HOW DID I USE NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES?
In this evaluation question, I will be talking about how I used new media technologies to aid me in the research, planning, construction, and evaluation stages of my work.
MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES USED IN RESEARCH:-
• Google Search
I mostly used Googleto research other music videos with a similar style to what I wanted for my video. I also used Google to find example images of Digipaks and Music Posters.
MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES USED IN PLANNING:-
• Microsoft Word(for the Shotlist and planning for the video, etc.)
• My iPhone(Snapchat & Text messages) – for arranging the video shoot with Jake
• Adobe Photoshop(to plan the structure of the video)
I used the above media technologies to help me to plan my project, for example, I used Photoshop to plan the structure of the video as below:
Fig 1
Planning
MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES USED IN CONSTRUCTION:-
To make my video I used a lot of new media technologies.
Fig 2
Equipment used to shoot my video
I also used the lights that were available in the Drama Workshop.
Fig 3
The lights used to shoot my video
Once I had captured all my footage, I used a number of software packages to edit it all together, and to add the special effects:
Software:
• Adobe Premiere
• Adobe After Effects
Fig 4
Editing my video
I learnt a lot using Adobe After Effect to make the special effects needed for my video (for example, adding the TV screens and billboards, and making Jake appear in the same video three times). Here is a timelapse video of me using After Effects:
Fig 5
Timelapse video using After Effects
I also used Adobe Photoshopto make my Digipak and Poster, and YouTubeto publish my video on the internet.
MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES USED IN EVALUATION:-
• Microsoft Office (for pie charts and bar graphs)
I use Mircrosoft Office (word and excel) to make the questionnaire and to show the feedback I received as bar graphs and pie charts.
Fig 6
Evaluation
Finally, since the start of my media studies course I have been using Blogger to record my progress, which is the first media technology I had to get to grips with. I choose to use Blogger over other blog creating apps or websites (such as WordPress, Weebly or Tumblr) because it offers a good range of options for including different types of media. For example it is easy to make an essay-style blog post using mostly text, or you can go for a more visual approach by embedded videos, images, sound, or Prezi presentations. It was this variety of options that made Blogger my favourite program to record my progress towards my A level.
Here is a video of me discussing my audience feedback in depth.
Transcript for the video - Evaluation Question 3
In this section of my blog I will be reviewing all of the feedback I have received from my friends, family and others about my media products. In order to collect valuable and meaningful feedback I not only reviewed qualitative comments that were left on social media platforms where I had posted a link to the music video (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc) and the blog, I also conducted a quantitative and qualitative questionnaire.
FEEDBACK FROM COMMENTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA:
Fig 1 Social Media Feedback
From the feedback I got from social media (as above) everyone seemed to really like the outcome, but it was not really clear to me if people liked the video (for example some comments said: “love the video” or “great video”), or just the song (some comments said: “Love Jake’s voice” or “What a tune”), or both?
For this reason, I needed to conduct a more detailed questionnaire.
FEEDBACK FROM THE QUESTIONNAIRE
I created a questionnaire that asked the following nine questions:
1) What is your age group? (Circle One Answer).
2) Out of 5, how much do you like the SONG‘Pain’?
3) Out of 5, how much do you like theMUSIC VIDEOforthe song ‘Pain’?
4) Howwelldo you think the music video matches and fits the song?
5) How original do you think the music video is?
6) How much do you think the Digipak and Poster fit style of the Music Video?
7) How effective and memorable is the brand across the products?
8) Can you identify ONE STRENGTHstrength of the music video?
9) Can you identify ONE WEAKNESSto the music video?
Fig 2 My Questionnaire
I was particularly interested to get feedback on questions 2 and 3 which ask about the song and video separately. I asked 16 people in total for feedback, and below are the results I received:-
Fig 3
As this pie chart shows, the majority of the people (9 of 16 peolpe) I asked for feedback from were from the 10-20 age range (these were mostly people I know from School and represent the target market group). However, to make it more balanced, I also asked some older people (4 people from the 20-30 age range) along with 3 family members (who represent the 30+ year olds).
