Sunday 11 December 2011
Saturday 10 December 2011
Evaluation Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?
We produced a questionnaire to gain ideas for our music video and receive other peoples preferences and expectations of music videos and also find out where and how they consume music videos.
Analysis of Questionnaire
We also posted our video on YouTube, we did this in order to present our music video to a wider audience. Despite obtaining a lot of views on our video, we only received two comments. These comments were positive but were not very constructive, therefore we found Facebook more useful for obtaining audience feedback, as it allowed us to present our video to friends and family who were willing to provide more useful feedback.
Circle Which Apply To you
What gender are you?
Male Female
What age are you?
13-15 16-18 18-21 22+
What type of music do you prefer?
R&B Country and Western
Hip Hop Classical
Rock Acoustic
Pop Rap
How many pop video’s do you watch a week?
0-3 4-7 5-10 10-14
What do you expect to see in a music video?
Bright colours Colour effects
Varied shots Special effects
Shots of the performer Narrative
Dancing The artist singing
Where do you watch music videos?
Internet Television
Mobile Phone iTunes
How important do you think an introduction is in a music video? Why? On a scale of 1-10
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Analysis of Questionnaire
From our Questionnaire we discovered that generally people
think an introduction is relatively important in a music video.
From our questionnaire we can see that most people watch
music videos on the internet and on the Television
The main expectations of a music video according to our
survey are: Shots of the performers, Narrative, Varied shots
and The artists singing.
Most people only watch between 4 and 7 music videos a week.
Our target audiences favourite genres of music were:
Acoustic, Rock, Pop and R&B
The majority of our target audience were male.
Our target audience were all in the 16-18 year old age range.
The majority of our questionnaire participants rated the importance of a music video introduction. This shows that the introduction to a music video may not necessarily be that important to our target audience. Our target audience is between the ages of 16-18 as our group feels that the song would appeal to this age group and I feel it would have more of an impact on them and the society in which they live and the music genre which is hip hop/R&B would most likely appeal to this age group. In the second question which was where do you watch music videos the most common answer was the internet. This shows that the internet is one of the easiest ways to consume music videos and would therefore be a good platform for us to present our finished product on, via YouTube or otherwise.
Before finishing our video, we decided to show our media studies class mates, and asked them what we could possibly improve, there feedback was very helpful as it made us realise that we needed to make the narrative clearer.
We posted our finished product on Facebook, we received lots of feedback, some of which was quite detailed.
The majority of our questionnaire participants rated the importance of a music video introduction. This shows that the introduction to a music video may not necessarily be that important to our target audience. Our target audience is between the ages of 16-18 as our group feels that the song would appeal to this age group and I feel it would have more of an impact on them and the society in which they live and the music genre which is hip hop/R&B would most likely appeal to this age group. In the second question which was where do you watch music videos the most common answer was the internet. This shows that the internet is one of the easiest ways to consume music videos and would therefore be a good platform for us to present our finished product on, via YouTube or otherwise.
Before finishing our video, we decided to show our media studies class mates, and asked them what we could possibly improve, there feedback was very helpful as it made us realise that we needed to make the narrative clearer.
We posted our finished product on Facebook, we received lots of feedback, some of which was quite detailed.
We also posted our video on YouTube, we did this in order to present our music video to a wider audience. Despite obtaining a lot of views on our video, we only received two comments. These comments were positive but were not very constructive, therefore we found Facebook more useful for obtaining audience feedback, as it allowed us to present our video to friends and family who were willing to provide more useful feedback.
Friday 9 December 2011
Sunday 4 December 2011
Evaluation Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media products use, develop and challenge many of the conventions used in professional ‘Alternative Hip-Hop’ and ‘Rap’ music videos. The aforementioned genres are those which I feel best represented the Black Eyed Peas at the time they released the song “Where Is The Love”, however since they have released this song they have produced more Pop/R&B style music. I detected elements of the song “Where Is The Love” that do meet expectations of the R&B genre, as it is quite an upbeat song. For these reasons I will compare our media products to the conventions of Hip-Hop, Rap and R&B genres.
