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

Music Video


During the research and planning stages of making the video we all had lots of ideas that we wanted to put into the video and they came from all sorts of inspiration. We gained our inspiration from various forms of media such as adverts, other music videos, television programs and much more. It is inevitable that any ideas will be entirely your own because we are influenced by media on a day to day basis. Together, we compiled a list of all the inspiration we took from media we have experienced and worked out who came up with what ideas. These are explained in detail below...

Locations:
Barn- The idea to have the band performance in a barn came from Jess. She had seen the video for Something Good Can Work by Two Door Cinema Club, a band in the same genre as ours, and liked the performance. It was in what look liked an abandoned space, yet well looked after made slightly more interesting by the coloured rectangle in the background. When thinking about how we could do this ourselves she thought of a barn at her dad's house that wasn't in use upstairs but was very clean and through the lens it wouldn't look like your average barn. By having such a blank area to perform in gives the eye less to focus on so they are instantly drawn to watching the band perform which can only be a good thing.

Pool- The decision on using a pool as one of the location was from Harry as he owned one. He did not get the idea from anything he had scene before which boosted his enthusiasm to use the pool even more. By thinking that no one else will be using a pool from our class, and it never been done before in a popular indie music video, Harry thought that it would help our music video to stand out from the rest.

Caravan- The caravan idea was contributed by Harry and myself (Meg). After Harry mentioned having a caravan we could use, I instantly wanted to use it in our video. Indie bands are typically known for not making high budget music videos and not using fancy locations, so by filming the band in a caravan I thought it could help to emphasise the bands type of character. After establishing we would use the caravan in the video, Harry then went to remember a Royale Family Christmas Special where they went away in a caravan. In this episode they looked typically British along with the caravan, and as the band are a typical indie British, band we thought we this would help with their style.

Boat-  The idea to have the band in the boat came from me (Meg). Despite my inspiration not coming from a guitar bands music video but in fact a pop video I still feel it was a good contribution to the video. Already knowing that Harry owned a boat in his back garden, whilst watching One Direction's video for What Makes You Beautiful and the sense of fun that was being portrayed on a beach, I thought that maybe we could use the boat. Although it wouldn;t be on a beach and instead in a garden, we would still be able to create the same energetic atmosphere that happens in One Direction's video.

Other Ideas:
Carlisle sign- This idea was also influenced by a pop video but this time Harry was inspired. After watching the video to Cher Lloyd's song Swagger Jagger, he really wanted to include lyrics on the screen so there would be a match between what was being sung and what was on the screen. We didn't want it to be exactly the same with it being bright and animated as it's not something our target audience look for in a video, and we didn't want to have an actual sign to carlisle because a) it was too far away and b) it could be too illustrative if we did that. Instead Harry wrote the place on a piece of cardboard.

Ending- The ending idea came from Jess. After watching the video to A-Punk by Vampire Weekend, she was hugely inspired to use a very similar ending in ours. At the end of their video, the band do a quick spin and then run out of the shot in different directions. We had our band do the same, but instead of spinning they put their instruments down, except from Lewis as someone had to keep playing, and had them walk of to the left hand side of the screen. Once the music had stopped Lewis then walked off to the right. I liked this idea and thought it made a great ending to the video.

Georgias appearance, Alice Glass- We were all assigned band members who we were to style and Jess was given Georgia- being the only female of the group it made things harder for Jess because she didn't want her to stand out too much as she could risk being mistaken for the lead singer. Eventually she was inspired by Crystal Castles singer Alice Glass. With Georgia having a similar hair style to her already, Jess could picture what would suit her easier from looking at images of Alice. She took inspiration from her clothing and had Georgia wear lots of dark coloured clothing, including: black leather jacket, black shorts and black tights.

Bike scene- There were two different types of inspiration that were behind the bike scene. The first one came from Jess and Harry for the stop motion involved. After watching music videos by Coldplay and The Wombats they saw stop motion being used very effectively with drawing and wanted to incorporate that into our video. Despite not having time to do it in our draft, we made sure we had time to do it for our final video. Even though I did take a while drawing the chalk on the floor, I think the end result was very good. In addition to this, when looking at the camera angles in this scene, Harry took inspiration from The Vaccine's video to Norgaard. In the video you can see the model riding around on the bike and it changing from high to low angles, and close ups to mid shots which I believe we have done too in our video.

