Final Post!

At last, my blog is finally complete! I hope you enjoy viewing it!

Final Editing and Alterations

The production team and I had no viewed our music video in a long while due to focusing on our ancillary tasks, however we recently viewed our video and realised we needed to make final alterations that we did not consider before. We came to realise that the lip syncronization was not precisely in time to the music. We were in a dilemma on deciding whether we should speed up the scenes on certain clips or not, however we gathered useful advice from our media teachers and came to the conclusion of replacing the lip syncronization scenes with other scenes and clips. On the other hand, another criteria of the music video which was not originally included was adding in credits to introduce the song name and band name. Therefore, I have uploaded our original final version of 'Superman', and the actual final version which will be sent off to the moderators.

Originally, the final music video

Final Music Video

Lip Syncronization

Andrew Goodwin states that incorporating lip synchronisation means the performer is addressing the audience directly embracing them whereas in films the audience has a voyeuristic relationship with the actors. This is the main reason in which the production team and I used lip syncronization, the clip are the first two clips of this set of scenes.

Choices of Style

Throughout the construction of our promotional music video, the production team and I kept analysing the various elements in music videos to relate to ours so that we are using the conventions for music videos in our pop/rock music genre. I personally, noticed that in Avril Lavigne's music video ''Sk8er Boi", she uses various aspects which were used in the creation and development of my music video, which also helped us to make final decisions:

- There is the use of an urban area which is made apparent in outside shots to establish the setting.

- There is a narrative throughout the music video, which is to do with boyfriends/girlfriends/relationships.

- Characters are of the same age (teenage)

- There is the use of teenage stereotypes such as the ''grunger/goth/skater boy'' and the fashionable and popular girl, who could also be stereotyped into the group of ''cliques''

- The ''skater boy'' wore dull, black clothing, which helped us to come to a final decision that black would be the best colour for the ''goth'' in our music video. This was made apparent in society within the stereotypes, and this particular music video reconfirmed this.

- This music video shows youth like behaviour such as messing around with cars and acting animal like in the street, we related the theme of showing youthful behaviour in our music video by releasing it through the youthful and fun side to relationships instead since that was what our narrative was based on

- The lyrics during the music video syncronize with the narrative through having scenes which reflect the lyrics narrative, for example ''he was a punk, she did ballet, what more can I say?''. During these lyrics scenes consisting of the ''punk'' and the ''clique girl'' were present, we also did the construction of our music video in order to make the storyline as unambiguous as possible.

How effective is the combination of the music video, digipak and magazine advertisement altogether?

There is the use of stong synergy between my digipak and magazine advertisement due to very similar imagery, design and layout. This would help the audience to relate the digipak and magazine advertisement to the music video.

As the music video tends to attract a wider range of female audiences opposed to make, I initially set out to gain an audience of equal males and females. Therefore, by doing this, I thought that the music video could attract mainly the females whereas my digipak and magazine advertisement could attract the male audience to balance out the male and female audiences. The colours used in the digipak and magazine advertisement are less vibrant than what would be expected when viewing the music video, therefore contributing to the attraction of a male audience. However, the use of the symbolic imagery of the guitar helps the digipak and magazine advertisement to collaborate with the music video as the music video is quite 'rocky'.

Also, there was the use of similar texts throughtout the digipak and magazine advertisement. This, of course, did not make an appearance in the music video, however I thought that the font 'impact' which I used was bold and captivating and held a sense of authority with the boldness. Also, the outline holds connotations of lightning, which relates back to the name of the band. Additionally, I thought that this particular font could help contribute to enhancing the music genre, as rock music is at times outstanding and is noticed straight away with the sounds of the guitars, therefore I thought this font illustrates this relatively well.

Furthermore, on the magazine advertisement, there is a range of different sized fonts, more so than the digipak. I thought that this could relate to the different camera shots in the music video as the production team and I made use of long shots, mid shots, close ups and others. The audience may not necessarily relate the different sized fonts to the camera angles, however this is what I intended when changing the size font in the different phrases on both the digipak and magazine advertisement.

