Final Advert and Digipack

Below is the final version of my advert and digipack:

Music video final draft.

Teacher Assessment: Ancillary Task.

Here is a teacher assessment of my groups and I's ancillary task (digipack & advert). From this you can see a detailed breakdown of what each is marked on and the levels and marks we have received. From reading over this you can see that on the advert the main image was viewed as not being creative and not very abstract, album title could be more creative. However, you can see that the majority of the conventions have been included, the album cover on the advert is a good idea and that good photoshop skills have been presented. When looking at the CD cover (digipack) the improvements are, the front for the name of the artist doesn't fit with the genre, the back cover needs changing and that the name of the artist needs changing as it doesn't really work. Despite this the artists images are interesting, the colour scheme is strong and it follows the conventions are what works well on the CD cover.

Peer Assessment: Evaluation

Here is the feedback I received from a fellow student in my class based upon my evaluation posts. From looking at this I have learnt that I need to make a few posts a bit more super visual and I need to make clearer comparisons, referring to my digipack, advert and music video.  As well as this, looking at the positives, I have included a good depth of analysis and posts are clear of what is being illustrated. I will take this all on board when making the changes that I need to.

Teacher Assessment: Planning

Below is feedback from one of my teachers after looking over my planning posts and marking them. From this I will be able to see what I'm a currently doing well, in order to continue doing it and then I can see what needs improving, which will allow me to identify what needs changing.

Evaluation question 4

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation posts?

Throughout the process of research, planning, construction and evaluation multiple technologies were used in order to create super visual and interesting posts. Below you can see a description of all of the technologies used.

 

Evaluation question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

When first starting the project I carried out a survey which asked a diverse range of people about their thoughts and what their expectations would be when thinking about the genre of 'Disco Pop'. From carrying out this key research into my target audience I was able to identify valuable information to use when planning and constructing my music video, advert and digipack so that it appealed to my target audience as much as it possibly could. The answers we received were those such as:

From the responses we got like the ones above this gave us the driving force we needed in order to go ahead and create a high standard music video.

During the process of constructing the music video we uploaded drafts of the video to social networking sites and asked people's opinions on the ancillary tasks in order to know what is essential when moving on in the project to make the improvements and carry on what we was doing well so that the genre was illustrated well and the target audience was targeted to its fullest potential, by allowing us to understand their likes and dislikes.

Below you can see screenshots from a number of people within our target audience between the ages of 17-21. From reading over the feedback this gave us the information we needed so that we could go away and work on the video in order to meet the expectations more and deliver an overall effective music video.

Just from this comment above you can clearly see and understand what they thought worked really well. For example, they were fond of the fact that that lip syncing was matched well with the track, the costume worked well with the environment of which it was used in and the location and cinematography was effective and interesting suiting the pace of the song. However, you can see that this person would like to see more close ups of the artist dancing in the mirror so the movements are more identifiable. From this we took the idea of how we could incorporate this and we decided to crab around the artist more when dancing whilst tracking in and out so that the shots appeared more visually effective and gave the video an energetic vibe.

Here are some of the other comments I received:

Below are two videos. 1 including our feedback regarding our music video via Facebook and the second is our feedback we received about our promotional package (Digipack and advert).

Evaluation question 2

Evaluation question 1

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

When first starting the project I carried out essential information on the conventions of an array of music videos, from pop to rock. This allowed me to gather valuable points for when I went on to plan and create my music video and ancillary tasks. Once deciding on the specific genre my group and I wanted to do, that being Disco Pop, we homed in and focused purely on that genre. This then allowed us to look at other music videos, adverts and album covers which applied to that genre. We found out that close ups, long shots, mid shots, bright colours, performance, high key lighting and high paced editing is most common in Dance Pop music videos and Close ups, a bold title, an indication of what the album will be like and draws on the artists personal style almost others are conventional with Dance Pop CD covers and adverts. We took all of these conventions and applied them to our planning when going through certain tasks such as locations, costumes and story boarding so that the genre was represented to its full potential and could be easily recognised when watching the music video and looking at the advert and digipack.

