1.IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

My media products challenge the typical conventions of demonized youth and the General aspects of hip hop music videos. The music video puts an emphasis on young people having fun rather than how the media portray them. In the music video, there is a variety of young people dancing, free running, singing or doing athletics which hints at their productivity rather than being seen as scum (such as in the London Riots of 2011) Also in a typical hip hop music video, the audience would expect to see expensive cars and strong sexual references from females, however in this music video none of this is present to empower young people and send out the message that you don’t need expensive high profile items to have fun or be successful.

2.HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY TEXTS?

The main product and ancillary texts have very subtle links. First the headphones used in the ancillary texts. A pair of headphones are also used in the music video. The overhead headphones are a recent trend amongst young people thus, the audience can gain some sort of relation to the music video. Secondly the use of the main artist is limited in the main product and on the poster he is wearing a mask. This is to strengthen the idea of young people having fun as a collective rather than a singular artist receiving all the publicity (which tends to happen in the news; a young person being misrepresented and thus the whole of young people are thrown into the same bracket) Lastly the use of colour. The music video is just as colourful as the ancillary texts which gives off a positive “vibe” for the audience. The bright colours in the main product and ancillary texts also grabs the audience’s attention.

3.WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

I’ve learnt from my audience feedback that some of the colours used in the main product and the ancillary texts don’t match. The aim was for consistency and I missed a couple minor points. However, the audience I asked (from sound cloud and physically showing them on YouTube) thought the music video sent out a positive message that represented the lyrics well. Also, the audience believed that the package portrayed young people very well and enjoyed the message the music video sent out. Finally the audience enjoyed the music video and were convinced that they would buy the track after seeing the music video (which is the main goal for most music videos)

4.HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES?

THE CD For the CD I used four simple images taken with a CANON D700 (one of a hat ,headphones ,

Graffiti from a wall in central London and a CD that I own) I imported them into Photoshop. After adding all images into the disc image I set the layer property to “Screen” to give the illusion that the three images were actually on the disc. Also a bit of colour correction such as the “Curves” adjustment and the “Hue and Saturation” properties. It is important that the theme of the Cap and the headphones is kept to build a sense of familiarity and consistency throughout all the ancillary tasks and the music video.

After the main images were dealt with, I added the artists’ name and the name of the album on the upper half Of the CD using the “Text” tool, using this CD image as a structure. I lowered the “opacity” of the text to make it blend in

INLAYThe inlay needed to be simple while still representing youth in a positive manner. For this I used a colourful eye catching background with virtually no negative signs to show a positive representation of “happy” youth and stray away from the constant demonization of them in the media and even by other youth artists (Most young Hip Hop/ Rap artists adhere to the typical stereotypes in their music, strengthening the representation of “vile” youth due to the lack of colour)

I added an image that would soon be on the magazine poster for continuity. However, both shots would be different. First I used a graffiti image for the background and added the “Cutout” effect in the “Filters” tab and increased all the sliders to their maximum. Then in a separate file, I used the “text” tool to create the word “Power” (to empower youth), put the cutout background on top and set the blending mode to “Screen”. Finally I brought that element into the main publication, duplicated it, changed the “overlay” to white and place it just above the main text. Then the main image. I enlarged the main image to create a medium shot as this type of shot was more fit for purpose. I then added the “Cutout” and “Colour Pencil” filters to it.

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BACKIt was important to have either the cap or headphones in the image because one couldn’t be forgotten for the element of consistency. The back need to be a complete colour contrast to the saturated front cover the imply the idea that there are two sides to young people, The front being the typical “Grey” demonized version of youth and the back which is colourful, fun and vivid. The font is also consistent throughout all the texts.

