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

My media product uses forms and conventions of other real media products in many ways.  I wanted to make my music video fit into the conventions of genre of a solo acoustic music video.  I have chosen to have both narrative and performance in my video, which is very common among music videos, especially in my chosen genre.  

The narrative is supposed to complement the lyrics by almost mickey mousing them.  I did not want my narrative to go along with every line in the song because I think that this would be cheesy and it would not flow so well.  

The performance needs to go with the music perfectly otherwise it would look ridiculous and out of place.  I chose to have my performance on a bench for most of the song as this is quite a common thing to find in acoustic music videos.

The various real media productions I have researched were these:

• Bright Eyes - First Day of My Life. (acoustic)

• City and Colour - Waiting. (acoustic)

• Brand New - Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades. (Alternative Punk)

• The Cure - Close to Me. (New Wave - Post Punk)

• Coldplay - The Scientist. (Pop Rock)

• Radiohead - Street Spirit (fade out). (Alternative Indie Rock)

• Funeral For a Friend - Juneau Acoustic  (Alternative acoustic PostHardcore)

All of these videos I researched are within the Alternative genre as this is the sort of genre I wanted to emulate.  I wanted to take different aspects from each video to include in my music video.  I wanted to include the almost depressive vibe from ‘Waiting’ as this fits with the mood of the song. From ‘Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades’ I wanted to take the mystery factor as this makes people think about the video and then maybe watch it again.  I really liked the idea of traveling and movement in ‘The Scientist’ and again it used mystery as you do not know where he is going or coming from as it is reversed.  

I decided to replicate the conventions of these music videos in the way I used lip syncing.  Music videos generally have the vocalist singing along to the song, which is known as lip syncing.  I did this by having the song playing in the background when I filmed and sang along.  Then during the editing stage I had to match the sound in the film to the recorded version of the track.

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

My main product is a music video for a singer songwriter.  My two ancillary texts are the DVD/CD Digipak and the Magazine advert.  The DVD/CD Digipak is for a young solo artist called Charles Dean. The product is his latest EP which contains a bonus DVD.  The magazine advert is promoting the EP, it does this by using the same artwork as the Digipak. It also gives information about where the EP is available.

I decided to make the Digipak because it makes the whole project feel a lot more realistic and it gives the Music Video a physical package.  I chose to do the Magazine advert as I have experience in magazine production seeing as for my AS coursework I made the front page, a contents page, and a double page interview spread for a music magazine.  I read a lot of music magazines and see adverts for new music all the time, whereas I rarely visit band’s websites.

I looked at Digipaks for:

Brand New - The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me

Hope of The States - The Lost Riots

The Arcade Fire - Funeral

These three Digipaks all follow the same sort of style.  They’re all folded card with two different sections for a CD and an inlay.  The cover for ‘The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me’ is a really striking image which I really liked the idea of replicating.  The inside of ‘The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me’ is also quite striking which is a look I was going for.

I looked at magazines to find adverts for new CDs by bands. I looked at the Foo Fighters advert for Echos, Scilence, Patience and Grace which used artwork from the album art and used the same fonts as that on the album cover. 

When it came to my ancillary tasks I wanted to form an image.  With the Digipak I wanted to create a visual version of the CD. I wanted to carry on the theme that I had created with the Digipak. This would give the product and it’s ancillary tasks a sense of convergence, which would help sell the product.

3.) What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

The target audience that I used for my audience feedback was 17-18 year olds. This age group are the people are physically approached to gather my audience feedback.  I chose this age group because they are the same sort of age as me and I chose to make the video for the enjoyment of people my age from the “Indie” social group.  I also uploaded my video to YouTube so that anyone could access it if they wanted to. The use of YouTube is a good way to gather audience feedback as you will get the opinions of people who want to watch it, they are also more likely to be honest as they do not know you or care about your feelings as much as your friend.

I gathered a few people round to watch my music video on my laptop.  I gave them a small list of questions to answer about my video.

- Does the video fit into the Indie/Acoustic genre?

- Does the video complement the music?

- Is there a good balance between performance and story?

- Is the character dressed appropriately for the music/video?

- Any other comments?

