2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? As can be seen from the professional pictures and my own, there is a link between them with the pose both ‘stars’ are showing. The real album cover, top left, uses bold colours and just the artist , which are quite a conventional ideas as it is demanding, as if to say ‘look at me’. With my front cover, however, there is the conventional idea of the artist being present on the front, though it is unconventional at how weak the image is compared to Pixie Lott’s. For instance, the picture (to follow conventions) would fill up most of the cover space, but due to cheaper technology, it would have been almost impossible to carry out. Additionally, there would usually be a ‘plainish’ background behind the artist, whereas in mine, there is a shape that demands attention, almost more than the artist. Finally, it is also weaker, overall, as the writing is not bold, it requires the audience to be intrigued and look closer, however it is always useful to try new styles as an audience can get bored of a particular type, therefore challenging real media products somewhat. Furthermore, the inside cover reflects a more conventional idea with quite a plain background – linking with the front cover, with the album title and artist on the side. It then shows at the bottom, who the record belongs to, and the usual details that can be seen on many real media products such as Pixie Lott’s own. The main challenge to conventions with my back cover, is that the song titles are split in half whereas many conventional back covers list their song titles on one side. This could be argued that I am attempting to develop conventions, by combining conventional (e.g. carrying through with the type face used on the front cover) and unconventional ideas (splitting the song titles in half).
3. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Continued… Additionally, my inside cover is the most unconventional product, as on most there is either an image of the artist, or lyrics on one of the songs. Although I have gone down the lyrics route, they are not usually on the very back cover, and there is generally a very plain background, unlike this that in my opinion would draw more people in. Also, I have integrated both ideas into one as there is an image of the artist as well and after some feedback, it was commented that the name of the artist at the bottom was a nice finishing touch, as though it is finishing the ‘program’ seen as it is the last song that is written on the inside cover (which would be the back page as it would have been a booklet – which is conventional). My poster, on the other hand, is very conventional due to the layout mainly, however it may factor a few unconventional points in. For instance, on Pixie Lott’s poster it is an enlarged version of the album cover, using the same font for the artist’s name, but down sizing it and placing it in the corner. This allows the public to recognise straight away who the poster/album belongs to, due to the other products. With this in mind, I began thinking of how I could carry this through with my design due to not having the same strength technology. After all the research I did into posters, I had found a lot of them re-use their front covers from their albums to help promote their product, this gave me the idea of placing the whole design on the top bit, where it would not affect the quality, and then follow through with some details as to where the songs can be bought or downloaded. Also, to show some continuity throughout all my products, I used the same font for the most important part of the information, as is in my digipack somehow.
4. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Continued… In addition to these products, there is also the issue of how conventional my video is, which according to Andrew Goodwin’s music video theory , ‘fits the bill’. Goodwin’s theory looked at what features in a music video to make it a music video, for instance, one of the key features he mentioned, was that there would be a link between the lyrics and the visual , whether that compliments or contradicts each other. In my version of ‘Cry Me Out’, it is set in a narrative way, telling the story that the audience can hear and he also identified that the music should fit with the visuals. This can also be seen when the ‘artist’ is miming in the video (mainly) to the beat of the music and I also tried to change some clips to the beat of the music too. I felt this allowed the video to have more effect on the audience as they could follow the ‘story’ through, and feel part of the video. A third point of Goodwin’s theory, is that he believed record companies would demand close-ups throughout the video of the artist (or main vocalist if in a band), this could suggest it makes the audience feel as though they can see exactly what the artist sees, and I did use a few close ups, however they were more of things linked with the artist (for example, viewing the images of the ‘guy’ with another girl), as a range of shots were used. I did feel, however, through the use of the close-ups of what the artist was doing, it allowed the audience to see it from that point of view easier and followed through the story, including the audience more, and that a range of shots helped to show the ‘bigger picture’. Email seen on video. Links with lyrics The ‘artist’ lip synching in time to the music. Close-ups
5. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Continued… Additionally, Goodwin suggested that genres are more complex and diverse with video style, which can be seen in my video as in my opinion one song never fits to one genre, as it mixes some together in how the video is put together. For example, Taylor Swift’s ‘Teardrops On My Guitar’ shows the video through a narrative way, despite it being categorised as country music, though through the beat of the music it is easy to distinguish between the genres. A further point of Goodwin’s theory, is that he stated most videos (especially when including women) there is some sort of voyeurism. Whether this is with screens in a screen, cameras or mirrors within a video it is present in a lot of videos, including Pixie Lott’s, as can be seen in the bottom left image. It is also present in my own video with her looking in a mirror, but whilst she is getting ready to go out, this wasn’t an attempt to re-in act Pixie Lott’s video, but mere coincidence. This is just my opinion though, as Goodwin would argue that I made that part of the video due to my subconscious from previous videos I have seen. He argued that there would likely be intertextual references to other music videos, films or even the tv, which can sometimes intrigue fans more so. It can be seen in my video that there are links to other media videos through lip synching to the chorus, the types of shots that have been taken at certain times, the effects used such as the transitions, speed or black and white. Also, near the end there is a reference to the television that is meant to imply that although the artist has just broke up with someone, there is a chance of love still and that she doesn’t care. This idea, hopefully, comes over to the audience and makes them wonder why certain things were done and take more notice in the song itself and the visual that is applied with it. This does not mean though that the intertextuality was directly linked with more of my products, however the front cover shows the image of her thinking and this is portrayed through the video with the flashback effects (black and white) as she is thinking of both the past, present and future.
6. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? Throughout my products, I have attempted to keep the intertextuality and although it is a little more subtle in the inside cover, it is still there. It can be seen in all my products on this page that the ever so pale pink used in the background is carried out in all my products, additionally the clothes the artist is wearing in the images are seen in the video and the type font is used throughout the products, putting the artist’s ‘stamp’ on them all, creating a strong, visual link. Due to this link, there was never any need to use much text with the products as a lot of people would simply glance and turn away as they generally do not wish to read much about the album and if they do, there is always the website to fall back on that is mentioned on the back cover. Moreover, in all of the products (video included), I basically kept the hairstyles the same, allowing the audience to make more of a link between all of the products, though this is not the main similarity. In all of my print products, the main similarity is the background shape but it is used so that it does not feel too repetitive. For instance, the target audience may not make the link with my inside cover being the shape twice and different colours, however there is still the link there which they may subconsciously recognise, along with the background colour, font style and font colours mentioned. The poster, though, is slightly different to the digipack, but this is too be expected as it is there to raise interest over the album and offers some text as to what information they would need to know, without being too much and I linked the font style of the digipack in with the main part of the information and both lots of products represent the genre and I tried to make all my products look authentic, so following conventions mostly. Hopefully, if these products were published they would create a lot of interest as I do believe they look fairly professional, the only thing I would want to change the front cover a bit, making the image of the artist better quality so it can be stretched bigger, but overall, I feel that my products work well together and are very professional, considering the situation.
7. This slide shows the continuity throughout my products with the font style and the hair style used. One thing to note though, is that at the beginning her hair is a different colour, but due to the link between the lyrics and the video, it was quite a nice idea to have a different hair colour representing the artist moving on and the latest colour is on my other products too. It also shows the very light pink background with my front and back covers.
8. What have you learned from your audience feedback? I was quite lucky in the sense of, the album would be made for people my age so I had quite a good idea on how to fit the ideal to some degree, however audience feedback is still important and was helpful to me. For one thing it allowed me to be objective in a way, because the choice wasn’t my own, I may have designed them but feedback from people I knew and 100 random people asked at the end of each product, allowed me to gain the best results. In reflection, I realise more feedback would have been a better idea, as it may have allowed me to develop my ideas quicker, also some of the feedback was just from friends and family as a bit of advice so I did not note this on my blog, however it was very useful. For example, on the right are the results for my products after I surveyed a 100 people as to which image they preferred. The top one of the front cover was not my final one in the end, mainly because I needed to change the image to one of my own. As can be seen in the poster at the bottom, that was my final front cover, this shows the differences made due to audience feedback. It was suggested that the writing wasn’t that easy to see, which after looking at this, made sense. Although I had done it to intrigue people more by it not been too easy to see, and trying to be a little more unconventional, my audience made me see that conventional is not always a bad thing though, as after I changed it, there was a more positive attitude towards the cover. The only other thing mentioned with my album cover, was that the image in my first ‘final’ front cover (the top one) was that it was a lot stronger, had more of an effect and looked more professional. This, however, is mainly due to the little resources I had compared to that of a record label and such, but overall the feedback was quite good and showed there had been a definite improvement in the way the album cover had developed. lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll ll = 47 lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll l = 71 lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll ll = 37 Box
9. What have you learned from your audience feedback? Continued… The same could be said for my inside cover (that the feedback was really good), however, without this, I would not have gotten it to the stage it was. Although there were only ever small changed made to the back cover, it had a massive impact on how it looked overall and came from mediocre to looking really professional. I felt this was because I hadn’t added any images of the artist and kept it quite simple with the same background as the front cover, only reflected. Although the back cover on the right is quite similar to my final one, it wasn’t as after I had improved my front cover and the back cover to the right, I placed them against each other and asked a smaller sample of 20 people as to what they thought. The outcome was that a lot of people really liked it, though they mentioned there was something missing. When I reviewed this, I had the idea of it being a little too plain down the think bit on the right and thought back to when I did my research. It was then that it clicked with me that the most effective and conventional idea, is to add the artist’s name and title of the product on that bit, which would in the end be bent and be on the side of the album case. I then went back to my audience and asked again which they preferred, and it was the improved one, however, what was interesting to note, was that they couldn’t see directly what the change had been until I pointed it out. I am really happy that I did ask my target audience for their feedback because it wouldn’t be to these standards otherwise and I feel much more confident in my products. lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll ll = 47 lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll l = 71 lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll ll = 37 Box
