Evaluation: Question 4

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

For this question I used a series of annotations on the logos of each of the media technologies I used, I then created a flowchart to show the processes I went through to complete my final products.

Evaluation: Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?
To gather feedback I decided that the best way was to create a survey and as a by product produce graph to illustrate my findings. I also decided that I wanted to gather information from both the target audience as well as the mass audience however both audiences completed the same survey; this influenced my decision to ask for their age and gender.

The first two questions relating to age and gender allow to me to collect a wide range of ages and a mixture of genders, therefore with a wider range within the audiences the data becomes slightly more varied but more  specific each time a different person is questioned.

Question 1: Are you male/female?

Question 2: What is your age?

                                            

The majority of the audiences which I asked to complete the survey were female. This is due to the target audience female, however I wanted to receive feedback from older women to solidify my audiences expectations and to strengthen my stereotype - through the feedback I have gathered that the women within the mass audience still hold the same attitudes and values as that of my target audience, this therefore develops my stereotype of women - that relationships is important within their lives.

Question 3: What is your initial impression of the artist?

As my artist is an up and coming artist her portrayal needed to be positive from the audiences perspective, this as a subsidiary of the artists heroine characteristic would encourage them to become a fan of the artist and as a result would develop and widen the target audience. From the audience feedback I have been able to conclude that the overall result from the music video is positive with the initial impression of the artist receiving a positive feedback - later questions in the survey allow the reasoning behind the initial impressions being negative or satisfactory not actually being the artist fault but more the editing and other issues, however I am glad that the majority feel positive about the artists brand identity. The negative response could also be due to the male mass audience, or to someone who is not favourable to the stereotypical story line or music genre.

Question 4: What is the music genre of the music video?

The audience feedback illustrates that this music video seems to blend different music styles and therefore makes it a hybrid genre, although the clear favourite influences are Pop/charts and easy listening.

Question 5: What aspects of the music video influence it's association with a particular genre(s)?

The genre associations are influenced by the conventions of the romantic genre of the music video and through careful planning I have been able to create the perfect reading of the music video and the audiences feedback is a reflection of this as these are aspects which I covered and researched to allow the decoding of the music video to be as I wished. Due to the target audience the idea of make-up was more prominent to what I was expecting. Although it is clear that the code of dress has been recognised by the audience and the colour symbolisms have fulfilled their purpose of presenting the artists mood and to convey the male antagonist as a symbolism of all men.

Question 6: What music genre do you listen to?

This question assisted in the overall results collected from the survey, as the data allowed me to analyse why certain results were more prominent, such as the majority of the audience listen to the charts, this influenced question 4 whereby the audience were presuming that the music video could possibly appear in the charts, but also with the correct musical accompaniment could have more of a 'pop' influence. 

Question 7: Do you watch music channels?

This question links to question 8 within the survey as I was looking beyond the music video itself and developing my understanding of how the music video would be publicised through other media outlets such as television channels. As the majority of the audiences are of a younger age group they are more aware of different media outlets whereby one could be aware and up to date about different and new music. However the minority of those who completed the survey indicate the importance of the other ancillary texts which I have created in conjunction with the music video (Poster advert, Digipak), as these ancillary texts will come to the attention of the older mass audience who either aren't aware of the music television channels.

Question 8: What music channels do you think that this music video would appear on?

As the previous feedback from the audience has indicated, the feedback has indicated the 'pop/charts' influence music on those that completed the survey, which has resulted in the music channels suggested being 'pop/ charts' music channels. Although there is always the internet with websites such as Vevo, YouTube etc.  allowing the mass and target audience to access the latest music and music videos.

Question 9: What do you understand from the narrative?

In this section of the survey I wanted a written response from the people completing the survey, which I have  written out on to a poster. I found that the longer responses came from the female participants, which is a positive as the target audience is female but also develops my stereotype of females ideals such as love, romance and relationships.

Question 10: What do you like most in the music video?

Questions 10 and 11 are more for my personal understanding and developing because during the course of this media course I have been able to develop and challenge conventions of the romantic genre through the media portfolio I have been able to create. The last two questions enabled me to see what I have done well and where my skills can be developed. Whilst also in the perspective of the target audience it allowed me to see how the audience relates to this particular type of romantic music video and whether or not the encoding of certain metaphors, clichés and symbolisms have been decoded perfectly.