Lastly, the grey background colourscheme on both the digipak and magazine advertisement is very plain and simplistic, however with a feel of freedom due to the wide spacing. This, I intended on illustrating the freedom in which the female protagonist character had in a patriarchal society. This illustrates the sense of power and freedom which is emphasized throughout the music video, especially with the wide amount of spacing on the digipak and magazine advertisement.

What have I learnt from my audience feedback? - Magazine Advertisement

To gain reliable audience feedback, I thought it would be suitable to use closed questions as this enables me to represent my results in graph format, however open questions I will also use to gain valid data which is representative to have an idea of the personal opinion of some people from my audience. I prompted my closed questions on networking websites again such as MySpace and Facebook. I posted three main, simple questions for them to answer in questionnaire format, and sent it to 10 people.

The results came out rather well as all the 10 candidates which I posted my questionnaire were able to reply to me and post the questionnaire back in time for me to analyse my results and convert them into graph format.

The question illustrates that all 1o of the candidates taking part in the questionnaire agreed that there was a strong link between the appearance of the digipak and the magazine advertisement. This shows that I have created a strong synergy between them both so that the audience are immediately able to recognise what album is being advertised.

The answers to this particular question were slightly ambiguous as nearly the same amount of candidates have agreed to each answer made available. Therefore, due to this reason, I might make this an open question which I will prompt my audience with to gain reasons for their choice of answer.

This question is also slightly ambiguous, however the logical reason for the answers to these question could be due to the fact that many of the people who answered these questions may not have the preferred music genre which the magazine advertisement clearly demonstrates with the use of symbolic imagery.

Open questions...

I also asked my audience a range of open questions to gain valid data, I again used networking websites such as MySpace and Facebook. I prompted them with 2 main questions in order to gain their feedback. The three main questions in which I prompted them with was:

1 - Do you think the magazine advertisement uses conventions which make you want to purchase the album?

2 - What would you improve about the magazine advertisement?

3 - Would this magazine advertisement catch your attention if pinned up in a music store?

Responses...

1 - The majority of my audience feedback make me realise that my magazine advertisement does in fact use conventions which would make my audience want to buy the album. One of the candidates responses was that "The use of the out now sign made me want to purchase the album because it brought a wave of excitement". Another candidate responded with "I liked the way in which you made use of quotes from other music magazines as it shows that they approve and recommend the album". These were along the same lines as what the majority of the audience feedback had made me aware of. Also, this were features of my magazine advertisement which I made intentional, this shows me that my intentions were a success to my audience. On the other hand, one of the responses I received was that "...I did not quite understand why you included the fact it was available in HMV when this would be expected anyway as this store sells most albums which are new". I understand why this candidate may reply with this particular quote, due to what they are saying is correct, however I intended on using the fact that this album is available in HMV to include the promotion of industries as a way of collaborating with something else associated with the album. However, if I was to make any adjustments to my magazine advertisement, I may not necessarily include this particular convention again.

2 - The majority of my candidates all agreed that my magazine advertisement was very simplistic in terms of the overall image, however the reason in which I did this simplistic image was because in the creativity stages of my advertisement, my audience feedback made me aware that a teaser type image was not necessary. One of the candidates quoted "...the image of the magazine advertisement is very simplistic, maybe another symbolic image could be a way of making it more jazzy". Due to this being a response, if I was to re-edit my magazine advertisement to make any adjustments, I would try to imclude another image to make it a little more appealing than what it already is, as this could represent a surprise within the album, which could relate to the bonus tracks, which you do not always find in albums. Additionally, the majority of my audience feedback made clear that they liked the advertisement, but they would possibly make the album title stand out more than it does, as this may not be the main, most noticeable feature to someone skimming through many advertisement. One of my candidates responded with the answer "The album title is in the same font as on the digipak which illustrates the correlation, however this could have been exaggerated a bit more in the advertisement as this, of course, is the main feature which you are trying to sell". This, I thought was in interesting response, because the font I believe is not that much similar to that of the artists name, which make the equally as stood out, when in fact it is a magazine advertisement convention for the album name to stand out more. Therefore, if I was to make any adjustments to this in the future, this would be a main adjustment I would work on.