Fig 4
Everyone I asked, in all age ranges, loved the song. This is what I expected the feedback would be for this question.
Fig 5
14 of the 16 people in the questionnaire gave 5 out of 5 for the video. Two people gave 4 out of 5. This is really positive feedback for me about the video. In general, the two people who said 4 said that they felt the video could have been faster paced or more varied.
Fig 6
Nearly everyone thought that the music video matched the song. One person gave 4 out 5 - which is still very good.
Fig 7
Whilst everyone thought the video was quite original, 4 people did not give it 5 out 5. I think that this is probably because the video is a performance of the song, rather than a concept or narrative video, which could maybe be more exciting and have more original things in it?
Fig 8
Fig 9
I was really pleased to find that everyone agreed that the Digipak and Poster worked well with the style of the video and song. I had worked hard on this side of things so getting this much positive feedback was great.
Almost everyone gave 5 out of 5 for for how memorable the brand was across the products.
About Questions 8 and 9 - Qualitative Feedback.
Whilst all 16 people gave very good feedback for Question 8, picking out the things in the work that they said they like (the strengths), unfortunately no one wanted to give feedback for Question 9 (the weaknesses). I think that this was mostly because I knew the people who were completing the questionnaire and they didn’t want to tell me about the weak areas of my video? I did ask people to tell me more about the weaknesses, but the only negative feedback I got was about small aspects of the video.
However, my Media teacher at school did ask another teacher from another school about my video, and I received the following constructive feedback:
This was really helpful to me, as I had found someone who was telling me things about the video they did not like “eg. “it is boring”). Using this feedback, and the advise from my teacher, I decided to make several changes to the video in an effort to try to make it more interesting. This included inserting images of TV screens, Billboards, Magazines, etc – all showing the video. I think this adds more interest the video, giving it more variety and a different dimension. It probably now has more repeatability.
What have I learned from all the audience feedback?
I have learnt from the feedback that nearly everyone like the work I have produced and this of course a positive thing. However, I have also learnt that I probably should have asked a lot more people for feedback, and I should have asked more people that I do not personally know. This way I might have received more useful and constructive feedback as I think most people didn’t want to tell me about the things they did not like?
HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF MY MUSIC VIDEO AND ANCILLARY TEXTS?
Here is a Prezi I created to talk about the effectiveness of my music video and ancillary text.
Transcript for the video - Evaluation Question 2
In establishing a theme to use for my branding across each platform, I used the lyrics from the song for inspiration, particularly the following words or phases:
“Truth”
“Blood Flows”
“Dies”
“Destruction”
“Demons”
“Insane”
“Got me in chains”
“Pain”
“Climb out of this Grave”
“Save Me”
“Damaged”
“Broken Me Down”
“War / Legions”
To me, all of these words or phrases evoke dark, disturbing and emotional feelings, and because of this I knew I wanted to use a colour scheme which reflected these feelings, ie. dark (to represent: “death”, “a graveyard”, “broken”, or “demons”) with red elements (representing: “blood”, “damage” or “war”).
My three products include a Music video, Magazine poster and a Digipak. I designed these products to be visually similar (using similar design elements, and the theme I have discussed above) so that they are identifiable as a part of the same set of product and I have therefore established branding to sell Jake’s EP. To create an effective brand, each product has to have a relationship with the main product (in this case the main product is the song) and the theme. It is important to show continuityand synergyacross the brand. Being effectivemeans that you are ‘successful in producing a desired or intended result’ which in this case would be measured by selling as many copies of the EP as possible.
In the table below I have listed my three products and identified some of the individual elements that link them together:-
Visuals/Images
Colour scheme
Font
Costumes and props
Music video
Dark background with bright elements that contrast and stand out (like Jake’s face and hair for example);
Black, white and Red.
Bold red font. Large and readable.
These match the colour scheme. Black clothing (tie, jacket and trousers), White clothing (shirt), White instrument (Guitar), Red Instrument (Drum Kit), Red titles.
Digipak
To ensure these match the music video I used a screenshot. I edited the screenshot to position the 3 people in the band (all Jake) around a circle.