Advert:
When comparing my advert to a professional one you can clearly see that there are similarities between the two which match and represent the conventions. The first major thing that you are greeted with when looking at the advert is the large, high quality image, focusing on the artist. We manipulated the photo's we took via photoshop by overlaying the images and changing and experimenting with the opacity to create and establish an edgy, vibrant atmosphere, which cleverly depicts and represents the artists own personal style. This is similarly seen within Rihanna's album cover for 'Talk That Talk'. Also on the cover you can clearly see who the artist is by the audiences eye being constantly drawn to the large, eye catching image which also represents the artists own style and helps to give a feel for what the album may be like. Despite this, we challenged the convention of having the artists name bigger than the title of the album as we wanted to make a real statement with it so that it really stood out against the vivid colours of the background, however we didn't want there to be confusion between what the title of the artist was and title of the album so we positioned it above the album title and put it in a white coloured font with a different styled font to the serif font used for 'Fluorescent' so that it was clear what the name of artist was, 'Justify'.

When looking at my advert as a whole you can see there is a differentiation of colouring and shot types compared to that of Rihanna's. We can see that the professional has used opposing colours such as half of it is focused on black and white and the right side has very vivid colours making the close up stand out even more. With our advert we chose to go against the convention of a close up and use a mid shot instead in order to create a more creative and bold image. In addition to this we chose to use a different image to that of which is seen on our album cover, where as the professional uses the same one too create a strong link. However, despite us not doing this we chose to pick specific colours of blue and pink to use as our connection between the two as on the album cover these colours are prominent, this effect was made by changing the hue/ saturation and levels of the image to create a colourful, shocking image. We specifically chose to stick the conventions of stating the release date, production and record label icons, website and an image of the album cover so the audience know what to look for. 

Album cover:

Here you can see the front cover of our album and the front cover to Labrinth's 'Electronic Earth'. When you look to and from each image you notice similarities and differences. The main difference you can see is the shot type used. Even though that the professional cover is an extreme close up we have still stuck to the conventions of the genre and used a close up in order to show off the artist, capture the audience and to also represent the atmosphere and mood of the album itself. These elements and aspects can be seen to be happening on the professional CD cover. We decided to go against the convention of having the artist looking straight on to the camera and to have him looking to the left so it creates the meaning that he is looking into the distance; thinking and determined to strive and to always look forward, never behind. In contrast with Labrinth of whom is looking straight ahead which creates a dominant, fierce atmosphere juxtaposed to mine which resembles a more calm mood, however still sticking to the conventions of a Disco Pop album front cover.

Another convention we wanted to stick to is the positioning and style of the title of the album and the artists name. For example, we can see that 'Labrinth' has a very specific font which coincides with the image, the title of the album and the personality of the artist. We can see that the artists name is very large and at the top of the image which allows it to stand out against the background so it's clear and visible to the audience, and the title of the album is seen rig underneath but smaller, a different font. This of which we applied to ours when choosing fonts and deciding on the placement of the words. We decided to place the artists name at the top of the cover so it stands out along with it being in plain black font so that that image isn't too crowded. We chose the specific font so it resembles handwriting, making it posses a more meaningful and personal feel to it. We decided to have the title of the album very bold and of a large size to pop out more, in turn making it fit in with the overall look of the album cover, instead of being hidden by the image of the artist and the colouring used. The colours seen on both are very contrasting, however this is due to the mood and theme of the albums.

Music Video:
When constructing the music video a few ideas had changed from the original plan. For example, instead of having various actors within the piece we wanted to focus purely on the artist to illustrate how it is all about him and his struggles that he overcomes. Another thing we changed was that we added in new locations and took others away so that our concept was fully recognizable to our target audience taking away the gym and the office and replacing it with the dance and drama studios where we see the camera is fully focused on the artist performing. However, despite these changes we stuck solidly to the conventions of our genre of  'Dance Pop' so that it met our target audiences expectations and allowed them to identify what genre of music it belonged to. Below you can see some comparisons between my music video and real media texts:

1. My music video follows the convention of having close ups and mid shots of the artist in a spotlight. By using shots like these it heightens the connection and relationship between the artist and the audience as they become more attached to the video and the emotive connotations behind the performance seen. This is also seen within Rihanna's 'We Found Love':