10. What have you learned from your audience feedback? Continued… For some reason, I felt more confident when designing my inside cover, compared to the other parts of my digipack. Whether this was because I had developed more of a sense for what a target audience prefers, or because it would be on the inside of the album cover where most people wouldn’t look till buying it; I don’t know. At the beginning of designing it, I looked at CDs I owned carefully absorbing the types of inside covers and found that there was almost always a booklet and the back page was generally 1 of 3 things. There was either a picture of the artist, with really good quality and showed there was money behind the shot (which I knew would be useless to do as I found out from my front cover), there was a thanks page to family members, friends and a lot of people who helped to create the album, or there were lyrics there. At first, admittedly I attempted the ‘thanks’ page, but I didn’t feel quite right about it and thought it looked too simple so I developed the lyrics idea. Once I started with this, I felt really positive about the layout and colour scheme used as it was different to the rest of my digipack but still contained the intertextuality. I had two main ideas for my inside cover, and asked my target audience what they would prefer to see in an inside cover, a stronger link to the rest of the digipack, or a subtle link, and most replied along the lines of change being good as long as it wasn’t too drastic. This allowed me to come up with two designs and go back to my audience and it was found that an even weaker link to the rest of the digipack was preferred. This showed that subtle can be effective and without the feedback, it could have made people not want to look at the ‘booklet’ inside. lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll ll = 47 lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll l = 71 lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll ll = 37 Box
11. What have you learned from your audience feedback? Continued… Now my poster went through a lot more changes that most of my other products, even the front cover. When I first started my A2 coursework, I had a rough idea of just how I would like my work presented, though after trial and error and many setbacks I realised some weren’t realistic enough. As stated before a main image for my front cover was not available to do, as I didn’t have the money to buy the best equipment out there, so that ruled my conventional idea out of having the artist and the title on the poster and that was it. This then ‘stopped me in my tracks’ as I didn’t know what would be as effective and noticeable, which is where my audience feedback came in really handy. I was completely off target where my poster was concerned as I was over complicating the matter, but as can be seen with the bottom right photograph, simplicity was the best option and most effective. My target audience pointed out that on some of my earlier posters it looked a bit too young and a couple of people suggested it reminded them off a poster they would see locally, not advertising albums. I used this comment to my advantage and began thinking what I could change, but still I was complicating things by trying to be different. I realised though, that if conventions didn’t work why were they so popular so why was I fighting that. In the end I began to think more simply and my target audience could not believe that it was the final article as it was so utterly different to what I began with. I was quite proud of this reaction as it indicated to me that I was on the right lines and many people who I asked for their opinion’s stated that it was definitely something more likely to be seen in the music industry or advertised on television. lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll ll = 47 lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll l = 71 lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll ll = 37 Box
12. What have you learned from your audience feedback? Continued… The most difficult of my products though, was my video, which required a lot more input from my audience and proved essential as I had had experience with print products before, but making a video was totally different. One influential part of the audience was actually the artist featured in the video, as when we worked through my storyboard and I asked her about her opinion on some parts, she would suggest something else. This was helpful as I developed this further and got a better result than what we had previously filmed. Additionally, on the first edit of the video of about 20 seconds , I asked a few people to review what was already done and the majority of comments were positive, for instance, I may have slowed a clip down a little too much, or a certain transition could do with being a little longer or shorter, though what I had already created, reflected the genre quite well. As the video progressed, I got even more nervous as to how well it would turn out so I asked for my feedback around half way and someone suggested that it may look more professional if there was an introduction to the video (artist’s name and such that introduce the video when on a music channel). This is such a conventional idea and could not believed I hadn’t thought of this, also when I finished my editing, I added the same thing at the end, so that if it was actually shown, the person would remember who it was and buy or download the song. My feedback throughout all my products has proven vital and I’m glad I took note of most comments, however some comments I used my own initiative on, when it was a silly comment from just one person or something similar. lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll ll = 47 lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll l = 71 lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll ll = 37 Box
