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

http://prezi.com/wurkinohhwji/question-four-how-did-you-use-media-technologies-in-the-construction-and-research-planning-and-evaluation-stages/

Questions Three: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Here is the link to my audience feedback video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh0Ska9nf0A&list=UUp4CGBaNUhdzZmTqLqxdmhw

Questionnaire  - Rate from 0-10                               10= Perfect   0= Terrible

Here are the responses to my questionnaire:

How clear was the Narrative?
8 - 9 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 9

How well did you understand the ending/point of the video?
10 - 9 - 8 - 10 - 10 - 9

How good was the acting?
9 - 8 - 7 - 9 - 9 - 8

How well do you feel that the video fitted to the music and lyrics?
8 - 9 - 9 - 10 - 10 - 9

How effectively was the narrative shown?
9 - 9 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 9

How enjoyable was the video to watch?
10 - 9 - 10 - 10 - 10 - 9

How well did it keep you occupied?
10 - 9 - 9 - 10 - 9 - 10

How effective was the editing?
9 - 9 - 10 - 9 - 10 - 9

How connectible were the issues or emotions in the video?
10 - 10 - 9 - 10 - 10 - 9

How well does the digipack fit with the video?
8 - 9 - 10 - 10 - 10 - 10

Was the advert a good representation of the video?
8 - 8 - 10 - 10 - 10 - 9

I know there can be a lot of bias coming from interviews so I made sure that I chose people I can trust to be critical and honest, I also tried my best to ask questions where I could find the most criticism as I wanted to know how other people really viewed my piece and what they honestly didn't like. I was actually very surprised with my feedback as I was not originally pleased with my music video where as everyone I spoke to seemed to be very impressed and any criticism they gave was actually almost a good point. As I have said I wanted my audience to view it different to one another in a way that they can connect and from this I can see that I did that, one persons answer was "I think that anybody who has been through a heartbreak and not been able to cope would be able to connect with this and I think most people go through heart breaks" as you can see that wasn't my original intention, my narrative was that the depression lead her to the bad relationships which made her worse where as this audience member saw it as the heart break causing the depression, these are both equally valid ideas and I am still happy with how she read it. Another person read it as there was one good guy and one bad guy, that is fine also, she still connected to it and understood it in her own way.
The main point that I noticed peopled seemed to agree on throughout my audience feedback was that it was slightly unclear exactly what was happening with the two male characters in my video. This is because originally I wanted to have about 5 or 6 different men so that it was clear how she was going through different relationships and how what they did to her was still effecting her but unfortunately I could not do this as I could not find enough actors in time, the ones that I did find were unreliable and I just couldn't really find enough time to do all of the different intertwining stories that I wanted to. I had hoped that it would still make sense but I don't think it's a problem necessarily because I think my intended audience will understand and if they don't straight away then they will come to their own conclusion as to why, I didn't want it to make sense, I wanted it to take a few watches to get what's going on, I like the idea of people being able to watch it over and over again and still find new things or wanting to watch it over again to try and make sense of it as that is what my style models did so clearly it appeals to the audience of my genre.The only other things that people really pointed out were things like the lighting which is understandable considering I am not a professional nor do I have professional equipment.
Even with all of my limitations I still found that everyone enjoyed it, felt that it looked like a real music video in some way or another and found it hard to criticise or think of ways to change it. They also all enjoyed my digipack very much and thought it looked very real and fitted with my music video.

Question Two: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

There is an obvious need to create the digipack and magazine advert in light of the music video else it would not be recognisable that they represent one another, for example someone may see the music video and then go to buy the CD but cannot find it as it doesn't look like anything that they have seen.











This scene ^ is what initially gave me the idea for my main image, I thought it gave the symbolism that I wanted to show how much darkness there was around her and on her but still some light.As you can see, my main colours in my digipack are oranges and yellows where as in the image above it is not, this is because throughout the video the colours are quite vibrant, but here she is in darkness besides the lamp creating the whites and greys, but I found that oranges worked best for my digipack and it still represented the video well, it is still recognisable as it is a key scene.

As you can see, in the background of each still there are trees, there are pretty much always trees in the background on her journey, this is because they represent life and nature so this connotes her journey as well as giving a symbolism of hope in itself, that is why I chose the two inside images, one is just a tree but it's quite dark with lots of light around it, once again symbolism and the other is the light in the middle of the trees, the light breaking free almost.