Hawaiian styling- After looking and similar bands in our genre, Joe mentioned Friendly Fires, a band who we are all fond of, and said how he liked to song Hawaiian Air by them. I (Meg) then made a connection between the song and the styling of lead singer Ed McFarlane. His infamous quirky dress sense and Hawaiian styled shirt inspired me to try and get the band dressed like this for a few shots in the video. When working with this idea, as a group we all thought that the Hawaiian shirts combined with hula dancing went perfect with the digetic sound where the shots would be.

Random objects and costumes- After watching The Maccabees video for First Love, Jess liked the idea of having random objects used in the video- many of them not having any relevance to the song or lyrics. By doing this it helped to reinforce the idea of a video classed under disjuncture. This was then followed by Joe telling about the vast amount of costumes he had at home, all which added to the random objects and ideas used in the video.

Skateboard- None of us have an interest in skateboarding, but after we selected our band members, Harry pointed out how all the males skated and really wanted to use the idea in our video because of how fast paced it is, and thought it could match the song. By using skateboarding as well, it could appeal to more people not just your typical 'indie style' person.

Monkey and banana chase- After finding out we were to use a monkey and banana costume I (Meg) came up with the idea of having the person in the monkey costume chasing the person in the banana costumer, and it worked out nicely that it was the lead singer chasing the female of the group. After thinking more about this idea I really wanted to make it a very short, brief comedy sketch and thought a Benny Hill style chase would be a brilliant idea. I could picture them in my head running around with the famous Benny Hill tune as the digetic sound. To then see this in the final video I was very pleased because I think this was my best contribution to our music video.

Chorus- The idea to have to band members swap position but have the lead singer stay in the same place gave from Jess. She took inspiration from the Innocent Smoothies advert where it used stop motion and had the product remain for most of the advert in the centre of the shot, with other objects moving around it. This is similar to Steve staying in the middle singing "One night in October" and Georgia, Will and Lewis swapping positions in the background. I think this was a great idea on Jess' behalf because the chorus is what makes the song so we needed something distinctive that could be used throughout the video to repeat.

Coffin- The coffin idea was a collective one between myself (Meg), Jess and Harry. We thought about connotations of the band's name 'The Skeleton Boys' and gothic culture was one that clearly stood out. After already using the coffin in the daylight, we thought we could use it during the night time. We thought that a combination of darkness, coffin and skeletons would represent gothic culture well.

Music Video Theories


Andrew Goodwin- Part of the 'Dancing in the distraction factory' theory says that 'The creation of character for stars provides a point of identification  for  the audience/spectator which is especially important  when  lyrics  often  lack  depth'.  I believe we have definitely lived up to this theory because I think we have definitely shown off the lead singer, Steve’s character through close ups of him laughing and wearing fun clothing. The focus of the band having fun takes away the fact that their isn't much to the lyrics and makes it more interesting.

Digipak


Album:
Image- For my main image I took inspiration from and i-D magazine cover with model Behati Prinsloo. She is on the front with half a painted skeleton face. I saw this image in my Media Studies classroom and instantly thought I could work with this idea and carry it over to my poster with ease. It's quite an original idea and connotes to the name of the band nicely.

Link between album and poster- I have observed throughout this course that a vast amount of artists in our selected genre ensure that their album looks very similar to their poster so consumers can instantly recognise who the poster was advertising. I was then inspired to use this convention.


Poster:
Reviews to include- To find out what terminology is used in music reviews and what music magazines give ratings and what don't, I went onto the NME website to look at some of their reviews to take inspiration from. I did in fact look at Little Comets album review but didn't copy it as it didn't give hugely positive comments or rating. I could then take what I had learnt and use it in my own poster. I used the rating and a brief comment which I have seen very often on posters.

Conventions of a poster- I looked at existing posters for bands albums to take inspiration from to see what is typical of an indie bands debut album poster. It was very helpful because I saw repeatedly things that should be included.