AKON - Ghetto
Shots from AKON's music video
Shots from our music video
As you can see from the above images above, the locations used in our video meet the conventions of the locations used in the music video for “Ghetto” by AKON as they are both rundown and urban scenes. “Ghetto” fits into the R&B category and I feel that our music video uses many conventions of this particular media product. For example the use of tracking shots of the performer. Also the music video for “Ghetto” uses tracking shots of the artist to show their importance and track their ‘Journey’ through the song, we decided to use these shots as it would help to track the performers through the narrative of our video.
Eminem – Lose Yourself
Shots from Eminem's music video
Shots from our music video
Our media products use conventions of the Hip-Hop/Rap style song “Lose Yourself” by Eminem, we used shots of the artists performing to a crowd in our video. This is a popular convention of the Hip-Hop and Rap genre because this style of shot helps to promote the artists, and possibly make the audience want to be part of that crowd and therefore buy tickets for concerts etc.
50 Cent – In Da Club
Shots from 50 Cents music video
Shots from our music video
In our video we challenged the conventions of “In Da Club” along with the majority of rap videos, as they tend to be performed by black male artists, whereas we have used white English artists. Also the artists in rap videos tend to be very muscular, we have challenged this convention as our performers are quite an average size.
Justin Timberlake – I’m Lovin It
Our music video uses conventions of this video, it uses a series of fast shots to flow with the upbeat tempo of the song.
RizzleKicks – Down With The Trumpets
This video uses natural lighting, our video uses this convention but also develops it towards the end of the video when we include shots of the artists performing to a crowd, where artificial lighting is created by spotlights and mobile phones.
Ancillary Tasks
Below is the front cover of Eminem's album 'Recovery'.
We have challenged conventions of this album cover because in the background of the image a built up city can be seen. On our digipaks front cover we have used a run-down urban setting to emphasise the poverty and economic crisis which relates to the lyrics of our song choice.
Another difference between these two Album covers are that our cover clearly shows the band name, whereas Eminem's album cover does not have his name on it. We chose to include the band name as it is the band that we are trying to promote.
Our Digipak has met the majority of conventions of this genre for example the artists on the front of the digipak, this helps promote the artists and makes the album cover easily recognisable to fans of these arists. We have followed this convention as you can see from the picture above, this is our front cover for our digipak and we have promoted the artists on the front to introduce them to the audience and to portray their importance.
Other conventions of a digipak include things such as:
Record label
Bar code
Track list
Image of the artists
The artists website
Release date
Copyright logo
Album name
We used all of these conventions to make our digipak seem more professional and authentic, we have also developed the conventions of a digipak by using a Quick Response code on our digipak back cover along with a bar code so that audiences who have access to this technology can be taken directly to the band website via smartphone or otherwise.
As you can see from the image below, we have created a digipak not dissimilar style to the real Black Eyed Peas digipak, as we have used an image of the four artists and have included the band name and song name.
Magazine Advert
Some common conventions of a magazine advert are as follows:
Logo
Website
Similar image to the digipak
Name of artist/band
Record label
Release date
Same Font/Colour Scheme as digipak
We used the majority of these conventions on our magazine advert. We have also challenged and developed conventions of a magazine advert, as we produceed our magazine advert in landscape format which is not a very common convention of a magazine advert. The image below is of a real magazine advert promoting the Black Eyed Peas, it is produced in portrait.
The magazine advert above is very colourful and and attracts the audiences attention, and also the font and artists are clear and gives the audience a clear understanding of who these people are. Also the text is style is fairly similar to our magazine advert as we wanted these to look similar in terms of the artists on the front and the font used which we have done so in order to make it look more professional. Our magazine advert is similar as it includes the website, retailer name, the artists on the front, the logo, the digipak front cover and the name of the band. This shows that we have met conventions specific to this genre which is Hip Hop, Rap and R&B.
We met with the convention of using a similar or the same picture as to the digipak. We edited it so that the background as in black and white, but the artists remained in colour. We did this so this image which is used for the magazine advert can promote the artists more than the song because we wanted the audience to know what the band looks like to make them more recognisable.
