For The Moderator

Hello,

Below you can find all of our coursework which is clearly labeled at the bottom of the page. We hope you enjoy our work and how our skills in making this work have developed.

Regards,

Meg, Jess, Harry & Joe

Evaluation Question 1 - In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

Evaluation Question 1 - In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?


My Directors Commentary:

Evaluation Question 2 - How Effective Is The Combination Of Your Main Product And Ancillary Texts?

The magazine article was inspired by this NME article

On the other hand, my digipac does not show my band together, which is a common convention used by other media products already on the market. My reasoning for this was to create a retro feel as it is typical of the indie genre and so to fit into this, I would have to use certain styles which would attract this kind of market group.

The use of artwork in my digipac and poster may be considered to be quite pretentious, however, I think that this is all part of the branding with my products as our video shows pretentious elements too, and so makes the link between my main product and ancillary texts actually quite effective.

What I mean by this is that my digipac has a closed narrative. Some people may look for artistic, deeper meanings within my product, however, it is all part of the disjuncture and there are no greater meanings. Our music video uses exactly the same idea; there are arty ideas, such as: the banana and monkey scene; the cocoa drinking in a boat on land etc. These ideas all have artistic features and may be considered quite pretentious as they use random, artistic locations and ideas without the intention to impose a narrative. There are no deeper meanings with these ideas, they’re created with a sole purpose to entertain a niche market (the indie genre), and this is what I think we have done well.

My digipac, poster and video do not show direct links between one another because this is not something I have seen often used in the indie genre. From the digipacs I have seen from the likes of Two Door Cinema Club, Arcade Fire and Vampire Weekend, they do not use the imagery featured in their music videos, however, it is conventional to show links between the digipac and video with other genres such as pop, R&B, Blues etc. As they may wear the same clothes or follow a certain theme as this is all part of their branding and how they are memorable to their audience – this is a form of advertising for the artist.

Evaluation Question 3 - What Have You Learnt From Your Audience Feedback?

Click To Enlarge Image

Video Feedback:

In conclusion to these feedbacks I have gained a lot of knowledge from audience feedback and I think it has helped me to develop my digipac, poster and video in order to make them more professional. I have learnt that sometimes what I think may look amazing, some people may not appreciate and when you are creating artwork you need imagery and iconography that appeals to a wider audience than just yourself.

Evaluation Question 4 - How Did You Use Media Technologies In The Construction And Research, Planning And Evaluation Stages?

DRAFT Evaluation Question 4 - How Did You Use Media Technologies In The Construction And Research, Planning And Evaluation Stages?

In the construction of my research, planning and evaluation stages, I used many different technologies. Firstly, I used my Sony VAIO laptop:

This was easily transported in my bag and was light which was ideal as I could use it to store images, load photos from my camera, access the internet, download files, use blogger and all of the necessary software which I needed was all waiting and ready to be used. I used my laptop in the research and planning stages to research into bands and videos and then create powerpoints with analysed details on these products. I then used it throughout the evaluation stages to display my answers in interesting and engaging ways and show my ability to use many different technologies.

In order to research effectively with my laptop, I used the Google search engine

Along with YouTube

In order to retrieve all of the information I needed regarding album covers, digipacs, music videos, theories etc. But YouTube was not only used for research, we used it to display our video online and receive feedback from our peers and from our teacher when we embedded the video on blogger.

We used blogger

To display all of our products we have created, the research and planning leading up to them, inspirations, analyses and also to receive feedback from our teachers as well as finding out tasks that our teachers have set on their blogs. This is very useful as I could access blogger from anywhere with the internet and begin posting if I had an idea in my head. This made life a lot easier than hand writing all of my ideas and then combining them in a folder as I would not run the risk of forgetting any of my work as it would all be on the blog. Before creating posts, I would create images and products on software such as Photoshop or Sony Vegas:

These editing softwares enabled me to create products that are unique to me which use common conventions of other media products and entice an audience. These products varied from stop motion experimenting videos on Sony Vegas to creating a digipac on Photoshop. Photoshop made my life a lot easier to fulfil conventions of other real media products as it is hard to achieve the effects the professional products without any editing whatsoever. Before using any text on Photoshop, I would craft what I wanted to say on Microsoft word.