3 - Many of my candidates responses replied to the third question in a varied way. For example, one of my candidates said that "My preferred music is not that of pop/rock, but due to the symbolic imagery, I would definitely notice this magazine advertisement if it was pinned up in a shop if this was my favourite music genre". This was my intention, therefore this specific response did not necessarily come as a shock to me. However, a response that did come as a shock to me was when one of the candidates replied saying "Even though my favourite music genre is r'n'b, this magazine advertisement stood out to me because of the colours, as these colours are very popular on r'n'b related aspects.". Because of this response, I was in a way shocked as I was not aiming to catch the attention of someone who was not that interested in the pop/rock music genre. However, this response has made me realise that my magazine advertisement could possibly appeal to more than just my intended audience. However, as this candidates points to the colourscheme being a factor that stood out to them as this was a feature was relatively popular on the r'n'b music genre, this could be considered to have challenged the conventions of pop/rock.

Using, Challenging and Developing Conventions - Magazine Advertisement

Before the creation of my magazine advertisement, I researched into a range of advertisements to see the generic conventions, and I made a list of them. When doing this, I look at all music genres when researching the conventions of the advertisement and I came to notice that the majority of the advertisements, no matter what genre they were, had similarities in their layouts and the conventions they used. By noticing these particular conventions, I put them into practise on the construction of my own magazine advertisement. However, I did notice a few conventions which were precise to the pop/rock music genre.


Using conventions...
There was necessary conventions which were apparent on all magazine advertisements which I had to take into consideration. For example, the name of my band, this was to ensure that the audience was not to forget who the band was as they might look directly to the name of the album and forget the artists. Even though there is the clear link between the music video, digipak and magazine advertisement, I thought it was still essential to have the name of the band on the advertisement. Also, the 'OUT NOW' sign is a convention on many magazine advertisement. Various advertisements promote the release of their album in different ways such as giving an actual release date. However, I decided to have 'OUT NOW' as in my opinion, this will give the erge of excitement and captivation immediately, especially as it was in the colour gold which stood out across the advertisement. Also, my audience feedback before the creation made me aware that this is what the majority of my audience would prefer to see as the excitement of the album being able to be bought is captured immediately. Another convention which I illustrated was the website address written relatively small at the bottom of the advertisement. This is able to help build up a rapport with the band and the fans as this shows signs of contact between them both. Also, this helps to give the fans any extra information in which they want but are unable to gain from anywhere else. Additionally, due to the fact that technology helps to integrate people across the world, this would be a way of promoting the band worldwide. Furthermore, I noticed on a few advertisements such as Midlake's ''The Courage of Others'', there was quotes from music magazines to show that the album had their approval and that it was in fact a great album. I furthered this convention and included it on my own magazine advertisement to show the audience that this album has gained the appraisal from well known music magazines such as 'Q Magazine' and 'MOJO'.

Developed conventions...
Not necessarily conventionally, some magazine advertisements have the name of the music store in which the album is available to be bought at. As a result of noticing this convention was not apparent on the majority of magazine advertisements, I decided to develop this convention and make it apparent on my own advertisement. Therefore, in the bottom right hand corner, it states this this album is 'HMV exclusive'. This could possibly make the audience more eager to go out right away to purchase the album.

Challenged conventions...
There was not any particular magazine advertisement conventions that I challenged, however originally at the beginning of my creativity of the advertisement in the stages of my initial ideas, I was contemplating on whether to include a teaser type image which relates to the symbolic imagery, as this was challenging the conventions of magazine advertisements as this was a very rare convention. However, my audience feedback proved that this idea was not necessary therefore I did not end up doing this.