We wanted to use the same font as the title of the front cover of the digipak because then audiences will relate the two products together, as they share a clear brand identity.
Another convention we met was of the website. We met this because we wanted to give some leading information to the audience if they wanted to know more about the album or the band as a whole. Not only that but we felt by imprinting this onto the magazine advert it would give it a more professional finish, which it did.
In conclusion we mainly used conventions rather than challenge them as we felt it would make the magazine advert look more professional, although we have developed and challenged various conventions to make our music video stand out from similar products.
AKON - Ghetto
Shots from AKON's music video
Shots from our music video
As you can see from the above images above, the locations used in our video meet the conventions of the locations used in the music video for “Ghetto” by AKON as they are both rundown and urban scenes. “Ghetto” fits into the R&B category and I feel that our music video uses many conventions of this particular media product. For example the use of tracking shots of the performer. Also the music video for “Ghetto” uses tracking shots of the artist to show their importance and track their ‘Journey’ through the song, we decided to use these shots as it would help to track the performers through the narrative of our video.
Eminem – Lose Yourself
Shots from Eminem's music video
Shots from our music video
Our media products use conventions of the Hip-Hop/Rap style song “Lose Yourself” by Eminem, we used shots of the artists performing to a crowd in our video. This is a popular convention of the Hip-Hop and Rap genre because this style of shot helps to promote the artists, and possibly make the audience want to be part of that crowd and therefore buy tickets for concerts etc.
50 Cent – In Da Club
Shots from 50 Cents music video
Shots from our music video
In our video we challenged the conventions of “In Da Club” along with the majority of rap videos, as they tend to be performed by black male artists, whereas we have used white English artists. Also the artists in rap videos tend to be very muscular, we have challenged this convention as our performers are quite an average size.
Justin Timberlake – I’m Lovin It
Our music video uses conventions of this video, it uses a series of fast shots to flow with the upbeat tempo of the song.
RizzleKicks – Down With The Trumpets
This video uses natural lighting, our video uses this convention but also develops it towards the end of the video when we include shots of the artists performing to a crowd, where artificial lighting is created by spotlights and mobile phones.
Ancillary Tasks
Below is the front cover of Eminem's album 'Recovery'.
We have challenged conventions of this album cover because in the background of the image a built up city can be seen. On our digipaks front cover we have used a run-down urban setting to emphasise the poverty and economic crisis which relates to the lyrics of our song choice.
Another difference between these two Album covers are that our cover clearly shows the band name, whereas Eminem's album cover does not have his name on it. We chose to include the band name as it is the band that we are trying to promote.
Our Digipak has met the majority of conventions of this genre for example the artists on the front of the digipak, this helps promote the artists and makes the album cover easily recognisable to fans of these arists. We have followed this convention as you can see from the picture above, this is our front cover for our digipak and we have promoted the artists on the front to introduce them to the audience and to portray their importance.
Other conventions of a digipak include things such as:
Record label
Bar code
Track list
Image of the artists
The artists website
Release date
Copyright logo
Album name
We used all of these conventions to make our digipak seem more professional and authentic, we have also developed the conventions of a digipak by using a Quick Response code on our digipak back cover along with a bar code so that audiences who have access to this technology can be taken directly to the band website via smartphone or otherwise.
As you can see from the image below, we have created a digipak not dissimilar style to the real Black Eyed Peas digipak, as we have used an image of the four artists and have included the band name and song name.
Magazine Advert
Some common conventions of a magazine advert are as follows:
Logo
Website
Similar image to the digipak
Name of artist/band
Record label
Release date
Same Font/Colour Scheme as digipak
We used the majority of these conventions on our magazine advert. We have also challenged and developed conventions of a magazine advert, as we produceed our magazine advert in landscape format which is not a very common convention of a magazine advert. The image below is of a real magazine advert promoting the Black Eyed Peas, it is produced in portrait.
The magazine advert above is very colourful and and attracts the audiences attention, and also the font and artists are clear and gives the audience a clear understanding of who these people are. Also the text is style is fairly similar to our magazine advert as we wanted these to look similar in terms of the artists on the front and the font used which we have done so in order to make it look more professional. Our magazine advert is similar as it includes the website, retailer name, the artists on the front, the logo, the digipak front cover and the name of the band. This shows that we have met conventions specific to this genre which is Hip Hop, Rap and R&B.