Question 11: What could be improved?

 

From this question I can see where I need to develop my skills and understanding of the romantic genre for future reference. 

Evaluation: Question 2

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

I Could Have Been The One - Directors Commentary

Evaluation: Question 1

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

11.3.13 - Sketches and Photoshop Advert

Here is my final advert. I am very pleased with how the advert has turned out, especially the isolated red lips. My original image is the banner at the bottom of the poster as I wanted the rose motif to be a feature throughout this practical project.

I have followed the convention of yellow stars to review my artist as I felt that this convention should be followed but also it stood out from the rest of the poster due to the typography being white for the text in the banner. I was able to research the reviewing magazine which I decided would be J-14, which is an american magazine however the target audience is similar to the target audience of my artist. 

7.3.13 - The Process

To create the poster there were a number of stages which I had to go through to complete the final advert. Here are the stages which I went through to complete my poster:

Stage 1:  I needed to find an image of the artist - as I was not able to use my own image for this I was able to find an older image of her. By using a mask I was able to black and white the rest of the image and erase the mask on the lips so that they were the only thing in colour - the red lips linked to the motif of romance. By isolating the red of her lips I have been able to create a more dramatic and dynamic view of the artist.

Stage 2: I research a many different text style in the process of deciding the typography on my advert. I knew at the start of this project that I wanted a different text style in the main title and the banner at the bottom of the poster. I wanted something that stood out from the main image but portrayed the romantic theme. Therefore I settled on 'Neuo' on Dafont.

I then changed the colour so that the typography was within the colour palate of red, the 'C' is larger for dramatic effect

                                 

To separate the artists name and the name of the album I used a simple white line as I did not want to distract the audience significant text.

Stage 3: My original image is the banner and rather than having a block shape I wanted the rose motif to feature in this section of the project as well. Although I did not want the banner to hide her face I lowered the image to below the artist's chin, but also reduced the opacity to 62% so that the audiences eyes are drawn to the red lips and then to the extract information.

Stage 4: First to be added to the banner is a review, to emphasise the popularity of my artist, followed by the exclusive extras which make the Digipak a Digipak as this is a difference between a normal album and a Digipak.

                                 

Stage 5: To show that my artist is popular and that the Digipak can be purchased I inserted image iTunes and Facebook, which are most relevant to the modern target audience.

Stage 6: The final section was the Digipak itself on the bottom part of the advert, mine appears on the bottom right hand corner. To create some variety I decided to take the picture of the Digipak at an angle .

1.3.13 - Poster Design

I wanted the poster to follow the theme set out by the Digipak, therefore on the image I have used I have isolated the artists lips using the layer adjustment tool on black and white, then used the eraser to make the lips their original colour (red). My original image is the banner at the bottom of the page, which is the top part of the rose.

To raise awareness of the artist I used images of social network logos such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest:

I selected these social network sites because I felt these were the most modern, therefore showing that my artist is is aware and knows how to increase her target audience.

18.2.13 - Advert Conventions Research

In preparation for the next stage of this project I researched the conventions of a magazine advert which promotes a new album release. The function of the advert is to: promote the album and artist, whilst also being eye catching. From my research I have been able to create a diagram of what the conventions of a magazine album is:

From this basic research I then completed further research on:

1. Types of images: Possible image of the artist, motif from the album, artists logo, 

2. Key text: Name of artist, where album can be purchased, extra features in the album, reviews, name of album, optional tour dates

3. Visuals located on the page: Digipak image (usually located on bottom of advert), record label logo, where the album can be purchased logo.

Next I looked into selecting two case studies, using similar artists to the artist which I have used. The first case study is: Natasha Bedingfield. The second case study is: Katy Perry.

14.2.13 - Digipak Finished

After weeks of work I have finally finished the Digipak. Everything seems to have gone really well in the end and so next is the Advert. Here is the finished Digipak:

Originally I had decided to develop the rose motif in the music video on the CD tray, however I was going to make the rose become a flame. However from feedback from those in my class I decided against it because it did not fit into the theme of the 'old romantic' which I was aiming for. Instead I still used the idea of the flame rose but more subtle. The record company which I have used is influenced by my case study - Sara Bareilles as her record label is Sony BMG.