  2. However, we challenged the convention of having the artist perform with any backing dancers. This was decided as we wanted the whole video just to be focused on him. This could have been a risk as it could have appeared very plain to the audience, resulting in them loosing interest as a the visual element of multiple performers was taken away. However, this didn't happen due to us cleverly using other elements such as close up camera shots, lighting and fast paced, energetic performing to make up for this so the audience wouldn't necessarily notice. The use of dancers to intrigue the audience can be seen in Pixie Lott's 'All About Tonight':

3. Another convention we followed would be that of meaningful locations. Such as within my music video the use of Box Hill symbolises the tranquil and peaceful side of the artist where as the use of the dance studio where we see the artist in the mirror it representing the stress of the artist where he has been rehearsing/ dancing for long hours shown by the lighting creating a night effect and the fact that he is determined to carry on. Also the use of the dark studio room is used to focus on the emotions within the artist and the performance that he performs with such energy. The use of symbolic locations can be seen within Katy Perry's 'Teenage Dream':

Final Draft

Background of Artist

From the feedback we had got from people we found that our concept was illustrated well through the use of our ancillary task. Our artist brought upon itself it own persona; the CD cover and advert felt as if its the artists second album, after being gone for some time. This album is their 'come back', we believe this because the images seem to hold angst, however, a lot of energy; a lot of time has been put into the making. The artists is made to seem as if their looking forward and starting a fresh, for example the advert connotes the emotions of determination, as we are shown him staring directly at the camera and left and right; showing how he's ready for anything.

Music Video draft 2

Here is the second draft of mine and my groups music video. From watching the first draft and looking at the feedback we had recieved we realised that the genre itself could have been increased and represented a little more. So taking this into consideration we shot a few shots where we used a blue light and the artist infront (me) to create shadows and almost flashing lights to make it resemble better dance pieces rather than the ones we had before, despite this we still have some of the original dancing in there. I think that more of the new shots could have been incorporated more to replace more of the older dance shots. However, I feel that this is a much better constucted and visual video than our first draft.

Teacher Assessment: Music Video

Below is a few points from my teacher who watched my groups music video and gave us feedback on what could be improved. These will all be taken on board and worked on by my group and myself.

Peer Assesment: Music Video

Below is a peer assessment of my groups music video. You can see how the person has leveled and marked the video against the criteria. I will refer back to my group with all the feedback we have recieved so we know what we did well and what needs to be improved ready for our deadline for our second draft.

 

Draft 2 of Ancillary Task

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Development:

 

Pois Technique

Draft 1 of music video

Here is the first draft of my groups music video. I must mention that it is not fully completed due to only having half of the editing done on the video which is clearly marked with an annotion. The video unfortunately wasn't finished in time for the deadline due to the fact we had a variety of different shots compared to other groups within the class, for example we have 16 different shots which needed careful chosing and positioning. As well as having trouble with rendering our clips which wasted valuable editing time as we couldn't continue to edit whilst this was occurring.

Throughout the editing process we came to realise that some shots needed to be reshot or more needed to be filmed. For instance, we found that we need more close ups and extreme close ups of the artist so it applied to the conventions of dance pop music videos. As well as this we found that one of the dance sequence shots looked very flat as it was against a black curtain, we will reshot by having the lighting create a shadowed, black background so there is more depth as well as using a figrig to create more movement and make it more visual for the audience.

New version:
Below is the finished first draft of our music video which we have completed to our fullest potential. just from comparing the two you will get a much clearer understanding of the genre and you will find that the action taking place on screen matches the music well and creates an overall captivating and entertaining music video to watch.

Peer assessment (Ancillary tasks - cd cover, advert)

Below is a peer assessment of our Ancillary tasks (CD cover and advert). You can see the levels of which the person has given me after assessing and inspecting both pieces of work that my group and I completed. The CD cover and Advert were assessed separately and then the marks were combined to give me an overall grade of 15/20 which is a high level 3 equivalent to a B; one grade below my target. From seeing the levels I have been given for each part of the criteria I can now look at the marking criteria and see what I can do to morose my overall grade so it matches my target grade of an A. I have been given WWW (what went well) and EBI (Even Better If) for both separate pieces of work and I will now take the improvements on board and work on them to create a better quality piece of work.