We met with the convention of using a similar or the same picture as to the digipak. We edited it so that the background as in black and white, but the artists remained in colour. We did this so this image which is used for the magazine advert can promote the artists more than the song because we wanted the audience to know what the band looks like to make them more recognisable.
We wanted to use the same font as the title of the front cover of the digipak because then audiences will relate the two products together, as they share a clear brand identity.
Another convention we met was of the website. We met this because we wanted to give some leading information to the audience if they wanted to know more about the album or the band as a whole. Not only that but we felt by imprinting this onto the magazine advert it would give it a more professional finish, which it did.
In conclusion we mainly used conventions rather than challenge them as we felt it would make the magazine advert look more professional, although we have developed and challenged various conventions to make our music video stand out from similar products.
Thursday 17 November 2011
Friday 11 November 2011
Creation Of Our Magazine Advert
We used Adobe Photoshop to produce our magazine advert. We decided on which image we were going to use almost immediately, as we all had a clear image of what we wanted on the magazine advert, we wanted a large image that displayed the artists, but also had space to put the magazine advert information.
We used a font called praetorian, this font really stood out from the rest of the magazine advert and was very eye-catching when combined with a bold yellowish colour. The font contrasted greatly with the black and white background, therefore audiences will straight away notice either the brightly coloured artists, or the brightly coloured band name..jpg)
Also to add authenticity to our magazine advert, we included some conventions of real magazine adverts, for example the record label, album review and the itunes logo. This made the magazine advert look more professional.
I really wanted to make the artists stand out on the magazine advert, so I used the black/white colour effect, in the image adjustments panel. To make the artists stand out I used the history brush tool to revert the artists back to colour whilst leaving the rest of the image in black/white.
We used a font called praetorian, this font really stood out from the rest of the magazine advert and was very eye-catching when combined with a bold yellowish colour. The font contrasted greatly with the black and white background, therefore audiences will straight away notice either the brightly coloured artists, or the brightly coloured band name.
Also to add authenticity to our magazine advert, we included some conventions of real magazine adverts, for example the record label, album review and the itunes logo. This made the magazine advert look more professional.
Finished Magazine Advert
This is our final magazine advert, we choose to use this because it really accentuates the artists, due to the colour contrast of the black and white against the RGB colour. It contains the common conventions of magazine adverts such as the band website, the band name, record label, release date and a review from a renowned company. The font style and colour we chose to use for the band name was one that we felt stood out and contrasted from the black and white background.
Analysis Of Magazine Adverts From Our Genre
This poster seems to just be an up scaled version of Jay Z's album Kingdom Come. All urban adverts seem to have an empowering image of the artist, utilising a convention that shows off the genre for example with Jay Z he is wearing a baseball cap, this is a stereotypical item of clothing that somebody who likes hip-hop music might wear.
The face of jay-z is very clear and noticeable which gives him an iconic status of importance for the audience to recognise. This is a vital aspect of advertisement especially within the industry of RnB because the majority of artists are soloists and compete for the most recognisable face.
We can see the use of dark red, black and white colours. The colours from this advert are simplistic yet effectively as it creates a persona for what the music from the album is like. As they are much muted colours it could signify quite deep and emotional music but not hugely upbeat.
The layout from this advert is very detail with information provided for the upcoming album. The Again this is a key convention
I decided to compare my magazine advert with the 'The Black Eyed Peas' album magazine advert because it gave me a better insight into not just what the RnB/Hip-Hop genre would use, but what the actual band we are imitating use towards a magazine advert.
We met with the convention of using a similar or the same picture as to the digipak. We edited it however so that the background is dull yet the artist stand out with colour.We did this so this image which is used for the magazine advert can promote the artists more than the song because we wanted the audience to know what the band looks like to make them more recognisable.
The colours in this image are plain and bland using mostly white and grey white which symbolises purity and innocence and also they reason white may have been used is because it works well with any colour.
