How was media technology used in the research, planning and construction stages of my music video?

During the formation of my music video, media technology was used in a number of ways. This varied from using hand held cameras alongside the tripod, which was an element of a stage of construction where media technology was a crucial aspect, to using the internet to research images which relate to our music genre, which was used for simple tasks. Overall, media technology was used through vital stages of the contruction and assembling of the music video, however at other times, media technology was used to my advantage as it was simple an option instead of something which was crucial.

Research...
In the process of researching what music genre would be most suitable for the production team and I, we all agreed that using media technology to conduct our research was very essential. For example, we analysed all the most popular genres of music in today's contemporary society. We came to the conclusion that the most listened to genres of music were Pop, Rock, Hip Hip, R'n'B, Alternative and Indie. We were able to draw this conclusion by listening to a range of radio stations, also by watching various music channels. To be able to get the widest range of music channels and radio stations we made use of 'Sky' television.
Also, the Internet was a central element which helped us to base our research upon, as the Internet gave us an idea of music genres which were available around the world such as specific Indian popular culture as well as British contemporary society. This way I was able to gain a vaster knowledge of the areas where popular music was common as this was our chosen genre.
Furthermore, the use of the Internet enabled us to research songs of our chosen genre which were not copywrited so that we were not breaking the law when using a song which the production team and I did not create. Therefore, we used the 'LGFL' website. As a result, we managed to look through lists of hundreds of songs which were categorized into many genres. Also, the mood and tempo of the songs were listed into sub-categories within the 'Pop' category, to make it easier for us to look specifically at what song would be best suited for me and the production team.

Planning...
During the planning stages of our music production, the use of media technology became much more of a central element. For example, when planning costumes for our archetypes, we used software media such as 'Microsoft Word' as a way of presenting the designs of the costumes we thought would be best harmonized with our stereotypes. Plus, during the imaginative creations of out characters costume designs, again, the use of the Internet played a major role due to the fact that further research was conducted through artists and bands music videos, such as Powder - Up Here on YouTube, as generally, music videos of the same music genre as ours tended to have exaggerated costumes which was associated with teenage stereotypes.
Another aspect where media technology played a relatively important role in the planning of our music video was the opportunity of being able to use video cameras. The use of video cameras became rather essential when contemplating on what scenes should have certain settings. Therefore, the production team and I went out and filmed certain areas where the setting could be considered as appropriate. After doing so, we uploaded our film onto the iMac computers and made decisions about what settings looked the most effective on film to appear suitable for a music video of our music genre.
Lastly, an aspect of the planning stages of our music video which made use of media technology quite dramatically was experimenting with sounds with the use of an iMac software programme called 'GarageBand'. As a group, we wanted to create sounds which could overlap in certain areas of our song so that it could add a comical effect for our target audience, as well as express our use of technology skills as media students. Therefore, we decided we wanted to have a 'kissing noise' towards the end of our music video which overlapped the ending of our song. The only way to do this would be to use the programme 'GarageBand', however, even though we decided that this would no longer be best suited as an ending to our music video, we still made use of this programme which furthered and broadened our knowledge of this software programme which could come in useful at a later date.

Construction...
The construction stages of my music video was the stage of production which media technology was made use of the most, as without the use of media technology our production would not have been such a success. The filming process consisted of using video cameras and lighting equipment, and without these, we would not have been able to record anything for our music video, which would have resulted in not having a production at all.
Another aspect of using media technology in the construction of our music video was the editing stages, as every week we made use of the software programme called 'iMovie'. By using this programme so frequently, we developed our media technology skills, also, at all times we were constantly looking for audience feedback in ways to improve our music video. In order to make an impact on the audience feedback, 'iMovie' made it simple to re-edit certain scenes for the best possible outcome. However, using this software programme did have its disadvantages at times it lacked reliability through not always saving out work appropriately. Therefore, we were given a portable hard drive which we plugged into the iMac computers to save our work on, resulting in our work being saved appropriately as in the past we dealt with the problem of some of our work not being saved and having to redo it.
Lastly, as an ancillary task I used Adobe Photoshop to create my digipak and magazine advertisement. Therefore, my picture editing skills have increased compared to before using this software programme. Also, in the process of editing my music video and ancillary tasks, I used BlogSpot throughout it all to record my stages of development.