As Above
I have changed the letters “E” and “P” to white on the Digipak and Poster to match the design that Jake gave to me.
As Above
Magazine poster
As Above
As Above
As Above
As Above
I believe I have created an effective brand across the combination of the music video and ancillary texts, and have linked all my products together with design elements, such as: a theme, a colour-scheme, consistent use of fonts, and other visual aspects: clothing / props (musical instruments) etc.
Fig 1
Branding
Of particular interest, in terms of the brand, I am very pleased with the colours used on the lettering. Most of the letters are red, however I have used white for the letters “E” & “P” to make them stand out. E&P represent the fact that the product is an Extended Play album.
Fig 2
Colour Scheme
In the next blog post [HERE] I will address Evaluation Question 3. This includes lots of feedback I have received and this has been used to help me to judge how effective the combination of my promotional package is.
IN WHAT WAYS DOES MY MUSIC PROMOTIONAL PACKAGE USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF EXISTING MUSIC PROMOTIONAL PACKAGES?
In this blog post, I will be looking at the ways in which my music promotional package uses, develops or challenges the normal forms and conventions of existing and typical music promotional packages. I will be trying to focus on the particular aspects of my package which are different or unusual to the usual aspects used as I wanted to try to make my work stand out and be distinctive.
When a musician or a band produce and release a song, they will often accompany it with a music video, and a range of other products (eg. merchandise: t-shirts, caps, mugs, stickers, badges, etc. or posters, apps, digipaks, CDs records) all designed to draw people’s attention to their song, promote it and sell it.
Fig 1 Example of music merchandise from MYSTIE
The better the promotional package, the more likely that people wil be persuaded to buy the music. A typical promotional package for a musician or band might consist of the following: • A Music Video • A Press / News Release • Social Media Release • Branded Artwork (eg. a poster, a magazine advert, billboard artwork, the artwork for any physical product (eg. CD), the artwork for any electronic platforms (eg. AppleMusic, iTunes, Spotify, SoundCloud, Bloggs, Websites and Social Media) • A Local, National or International Tour (Tickets)
For my work, I wanted to make an effective promotional package to support the work of one of my friends (Jake Gooding, new a singer/songwriter), Jake had already recorded the music track for the song that I wanted to promote (the song is titled ‘Pain’) and I wanted the promotional package I would create to not only publicise the song, but also to really promote Jake as a new and upcoming artist. For this reason, I knew that I would need to ensure that Jake’s face would be featured heavily in all aspects of the promotional package, the idea was to ensure that the viewers will become more familiar with not only what Jake sounds like (his voice as a singer), but also with what he looks like as an artist, and how he acts when performing. It was important to me to generate a package which would be real, and could be used to actually promote Jake, rather than just pick an existing and successful artist and make a fictitious promotional campaign. I also wanted to try to do something a bit different to the normal types of promotional packages we are familiar with.
My promotional package for Jake’s song consist of:
• An interesting MUSIC VIDEO (which really focussed on the artist, and not just the song, for the reasons highlighted above);
• A DIGIPAK (for the physical CD);
• A MAGAZINE POSTER (which could also be used in other ways, eg. on a billboard, or for non-physical products, eg. social media, music platforms);
Fig 2A My Promotional Package
Fig 2B My Promotional Package
Fig 2C My Promotional Package
My promotional package for ‘Pain’, makes use of, and develops many of the traditional and conventions and forms used in existing promotional packages. These are, for example:
Consistent Branding: Here I have used the same wording, the same fonts, same design style, and the same colour scheme across all promotional elements. I also followed a design aspect given to me from Jake, who wanted to always highlight the letters “E” and “P” (to refer to his “Extended Play” album) using a white colour, whereas all the other letters are coloured in red.
Fig 3 Colour Scheme for Lettering
Synergy: Here I have used the same image (which was initially taken from a screenshot from the music video), for the Digipak artwork and the poster.