I added the song names and name of the artist using the “text” tool and faded the artist’s name as it was too intruding on the overall product. For the barcode, I downloaded an extra font called “Barcode” from www.dafont.com which gives out free copyright free fonts if they’re not used to make profit. The image of the cap had the background cut out using the “Pen” tool to eliminate the green background but keep the surface. I then flipped the image and lowered the “Opacity” to give the illusion of the cap of a reflective surface. I then used some colour correction (boosted the saturation levels in the “Hue And Saturation” tab in the colour correction menu and darkened the image with the “curves” adjustment to boost the contrast with the other colours. Finally I added some brush images using the “Brush” tool of leafs, stars and grass to keep the consistency (also the image of the record logo which I took from my old Usb as it was an image I made in GCSE ICT)

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FRONTThe front cover was the basis for all the other ancillary texts. Everything in the others needed to include some front the front cover to bring a sense of familiarity and genuine continuity that make people feel more enticed to buy. The mostly saturated front cover is supposed to contrast with the back giving a “genuine” representation of young people through a colourless front cover, however the hat and headphones are in colour to exemplify a “signal of hope” and that stereotypes are one dimensional and every young person is different.

The paint type effect is a variant of the “Brush” tool I used set to the colour black. I then put the image of the cap and headphones under the brush layer and boosted their saturation levels in the “Hue and Saturation” adjustment. I then added a “Curves” adjustment boosting the “Blue” colour channel in the “RGB” drop down menu. To finish off the main element, I set the brush layer to “Screen” to give the illusion of the two other images being painted on the cover. I then added the album name and artist name on the bottom right of the canvas and rotated them slightly (I took the name of the font as this would be a consistent font throughout all the ancillary texts which was “TW Cen MT Condensed Extra Bold”) For the album title to stand out more, I changed the colour to white and added a black “Stroke” in the layer properties and set the thickness to 3. Finally I chose some other variants of the “Brush” tool like the grass, stars and leafs and put them around the canvas and then added a “Bevel” to the entire canvas to create the spine.

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MAGAZINE ADVERTI chose not to use my initial poster as the saturated colours weren’t very attractive to my target audience (Given to 10 people) So the theme needed to be changed drastically. I then decided to take a photo of some graffiti near central London to exemplify the View of creative young people making outstanding pieces of art that represent them.

Initial Poster

To start off with, I placed the model in a position on the canvas and resized it. I then added the image of the CD cover to the right of the canvas to let the audience know that this is an advertisement for an album. I then added some text at the top right using the “Text” tool to add some information about the album title and artist name. I also added text at the bottom of the canvas including information such as, release date, other singles included and the record website. I added the graffiti background behind the image of the model and boosted the saturation level using the “Hue And Saturation” tool. I then added a slight “Tint” effect to make the image of the model blend with the background. Finally, I used the “Brush” tool to create the grass and stars around the image to keep some consistency with the other ancillary texts (the main model is also wearing a pair of headphones) Finally for the grass above the release date information, I added a 5 colour “Gradient Map” to match the colours of the graffiti background.

MUSIC VIDEO

For the music video, I primarily used “Adobe After Effects” I ordered the clips in “Adobe Premier Pro” and synced with The music in “Sony Vegas” and imported the projects into after effects. After adding the clips, I added the “curves” effectTo give the video contrast and then the “video co-pilot's twitch” for the blur and lighting. After this, I rendered the video and uploaded to YouTube. I was familiar with all the editing software used as well as the uploading process on YouTube.

Sony Vegas

SHARING TECHNOLOGIES USED

Used to easily order all the information and present them online. This is the easiest tool for this and allows users to use a variety of sources to post media products such as embedding videos, power point docs or importing Photoshop documents. Also very intuitive to use.

Used to communicate with people for the music video (such as gathering them and updating them on the dates of shooting

Used to upload power point presentations to the web to then embed them into the blog. Fast and easy and allows flexible options for changing the documents.

Used to upload the music video and initial vox pops. A mainstream video sharing site that works very well and also allows the embedding option

To get the audienceFeedback for the third Question as it is an efficientWay to get feedback without Writing anything down

SOFTWARE USEDUsed to stabilize track motion and also adding specific effects and lighting to the video.

Ordering Clips in cohesive order.Adobe is the market leader for Creating special types of media soI felt this was appropriate for Ordering clips rather than Sony Vegas

Editing software with Advanced lip syncing Capabilities (greaterUse for the waveform Audio)

Creating ancillary textsSuch as front cover or poster.Top end industry software.

Adobe After effects cs5.5

Adobe premier pro cs5.5

Adobe Photoshop cs5.1

Sony Vegas Pro 12