This would minimise spelling errors and I could organise the layout of the writing without any extra fuss on Photoshop. Once I had created these ideas, both myself and the other group members would share these products with Facebook and Twitter:

These social networking sites enabled us not only to share products with the audience and receive feedback but also for us and the band members to convey information to one another about filming dates, costumes, progress and equipment etc.

During filming processes we used two cameras which were very similar, the Sony NEX-5 and the Sony NEX-7

This provided a high quality image and great playback facilities so that we could review what we had filmed in seconds. This camera was also easily compatible with the apple mac we used for editing:

 

When filming, we also used the mac to play music on iTunes so that the band could sing along in time in order to make lip syncing easier for us in the editing process.

Email was another way of communicating with each other along with texting from my blackberry which could also receive emails whilst 'on-the-go' so I could keep up to date with the group's actions and what was happening.

In conclusion, the use of media technologies throughout my media course has enabled both me and my group to communicate with ease, share files with one another, work efficiently and produce work on time. Without media technologies, what we have created as a group would be impossible. Media technologies are always developing their ergonomics and how user friendly they are, which makes them easier to use and more accessible for a wide audience. Media technologies are having an ever increasing impact on the world and are helping people like us media students to create far more professional products than what we would have been able to five years ago. Nowadays, Americans have access to 1,000,000,000,000 web pages and 65,000 iPhone apps - all of this information in your pocket. The modern day phone is a million times cheaper, a thousand times more powerful and a hundred times smaller than the MIT computer in 1965. So what fits in your pocket now, will fit inside a blood cell in 25 years. This media convergence has enabled me to create these products and enabled you to view them in such a convenient way. Thank you, internet.

DRAFT Evaluation Question 3 - What Have You Learnt From Your Audience Feedback?

Before we created our video, each member of our group analysed at least three real music videos that exist on the market today. The feedback I received from them is as follows:

This feedback I received from Mr. Smith told me to look at "elements you could incorporate into your own music video" and to look at the "simple techniques" some videos use. These comments obviously adapted my approach to making a music video and I learnt that the conventions of music videos are not as easy to use in your own music video as you might think - such as lip syncing.

After analysing these videos, I went on to creating an audience profile where I looked at the sort of person who would either buy or use our media products. Here is the feedback Mr. Smith gave me regarding this:

In order to make my target audience clearer, I created a moodboard that showed the types of bands they would listen to and the dress-sense they may have. Mr. Smith said:

From this, we each, in turn, created a band logo and Mr. Smith, along with Meg said:

Therefore i deemed them sufficient and thought they required no more developments and so moved on to taking test shots for the bands real photoshoot for the front covers etc. The feedback was as follows:

This feedback was a valid point, women in the indie genre generally dress less like a woman and in more manly clothes. So this feedback influenced the way we dressed Georgia in order for her to fit the form of the genre.

We then each edited the photos from the Photoshoot so that they suited the indie genre more, I did this by adding levels on photoshop and creating a retro effect. However, Mr. Smith said:

This comment came as a shock to us, but we soon realised that what he was saying is true and so starting creating posts together and working together to achieve tasks more easily. So, we then each took a band member and outlined the clothes they will be wearing and where we drew our inspiration from for these members:

From this comment, we appointed ourselves roles in the video. Harry was the cameraman/director, Jess was the director, Meg was the sound technician and I was the lighting technician and panning cameraman. But before we jumped into our video, we experimented first with stop motion and here is the feedback I received.

We then looked into using some stop motion in our actual video and then used it in the bicycle scene and also where the band members change position on the lyrics "one night in october". After deciding on what to include in our music video, we thought that all signed artists belong to a record label and so as a group we came up with names and then decided collectively on "ZED Recordings" and then I went on to designing some logos for the whole group to use on their digipacs and posters. Here is them deciding which logo they liked the most: 

After these comments, we proceeded to making the draft video.