By going for a consistent approach to both Branding and Synergy, I have ensured that the promotional elements feel like they belong together, from the same set of products. I think this is important as it helps to build a relationship between the various elements in the minds of the audience/consumers, even subconsciously. The idea is that a consumer might see an advert (for example my poster in a magazine) and think “that’s interesting”, then later see the same styled design on a CD cover in a music shop, or on artwork in an online shop (iTunes, Spotify), and then think “I already know about this, and I remember thinking it looked interesting”. The same is true of the music video itself.
In order to ensure that I followed the conventions for a Digipak (the artwork and design for the CD case and CD label) I downloaded a template I found online and made sure that I followed all the instruction included in the template – the template that I used can be found online [HERE: https://www.discmakers.com/templates/digipaks.asp].
Whilst my Digipak and Magazine Artwork uses and develops a traditional approach, I wanted to do something a little different with the music video.
In general, Music Videos tend to be based on either (i) a Narrative (ie. where a story unfolds whilst the song is playing, and often the story follows some aspect of the lyrics), or (ii) a Concept, (ie. where a single idea is explored, often an unusual, or surreal/obscure idea, but usually one which is striking and memorable), or (iii) a Performance (ie. where the artist/band are performing the song as if they were performing it for a live audience).
In order to develop and challenge these traditional forms, I wanted to make a music video that combines a Concept video with a Performance video. To do this, I explored the conceptof having all the performers (the Singer, Drummer and Bass Player) be the same person using a special effect called ‘cloning’. However, I tried to use the special effect very sparingly, and to make it look very convincing, so it was almost unnoticeable, and the viewer mostly thinks that they are watching a performance only music video.
In terms of the general style of the music video, I knew I wanted to heavily feature Jake’s face using lots of close-up, and extreme close-up shots.
Fig 4 Music Video Style
I research many existing music videos that already did this very effectively, for example:
‘Nothing Compares to You’, by Sinead O’Connor:
or ‘Weakness’, by Angry Man:
In Sinead O’Connor’s music video, the visuals almost exclusively only show a close up of the artist’s face. Whilst this concept might initially be thought of as being boring, or uninteresting, or as having no repeatability, the subject (ie. Sinead’s face, with her attractive make-up and a modern short haircut) was considered to be captivating for viewers at the time the music video was released. Rather than the video being considered boring, it actually went on to win multiple awards at the 1990 MTV ceremony, Video of the Year (O'Connor was the first female artist to be awarded with this), Best Female Video and Best Post-Modern Video. It was also nominated for Breakthrough Video, Viewer's Choice and International Viewer's Choice during the ceremony. (QUOTE from Wikipedia HERE).
Nine distinct frames showing how typical or not of music videos my particular design is:
Below I have selected 9 distinct images from my music video and put them together in a chart using Photoshop. In the first column are my 9 images. In the second column are examples of similar ideas or designs from existing music videos. The first 5 images show how my music video is typical of other existing music videos, the final 4 images show ideas that I think are quite unique.
Fig 5 Nine distinct frames from my video
Other aspects of the music video (and also the digipak and poster) use and develop similar conventions to those used in other types of film making, for example in movies. For example:
The Setting and Location: I made sure that the setting (the mise en scene) was very minimal, so that attention of the viewer will always be on the artist and not on the room the artist is in. I placed the performer in front of black curtain (in the drama workshop at School) to do this.
The Costumes and Props: Again, I wanted to make sure that the attention of the viewer will always be on the artist, so I asked the performer to wear mostly black/dark clothing. The performer is also wearing a white shirt and black tie, this almost gives the impression of a formal occasion (like a funeral?) or a dark and moody moment. I think that this works well with the theme of the song ‘pain’.
Fig 6 Costumes and Props
The Camerawork and Editing: In an effort to give clarity and focus to the face of the performer, I ensured that the camera was held still using a tripod. The camera shake that I added when the performer says the words “going insane” were added afterwards in post-production.
After receiving feedback from my class mates, I came to the conclusion that the back cover of my Digipak had some essential parts of it missing. To make it more complete I needed to add more songs to complete the album and some small print to make it more official looking. Here is the redrafted finished product.