The general consensus was that my video was appropriate to the genre and kept the audience interested.  Everyone thought that my video worked very well with the music and was very professional.  The audience said that the video could probably have a bit more variation in story line.

I uploaded my music video to Youtube to get more audience feedback from members of the public.  Youtube also has it's own 5 star rating system and an opportunity for people to comment on videos.

Here is a screen grab from Youtube.

I have had almost 40 views since I uploaded the video, two 5 Star ratings and two comments on my video, both of which are positive.  This shows that my video has been a success with members of the Youtube community and that it follows the conventions of a regular music video.

After creating my Digipak and Magazine Advert for my product, I showed these to the same people who saw my video.  I did not create questions for these ancillary tasks, I just asked for comments.  My ancillary products were greeted with such comments as “This looks very professional”,  “I could imagine this being in NME”.  Overall my main product and it’s ancillary tasks have been a success.

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

Here is a list of Software that I used during all the stages of creating my media product and the tools I used within these programs.

Safari Web Browser	www.google.co.uk/imghp www.last.fm www.myspace.com/music
Cubase 4	Record function and various inserts which were used in the mixing stage of the recording process of the song.
iMovie 08	Imported video files. Chopped video clips. Arranged clips. Added music to video. Edited the lighting and effects on the video.
Photoshop Elements	Imported pictures. Used the filter tool to change the colour of my digipak background. Used the polygon selection tool to cut out letters from another image to import into my digipak front cover. Magnetic selection tool to import the peacock into the digipak front cover. Invert tool to get the right colour for the peacock. Brightness/Contrast on the back of my digipak image. Text Input.

In my A2 Media Production I created a music video.  This has taught me many new skills which I feel have developed over the time in which I made my video.  The fact that I made a Music Magazine for my AS Media Production meant that I had to learn completely new skills in my A2 Production.  I had only used iMovie when creating a preliminary task at AS, and this was using a different version of iMovie.  My skills quickly developed when undertaking my A2 task, I am now very experienced in cutting footage and editing lighting in iMovie 08, whereas before, I only had limited expertise in cutting footage in iMovie HD.  My photoshop skills have developed a lot as well since my AS Production.  The skills I used in photoshop at AS were very basic and limited, I only really used the tools for editing brightness and contrast whereas in my A2 production I used various different tools to a much higher standard.  This is because my AS production did not need to use as many tools and skills as my A2 production to keep within the conventions of an indie music magazine.  

My photo and video editing skills are the skills that have improved the most during my A2 Production.  Before I started making my video, I had extremely limited knowledge and expertise with iMovie.  The same applies to my photoshop skills,  I had never used photoshop before I constructed my digipak and magazine advert.  I can now use all the tools confidently and produce edited pictures to a high standard.  

I wish that I had chosen a different song which involved a full band set up.  I would have liked to have worked with other people so that different peoples ideas and creativity mixed together to create a better result.  I would have liked to have had a more striking image for the front cover of my digipak because this is how my influences are.  I would have liked to have used the same camera that I used in my AS Production for my A2 Production because I would have had more control over the image quality.  The picture I used was good, but was highly edited rather than being a quality picture in its raw form.  I wish I had access to FInal Cut as it has a lot more features than iMovie and is therefore able to create videos to a higher standard.

Magazine Advert Final Cut

Here is the final cut of my magazine advert.

I am very pleased with the result of this product as I feel it follows the conventions of magazine adverts for music.  It in keeps with the style of the digipak.

Digipak Final Cut

Here is the net of my final cut for my Digipak.

This is then imported into a program called 2D Design.  It is then printed out onto A3 paper.  I stuck this image onto a piece of card and cut it out into the appropriate shape and folded it into the shape of the digipak.

Above is the final cut of the Digipak folded into the right shape.  The CD slots in between the back cover and the inside image, and the bonus DVD slips into the same section but on the opposite side at the front.

Music Video Play

I uploaded the final cut of my music video to www.youtube.com

I have done this so anyone in the world can watch it, rate it and comment. Youtube is also a great way to gain publicity for musicians so this is a bonus for me as I am the musician and actor in this video.

Here is the link to my video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGss7Qsaz1o

Here is a screen shot of my video on Youtube.