A2 MEDIA COURSEWORK: EVALUATION

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

In our group we created a promotional package that included a magazine advert, music video and a digipack. We chose to do this on the band Arctic Monkeys.The Video:In terms of camerawork our video goes against conventions of a music video. Andrew Goodwin suggested that the main focus in the video on the lead singer. However our video has several shots of the full band and focuses more on the girl in the video. We decided to challenge this convention as the song itself ‘Arabella’ is about a girl and so this created the foundation for our video. In terms of mise en scene we tried to follow the original video as much as possible. The original video is shot entirely in black and white so we featured the band shots in black and white to recreate this effect that the band had in their video. However we also decided to have different brightness/contrast on other shots to make them stand out as some shots were flashbacks from the relationship between our two actors. Furthermore we dressed our lead singer in a Harrington jacket, black jeans and brown leather shoes. This is because our audience research told us that the smart/casual look Alex Turner has created is what makes him appeal to the Arctic Monkeys large fan base. Our ‘Arabella’ wore red lipstick which is synonymous with the ‘male gaze’ theory of Laura Mulvey. We created her character as one that could be looked at from the heterosexual male point of view as that is what the song is about. Within our video we used a mix of high key and low key lighting in order to in order to create a contrast that is often seen in an indie music video. This meant that our video fit the characteristics of its genre. Throughout our video we cut on beat to the song and switch shots. This is another indie rock convention we followed as it is very common within these sort of videos. We did turn certain shots in to black and white (like the original video) however we did not include special effects as an indie rock music video is normally very plain and simplistic and this is what makes it effective so we therefore decided to follow this convention.

The Magazine AdvertThe layout of our advert follows the conventions of a music advert. By placing the band name at the top as well as the album title we have made this the initial text that the audience will read and as we are advertising this then that is what we want. We also place emphasis on the photo by placing it centrally and this is very common with music adverts. The photo usually depicts something from the album and needs to have emphasis on it. The title of the album is at eye level for the audience allowing us to draw their attention to it. By making the magazine ‘NME’s’ rating a slightly lighter colour it allows it to stand out to the audience and as a recognised music magazine, their rating would be trusted. Also this allows the audience to recognise the genre the album is as this brand has heavy connections with the indie rock genre. The advert for the Arctic Monkeys pictured below indicates we have followed the conventions of our genre. The image is also central and the bands name is right at the top and they both clash at eye level meaning they are the first two things the audience sees. We followed this in creating our advert. Also the poster features mostly black with the background/text and the only light coming from the picture. We decided to use this in our advert as we believe that the colour black and the darkness with a slight showing of light represents what the genre which is the rebellion of youth. This is emphasised even more by the fact we have a clenched fist as our photo which is used a sign to indicate black power, power having connotations with rebellion. When researching in to Arctic Monkeys products we found that most of their advertisements were very plain and with little colour but this is what makes them effective and allows people to identify their genre so we therefore decided to follow this approach and create a poster that is simple but effective as it communicates the genre across to the audience. We also included the record label in the bottom right hand corner to indicate to the audience the connection between the band and the record company ‘Domino’ who manage several bands from the indie rock genre such as ‘The Last Shadow Puppets’ and ‘Franz Ferdinand’.

DigipackThrough our research we established that the most important thing on an album cover is the colour scheme as it identifies the genre of an album. The genre of the Arctic Monkeys is indie rock and the conventions of this are dark colours that have connotations of rebellious youth. By including these dark brown colours and the red bricked wall with black text we were able to conform to these conventions. However on the last photo of a cup of tea we challenge these conventions. This photo is taken in surroundings with high key lighting. This contrasts to the other photos within the digipack and we did this in order create uncertainty which is often what indie rock music is all about, uncertainty. The layout of our digipack is very similar to our magazine advert and we have done this to create synergy between our media products. This is a very common convention when bands create an album. However we feel that if we were to create our digipack again we would make changes to make it look less like our advert to create the uncertainty within the indie rock genre so that our digipack would communicate with our audience more. The dark colours on the album ‘Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not’ album cover show the similarities between ours and the original Arctic Monkeys, further showing we followed the conventions. Both our digipack and the original use a very dark colour scheme, typical of the indie rock genre. Indie rock music is about the music communicating to the fans on a much more personal level than any other genre, with the bands often being very basic and close to their fan base. Therefore we decided to have individual photos of each band member as soon as you open the Digipack in order to make the album feel personal to the audience and conform with the indie rock conventions.

