Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I believe that when you first watch my music video it could be interpreted as a little bit strange, even a little bit more obscure than the typical codes and conventions of the abstract genre. Admittedly some parts of the video do break the barriers of a conventional music video, for example the wacky mise-en-scene and the costumes too, but that is what I wanted to produce, to step away from the ‘norm’ and create a new style, therefore it could be suggested that my video challenges existing abstract music videos, personally I believe this is because it is such an amateur production in comparison to existing music videos.

Although I have applied essential conventions within my video. In terms of cinematography and editing I have applied lip synching, mid shots, close ups, zooming, panning, slow motion, reversing and rhythmic editing-all of these conventions are what any viewer expects to see when watching any music video from any genre. When analysing in terms of the abstract genre I have used codes and signifiers from my initial research to produce my video, for example: the ‘wacky’ mise-en-scene is probably the biggest example of the genre but also the fact there is no narrative to the video, again this is what I wanted to produce rather than a generic pop music video in which ‘love’ is the theme running throughout. And considering my initial target audience research that is what they wanted to see and what they expect from a video that is promoting an artist who is renowned for her ‘alternative style’.

Now, looking at my ancillary texts and firstly the codes and conventions within my website. Again after researching existing websites it appeared to me that the homepages fitted seemingly alongside the artist’s music, and therefore I concluded I would also do this too. I initially set about wanting to replicate Paloma Faith’s website in which I wanted to scan in traced images of angels and wings etc, but I decided it would look to grainy and unprofessional against my already amateur video production, so I used the clip art images on the website creator instead, they proved extremely useful and consequently fit with the genre and style of my music video. The cartoon angel clip art that I have used for the ‘link tabs’, the angels wing clip art and also the stars are again, just like the mise-en-scene signifiers within my video, they fit in with the conventions of the genre and also signal specific codes in which the audience expect to see from any genre, whether it be the angels on my website, the ‘sketched’ pictures on Paulo Nutini’s website or the symmetrical window panels featured upon Florence and The Machine’s website, they’re all what the audience expect to see.

Q2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The combination of my main product and ancillary texts does work well, as I have a consistent housestyle, font and collection of imagery running throughout both my ancillary texts which is also fitting with the mise-en-scene in my video, too. The audience know that the 3 pieces are connected, as a promotional package because of the familiarity of the angel characters; they are featured within all three texts and continue to reiterate the abstract image. Also the props used in my video, such as the angel wings are featured as a ‘clip art’ on my website, merging the two proved positive, it acts as a signifier and therefore the audience will hopefully make the connection and explore both the video and website further.

The application of cross form synergy has been used, whereby the website lets you stream the MP3 version of any song when the HTML is ‘open’, in turn this element is enabling the promotion of the artist’s repertoire of songs without the user being aware that they are doing this, which is the beauty of cross form synergy as it is promoting another product without anyone, but the producers of each being aware.  Another point to note is the ‘future’ application of a live update of how many digipaks/hard copies have been sold so far, the interactive device will let the audience feel more actively involved with the artist’s wider community and will promote the declining idea of hard copy version of the song-a CD! Thus keeping individual conglomerates, such as ‘HMV’ and ‘independent’ record shops in business.  

Furthermore my magazine advert promotes the video by sourcing the Web 2.0 hyperlink to the video and actually tells the audience, upon the tag line to ‘watch it!’  The advert also contains a screen shot of the website which lets the audience gage their own impression of the website before actually exploring it themselves, this, I believe, is what any media business wants their target audience to do and they will therefore gain audience feedback into what works well within their product as well as what doesn’t, enabling them to fulfill their audiences needs when producing further products; which leads into my own audience feedback data for my promotional package.

(Link for Prezi titled: 'Ancillary Texts analysis' as the 'embed' link would not work): http://prezi.com/lgljtkdr5nug/untitled-prezi/

Q3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
What I originally set out to achieve:

To target:

The kind of people who would willingly watch my music video are: outgoing individuals who are creative and full of life. They feel need to express their feelings in a way that grabs other people’s attention, it could be via their experimental and unconventional way with fashion or their wide range of music genre taste. Their positive and fulfilling attitude to life makes them the perfect viewer for my alternative music video.