So overall I do believe that all of my ancillary tasks fit with my music video quite well, they all match together with the same feel, the sense of hope but surrounded by darkness, they all link to what is shown in the video and if someone was to see it in a shop I think they would be able to relate it to the video this is the synergy as the video is mainly promotional so should link to the CD to sell more copies.

Question One: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

With my genre of music the conventions and forms can be quite varied. A lot of the time they will on and off have the band playing, if not them pretty much playing the whole time, they very much like to advertise the band, but the main ones I have been working from have quite meaningful video's, almost like short films but the main character will also lip sync.

Although Cliché's are cliché's because they are good and effective I wanted to challenge some aspects of certain ones, for example having the band or artist playing/singing in the video, I avoided that because I feel it takes some meaning out, you follow the video, you start to feel something and then suddenly the band is there and that built up emotion is basically lost because you've been taken out of it and remember it's just a music video, where as if the band is not shown you continue to watch it feeling more and more and forgetting it's a video and feeling a part of it.

This image ^ is a part of my shot reverse shot which was also used in one of my style model videos to show the two different alternatives in what could happen, in mine it is to show the back and forth or her getting better then getting even worse than she'd ever been etc.



This is their first shot of the three.

My second shot.

Their second shot.








My third shot which is the same as the first and their second shot which is the same side as the first just continued. Obviously this doesn't make much sense without the movement but in the videos, if de-constructed carefully it is a noticeable symbolism, although others may read it differently which is fine.

They used the silhouette to show the light, to give a religious connotation, the light symbolising the good etc where as mine was the opposite, it was to show the bad, her depression taking over her but if you notice, there is a thin ray of light, to symbolise that there is hope for things to get better and the fact that she's walking through a tunnel it does imply that she will eventually get into the light.

These two shots are slightly to the side, I found that this was actually a convention of my genre, it was also used in another style model video that I looked at, possibly to show that there's more than meets the eye, something you wouldn't notice, at least that's how I used it.

I tried to keep it to a mid-shot most of the time so it showed a lot of her body although actually most of the time in my style model videos this is not the case, it is focused more on his head and face, I could have also done this but I preferred the mid-shot for the journey but getting closer to her face in the flashes or the deeper story lines.

I wanted her to have a wistful look, I first saw it in this still above, I feel that even though he just got beaten up he still seemed hopeful and I wanted to also show this, no matter what she goes through she will always, eventually 'get there'. I also fitted this with the lyrics 'I'll get there' to reinforce that.

This is where I got the idea of my main character lip syncing while acting rather than going away from the story to have a 'band moment'. He is also the singer of the band but technically Atlanta is pretending to be me as it was my song that I was singing so to the audience it may well be her singing, I did find that this did look awkward at points but nobody else seemed to point that out, probably because I kept it to a minimum.








These final two images are very similar, same amount of body shown, both looking down, I did want her to be looking down some of the time as it looks like she's in thought as he does, thinking about the life issues.







I tried to stick fairly close to these style models because they fit with my target audience and if the audience like that then they should like mine. This fits with Steve Neale's theory, Neale says that pleasure is derived from 'repetition and difference' which is how I view my text, it has some similar conventions, it has to to be enjoyable as I can't just change everything completely and expect my audience to still enjoy it just because it's different because conventions are conventions for a reason. Although I have also done some things a little differently, the lack of lip syncing as I feel it takes the emotion away and it is a different narrative than some are used to as it is a deeper topic than some dare to go, it is also more open than a lot of videos can be, I feel that most directors tend to get too caught up on their preferred reading where as I just want people to find their own way of connecting to the piece. Which brings me to the uses and gratifications theory, what enjoyment they get from it, I find it is entertaining just to watch but also as it would need 'decoding' it would create some diversion as they are stepping away from their own problems and concentrating on decoding. I also feel it should educate my audience to a degree on depression and what kind of things can be behind someone, things you may never even notice it, this would also help them maybe identify with some of these situations or people, or maybe they've had someone like that in their life, depression is quite a common issue so hopefully it'd be easy to relate to in some way. It could even make the audience look at their lives slightly differently, or it could be the case of watching someone else's life takes them away from their own life and problems for a while(escapism).