Album Magazine Advertisement's Analysis

After looking at the conventions of magazine advertisement's, I thought it would be useful to do some analyses of three different magazine advertisements that advertise albums to look at their presentation, and the ways in which certain artists decide to make synergy between their album cover and their magazine advertisement.

Here at the few I chose to analyse.

Conventions of Magazine Advertisements

Just by looking at a range of magazine advertisements, it is clear to see the generic conventions of them as nearly all magazine advertisements consist of similar aspects. Here is a list of what I have found present in the majority of the magazine advertisements I have glanced at:

- Name of the album

- Record Label

- Picture/Symbol

- Extras (Bonus Tracks)

- Tour Dates

- "Limited Edition"

- Outlets in which to buy album

- "OUT NOW"

- Release Date

- Websites/Myspace Links

- Reviews/Endorsements

- Star Rating

- Debut Album

- Slogan

Magazine Advertisement - Second Ancillary Task

After creating our digipaks, our second ancillary task is to create a magazine advertisement which demonstrates a correlating relationship between the digipak and the magazine advertisement. In order to gain the outcome in which I am hoping to construct, I have a list of things in which I am going to focus on in order to produce a magazine advertisement of a high standard. I am going examine aspects such as:

a) Research - looking at designs, colours, images, font types, layout, mise-en-scene, texture used in other magazine adverts for my genre.

b) Using similar (if not identical) designs, colours, images, font type, layout, mise-en-scene, texture in my magazine cover as I have for my digipak.

c) Being able to show links between my digipak and magazine advert with my music video.

d) Making my digipak and magazine look as professional and realistic as possible.


By looking at these aspects which appear crucial in the creation of my magazine advert, I have thought of a few extra aspects which I could possibly include in the construction of my magazine advert which will also contribute to the correlating relationship between my magazine advert and my digipak. I could think of including:

- Possibly add a teaser type image.

- I want the audience to relate the colourscheme and typography together.

- Continuity in font type - continuity shows relation.

- Connotations of language.
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- Link to target audience.

- Textuality - inter textuality = propaganda.

What have I learnt from my audience feedback? - Digipak

I wanted to gain audience feedback on my digipak to be able to make an evaluation, also to gain people's personal opinion for my own creational benefit. I made use of social networking websites such as Facebook and Myspace to post my digipak on to show my friends and family. Alongside my work, I prompted my audience with three main questions to gain their comments, these were:

1 - What do you like about the digipak?
2 - What do you NOT like about the digipak?
3 - What would you improve about the digipak?

By asking questions such as these, I was now able to have a deeper insight into the postive criticism from the perspective from someone who was outside of the creation of this album cover. These personal responses would now enable me to make adjustments and alterations for my third ancillary task which is to make a magazine advertisement. I have summarised my feedback into the same question headings...

What do you like about the digipak?
The majority of my audience feedback has put forward to me that they like the way in which my album cover definitely portrays my music genre of pop/rock through the main image of the guitar. A male respondent replied ''...also the use of the guitar in the form of graphic art really appeals to an audience who likes rock music...''. Another element in which the majority of my audience feedback sent back to me was the way in which the font of the bands name 'The Lightning' had white around the edges as it showed and illustrated the name of the band through colours and imagery instead of just writing. Another respondent quoted ''I like the way the band's name has white around the edges as this is symbolic of lightning...''. Also, many people from my audience feedback liked the way the background was of a bland and neutral colour as this helped to make everything else on the album cover appear more flamboyant compared to if it was a bold colour which is on many album covers, especially that of a pop/rock genre. Additionally, only a couple respondents commented on the fact that I included the parental advistory sign in the left hand bottom corner of my album cover. The respondents liked the way this sign made an appearance as it helped to enhance the professionalism of the artistic appearance of the overal album cover. One respondent said ''...the use of the parental advisory sign shows how professional the album cover really is...''.

What do you NOT like about the digipak?
Around half of the respondents replied saying that the album cover needed more colour as it only consisted of a few colours which could make it appear rather dull compared to other album covers when placed on a shelf. However, one of the respondents who agreed with this point of view said ''I liked the way the colour navy blue was the colour which stood out the most, however the digipak could have been replaced with a brighter colour...''. I believe that this was an interesting point, as I have come to notice that as blue was the brightest and most attracted colour on the digipak, a way in which I could have made it stand out even more when placed on a shelf would have been to exchange the colour blue to a more flamboyant colour against the blacks and whites of the album cover, possibly a bright yellow or possibly orange as these colours relate to fire and lightning. Furthermore, the majority of the respondents also commented on how the font of the album name and the font of the band name were too similar as on album covers which attract their eye subconsciously the most are albums which have a range of fonts to make it appear more ironic and irrational as this is a sign of uniqueness. Another respondent replied ''I don't particularly like the way that both fonts of the band name and the album name are very similar as this makes it appear boring''. Therefore, for future reference, I know to not have the fonts to similar as this would appear dull and lifeless for something which is supposed to catch the public eye.

What would you improve about the digipak?
The majority of my audience feedback told me that they would change the colour scheme when trying to improve the digipak as this would make it appear more lively and energetic, especially for the music genre of pop/rock as this would help in how attractive it would be when placed to a range of other album covers on a shelf, for example in HMV. A respondent quoted ''A way in which it could be improved would be to use more colours of the rainbow such as greens, reds and lighter shades of blues.''. Another respondent replied to the question by saying ''...however to improve the digipak, there could be more graphic art instead of just one guitar''. Therefore, next time if I was to ever design another album cover, I would use more than just one image so that there is more than one piece of imagery to focus on, however the reason why I used this particular one image of a guitar was because its intention was to be iconic to the band 'The Lightning' as it was supposed to be the guitar used in the creation of their music. On the other hand, my last respondent stood out to me the most as they said ''A band or music logo would be a way of improving how professional it looks''.

What have I learnt from my audience feedback? - Music Video

To generate the audience feedback for the outcome of our music video, the production team and I thought it would be a constructive idea to video record the people we wanted to gain feedback from. We gained feedback from 6 people in total of which were 3 girls and 3 boys. We were unfortunately unable to video record the 3 boys as we could not see them in time, so we made use of the girls as the team and I see them everyday. We asked 4 main questions to our candidates. They were:

1 - What do you think the genre of the music video was?

2 - What were the best aspects of the music video?

3 - What were the worst aspects of the music video?

4 - What is your overall view?

Here are the answers from the 3 female candidates:

What I have learnt from the audience feedback from a girls point of view:

The main area of focus when it comes to the aspects of improvement, I have come to realise that a problem in which the female candidates have noticed is that a few scenes were grainy due to poor lighting. Therefore, as a result, some scenes may not have come out as best quality as hoped. Thus, if I were to make any adjustments to this project if I had extra time, then I would reassure myself that all scenes were of a high quality appearance and that the lighting would contribute to this reassurance.

Another aspect which I have come to realise is that the production team and I did well when it came to creating the narrative for the song lyrics. Additionally, they appeared to have liked the idea of the archetypes which added humour to the narrative and the music video as a whole.

Here are the responses from the 3 male candidates who answered the same questions as above:

Male candidate 1:

"I would suggest that the music genre was Pop."..."I liked the way in which the men were made more humorous due to their characters, and I also enjoyed watching the narrative as it was engaging"..."I would say that the scenes could have been filmed a bit more steadily"..."I personally would say that the music video is very good and I was impressed".

Male candidate 2:

"I'm guessing that the music genre could be between pop and rock"..."What I found a good aspect was the way you related the name of the song 'Superman' to the costumes of the two main characters"..."I did not like the scenes in the park as it appeared a very typical environment which was not that surprising"..."Overall, I did enjoy viewing the video but the scenes did not surprise me as it was filmed in areas I expected".

Male candidate 3:

"The genre I would say is definitely pop."..."The aspects I thought were good was the characters costumes as it made me laugh and made me want to carry on following the narrative."..."Something I did not find that good was the quality of certain scenes as it appeared fuzzy and the lighting was dimly light which made it difficult to see characters at times."..."Overall, I enjoyed watching the video and I would view it again."

What I have learnt from my audience feedback from a male point of view:

I have come to notice that the aspects in which the male candidates did not particularly take a liking to was the quality of the filming as certain scenes appeared fuzzy/grainy and at times unsteady, this was a response which was quite familiar within the female audience. This shows me that this was a noticeable factor which I would have changed if I had more time to edit the music video.

I have also come to realise that a factor which was popular among the male audience which they enjoyed viewing was the way in which we developed the archetypes in society through the use of costumes. This was another aspect in which the female candidates have picked up on, therefore this shows that the production team and I did this very well.

How effective is the combination of my digipak/front cover and my music video?

In the construction of my album cover/digipak, I wanted to make it unambiguous to my audience who were of a similar age to myself, what genre my music video was just by glimpsing at my front cover/digipak. To do this, I would need to create synergy between my music video and front cover to enable a correlating relationship to take place.

- There is synergy between our music video and my front cover due to the front image of the blue guitar. This particular image represents synergy due to the fact that an image of a guitar represents the music genre of Pop/Rock. Also, the bold font on the front cover which illustrates the name of the album could portray the upbeat tempo to the song in our music video as it is relatively bubbly, and somewhat different in terms of its composition compared to the front illustrating the name of the band. As the font illustrating the album name has letters overlapping one another, this could represent a childlike theme to songs appearing on the album, which again relates back to our music video and the youth behaviour which is portrayed in the narrative of our music video. Another aspect which helps to create synergy in the combination of my front cover and the music video is the way in which the font is glowing on the bands name. The glow is able to combine with the idea of youth as they are an aspect in society which tend to stand out against the population as a whole as they are represented as sometimes loud and 'in your face' in some areas of the media. Another point would be the relatively plain silvery background, this helps to create synergy as it appears that there is a wide open, free space. This can relate to the outside urban areas which we made apparent in the music video towards the beginning as this is the first scenes, which can again, relate to your first glimpse of the albums digipak as the silver, bland background is the first thing you subconsciously notice.

- I wanted my album cover to be recognisable and memorable because by doing this I would be creating a vaster audience. Also, by having an album cover which has this effect over people, they would be more likely to want to buy the album. Additionally, as 'Superman' appears to be the 'smash hit', the way it quotes on the front cover, this would result in the music video also being recognisable and memorable to this particular album. Therefore, by having a recognisable and memorable album cover, they would be able to look at the correlating relationship between my music video and front cover.

- On the other hand, my audience are fans of the Pop/Rock music genre, therefore I found from my questionnaire what I should be able to include on my front cover to attract the audience in which I intend. Therefore, as I learnt from my audience feedback that on a Pop/Rock album cover many people would prefer images/graphics which represent the band and the music genre. This was where I got the idea of having the image of a guitar as the central image as this is an image which unmistakeably symbolic to the genre of Rock, if not Pop as well. Also, another way in which I used my audience feedback was by looking at how many people preferred 4 or 6 panels on the actual digipak. Originally, I was going to create 6 even though my feedback proved that 4 would be most suitable for my target audience, however when analysing other digipaks from artists of the same genre, for example Linkin Park's album 'Meteora', I found that most of them consisted of 6 panels. However, after taking considerations about the actual construction process of my digipak, I finally realised that 4 would in fact be the most suitable, especially since my digipak would not have a narrative throughout he panels. Therefore, 6 panels were not necessary.

- I also learnt from my audience feedback that the majority of my audience were between the ages of 16 - 21 years of age, therefore I found it that little bit easier to be able to develop a digipak/front cover which would attract them as I am of a similar age. Also, of course, due to the music genre being Pop/Rock, the majority of my audience feedback preferred to have bright and bold colours on the front cover. I took note of this by making use of blue, however overall, if I was to change anything about the outcome of my final digipak, then I would choose to include more variations of flamboyant colours, but due to my design of the album cover, I realised that some colours would appear misplaced such as pinks, reds or yellows, as the main colourscheme that would suit the design would be to have no more than just 3 or 4 at maximum colours. By having a bigger range of colours in my digipak, I may have been able to create more synergy between my digipak and my music video, alongside creater a larger audience towards both music video and digipak as they both promote each other simultaneously.

Final Digipak

Here is the final outcome of my digipak.

Using, Challenging and Developing Conventions - Music Video

Due to the fact that our music video was based on a Pop/Rock genre, it was necessary that we used conventions from real media texts that were of the same genre so that our music video was noticeably categorized into this specific genre. However, after the creation of our media production, I analysed the outcome and have come to realise that in some areas we have used, challenged and even developed, the conventions of real media texts in our music video.

Used Conventions...
As our song used in our music video is called "Superman", some may automatically associate this with the Marvel comic books. However, when associating this with the Pop/Rock music genre, connotations might change, resulting people to accommodate the idea of "Superman" with love and relationships. Therefore, we used the idea of love and teenage relationships in the narrative of our music video as generally, most Pop/Rock music videos consist of a narrative with relationships in one way or another.
Also, another way in which we have used the conventions of Pop/Rock music videos is in the way our characters are portrayed. For example, all of our characters are portrayed in a very exaggerated manner, which becomes unrealistic until they are seen as an archetype of their particular stereotype. The use of exaggeration for characters are present in many Pop/Rock music videos such as "Girlfriend" by Avril Lavigne and "Up Here" by Powder. Therefore, we thought that it would be a creative idea to make our characters archetypal, as this would engage and excite our target audience, as well as use conventions from real media texts to illustrate our research and planning in the creation and development of our advanced level production.
Furthermore, in many Pop/Rock music videos, the narrative is illustrated through the use of particular scenes relating to the lyrics at the same time. Therefore, we thought that this was a crucial element as this was a main factor in portraying the Pop/Rock genre. As a result of this, we used the idea of lip syncronization as well as scenes which consists of a narrative which follow and illustrate the lyrics, for example in the scene where the devil appears in the speed dating session with the 'hot guy'. This follows the lyrics of "..the devil did him a deal...".
One last factor which sometimes did not just follow the conventions from a Pop/Rock genre, but from many genres, was the use of camera angles which relates to the narrative. For example, in many love related narratives in music videos, camera angles are used to emphasize a relationship between two people, therefore we thought it was an important factor to consist our music video of camera angles that illustrate the relationship. For example, we made use of two shots and medium shots.

Challenged Conventions...
As our target audience were of a smaller number compared to famous artists such as Avril Lavigne and Blink 182, we had the opportunity to experiment and challenge conventions from real media texts in our music video. As a result of this, as the majority of our media class has come from an urban environment, we thought that as a production team, we could make this urban environment apparent in our music video to help our target audience relate to the music video more so than the audience that renowned artists would try to attract, as famous artists would try to make their target audience as large as possible. Therefore they would not use a specific background which would relate only to some of their audience, as they would want everyone to be able to relate to it. However, as our target audience were of a minority of the population, we challenged conventions of real media texts of the Pop/Rock genre by having terraced housing and flats in the background to give an urban feel towards our video. This was not always apparent in our genre as many videos from this genre used the mise-en-scene of the inside of a building rather than the outside.

Developed Conventions...
Due to the fact that our music genre consisted of both Pop and Rock, the production team and I thought it was suitable to use conventions from both genres and develop them the best way possible. Therefore, we thought that as Rock was usually at a fast moving pace, we could use that idea from that genre and apply and develop it into our music video by making the speed of the scenes of our music, specifically at the beginning, move quite fast. We made these clips short and cut quickly from scene to the next which put an emphasis on the Rock side to our music genre.
Also, we used images and certain clips which are closely associated with the Pop genre, such as the 'POW' sign that was printed off the internet to make an appearance in the video. Also, we used special editing effects which helps to illustrate the chronological change throughout the video. However, we did also make use of other editing effects such as the romantic and cartoon effects. These are similar effects which are used to demonstrate the narrative in other popular media texts.

Editing Cont...(Part7)

Due to the fact that the production of our music video is coming to an end, April and Reena today decided to show the students in the rest of our media class the music video so far, so that we could take positive criticism from people who were studying different music genres. By doing this, we could add any alterations before the final deadline to make our video the best it can possibly be. Here are screen shots of the clips from our music video from the Mac computer:

By showing the class the music video, suggestions from the students were made for some audience feedback before completing the absolute final stages of the production. For example, the lip syncronization of when the protagonist female character was singing along to the lyrics was not exact. Therefore, we decided to delete certain areas of the protagonist lip syncronization and replaced it with clips of Superman as we found it a problem trying to create the lip syncronization in the exact timing with the lyrics as when it was filmed, it was an estimated guess how quick to sing the song instead of having the song playing in the background to make it precisely exact. On the positive side, the added in clips of superman fitted in nicely as it corresponded to the lyrics ''...he's superman...''. This helped us to develop and challenge conventions of the pop/rock genre as generally, this music genre usually consists of the protagonist lip syncronizing, however by inserting additional clips in these areas challenged these conventions to make our overall outcome of the video better.

Additionally...

It was also said in the audience feedback from our media students that certain clips such as the above were too repetitive which made it monotonous after a while and at times would make the audience drife off and lose interest. Therefore, as a result of this, we again inserted other clips which lessened the repetitiveness, however this time, we made 100% sure that each clip moved to the beat of the music which made the audience have emphasis on the heavy drumming which catches the audiences attention for longer. This also conforms to the conventions of the pop/rock music genre.