My artist appears in three of the four covers as I wanted to emphasise the physical appearance of my artist as this will be her first album. The rose appears in all of the covers because the motif of the rose is significant in the type of music my artist does - in the majority of her songs have the theme of love within them. The rose is stereotypically associated with love and passion, there is irony on the lyric book cover because the rose is broken suggesting a broken relationship which links with the music video.

The china tea tray in the lyric book cover suggests the theme of tradition which encompasses the 'old romantic' theme.

As the theme was an 'old romantic' I used the back cover to illustrate this, with the front cover suggesting a sultry aspect to the artist therefore showing her versatility in music genre and themes. The back cover also has a barcode which shows that this product will want to be purchased. 

The colour red is significant in all of the covers as red suggests romance, I was able to use the Gradient Map tool on the front cover to isolate the colours red and gold - illustrating romance and power or happiness this could be read as ironic by the audience as although the artist is wearing these colours her passive position on front cover is laying on the floor.

31.1.13 - Micro elements

Today as a class we looked into the 5 main micro-elements that have influenced our work so far. The micro-elements are based on stereotypes which therefore allows the producer of the media product to generalise what their target audience will want however some stereotypes are not correct or are a negative generalisation over certain people for example blonde people are immediately assumed as stupid or dumb. Through the using of the micro-elements a producer of the media product can encode their media product how they wish, each micro-element has its own enigmas or criteria which can influence the encoding. The 5 micro-elements which we looked at are:

1. Use of the Body: Is it active or passive? Shape or position in the image. Style of dancing?
2. Facial Expression: describing the facial expression(s) e.g. rough, warm, smiling, frown
3. Mise-en-scene: Code of dress - items, colour, style. Props - items, colour, style. Location - geographically and more specifically e.g. club, room of house
4. The Gaze(s): Influenced by Laura Mulvey: Who is looking at who? What types of 'looks' is the person given? Locate what or where the main person's focus is.
5. How the Camera Frames the Body: Is there a focus on a particular body part? e.g. face, legs, chest. What type of shot is used? e.g. low angle, extreme close up, long shots. What is the effect of this type of shot?
Once we were all familiar with the micro-elements we watched a video and were each assigned a micro-element which we would specialise in; I was in a group with Naomi the video was: Technology - by 50 Cent ft.Justin Timberlake.

In my group we were looking at The Gaze from this we were able to clearly identify how men and women are perceived, whether it follows a stereotype and if we as the audience see the portrayal of each person or character as positive or negative. Here is a mind map below of the influence The Gaze has on this music video:

From this we were able to feedback our ideas on each of the micro-elements. We then went off individually and were able to analyse our own work in conjunction with the micro-elements. I was able to create the table below based on my music video:

Tool Kit Foci:	Evidence in music video:	Meaning presented to the audience:
1.       Use of Body	Artist = active – range of locations and shots Male= passive – close up of removing hand, low angle shot of him on bed	Artist= audience can see that she is trying to make the relationship work Male = appears lazy, negative connotations
2.       Facial Expression	Artist = meaningful – close ups Male = not bothered – close up at dinner date	Artist = creating connection with target audience as they can relate Male = increasing negative attitude
3.       Mise-en-scene	Artist = multiple colour symbolisms e.g. purple = royalty/ insecurity and gloom, props rose flower motif	Sympathy for artist as the relationship although was equal is now becoming one sided.
4.       The Gaze(s)	Range of camera shots. Code of dress in suitable in creating a sense of verisimilitude. Women are not objectified.	The female gaze on men in not sexual but negative towards the amount of emotions they put into relationship which follows conventions as stereotypically females are more emotive in the majority of things including relationships
5.       How the camera frames the body	Music video is from the female perspective therefore the male is cast as the villain through the camera shots e.g. low angle shot of male

4.2.13 - Photo shoot

After planning for the Digipak, I have now done a photo shoot so that the editing process can begin. However due to personal reasons Corrina Suri did not take part in the photos but to over come this I have used another person (Nikki), who can be seen below to use in the Digipak. Although her physique is not the same as Corrina's, Nikki's wild hair suits the theme which I am trying to recreate.

So that the artist who appeared in my music video appears in the Digipak as well I will be editing Corrina Suri's face on to Nikki's using Photoshop. Through experimentation I will be using grey scale to emphasise the colour red - which signifies the passion and love which are themes within Corrina Suri's songs.