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

Within our planning we looked in to the conventions of our genre. We decided that we would run a colour scheme through our video and ancillary texts that would fit in with our band, the Arctic Monkeys. The way we linked the two ancillary texts and the music was using a dark/greyscale colour scheme having dark colours on my advert and then using black and white band shots within the video. This shows how effective the combination of our ancillary texts and main product is because there is strong synergy between them as we have kept a consistency with the colour scheme. This allows our audience to relate our video to its genre.

Our end product was a promotional package that include a Digipack, Music video and Magazine Advert. The music video is at the forefront and is the most important product with ancillary texts (Digipack and Advert) linking to it through features such as the colour scheme and photography/filmography style. As we researched the band and the indie rock genre we discovered that many videos from this genre are filmed from the view of every day life and are plain and simple. Therefore we used this when filming our video and filmed some of the narrative in a café as we felt this was a typical everyday life situation and therefore fitted in with the genre. This links to our ancillary texts because in our digipack we used the café location to relate to our audience and every day life. We also featured a cup of tea which people would have connotations of as being British. This creates synergy within our promotional package.

There is a slight inconsistency within our promotional package. The colours on our Digipack are dark but areas of it such as the cup of tea photo is taken in high key lighting and contrasts to the dark colours that we wanted to use. This shows how our combination may be less effective.

We decided a way of keeping synergy between the two ancillary text was to include the record label logo on both of them (digipack and advert). Not only does this keep consistency between our products but it also allows the audience to relate the band to the popular record label ‘domino’

As you can see within our two ancillary texts and the video we did use the dark colour scheme in order to keep synergy between the products. We believe this is effective as it allows the audience to associate our products with the correct genre. During audience research we discovered that a dark and simple colour scheme was associated with the indie rock genre (the genre of the Arctic Monkeys). Therefore the combination of our main and ancillary texts is good.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Music VideoIn order to gain all of this feedback the video was posted on a variety of social media platforms as well as YouTube allowing people to comment or as seen on the previous slide handwrite their comments and give them to us. From my audience feedback I have learnt that the audience enjoyed the actually narrative of our music video. The narrative was based on a love story between a boy and a girl and this is a common occurrence in indie rock songs. We wanted to reach out to a wide audience by doing this and many have said that they enjoyed our narrative which indicates it was a success. Also there were many occasions where we decided to use ‘match on action’ and match the footage with the lyrics. The audience appeared to like this as they felt it added to the flow of the narrative and I have therefore learned that using match on action was a positive decision. However within our feedback the audience noticed that the camera was not always stable and this therefore led to some shots not being straight. Although some of this was done for effect it didn’t seem to have the desired effect. Therefore I feel that if I were to remake my music video then I would take most of my shots using the tripod to ensure that the shots were fully in focus and not shaking from side to side. Despite some of the shots not being very effective the Facebook comment indicates that our shots were all relevant and linked to the narrative which made it blatantly clear what was happening. Also praised was our editing and how we used different effects such as jump cuts and cutting on beats in order to emphasises pieces of our narrative to the audience. I see this as a positive because indie rock music is about reaching out to the audience with a relatable storyline in the song (a situation they could picture themselves in) and therefore if he audience enjoyed the effects we used to emphasise our narrative then our video is following the conventions of indie rock music correctly. Overall from our feedback I have learnt that in order to create a good quality music video you need to capture the conventions of your chosen genre and then allow the audience to relate themselves to the video. From the feedback we collected I believe this is down to how strong your narrative is as the audience need to be able to understand but also how you edit your video is also highly important as it allows you to make your narrative even more effective on your audience. Overall I believe that the feedback on our video was highly positive.