This is a moodboard of all the feedback we received from our draft music video:

Click Image To Enlarge

As you can see from all of the feedback we received on our draft video, it was a great success with our target market. With Harry, Jess and myself all embedding the video from YouTube onto facebook and Meg cyber stalking people in order to watch it too, we received nearly 400 views in a matter of a few days and also received many likes. We did receive a few negative comments telling us that the lead singer needed to open his mouth more when he was singing, but we knew this was an issue when editing the video. We also received lots of constructive criticisms from our teachers and fellow prosumers in our class. We respected the prosumers advice more than consumers as the prosumers realise the elements and conventions needed in order to create a successful product, whereas consumers do not analyse in such a detailed manner.
After Mr. Smith had told us exactly what he believed worked and what did not, I created a post on what we had and what we had not changed from the draft to the final video. Here is the post:

Click Image To Enlarge

On one of the pointers, Mr. Smith said "not sure party strobe scene is clear enough (could it begin with an extablishing shot of exterior showing the caravan in darkness really brightly light and ready for a party?)"
However, this is one of the few comments for improvements we decided to ignore and for a very valid reason - Jess cyber stalked Little Comets on Twitter and they gave us feedback regarding our video, as you can see on the collage of feedback I have made. They said "Bit with iPhone lighting is class!" and as they are prosumers, their feedback is very valid. They also target the same target audience that we are aiming for and so know what works for that particular genre.

These constructive criticisms helped us as a group to develop our music video, but maybe restricted us in some ways from doing exactly what we wanted as the scenes we would like to have used would not have used any conventions or forms of the indie genre. Here is the feedback we received on our final video before it was removed due to copyrights from YouTube, which we had to later solve by putting it on another file sharing site.

Obviously, this is disappointing in comparison with the draft, but this cannot be helped due to technical difficulties. However, this feedback still shows that our target audience is pleased with the video we have created.

My digipac went through many stages of development before I got my end product. Firstly, I experimented with fonts to see which best suited it and received feedback on facebook that is no longer available which told me that they preferred a bold font but when I looked back over it I was not certain. However, Mr. Smith commented on my font experimenting:

This gave me an incentive to draw inspiration from many different genres and artists for my digipac and so I developed it further and showed different versions of the digipac. Mr. Smith said:

After using most of these ideas and retaining feedback from other prosumers in the class, I came to my final decision with my digipac and then posted it to facebook. Here is the feedback I received:

People say they like the "retro" feel and others talk of the "depth of field" and one consumer says it belongs in the "indie" genre - which is what I was looking for. From my audience feedback I have received I have learned that the majority like the simplicity and respect the artwork I have created.

In terms of my poster, the feedback was quite positive but similar to my digipac as it uses practically the same elements. But after developing the poster endlessly, the comment I received from Mr. Smith is::

So by this satisfied comment from Mr. Smith, I decided to post the poster to facebook and here is the feedback I received:

This time I received compliments about the "simplicity" and the "retro indie feel", which was perfect as that was exactly what I was aiming for, but I did learn from one consumer that the poster could benefit from an aspect of the poster "being bolder" or making the image a bit "sharper" - however, I made the image purposefully unsharp to achieve the retro indie feel some of the other consumers have pointed out.

In conclusion to these feedbacks I have gained a lot of knowledge from audience feedback and I think it has helped me to develop my digipac, poster and video in order to make them more professional. I have learnt that sometimes what I think may look amazing some people may not appreciate and when you are creating artwork you need imagery and iconography that appeals to a wider audience than just yourself.

DRAFT Evaluation Question 2 - How Effective Is The Combination Of Your Main Product And Ancillary Texts?

I am very happy with how all of the products I have created have turned out, however, I do not think that my music video shows links to my digipac and poster but I think the combination of the products does still work well.

Our music video uses a fast-paced and high tempo song, which means that the video needs to use bright colours, lots of action and people having fun; otherwise the video will show no or little link between the visuals and the music – a convention that cannot be ignored when creating a music video. An example is Vampire Weekend’s quick paced song of ‘A-Punk’:

However, my digipac shows no link or combination between itself and the music video as there are no cross-linking images – only the name of the song on the track list on the back cover. Steve, the lead singer, is featured in my digipac, but you would not be able to tell as the shot is side on and could be any person. On the other hand, the digipac and the poster are very closely linked as they both use the same image, like Two Door Cinema Club do with theirs:

 

This use of the same images creates a sense of branding and makes the audience link images with the band and its music. Although the poster and digipac show very close links, they do not link without perception or deep analysis. But I do not see this as a major problem as many artists in the indie genre show no links whatsoever between their album artwork and their music videos. For example, Two Door Cinema Club use the cat image in any of their music videos that were produced with that album.

Nor do Magnetic Man with their black and silver line imagery:

    

Or Arcade Fire:

These images are simply eye-catching images that when the audience see them will be instantly reminded of that certain band (they act as an advertisement and brand the products). Therefore by not including a linking element, I am not challenging any forms or conventions, I am simply using these conventions and perhaps developing them further.