What's happened now, and what's changed:

I'd say that the primary points for my target audience haven't really changed but in a way may have extended because of the ‘new’ abstract image I have created through my video and how things unintentionally changed throughout the production process. They are still classed as 'alternative' & 'experimental' people in terms of the demographic target audience but will also be interested in an 'alternative' world and reality, too when researching deeper into them as a person, consequently and unknowingly I believe I have created a very narrow niche audience for my products, the video especially.

To gain audience feedback I have used a number of digital techniques to gather information. For example, from the start of the project I set up a poll on my blog, in which people could fill it in whenever they viewed it, throughout the project this enabled me to see what a range of people liked from a product and equally what they didn’t, too. Admittedly at the start I took the usefulness of the poll for granted and believe I could have used it more when it came to filming the shots for my video, but then as I collected more responses it became apparent to me that I should have used it more to understand what the audience actually wanted from the text. At the start of my research I also asked people what they thought of an existing music video form the same genre and that genuinely provoked more ideas of what I could produce for my video, for example the idea of an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ proved very popular, but when it came to actually producing the video it proved too much to produce and I had to forgot the idea entirely, perhaps that is one of the reasons why I am not fully satisfied with my video, because not all of my initial ideas went ahead, and could also suggest why the target audience for my piece unfortunately shrank and developed into a more niche audience.

After I completed my promotional package I set about in creating a new survey on the website http://www.surveymonkey.com/home/ I had heard of it before and knew that it would be a great technological way of reaching out to the audience. I set about first of all asking my family and friends to watch my video then complete the survey by simply giving them the address of the survey, but then I concluded into posting both the video and survey onto my ‘Facebook’ and ‘Twitter’ pages, in which I believed I would get a diverse range of answers, and most importantly honest unbiased ones, too. But unfortunately I didn’t receive as much data as I intended to. But, looking at the data I did receive there is a variety of answers, ranging from positive to negative!

I’ve also asked/interviewed people from around the college to answer these following questions, after I showed them my video.

1.   Do you like my video?

2.   Is there anything you’d change? State:

3.   Is it too abstract? Y/N

4.   Age.

First of all the average age of the people that responded are 18. This is important to note because they fit into the demographic audience category in which I wanted to target. Only 1 out of the 4 responses shows that this person didn’t really like my video. Getting an honest answer and to see what they would change about my video makes me realise that they are right and that there are probably too many ‘short’ shots running throughout my video, longer shots would probably sustain the viewer’s interest further and wouldn’t have led to my video looking rushed. Honestly, the reason why the other responses don’t really suggest what I could change is because I asked my close friends to answers these questions, so therefore this shows a bias response. So therefore the online ‘Survey monkey’ questionnaire is most definitely the most useful resource in terms of audience feedback. 

I did initially want to gather data in the form of audience feedback videos, just like I did at the start of the project, but unfortunately I ran out of time to do this. So, I feel that although I have missed on a great opportunity to gather verbal data and honest answers from the audience, using a new online device (Survey Monkey) for an anonymous questionnaire has still helped me understand a range of people’s impressions of my video and ancillary texts.