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

VideoWe filmed all of our music video using a cannon camera and edited it using Adobe PremierPro. Whilst filming we switched from using shots with the tripod and without it to create certain effects on certain shots. However once we got the video in to premier we used several tools within it to help us edit it. We changed the speed of several shots to make them slow motion, which was easily done by changing the percentage speed. In order to match the conventions of our genre we decided to have the band shots in black and white. We created this effect in premier by using the brightness, opacity and levels tools and changed them to give us the perfect black and white match for our video. After placing the video we used the crop tool to crop the shots in order to allow us to create effects such as jump cuts. The final tool we used on premier was the transition tool to allow for smooth transitions between some of our shots.

DigipackThe main piece of technology we used when creating the digipack was Adobe Photoshop. In order to meet the dimensions of a digipack we loaded that in to Photoshop and then placed the images on top. We then played around with the brightness, contrast and levels of our images to create colours that matched the conventions of our genre (indie rock). We did place the image of the café individually in to Photoshop and edit it on its own. We used the rubber stamp tool in order to get rid of the company logo on the front of the café and to match the colours with what we wanted. Then we imported a text called ‘Chinese Rocks’ from Defont and placed in Photoshop allowing us to use it within our digipack and also within our advert. We also use the magic wand tool to individually cut out each band member on the group photo and place them on each part of the Digipack.

AdvertOur advert was also created using Photoshop. We gained a photo for the advert which was taken using an IPhone 6S. We used similar tools as we did in the digipack when creating the advert. We placed the image on to a black A4 background. Once again we changed the levels, opacity, brightness and contrast to create dark colours. Furthermore we imported the Chinese Rock font from Defont and use the text tool to write in what we needed to. Using the text colour picker we clicked over the image so that the text had a similar colour to the image therefore creating a consistency throughout our products. We imported the ‘Domino’ record label to allow our audience to associate the label to our products and the band. The advert was the element we did the least to so that we could follow convention and create something reasonably plain and simple which is the style of indie rock.

ResearchIn order to know what we would put in our music video we used YouTube to watch different videos from our chosen genre in order to capture the right conventions. We also used survey website ‘Survey Monkey’ to find out more about our chosen genre and got our target audience to answer the questions. This gave us the most accurate information on our genre that we could gain. We accessed the website on our college computers. Once we got in to group we used social media site Facebook to create a group chat and this allowed us to share photos of initial ideas with each other. This therefore allowed us to work more effectively with each other as we could interact easier outside of class. I also used YouTube to share another video. This was my interview which was vital to my research and also my planning. I shared it on YouTube and I needed to have one so that I could find out what my target audience would be expecting in an indie rock music video. There is also hyperlink to this on my WordPress blog. PowerPoint was a massive tool used in research. As we researched the genre we created PowerPoints of primary and secondary research and also created audience profiles on Microsoft word and then posted them to our blogs (WordPress). To show a wider use of IT we converted the PowerPoints in to slide shares. This shows even more technology being incorporated.

PlanningInitially we needed to establish what song/genre to pick so we each picked songs and watched songs from those genres on global video site YouTube. We also used social media site Facebook to set up a group chat that would allow us to communicate our ideas together outside of class making our project easier. We accessed these sites using a variety of technologies such as Phones, computers and Ipad’s. Whilst planning ideas we used programs on the college computers such as Adobe Photoshop that allowed us to create ideas for our digipack and adverts. These programs allowed us to create a more realistic design of what our ancillary texts would like when they were completed. We then posted our plans on blogging websites. I chose to use WordPress as I found it easiest to use. By creating these blogs and using them throughout our work it made it easy to display our work and also allowed it to be sorted out easier. We drew out plans of each individual as seen in the photo of the group chat and scanned them in to a college email to allow ourselves to have an individual copy of them.