We decided to promote this prop as it is a convention linked with our genre that the lead singer often sings along with a guitar in a relaxed manor, which relates back to our research.

Our ancillary task relationship with our main product relates similarly to a technique which Jack Johnson used on his album cover. The picture was of him and his guitar which creates a direct connected to his music video as it was featured as a scene. This affects the audience because it makes it easily recognisable. We have mirrored this in our ancillary text with out shot of the back cover.

We created a theme to our ancillary task of the colour orange as this is the colour Ed Sheeran chooses as an artist to portray for himself due to the orange colour of his hair.

Another theme we applied to both our ancillary texts and our main product was the element of nature. We chose this as it is a direct theme in our music video; therefore by placing it within our ancillary texts linked both products well. The effect this had on our audience was that it made both products easily related as well as using a feature which Ed Sheeran uses himself which allows shoppers to know what they are picking up when they purchase this single.

We have used editing within our main product to make out lead single appear very dominate over our narrative by using many different shots of him frequently throughout the video. Due to this factor, we did not feature our narrative within our ancillary text but instead placed our lead singer in what is being promoted through our digi pac.

Through the use of text on the back cover of our ancillary text, we have included the abbreviation of “featuring” as “ft”. This is to hit our audience of teenagers as it conveys the message that it is up to date for the time of the promotion for the single. For the text on the entire digi pac we used a sans-serif font to create a bold, slightly informal title style for people to read clearly which we researched from Joe Brook’s poster.

The institution and the producers of the song has to be promoted through our products therefore for research we looked at Ed Sheeran’s latest album “+”. We chose this so we could be as up to date as possible. We included the copyright conditions on our back cover as we decided it would have to be there due to legal reasons and it would make our product look authentic and professional.

Overall the audience has a recognisable design through our digi pac which combined with the themes and conventions throughout our music video create a very effective result.

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

Gemma and I have used the technique of a director's commentary style answer for our first evaluation question.
Gemma has spoke more than me within this video due to my insecurities with my throat due to my voice being damaged.
Our ideas were wrote together equally after reflection on both our music video and ancillary texts.

SCRIPT:

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

Within our media piece we have used, developed and challenged specific forms and conventions which we have observed throughout our research in real media products in order to hit our audience’s needs.

We first looked at our inclusion of mise-en-scene in the form of location. We researched into real media products which shared the similar genre of our song and observed the convention of nature themed into the location. Ben Howard’s music video for “Keep your Head up” uses a location of a forest which we used as one of our locations and continued the natural theme for the rest of our video. Joe Brooks uses the convention of a natural location in his single poster which we recognised and used throughout our ancillary task.

A second element of mise-en-scene which we researched in to suit our genre was the use of props. We observed that within Joe Brook’s music video of superman, he is shown actively playing the guitar along to the music which is a convention we used throughout our performance aspects within our video.

Two elements of music video texts which are commonly used are narrative and performance. We combined these elements together to produce a balanced result. This is often seen within music videos to portray the message of the song to their target audience. We have used this convention by using both elements equally throughout our piece. We developed this convention through editing techniques. Rather than simply using cut editing to separate the two elements, we used a colour corrector and a glow edit on each narrative scene to display a clear separation between the two elements. This makes the difference a lot clearer to our audience.

Within the genre which our music video fits in to, as well as other relatable songs lyrics, a relationship is normally used within the narrative to relate to the story of the song. This convention is used in many music videos which carries the narrative story along with the lyrics. We have used this convention without our narrative element and developed it as we chose to use three separate couples rather than the stereotypical one couple. We continued to evolve and challenge this convention by showing the entire life cycle of the relationship between the three couples. By starting with all three couples being introduced to the audience through happy scenarios, we then built up to a climax which results in the couples arguing and then we concluded the narrative with the final departures of the females. This challenged the convention because it is an unusual interpretation for a song with the topic of love and relationship. 

Final Ancillary Task

DIGIPAC

POSTER

Final Music Video