The ‘Survey Monkey’ feedback shows a variety of answers, in which I’m going to analyse. The first question shows how 70% of the people who responded ‘liked’ my video, meaning 30% didn’t, this is honestly quite a startling amount of people who didn’t, which makes me realise that perhaps if I had more time I would most definitely change it, not all of it, but most definitely some of it. The second question gives them a chance to answer 1 of 5 questions. I comparison to the first questions this shows that even though people claimed to not ‘like’ the video, they didn’t claim that there was anything genuinely wrong with it, it just wasn’t to their taste, but that  is because of the niche audience in which my video, now reaches out to. The third questions collects qualitative data in which they got to state what they would change using their own words, thus giving an honest opinion. The first response states: “I think I would change what they are wearing and also you should have more shots instead of using the same ones” so this shows that the costumes where again perhaps amateur, just like the video as well. Perhaps it wasn’t the costumes, but the mise-en-scene instead. The costumes would look more effective and therefore the video would, too. If I’d of had more time then I would most definitely of have re-shot the indoor shots, with better lighting to make it look more natural and less ‘staged’. I also gathered feedback on the audience’s thoughts on my ancillary texts, too. Question 4 shows this. None of the responses say that the ancillary texts don’t fit in with the genre or video, which is good, although 50% only state that they only ‘sort of’ fit into the genre, which makes me realise that the consistency of the products are again, not brilliant and admittedly I even believe that they look rushed and of a low quality. But, 50% of the people who did respond do like my ancillary texts and feel there is a consistency running throughout all of texts. Most importantly, I have got to take into account the fact that the genre of music the people who responded to my survey enjoy the most is ‘Pop’ (75%), the style of pop music is entirely dissimilar to ‘abstract’  and therefore what they enjoy listening to has a great influence on their decision when filling in the questionnaire, this had made me realise that everyone has a range of opinions about music in general and that people can be influenced greatly by their social groups to determine what their favourite genre of music actually is. The second most important response to note is that of the audience’s most enjoyable format of music video, whereby it appears that 100% of people enjoy performance based videos, thus clearly fitting with, again the genre of pop and the fact that the majority of ‘Pop’ videos do actually have a narrative, unlike mine.

Overall, I feel that all of the audience feedback data I have collected does give a useful insight into the good and bad points of my promotional package. I feel that the responses make it evident to me that I should most definitely taken more time and care when filming and editing, this would have enabled me to produce a stronger and more professional outcome. In terms of the ancillary texts, I feel that I spent too much time drafting the website and not enough time on the magazine advert; this is shown in the feedback data I collected and makes me realise that perhaps I should have researched even further into what target audience wanted from a promotional package. 

Q4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

I have used a range of digitalised media technologies throughout my project. I have most certainly found some easier to use than others.

I started with just using the internet to research my artist and the genre of their music; this was simple enough and enabled me to settle into my project well. I also used my phone camera to collect my friend’s thoughts on a particular Florence and the Machine music video. I simply uploaded the footage onto my YouTube account (which was already set up through the creation of my blog) and then embedded the link into a new post on blogger (print screen of how to do this). Throughout the making of my project I used the online software ‘Prezi’, it enables you to produce a stylish and interactive presentation and once I’d picked up the basics I enjoyed using it to present my thoughts, ideas and general work, too. I also used another online presentation tool called ‘SlideRocket’, I found it through a search on ‘Google’ because you cannot upload PowerPoint Presentations to Blogger, the software was easy to follow, but I feel it doesn’t look as effective as a Prezi presentation.

When I began to plan my video and everyone else did too it became apparent to me that the demand for video camera was going to be extremely high, so I set about asking family and friends if they had a suitable video camera for me to borrow, I eventually found one that stored the footage internally(which meant it required me USB wire when uploading onto the editing suite), as I stated on my blog (with weekly updates) this took such a long time to do, weeks in fact because every time I wanted to upload my footage it either wouldn’t work or there was someone on my allocated editing suite. Eventually I got my footage uploaded onto the editing software ‘Adobe Premier Pro’. I already had experience with using Premier Pro when working in our small group to produce the reconstruction of the ‘We Found Love’ Rihanna music video, but because we were in a group we shared our roles and took turns when editing which meant I didn’t have the same confidence when editing by myself as I did when editing in the group. I may also not have felt as confident because I was producing such a long piece, and never produced anything at such lengths before. I felt okay with the editing/cutting side of the production as this was fairly simple to do, it was, for example using the tracker, getting the timing right for the lip synching and also adding special effects-that I didn’t feel at all confident with, but looking back I do feel I coped quite well with this.