Magazine Advert Draft 2

Magazine Advert Draft One

Uses and Gratifications Theory vs Hypodermic Needle Theory

I learnt about two theories, one claims that the audience is passive and completely powerless, they are 'injected' with meaning and information by texts and it will have an effect of influence on them and the audience have no control over it, this is called the Hypodermic Needle Theory. The second claims that the audience is active and they get something out of texts. It suggests that there is a set of reasons as to why people will watch/read a text; diversion, escapism, informational, pleasure, social identity and sexual stimulation. This is called Uses and Gratifications.

The Hypodermic Needle Theory is very outdated and I do not expect my audience to instantly understand and take in what my initial meaning is. In fact I want quite the opposite, I want my audience to find many different reasons to watch my text(much like in the Uses and Gratifications theory) and I want them to have their own interpretation, I believe that they are very active and can come up with something beyond anything I'd even thought of. I find that if the text is quite open then more people can relate to it because they can almost see what they want to see or see what they wish to relate to, obviously I have an preferred reading but it's more of a guideline and the more my video is watched the closer the audience should get to my interpretation. 

As my video needs 'decoding' it would create some diversion as they are stepping away from their own problems and concentrating on decoding. I also wanted to educate my audience on depression and what kind of things can be behind someone and that you may never even notice it, this would also help them maybe identify with some of these situations or people, or maybe they've had someone like that in their life, depression is quite a common issue so hopefully it'd be easy to relate to in some way. I obviously wanted to make it entertaining as hopefully it should be to watch something with some twists and turns. I think it could also make the audience look at their lives slightly differently maybe, or it's the case of watching someone else's life takes them away from their own life and problems for a while(escapism).

My Process

I needed some logo's for my 'companies' for the back of my digipak, so I searched 'A' and this was one of the more interesting ones that came up, so I edited it into negative so that it would work well on my back cover.

This was my second logo, I did the same as the last, searched the letter 'K' and liked this one so I edited it to negative once again.

These two images (above and below) were my first drafts. As I wanted it to look as though somebody had painted or drawn it I had to find a few different 'paint' looking edits, as the 'pencil' edits looked boring and strange. This was the first paint edit I found but I later decided that it had far too much black space, although that was kind of my idea, that she is surrounded by darkness, I don't think it works for a digipack, and I don't think it looked enough like it had been painted.

But as you can see below I did try to make this black space work but I didn't think that having the name there looked very good, especially not as good and clear as it being at the top so I ended up just scrapping this draft completely.

The image above was the original photo that I took and the image below is the edit of it that I used as my final front cover image. As you can see there were quite a few things that I had to edit out, for example that pink 'squiggle' on her hair, the colours and light contrast etc. Then I had to crop it to the correct shape and size and add the new paint effect I had decided to use which is much more realistic, it does look like it could have been painted and it has a nice use of all of the colours and the space, still leaving plenty of darkness to give the connotations that i wanted.

 These two images are just some of the different ways I tried to place the text on the back on my digipack to see what looked best. I tried arranging the words to create a pattern with the longest and shortest title's but they all looked wrong in some way until I finally decided to go with the third image as it looked more natural and just fitted although I did have to keep changing it to make sure that each space was exactly the same between each title.

 Here are some of my original images that I had to choose between:

 I almost chose this one but I didn't quite like the face she was pulling and I thought that the lamp was too high.

This one wasn't very flattering therefore would not be as appealing. 

Once again it wasn't very flattering and the low angle shot didn't work as her face/head should be very clear but here it's too small.

A high angle shot didn't work either, from this I realised that I needed a straight on view to see more of her face.

 She was pulling a weird face in this image again and I still didn't think it was flattering enough , also the top of her head was slightly cut off which to me did not look professional.

 These images are the different coloured writing I used to try and decide which stood out best:

 This one was a bit too boring and didn't go with my colour scheme.

This orangey yellow did go with my colour scheme but I wasn't too sure, it stood out but also blended in slightly too much with the colours in the image so instead I made this the colour of the title of the album as in my style models that was slightly less noticeable than the artists name so it worked well.

At first I thought white looked alright but once again it didn't really go with my colour scheme very well so in the end I chose red.

Also to help me pick out colours I asked a range of people what their favourites were/which ones looked more professional and they all chose either the orange one or the red one which helped me make a firm decision.

My Final Ancillary Tasks(Digipak)