2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? The Use Somebody music video we produced challenges the forms and conventions of the real Kings of Leon video. Mainly because we wanted to include a band performance similar to theirs. However unlike KOL’s typical no narrative based videos, we chose to include a boy and a girl’s relationship story. It doesn’t follow the lyrics of Use Somebody, nevertheless we felt that when we added the band shots it fits in very well.
3. Continued.. Throughout the video we have close up shots of the lead singer lip syncing. These are very similar conventions to most of Kings of Leon videos. Similar to Use Somebody video and every other Kings of Leon video and as I have previously explained in the blog, we noticed that the band is dressed very casually, in jeans, checked shirts/plain t-shirts and leather jackets, so we have followed this theme.
4. Digipack We decided to put photos of each person from the band where each CD will go, as it fits in with the conventions of Kings of Leon album covers such as ‘Youth and Young Manhood’ and ‘Only by the Night’.
5. Advert The advert we have produced challenges in a way the forms and conventions of real media products. The font for the title used is very typical of KOL album ‘Only by The Night’. The background used for the advert and the digipack is where the narrative of our video is set. We chose this location, as we thought is very urban and industrial looking, which are many of Kings of Leon’s chosen sets for their videos. The effects that we used on the photo, have made it darker and a lot different to the original. We did this because in a way it represents Kings Of Leon and their rock & roll lifestyle.
6. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? I think that as a whole our digipack and advert would be very successful in promoting the album. It’s effective, because I believe it has everything that the target audience of Kings of Leon look for. I feel both products are well advertised towards the target audience, the indie, rock genre. Relating to this, in the video, we also have made sure that the band is dressed in the indie /rock style and that the performance as a whole is similar to the ones of KOL. For example at the end of the video, as the song comes to an end, we see the band walking off, leaving their instruments behind and walking out of the studio. I think the combination of the main product with the digipack and advert is effective, because it is a media convergence and watching the video will make the audience buy the album.
7. Digipack & Advert The advert challenges the conventions of real media products , by being so simple , similar to KOL album covers.
8. What have you learned from audience feedback? The most feedback we received was from Facebook. It was mainly positive responses on the narrative of the video and how well it worked. At first we thought the unusual ‘not happy’ ending, would confuse the audience and they might not enjoy it, however that was the one area where we received the most positive reviews. Another very positive view was the band performance, which looked very ‘original’ and ‘professional’.
9. Continued.. We received more positive feedback on the way we have linked the front of the digipack, advert and the video using the same location.
10. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? We used a lot of new media to help us research, plan, construct and then evaluate our products. I believe that without all these developed technologies we wouldn’t be able to edit, add effects and create the video.
11. Construction & Research When we decided that we wanted to do Kings Of Leon, Use Somebody we started off with our research on the band using Google. At this stage we needed to find out about the song, when it was released, from which album and how successful it was. Some of the people in the group already knew a bit about the band, so it wasn’t very difficult to collect the information we needed.
12. Research & Development The next stage in the process was to plan, construct and eventually start filming the video. We used digital camera’s to film, however I’ve never used such equipment before so it was difficult at first to use it, as for the still shots the camera had to be put on the tripod, rather than be hand held, which made it harder to keep filming without stopping. Before we chose our location, we went to several places just to take shots and explore. We mainly used our mobile phones to do this, which made it very easy as we didn’t have to carry the camera with us. We also used them to stay in contact with each other, as later on in the making of the video we had to meet at a recording studio outside college, for the shots of the band, so it was important that there was a way for all of us to stay in touch.
13. Construction When all the filming was done, we used Photoshop to construct and make the video, as it is now. Photoshop was very helpful and I believe without it the video wouldn’t look as professional as it does. I wasn’t very familiar with Photoshop and every one of us had a fair chance to play around and edit parts of the video. This was important, because in time we learned to use it and it gave us a chance to experiment and change the video and the effects a lot to see how it would look in different ways.
14. Planning YouTube was the media that we probably used the most. It helped us a lot with the planning, because we had to look at most of Kings of Leon music videos, evaluate them and see how their theme can be applied to our video. In the band performance, it was important to apply the whole rock & roll, drinking, laid back attitude theme that KOL have.
15. Evaluation We used Facebook throughout the making of the video. We would post first drafts of our advert or digipack to see what everyone thought and we received thoughtful feedback, which helped us progress. We also used Blogger since the start and it helped us post each stage of our progress, it was helpful because it helped us connect with the rest of the groups and see how they’ve done on their projects and receive feedback.