Digipak Theories


Laura Mulvey- Laura Mulvey is behind the theory of the male gaze. She came up with the theory in 1975. She says that in films, the audience have to look at the characters as if they were a heterosexual male. The deals with the concept of how an audience views the people that are presented. The male gaze is often used in everyday life. Theorists have noticed that sexualizing of the female body is used in adverts even when it has nothing to do with the product that is being advertised. Without doing it intentionally, I have used a female to promote my products on both a poster and an album.

Categorising facial expressions:
Once again, I did not figure that my female model would be looked at in any sort of way other than just someone on the cover of a bands album. However, consumers will look at the image and be presented with a facial expression and I believe it fits into two.
Marjorie Ferguson (1980s)- The Chocolate Box Half Smile when the lips are together, teeth are barely visible and the full face is to the camera.
Trevor Millum (1990s)- Practical which is when they are concentrating, engaged in business in hand, their mouth is closed, eyes are object direct and only a slight frown.

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

We worked out together what ideas there was and who came up with what. We could then write about where our ideas came from and go on to write and answer Question 1.

DRAFT ANSWER: Question 2. How Effective is the Combination of Your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?

I don't think my final digipak entirely matches the music video. However, I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing because I have seen it commonly used within the indie genre, which is the one our band is classified under.


I think my original digipak idea gave the impression of 'branding' much more than my final idea. This is because the band's name is 'The Skeleton Boys' and on the front of the album cover was four different coloured skeletons. This gave each band member their own image, and the idea was then reinforced when you opened up the album to see each coloured skeleton have their own panel supposedly 'singing' parts of the band's songs. However, there wasn't a clear link between my album and poster and I believe this is where my original idea failed. If you look at other artists album and poster to promote it, they usually match so the consumer can link the two together. Whereas in my idea, there was not.

 

I definitely believe my final idea for digipak and poster has a clear link between which then goes on to help create a sense of branding between those two products and the music video. The main link between the three products is definitely the name of the band. The band's name has the word 'skeleton' in, so by using images of a model with a skeleton face painted on should help make the poster and album more recognisable as to who it's by and what they are advertising. I don't think it was essential that the digipak had to have similarities with the music video because it's nothing something typicial of the indie genre.
Vampire weekend are a good example of this typical convention. The first single released from their second album 'Contra' that had an official video was 'Cousins'. After watching the video and looking at the album cover and poster and then comparing it against the video, there is no link between them. This reinforces my idea that the album and poster should match but it is not a necssity for them to match the video. I have observed that the idea of all products matching is usually only seen within the pop genre.





I think all three products will appeal to my target audience but in a different way. The video is "uber quirky" and fun which is what you would expect with an upbeat like One Night In October. The whole disjuncture and 'antics' in the video  help to portray the band as  a care-free group of people having a laugh which is seen often from indie bands. If I was to carry on with the idea of fun through to the digipak stages I think it could have put off the older range of my target audience, so by lowering the tone with darker colours and a real life image instead of drawings, I was able to raise the maturity level of the band and hopefully making them appeal to the whole age range of 15-25 year olds.

PLANNING: Question 2. How Effective is the Combination of Your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?

-The idea of skeleton/ skull on the painted face matches the name of the band.

-Nothing matches from the video,

-Say what I haven't included e.g images of the band or similarities between the video and the album and poster.

DRAFT ANSWER: Question 3 What have you learned from your audience feedback?

In order for any of us to be able to improve, we must receive feedback from our target audience to know exactly what they want. This can be done in many ways such as: questionnaires/ interviews, a pitch, social networking sites and many more. Both myself and the group used these methods to get feedback on our video and digipaks. 