DRAFT Evaluation Question 1 - In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

Our Video:

All music videos that are created in today's society must have taken some inspiration from somewhere, and depending on the genre of the music, the inspiration comes from different places. The video we have created fits into the indie/alternative genre and so this genre mainly, or conventionally, features disjuncture - like I analysed in Foals - Cassius and Two Door Cinema Club - What You Know.

The locations we used were: Jess Pardoe's barn, Harry Tibbles' House (e.g. pool, boat, coffin, trampoline, caravan, hill etc.) and the forest at Upper Bruntingthorpe.

The inspiration for the barn was from Two Door Cinema Club:

Athough the barn that we have chosen looks little like this video, they both have similar aspects. For example, the band are playing in a fairly large plain area with just their instruments and themselves. We did not, however, use their idea of changing the background colour as we wished to keep the simplicity of the barn and match the colours of the band's clothing with the up-beat tempo of the music. This part of the music video uses conventions of real media products in the indie genre and develops them a little by having our own take on this particular scene.

The pool idea did not have any particular influence, we just thought that the tempo and the crashing of the cymbals suited the song, and used the theory from Andrew Goodwin that the music video should have 'through beats' and fit the structure of the song. The style of music also suited the band members having fun and showing they have a careless side by jumping in the pool fully clothed.

The idea of the boat was influenced, for me, by the idea of the band jumping in the pool. I thought that a contrast between the wet, indoor jumping around and having fun with the calm, outdoor sipping cocoa at night time would add a bit more depth to the video and in some respects abides the binary opposition theory. 

The coffin location was not one we can say we took influence from any music video, although it could be argued that we partly took influence from Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance":

This gothic culture is easy to take inspiration from. From Lady Gaga to Gothic literature - all elements of the gothic portray similar things. The main influence was discussing ideas that could link to the name of the band: "The Skeleton Boys" and thought, more as a joke at first, why don't we use a coffin? After Harry had replied he had one, we had no other choice than to use it as it challenges conventions by having a happy, singing band either side of what should be a gloomy coffin. We placed the lead singer, Steve, in the coffin, as this followed conventions of mainly focusing on the lead singer.

The idea of jumping on the trampoline at dusk with Autumn leaves was using elements of illustration within our music video as it is called "One Night In October". This use of illustration uses the forms and conventions of real media music videos as they usually have elements of either illustration, amplification or disjuncture (or a mixture). Our video is mainly disjuncture with elements of performance - as we found this common within the indie/alternative genre. For example:

Therefore abiding and using conventions of real media products in the indie/alternative genre.

The caravan location was inspired by a particular scene from the TV comedy "The Royle Family".

But not only locations were influenced by other existing media products - a lot of our ideas came from completely random areas of the media, such as TV adverts, books, radio, magazines and the internet. For example, 

The stop motion that we have used with the bicycle, along with the moving band members in the barn setting was inspired from Innocent smoothie's advert:

but stop motion is also commonly used in music videos, such as The Wombats - Joy Division:

The Wombats fit into the indie/alternative genre we were aiming our media product at, so by using it in our video, we are using forms and conventions of other real media products that are similar to ours.

The use of chalk with our bicycle stop motion was partly inspired by Coldplay's Strawberry Swings video:

as this uses chalk with stop motion throughout the whole video.

The "Carlisle" sign idea was inspired by Cher Lloyd's video:

as it uses signage which links directly to the lyrics, which is exactly what we have done. We developed this convention a little more by making the band members actually hold the sign as opposed to using a post-production enhancement as we believe the retro look of it fits more definitely into the genre we are aiming to fit into with our video.

We then went on to thinking about what the word disjuncture actually means and how the indie genre uses this. After deciding that we needed something completely irrelevant to the lyrics, and random, we found costumes in our houses and used the idea of a Benny Hill chase scene to create a monkey chasing after the banana comedy sketch. This quick paced sketch suits the happy, almost comic tone of the music and uses the common conventions of music videos that the lead singer must be the main focus of the video and so by being the chaser, we have done this.

The ending was largely influence by Vampire Weekend' A-Punk:

as all band members leave the screen before the video ends. We have used this convention but developed it further by having the band members put their instruments down on screen and then leaving as they finish playing. I think that this finishes off our music video very well and makes the audience know that the video has reached a definite end.