I decided to take lots of pictures with Nikki in different positions but also with different clothing (different dresses and shoes), although I wanted to highlight Corrina's femininity by having Nikki wear a dress.

The flower is the most significant motif within the music video and will also feature in one of the sides of the Digipak.

22.1.13 - Digipak Mind Map and Initial Ideas

Once all of the music videos were completed as a class we discussed each others giving feedback of initial impressions from the music videos. From this we were able to consider the different ideas which could be interpreted from the music video and therefore inspire the digipaks. Here is my mind map of feedback given:

From viewing the music video as a whole, I had begun to create a digipak along the theme of the flower motif and free spirit, however from the feedback given the last scene had a significant effect on the target audience therefore to begin this stage of the project I will be designing 2 ideas which contrast to each other significantly, then towards the end of the design stages I will ask for feedback through a class discussion. Through using Polyvore I have been able to create a template of designs for both ideas which are shown below:

Sultry - Version 1

Free Spirit - Version 1

  

17.1.13 - Artist's Identity/ Brand Image Continued

Case Study: From my previous research I was able to identify any artists who are similar to the artist I have used for my Advanced Media Portfolio, such as: Sara Bareilles and Katie Melua. I then developed my research by researching their albums to see if there were any ideas which have inspired my Digipak. During the research I was able to identify more similarities between my artist and Sara Bareilles; therefore I have based my case study on her albums. In Sara Bareilles’ 11 years in the music and media industry she has released a total of 4 major albums and many more singles. 

8.1.13 - Digipak Research

Forms and Conventions:

1. What is a Digipak and how is it similar/ different to an album cover?
A Digipak is a form of CD or DVD cover which is often used for a first single release or special edition release. It differs from an album cover as it usually has video extras and other bonus items for the customer, as well as having some music tracks released by the artist.  CD Digipaks give a product an expensive professional look and feel.

2. What does a digipak net look like and how many faces are usual?

This is the 8 panel Digipak (left) and one
variety of the 6 panel Digipak (right)

The most The most common CD Digipaks is the 4 panel Digipak which opens like a book. However 6 panel CD Digipaks are also popular, providing a larger canvas for CD artwork and text information about the CD. 8 panel and even 10 panel CD Digipaks are also available. In my advanced media portfolio I will be designing a 4 panel Digipak. 

4 panel Digipak

3. What do we usually find on the various faces i.e. front cover? Back cover? Inside cover? CD tray? 

      Front Cover: Usually has a image of the artist themselves along with the title of the album. It is often important to have an image of the artist especially if this is the first released music related media product, such as an album or Digipak. Also the front cover will have caption about the extras within the Digipak or a raving review of the Digipak.
Back cover: Frequently has the list of other tracks on the album as well as a bar code to indicate that the Digipak will want to be bought.


Inside cover: Sometimes has the lyric book or otherwise has a note from the artist just to say 'Thank you'. On rare occasions it has both.
CD Tray: has a simple pattern or image otherwise it may confused the customer due to the distraction caused by a busy CD tray.
The Digipak itself should follow a colour scheme to make the product look professional. 

1.1.13 - Artist's Identity/ Brand Image

Activity: Brainstorm words and images that sum up your artist's identity/ brand image.

When I decided to use Corrina Suri's song - 'I Could Have Been The One' I initially listened to a variety of songs sung by this artist to get a deeper understanding of the artist herself as well as develop my ideas for her brand image. From my ideas I have created a mind map, which illustrates the words which I associate with her as well as similar artists who have either the brand image I want to adapt to Corrina Suri, or they sing from the heart (romantic in genre).

From this research I have finalised the target audience is mainly female due to the lyric subject in Corrina Suri's song - as truthful, from a personal experience but the reasoning for the female target audience is that other young girls or women will be able to relate to this song from their own perspective. I respect the artist for my music video because I feel that the best results in the music industry is to use a personal experience - to develop your own character and make yourself less vulnerable in the future, my target audience will be able to relate in this way.

1.1.13 - Still Images

In the music video itself the artist along with the male protagonist (boyfriend) are shown as a long term couple who have been with each other for a while. To show this in the music video I had a range of images taken during the filming process to illustrate their relationship as long term but falling apart. My initial ideas for the advert and digipak are to possibly use some of these images however I think that I will want to create a colour scheme with red as the focal point as it is the most significant as it connotes the passion with which being in love can bring but its binary opposite is that it is associated with anger.