Music Video


The first feedback we received was after our 25 word pitch. We presented our idea to our media class (which was beneficial as a few students fitted into our target audience) and followed that were questions and comments about our idea. Questions we were asked were along the lines of 'what the pool was and whether it was related to fun and party?' To this Harry and I answered that we thought it went well with the disjuncture idea and it's an unusual location that probably wont be used in any other video (due to this we thought there was a chance that it could stand out more to the exam board). Another question we were asked was 'whether we were going to try and go a bit wacky and different?' This we all agreed with. The question that followed this was 'why is it the way forward?'. This was answered by myself saying that with disjuncture we were able to do a bit more and have lots more fun than if it were to be illustration and both Jess and Joe went on to say how it was very typical of our genre. Our teacher rounded off the pitch by saying that she understands the concept of what we wanted to create. This lead us to believe our pitch was very successful as we didn't receive any negative feedback and all questions asked weren't too confusing which meant everyone understood what our ideas were. When doing a pitch you can instantly find out whether people think it's a good idea by their facial expressions, comments they make and questions they ask. All of this in our pitch seemed very positive so we went on to proceed with the ideas we had.


The next feedback we needed was for our draft video. It was posted on Facebook and many people commented on it stating what they liked and disliked. This was very helpful as the majority of the comments came from those in our target audience. The comments people gave were very positive and it seemed that they really enjoyed watching it, this was such a reward after the effort put into making the draft. However, I would have preferred it if some people left ideas for improvement, but they probably didn't due to them being friends of ours.











To gain some more influential feedback and opinions as to what could be improved, our teacher commented on the music video post on our blog. It consisted of 22 points telling what he liked and didn't like. This was incredibly helpful because as a teacher that has taught this many times and has seen many outcomes, he knows exactly what will gain you marks, and by telling us we could improve our overall grade and individual. Most of them were ideas we agreed with, such as having the band playing from the start and making the lead singer more enthusiastic with his singing. We took on board all of these ideas and changed pretty much everything he suggested, because as previously stated, he knows what will gain us marks.



Our draft video was uploaded onto YouTube where anyone could watch the video. Each one of us were constantly telling our friends to watch the video. I sent out various texts and links on Facebook to my friends that I thought fit into the target market so they could watch it. The result of this was lots of views which we were very pleased about.



The final video was then uploaded onto YouTube on Harry's account and was once again watched by many. It wasn't as many as the draft but that could be due to the lack of bombarding of links to everyone I know.



I think our greatest bit of feedback we received was from Little Comets as we were using their song for the video so of course we wanted to impress. Each one of us took it upon ourselves when we could to tweet the band with the link to the draft video and asking them to watch it. The perseverance finally paid off and Jess managed to have a conversation with the band asking them what they liked and didn't like about it. In contrast to what our teacher Mr Smith said about changing the iPhone lighting, they described it as "class" so we decided to go against our teacher opinion and keep it in the video.









We also had a tweet back from them about our final video. Unfortunately it didn't go as successful last time as they didn't really give an opinion on whether they liked it or not.



To get some more feedback for our video we are going to go to Jess' form and someone elses to show the video to the classes. The forms range from 14 years to 18 years old and consist of around 20- 25 students. Many of the students also fit into our target audience as they are the right age. I will supply them with questionnaires that I have created that they are expected to fill out after watching the video. They will be shown in form time which lasts for half an hour so it will give us plenty of time to introduce what we are doing, play the video and have them fill out the questionnaires. All of this will also be filmed so the reaction to the video can be seen.

Digipak


I was given feedback from my teacher for my draft digipak. They told me what they liked and didn't like and what should be improved. After thinking carefully about how I could improve it and where I could go with the idea, I came to the conclusion that I didn't really like it and wanted to do something else. Megan Rhodes A2 Feedback Sheet Research and Planning Etc 2011 2012 So I came up with 3 other ideas that I thought would suit the band and the video. The ideas I came up with I all really liked which made it harder to choose which one I would take forward and develop. To come up with a decision I decided to survey 40 people that I believed fitted in my target audience or were 'on the border' so I could see what they would prefer seeing as though they were the consumers. I asked everyone which they preferred and kept a tally as well as taking note of comments they made about why they liked it or why they didn't. I could then take the most popular album cover and go ahead to use this as my final and develop it further.
Questionnaire for Cover

PLANNING: Question 3 What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I thought about all of the places we gained feedback from for our video and my digipak. I could then split these up between the video and digipak and work out what was the most useful, as well as showing the different types of techniques that were used to gain feedback.

I came up with:
-Draft video on Facebook
-Final video on Facebook
-Little Comets conversation with us on Twitter
-Teacher feedback on the blog
-Questionnaire on album cover and final video