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.

Representation in Music Video

Due to our A2 exam being based on our coursework productions, the class decided that it was compulsory to begin looking at the different concepts which had a chance of being brought up in the exam. In one section of the exam, we had to focus on either our foundation portfolio or our advanced portfolio when analysing the coursework. There was the possibilities of one of the exam questions being based on genre, narrative, representation, audience and media language. We decided to look at representation in particular, then later on begin analysing the other concepts of our coursework productions. I decided to focus my analysis on my advanced portfolio for the exam due to it being fresh in my mind. I looked at the aspects that I wanted to represent, then looking at how I represented them.

- Typical teenage girl : She could make her own choice as to who she wanted to go out with. She appears dominant. Use of male gaze as shots of her chest are used - also adds to the dating atmosphere (subverts patriarchy) - female dominance.

- Three male stereotypes : Used the idea of the signifier and the signified (Saussure) with the costume designs such as ''glasses'' for the ''geek'' and black eye make up for the ''goth''. Cutting is also used to represent difference between the stereotypes.

- Youth : Swings in the playground represent young activity and having fun. Also cartoon effect is used to represent child like features, however also links in to the genre and the name of the song.

- Class/region : Represents urban area when walking down the streets as streets are relatively wide with buildings in the background (wide shots used) and people walking casually down the road.

- Sexuality and relationships : Appearing that straight relationships as the norm as there is no sign of homosexuality (two shots used to emphasize this)(romantic effect also used to represent the norm for the use of romance in heterosexual relationships).

- Ethnicity : Coincidence that the ''Superman'' was of the same ethnicity as the protagonist female character.


Many of the ways in which we emphasized our representations was through the idea of the ''signifier'' and the ''signified''. This idea was developed by Ferdinand Saussure in which the signifier was the physical aspect of something and the signifiedis the meaning attached to the signifier which makes people immediately understand what the physical aspect is associated with.

Roland Barthes took Ferdinand de Saussure's ideas and consolidated onto them. He called the way these signifiers were organised and put together the ''symbolic code'' if the text.

Using, Challenging and Developing Conventions - Album Cover

-In order to evaluate the way in which I have used, challenged and developed conventions of real media products on my album cover, I thought it would be influential if I compared my final album cover to that of Avril Lavigne's album cover "the best damn thing" as she was my main inspirational music artist of a pop/rock genre.

Using and developing conventions...

-Firstly, both album covers have a similarity of using a bland coloured background to make the actual album cover elements more unambiguous to the audience, which resulted to be very successful, according to the comments I received off of my peers in my media lesson. A few quoted that "it caught my eye subconsciously" and "I noticed the graphic use of art instantaneously". This made me feel confident about using this particular convention from Avril Lavigne's album on my own album cover. Also, I did not realise until evaluating my album cover and comparing it to Avril Lavigne's album "the best damn thing", that the font used on my album cover for the name of the band, "The Lighning", was also similar to that of Avril Lavigne's font of her name. This is a relatively bland type of font, however it could be a way of illustrating the originality and individuality of both the "The Lightning" and Avril Lavigne as an inspirational teenager pop/rock princess. Another factor which is similar for both album covers, is the way in which both covers stick to the specific colourscheme, which only consists of a few colours. This can relate to the theme of the music genre, as rock music generally uses a few instruments on stage when performing in front of an audience, which is on most occassions a set of drums a possibly 2 guitars at the maximum. Therefore, each colour could represent a musical instrument. Additionally, the parental advisory label which appears in the left hand bottom corner of "The Lightning's" album cover is a well known convention on many album covers of all genres. Therefore, I decided to use this convention as a way of making the album cover appear more realistic.

Challenging conventions...

-Ways in which there is a constrasting view, is the fact that in my album cover for "The Lighning", there is the use of graphic art, whereas Avril Lavigne's album cover only consists of an image of herself with a straight face, which could also be considered as ''moody', which is a stereotypical portrayal of teenagers. However, usually on most pop/rock album covers, there is never only one image of something which represents the band, which I decided to demonstrate on mine. This was my attempt of challenging the conventions of real album covers of a pop/rock genre as this is a very differentiating convention I decided to experiment with. I decided to put this into practise as it would make apparent instantaneously the genre of music of my album. Also, I wanted to see if it would attract people whos preferred genre of music is pop/rock as this would not be the average pop/rock cover. I have come to also realise that Avril Lavigne is also challenging the conventions of a pop/rock album cover as the front cover is focused on her, especially with the white background to make her stand out even more, this is a convention used by mainly R'n'B albums such as Taylor Swift's ''Fearles'' and Rihanna's ''Good Girl Gone Bad''.

To conclude...

-Overall, I feel that the creation of my album cover has worked relatively well with the combination of my music genre, also in using the conventions from real media products of the same music genre to help "The Lightning" progress into a successful and youthful band.

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.

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.

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.