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14. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Planning and creating: For the majority of my work (excluding the video) I have basically used fireworks, however for a quick video of my storyboard in action I used Windows Movie Maker, which was useful but would not have been advanced enough for my work as Fireworks was. It allowed me to manipulate my images, whether this was the background shape I made, or the still camera images. I took advantage of this program to gain the best effects, for instance, I used blurs, fades, sepia, red-eye, inner glow, shadow, outline, a tool to cut the background out and so on. Without these features, my digipack would have lacked what professional, authentic look, it had gained. Moreover, I used Paint on numerous occassions to copy my designs and place them next to one another, so that they could be reviewed and analysed by my target audience. Additionally, without the still camera, I wouldn’t have had anything to manipulate, so from trial and error, I begin to find what kind of shots looked best and to gather a selection of them so that I had more of a choice when I picked which looked better. Then there is the issue of the video camera, after the help of YouTube - reviewing other videos - I quickly learnt that a shot should never be very long, and after some more research found that a shot shouldn’t really be more than 3 seconds long. Due to this finding, I saw that the most effective way to gain an audience’s attention is to vary the shot lengths, and use different camera angles. This is what I had to try out numerous times, however, due to all the mishaps and unfortunate events with people starring in the video, it was in affect, a good thing, because I gained more experience with how to handle the camera, and what I wanted exactly. Research: Evidently, to be able to create media products, it is necessary to review those that are already there. For this I used numerous websites such as google to research album posters, and digipacks – allowing me to gain an understanding of the stereotypical product and what would make mine stand out over the others. For the video, I used a mixture of youtube and yahoo to analyse some videos, and pick out what worked really well and not so well and then apply those ideas to my own and I used a mixture of lyrics websites to analyse what the video might be trying to get across more subtly. Additionally, I used powerpoint to show my analysis, slideshare to convert the file and then blogger to post the new file.
15. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Developing further: Once I had created these shots using the video camera, I then began editing with a software called Pinnacle. This allowed me to manipulate the shots, like I manipulated the images on Fireworks. I could subdivide my scenes into however many seconds I wanted, split the scenes and delete whichever part I didn’t like, use transitions to make the video run more smoothly, slow the pace of clips, use the chrome key to change the colours slightly and so on. The most effective features, I felt were the best to use for my genre, were the speed, black and white (whether this was for a flashback or so that the colour dulled down in a clip a little bit as it was too bright) and the transitions. Also, although I only used this feature the once (and is a tad cheesy) it came in handy with focusing the attention on a certain aspect of the video which was adding a heart image to the video to emphasise the artist has moved on and she is with someone else. Pinnacle has a lot to offer, and if used correctly it can make some amazing work and gives a professional look. One idea that makes it appear more professional is the use of the text overlay, to introduce and end clips as is so conventionally done. Subdivided scenes Adding text onto a scene Being able to slow the pace for best effect/fit
16. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Evaluating: After all the development, though, there was the evaluating to consider, and for this I used PowerPoint to analyse everything, YouTube to show the video and each improvement, but the main program used for evaluating, was Blogger. This allowed me to store the majority of my information whether this was research, developments or evaluating everything I had placed on there, mainly my products. Additionally, I used Windows Media Player to show the video for feedback, which helped me to evaluate it but without the combination of all these websites and programs, I wouldn’t have had products looking quite well put together. Like with many pieces of work a person puts together, they will always find faults in their work, for example in mine, for my inside cover after looking back, I would have added the finishing touch of who wrote the song, who edited the song etc. like a completely professional cover would. Having said this though, if I was in the industry of repeatedly carrying out media videos and designs for music covers, then a) I would have grown a lot more knowledgeable, saving more time on researching, but also I would have grown quicker with my development and have been working with others to gain the best effect possible; and b) I would only have that topic to work on instead of trying to fit a lot more work in with my other studies. Overall, I have grown quite proud of what I have produced, but wish I had had more time to have got it perfect. Despite this though, I have learned how to use numerous other programs, developing my knowledge and skills, but have also become more independent and also how to keep going when everything goes wrong as every time I felt I gained ground, I lost my footing again because the computer lost my analysis, deleted part of my edited video or the video camera ruined my tape, so I wouldn’t wish to change much as my products wouldn’t have developed this way other wise. Adding a ripple effect Development of poster