I initially began filming in November (2012), I knew these where only going to be test shots as I was still getting used to the camera and its features as well as organising the cast by following my storyboard & animatic which I had made on Windows Movie Maker (which I felt was much easier device to use than Adobe Premier Pro). After showing my media teacher my first draft he suggested that I changed the mise-en-scene as well as the camera shots too, I did. On 20^th January 2013 I began filming at my local church hall, at the time it felt like a fitting location to filming, as it had a stage, appropriate props to use and a great ‘fairy-tale like’ garden, too. This meant that I could no longer follow my original storyboard because just about all of my ideas had changed, so therefore the shots had to as well. At first I didn’t feel as though I was using a range of shots, but after many re-shoots I came up with what I felt was a sufficient range. I used: medium close ups, panning, zooming, close ups, tracking shots and long shots, too. When looking at them on a small screen upon the camera they looked great! But when I eventually uploaded them just before Easter (21^st March) I felt as though they didn’t look good on a larger screen, by then it was just too late to re-shoot as I would lose the effect of the mise-en-scene (snow etc.) and I would also have to re-book the church hall too, this proved too costly with time So unfortunately I to stick with what I had! Looking back now I feel that is why my video doesn’t look anywhere near as effective as I wanted it too. Throughout the time I was filming I also took a bit of time out to get some photographs of the ‘angels’ for my ancillary texts, for this I used a still digital camera. I only got a few images as I knew that if I got too many that I would lose focus with just editing the images and not focus on the rest of the products features, e.g. the text, house style and tag lines, too.

I started to produce the first of my ancillary texts, the website, upon Photoshop, but then I found out about another online application called ‘Wix’, it enabled me to produce a realistic website for my band using simple techniques that where extremely easy to pick up. I produced many drafts of my website as each time I published it I saw something different that I felt I could adapt and/or change.

This shows the 6 different drafts of my website.

I thoroughly enjoyed using this application and would say that it is much easier to use than Photoshop. Even though I used Photoshop to produce my music magazine at AS level, I still found it extremely challenging to use when producing my second ancillary text, the magazine advert. Around half way through my project I was still hoping to produce a digipak for the album release but, again it proved way too challenging for me to produce even with the digipak outline, so that was when I resorted to producing the magazine advert instead. At the start of my project I took time out to research existing music magazine adverts from different genres to help me grasp what was required when I produced mine. Unfortunately I still had to use Photoshop to produce my advert but I did feel more confident because I didn’t have to use as many ‘layers’ and tools to produce my final outcome. I didn’t spend as much time as I’d hoped on the magazine advert so that is why I believe it doesn’t look as professional as my website and this I sense is because I couldn’t come to terms with complexity of Photoshop.

For my audience feedback I found another new media technology to enable me to gather data. ‘Survey Monkey’ proved most useful to me because as previously stated I didn’t have enough time to collect digital videos with verbal responses. I was aware of the survey generator through completing questionnaires myself and seeing how simple it looked to set up. So I did and it was. I got the opportunity to let the audience fill in the questionnaire however they wished, by letting them ‘select multiple answers’ and leaving their ‘own comments’, too. I then decided that I should post my promotional package alongside the questionnaire onto social networking sites such as ‘Facebook’ and ‘Twitter’ to get honest and non-bias feedback from a wider audience, rather than just my close friends and family and although I only got a minimal amount of answers it did prove to be a good decision.

Overall I feel the most useful new media technologies I used where: ‘Prezi’, ‘Survey Monkey’ and ‘Wix’, merely because of their simplicity and the fact they were so easy to use; consequently I felt the most confident when producing these products with the above applications and I believe they are the 3 outcomes that embed the most strength within my project. Unlike my music video and magazine advert which don’t look as effective because of the complexity of Adobe Premier Pro and Photoshop. 

Throughout the production of this project I feel I have learnt many new things, such as how to edit a video to the best of my own ability and to not compare my production to other peoples, as mine is what I wanted to produce and no-one else’s. I also feel I can take on board criticism towards my work, throughout gaining feedback helped me develop my work and understand the faults, as well as the strengths with my work too. 

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