Andrew Goodwin's Theory: 

Through Beats

Take into account the structure of the song. (We have achieved this by using our "One Night In October" stop motion scene repeatedly at the chorus, which is commonly used in music videos).

Ignore Common Narrative

The music video should advertise the band and have repeatability so that the audience does not lose interest easily. (We have done this by using the disjuncture in the video. This makes the video both memorable and enjoyable - acting as a perfect advertisement for the band)

Star Image

Our video tries to focus around Steve (the lead vocalist) as much as reasonably possible with the ideas we have used. However, in videos such as Foals - Cassius, the whole band are seen together for most of the video but the lead singer is placed slightly forward of the rest - so we did this with our video in scenes such as the barn where Steve is clearly at the front of the band.

A Relationship Between The Lyrics And The Visuals

Our video recognises the lyrics at some parts of the video like when we use the "carlisle" sign and when we use the trampoline scene with the autumnal leaves representing "one night in October". But mainly our video uses the typical convention of disjuncture in the indie genre.

My DigiPac:

Click Image To Enlarge

The digipac I have created uses many forms and conventions of the indie genre, despite looking quite simplistic and minimalistic.

Firstly, the front cover (the middle frame at the bottom) uses the feature of no title or band name. This is not because I am lazy, as I have tried and tested titles and sub titles all over the cover but when I looked at my audience's feedback, they liked the simple picture itself. I have taken inspiration from album covers in the indie genre, and used conventions of album covers such as:

 

As you can see, two of the six albums have no titles or sub titles at all - they merely use artwork as an eye catching tool and use that to draw in their audience. The pictures do not have any relevance to their songs or artists in most cases. Artwork or completely random images are now conventional of the indie genre and so by using artwork with no titles, I am following real forms and conventions of other real media products from the same genre.

The antlers are purposely off centre as this, again follows the conventions of the Active Child album cover and the Red hot Chili Peppers' album cover.

The credits frame (the bottom right panel) was made purposefully simplistic as I took the idea from The Libertine's credit page of their digipac:

and so I gave my credits page a very similar layout so that it followed the forms and conventions of most digipacs.

The back cover of the digipac (the bottom right panel) is heavily influenced by Vampire Weekend's album 'Contra' as I used their layout and then wrote my track list over the top of theirs so that it fitted perfectly and I used their form and used a real media convention as they fit into the indie genre I am aiming for:

The inside three panels (the top three panels) uses one, long continuous image that I edited from these images of Steve (the lead singer) running and jumping in a car park:

But I edited the levels on the edited photo so that the picture seemed more retro and dated and so fitted in with the digipac better. This was inspired by Arctic Monkeys' Favourite Worst Nightmare's digipac as on the inside it uses on continuous image of a house in the background:

I then used the convention of many other media products of keeping the image inside the digipac running onto the CD itself so that the image is not broken by the CD, this convention was inspired by The Avalanches 'Since I Left You' digipac.

The white writing of "thank you" s on the wall behind Steve running and jumping is conventional of most digipacs as most bands like to thank their producers and their fans for example the Libertines:

So I used the space on the wall only to add to the artistic feature of writing thank yous and I used the Libertines' layout so that I was using forms and conventions of real media products in the indie genre.

My digipac also incorporates: a catalog code; a spine with the bands name on; the record label; a barcode and the copyrights of the band as these are features you see on most digipacs for legal reasons and so that bands are able to sell their albums efficiently.

My digipac may be thought as flawed as it shows no link whatsoever to the music video other than Steve being on one of the images - however, I feel as though many other artists, such as Vampire Weekend, The Libertines, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Two Door Cinema Club show no link between their digipacs and their music videos, so I do not think I have broken any conventions in not having a link between these products.

My Poster:

My poster is linked directly with my digipac as it uses the eye-catching image that can be seen on the front cover of my digipac. This is a common convention that I have took inspiration from many bands. For example, Two Door Cinema Club:

  

I then used only the words "The Skeleton Boys" in a faded grey writing as I thought this was enough information for the audience, as The XX do a similar thing with their poster of just an X:

powerful images and minimal writing is a form used in the indie genre, so I used this in my poster.

My main inspiration for this poster was from Vampire Weekend as it uses only an image and the name of the band: