Question 4- How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

Question 3- What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Following my productions, I used a quantitative research method of a questionnaire, so I could then gain feedback for my music video and print productions. I received feedback via social networking as well as handing out questionnaires. I used Facebook because my target audience age group are likely to be using social networking. 

The feedback I got from the questionnaire's was mixed gender groups aged 17-20 year old sixth form students, I chose this age range because this is my target audience- (Click hyperlink to see consumer profile). I did not ask a certain amount of females or males because I thought my chosen band neither swayed towards a male audience or female audience, so I wanted to get an even amount of feedback. I asked them to watch my music video via YouTube, the first time I wanted them to just watch, and the second fill in the questionnaire, so they could make notes on particular parts of the editing etc. 

When using social networking, I posted the YouTube link to the music video and got people to write what they thought of it in the 'Comment' section. Unfortunately, Facebook is not anonymous, meaning that its hard to pick specific people to ask. From this we can see that audiences aged 17-19 enjoyed it best. 

We also received feedback via YouTube, and from YouTube we could see the demographics of whom was viewing our video. This helped us greatly and supported our ideas of whom the audience would be for our music video. (BELOW IMAGE- Audience Top demographics) was taken from the statistics section on our music video, allowing to see whom had shared it, viewed it and the way in they viewed it. I found that the way in which most people had viewed it was via Smart Phone, which supports that it would appeal to a younger audience.

For the questionnaire, the first 4 questions were done on a scoring basis from 1 - 5, with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest. This gave me an understanding on how the audience viewed the camera work, editing, mise-en-scene and overall view on the music video. For the print productions, it was the same basis, but with 5 questions with a scoring of 1 - 5. Both these questionnaires were perfect length, neither too long nor to short, meaning that it was not too much to ask of people when getting feedback. 

Going through the results from the questionnaire the mean value for enjoyment of the music video was 4.2 out of 5, which is very good. The positive feedback, made me feel really proud that we have successfully made a music video which kept people captivated and wanting to watch it again. Kress' concept of familiarity can be seen in my production, by its reoccurring themes of isolation and fashion trends. 

Questionnaire for Music Video

Questionnaire for Print Productions

On receiving feedback from the questionnaires on my print productions, the first question asked is:

Does the package successfully reflect the genre of music?, from all questionnaires I got 5/5. This pleased me greatly, because it can be easy to create a digipak that you as a customer would buy yourself, and not tailor it to fit the needs of the genre or target audience. As well as receiving 5/5 on the previous question, I also received top marks from all questionnaires when asked the question, Does the package successfully promote the band/artist? This was crucial that I succeeded in this when making my digipak, because otherwise I would not be reflecting the genre of music, making it irrelevant and pointless. When asked what were the 3 strongest features of the ancillary tasks, I was told:

1. "The inside panels of cd case- beautiful picture and very british!"
2. "Writing/track listing on back of cd case is original and creative."

This shows that I have stuck to the criteria and created an interesting as well as original piece of work.

Target Audience

Age: 16-25

Gender: Male 

Ethnicity: White British

Personal: Undergraduate- Art School

Media Interests: Films: Trainspotting, This is England, Dead Man's Shoes.

Music: Bombay Bicycle Club, Everything Everything, Arcade Fire.

Other Interests: Photography, playing guitar, writing music. 

Shops: Dogfish, Topman, H&M, Main Source

In terms of research methods, audience feedback has supplied me with valid results, which have helped outline demographics in my target audience. Questionnaires and social networking have proved to be a great help into outlining the demographics of my target audience.

Question 2- How effective is the combination of your main product with ancillary texts?

Throughout my productions, there are various elements in which link all pieces of work together, from the music video, to the digipak and my magazine advert, you can see promotion of the artist is key across all productions.

When beginning to research and plan into my products, I wanted to create a pieces of work that developed the genre. It is important to create coherent productions in order to keep the audience's attention, whilst promoting the band or artist according to the genre. Like in James Blake's first debut album, we can see the album artwork reflecting the genre, of alternative synth-pop, heavily focusing around different samples. This targets his fan base and his audience can relate to that of his individual style.

I wanted to create a simplistic design, focusing solely around the lead singer, and exploring his reflective character, which links heavily to our music video, which meant that the audience could relate to the themes and visual style running throughout their works. For example, I created a consistency between  my music video and digipak by using stills from the music video in 3 panels of my digipak. 

The front cover of my digipak is a still from the music video, and then I heightened the exposure and added a warm filter to it, making it have a vintage feel. The use of having two images of our performer on the front cover really promotes the band and its relaxed acoustic genre, from the warm tones. It shows the protagonist's fragmented mind and they in which he is reflecting on the past. Throughout my music video the reoccurring motif of 'reflection' is connected to constantly changing images of his memories of the girl and they way in which it is infecting his mind. The use of a strong closeup of the artist as well as profile of the artist, strengthens the relationship between artist and potential fan base. The audience are likely to have seen the music video, so on seeing the album artwork, they can build a relationship between genre and artist. Goodwin's theory can be applied here, through the use of closeups of the artist/performer (in terms of music videos). 

For my inside panels, 2 and 3, I used a panoramic screenshot from my music video, which is an image of the protagonist, achieved by repeating the frames on top of each other. I then added a warm filter, making the image look dream like.  

My final panel (track listing), was achieved by a sepia tone and warm filter added, making it look almost look 'tea-stained', this gave it a vintage-y effect. The use of handwriting the track listing and tearing around the edges, gave it simplistic yet personal touch. Like in, The Streets album, Original Pirate Material, their album track list is all hand written, giving it an easy, laid back approach, reflecting their laid back style. The image used on my 4th panel, is used also on the magazine advert, but instead of the image having a filter on top, it is just the original, and I have turned the exposure up to make it stand out. This links my digipak to my magazine advert.

In my magazine advert, I have kept it simple, and clear to see the release date for my album. I have included a review from the NME magazine, because that is the magazine/online website in which my chosen band, The Cutaway would be promoted on. NME, focus on alternative rock and indie artists, there is not one sole specific genre that they put all their core attention on. Like Bloc Party's magazine advert, it is simple, and tells your everything you need to know, with no added extras to divert your attention away from what they want you to know. 

This Kings Of Leon poster was featured in the NME magazine, this poster, like mine, is kept simple and centers solely around the release date. I made sure that I used the protagonist's profile again in my magazine advert, so that I consistently promoted the band, whilst allowing the fans to create a recognizable image.

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

Completed Magazine Advert

Completed Music Video

Music Video- Upload Problems

Unfortunately, the file size of my music video is too big, at the moment, to put onto YouTube  I have spoken to my media teacher about this, and he is helping us fix the problem. I will upload it, as soon as the problem is sorted.

Completed Digi-Pak

 PANEL ONE

PANEL 2 & 3

PANEL 4

Final Print Productions

I chose a four panel template for my digipak. 


1st panel- Front Cover:

Inside panels: 

Back panel: Track listing: 

Magazine advert: 

Digi-Pak Front Cover Design Idea

An idea for my digi-pak front cover. Once I had made a rough copy, I showed it to two of my teachers, one who liked it and the other who said it did not advertise my music video or the band. So I took this into consideration and decided not to use it because of this. 

Album Artwork Ideas- Tame Impala Album: Innerspeaker

Tame Impala are an Australian surfer band, the band came to prominance in 2010 and released this album, Innerspeaker. I believe that album art is not only the packaging for the music but reflects the genre and the bands characteristics, enabling audiences to connect to their style before even listening to the music.

This is evident in their first album, Innerspeaker. Using Leif Podhajsky's artwork of the Great Smokey Mountains in the National Park. Podhajsky has used a simple scenic image and edited it using a 'Droste effect', thus creating a psychedelic feel using symmetry and repetition, reflecting the bands genre.

The effect is also used in Pink Floyd's album artwork, Ummagumma.

I am defintely going to try this effect out on my images and see how they turn out.

Title Font Ideas- Front Cover of Digi-Pak

Here are some font ideas for the front cover of my digi-pak.


1. I like the distorted look of this font and this would fit with my 'vintage' feel images.
2. This is a very simple, yet bold font, again this is ever so slightly distorted.
3. This font, is in a style of a type writer, making it sort of uneven and quirky.
4. This font, again is like a type writer, but it has a shadow and is not completely straight, making it look more make shift.
5. The look of this font, stood out to me because of the way in which it looks like it has been hand drawn and sketched with pencil, giving it a  less formal look.

Track Listing (Back Cover) Idea

I made a rough copy on Paint on my laptop, this is a possible idea for the track listing of my album. I wrote the track names out and the repeated them over and over again, then highlighted the tracks in the order they appear, but in a separate colour, in this prototype, it is a very pale green, could be seen as a lime green. 

Digi Pack- Drawn Ideas No.2

Here is another idea I drew up in rough. Again, another simple font. The picture being James sitting cross legged in a field, possibly playing guitar.

Inside Digi Pack

Digi Pack- Drawn Ideas No.1

This was my first drawing for an idea that I had for my digi-pack. 

It's very simplistic with James standing in front of a brick arch way at the 'Secret Gardens' in Norwich, where we filmed part of our music video. A bold font at the top, nothing to fancy like calligraphy, just a basic Times New Roman font.

 This is the inside of the CD.

Left Side: James' face in front of nice scenery, possibly some of the places where we filmed the music video. 

The back cover- Track Listing.

(Linked to my previous post on the Street's album back cover, 'Original Pirate Material'

- Around the note pad, which has the track listing on it would be polaroid shots of James and instruments used in the band.

Similar Artist's Album Artwork

Similar band's to our chosen band are: Bombay Bicycle Club and Arcade Fire.

I wanted to look at their album artwork because the music of these bands is not to similar to our band, The Cutaway. The use of this will hopefully reflect the genre and give me more ideas on how to get the image of the band across.

Bombay Bicycle Club

Album: A Different Kind Of Fix

This is the third album from the indie alternative band, Bombay Bicycle Club, released in August 2011 from the record label: Island Records.

The album artwork gives the feeling of renaissance medical artwork, it shows a female and male anatomy, in a colorful way, as if their insides were floral patterns- which is shown on the CD. 

 

Leonardo Da Vinci- Male Anatomy Drawing

 Here is an image of Leonardo Da Vinci's anatomy drawings, he wanted to explore the human physiology. Although the anatomy drawings would originally be quite graphic, here the floral insides contradict with the anatomy of the male and female. 

1960's Retro Floral Print

The floral print looks as if it were a retro 1960's floral print, which gives the impression of a care-free sort of hippy-ish feeling. 

Arcade Fire

Album: The Suburbs

This is the third studio album from the indie-rock band, which was released in August 2010.

 

I like the look of the album cover for this, it is so simple yet effective. It looks as if it were a vintage 1950's photo, and the second cover is easily achieved by finding a 50's font and layering it over the top of another image, then putting a pink tint effect on top. I like the vintage look the album has and would like to achieve this myself when designing my digi-pak. 

Back Cover Idea (Track Listing)- Digi Pak

I Like the idea of The Streets album, Original Pirate Material's back cover, listing their tracks.

I Like the way it looks natural and shows the the genre of their music, the rough urban nature of the style is reflected in the naturalness of the artwork. The audience can relate to the simplicity of the design, which makes it more appealing, as well as reflecting the bands style of music. The impression given is that of a 'sloppy' manner which is reinforced by the lead vocaltist/MC, Mike Skinner's quirky lyrics and vocal style.


It represents a male lower class generation and the bands journey to fame. The band started out in 1994 as a project. The lead vocalist/MC, Mike Skinner moved from Birmingham to Brixton to pursue his recording career, whilst on his 'journey' he tried starting up a record label. Mike Skinner was influenced by America's MC's including, Wu-Tang Clan and the rapper Nas, especially Nas's album, 'Illmatic'. Skinner's angle on his music was to show the emerging UK Garage sound with the use of lyrical content that reflected that of the time.

 It wasn't until 2001 that the Locked On record label whom had had previous success with The Artful Dodger ft. Craig David track, later released 'Has it Come to This?' track under the name of 'The Streets'.

The track proved to be a hit and reached number 18 in the UK charts of October 2001, this proved to be a breakthrough for 'The Streets' and meant that Skinner's direction he wanted to take proved to be a huge success from their debut album, 'Original Pirate Material'. The direction in which Skinner wanted to take was that of making UK garage that reflected the lifestyle of club goers in the UK.

"Journalist Simon Reynolds identified the album's lyrical content as capturing UK Garage's "submerged reality" as a genre not based in nightclubs. Outside of London in the late 1990s, UK Garage was rarely played in clubs but was instead found on pirate radio stations, reflected by the albums title.^{" - http://www.wikipedia.org/}

Possible ideas for Digi-Pak

For the inside cover of my digi-pak (panels 2 and 3) I wanted a naturalistic scene, I took these pictures back when I was looking for locations and liked the natural glare they caused on my camera's lens. Not only can you see natural imagery, of blue skies and green grass, you can see the city skyline, and it's high buildings, which are used in the music video to emphasize James' frantic emotions and state of mind.

I then had a quick play on my editing software at home and put a warm filter on top to give it a vintage feel, as well as putting the second image 180°, reflecting James' state of mind. These are just some possible ideas for my inside covers.