The magazine advert does not provide a lot of information for the audience. The main information that they have included is the title and album name. The font has been made very bold as this is very important information for the audience however there is no additional information about the album such as; release date, availability, website etc.
With regards to the font, it is fairly futuristic and modern which can be interpreted by the audience with things such as a modern band which uses technological devices to help influence and combine with their music.
The last four letters of the word Billboard has been filled in with different colours which symbolises a unique style that the band has and that they are trying to set out being different by how their medium looks.
There is a website which gives some leading information to the audience if they wanted to know more about the album or the band as a whole and gives the image a more professional finish. Also the pose in which the band members are standing promotes a powerful and important feel and that they are a serious band. The girl is situated in the middle to promote her glamour and also her importance to the band and that she is just as important as the male band members.
Overall, I think the general layout and appearance of the advertisement works effectively due to the choice of image and colours used. The bright colours help to catch the eye and maintain focus which creates further focus on the other information on the advertisement i.e. the release date, new album etc.
Magazine Advert Designs and Ideas
With regards to the creation of our digipak, some of the ideas we originally thought of didn’t get used for the finalised digipak. This however made the idea process of creating a magazine advert much easier as we already had some creative ideas. At first, we decided that the idea of the band as a whole standing in a line with the lead member standing forward to emphasise his importance. we also would have them stand on a train track which creates an authentic urban background. However when we observed this picture in greater detail, concerns was raised as to where we would be able to fit all of the information and advertisement reviews. This led us to discard the image as a whole and perhaps base our image on a similar version to one of the digiapk images.
We decided to choose the inside cover of our digipak, except add some creative effects to set the two images apart so that the audience can gain a clear insight into which advertisement is which. We wanted to leave a lot of room on the magazine advert to be able to fit information about the album on. Also leaving space would help to draw focus to the artists.
Here is an image of the magazine advert background image and possible band name font.
We decided to choose the inside cover of our digipak, except add some creative effects to set the two images apart so that the audience can gain a clear insight into which advertisement is which. We wanted to leave a lot of room on the magazine advert to be able to fit information about the album on. Also leaving space would help to draw focus to the artists.
Here is an image of the magazine advert background image and possible band name font.
Coventions Of A Magazine Advert
- Release Date
- Image of the artist
- Name of the artist
- Name of the album
- Record label logo
- Website
- Brief information, e.g. including the single...
- Needs to be eye-catching
Our magazine advert will definitely feature a picture of the artists, it will also show the band name and album name. We intend to make it look as professional as possible, but we do not want to clutter the magazine advert with lots of information, as we want it to stand out.
Brand Identity
Brand identity is when all of the promotional packages (CD/DVD, poster, etc) have similar features that make them recognisable to the audience as a promotion for a certain product, for example the image, font, colour scheme, etc, this is done so that the audience can identify what the poster is trying to promote/sell, whether it's the artist or the song/album
In all of the promotional items for the Black Eyed Peas - The E.N.D, the same font and style of text has been used. This is very recognisable to the audiences, as the font is very unique and takes up a large proportion of the promotional item.
We are going to ensure that our products share a brand identity.
Wednesday 9 November 2011
Monday 7 November 2011
Digipak Creation
We downloaded Photoshop templates that would be a suitable size for the CD case we were going to use. To create our front cover we took a long time deciding on which image to use, we thought that the front cover was the most important part of the digipak, as it is what the audience will first see and give them a positive or negative first impression. We chose the image below, as it shows the four artists, and I feel it looks professional and attracts attention. The font we chose were quite simplistic, but effective as they add to the run-down look of the image.
To create the back cover we chose the image that we preferred out of all our ideas. We then began to add track-listing and other common conventions of didipak back covers. Also I experimented with the brightness and contrast, and found that increasing the contrast slightly made the image look more defined, and increasing the brightness made the image stand out more.
The inside covers of the digipak were fairly simple to create as we had already decided on which picture to use, as it was a widescreen landscape shot that we wanted to position across the two inside panels. We increased the saturation of the image to make the artists stand out more. And also added the band name along the edge of the right panel, so it could be seen on the front of the digipak through the plastic window.
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