Final Evaluation- Lauren Pollard

Question 1

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Question 2

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Question 3

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Here is the audience feedback from when my target audience were asked to assess our finished projects. As you can see the main responses were good.
The main points focused on were that:
The Black and White scenes, were clear that they from a past memory as they "showed a different time period" and this got 100% postive feedback from the audience.
Another point that ot good feedback was the use of the green screen, as they found this effective as it was unique to what they had seen from other people within our class, but also because it is relevant to the music video industry as it is commonly used within mainstream videos.

I also found from this feedback that the overall rating for our video was 7/10, which shows that we got an overall high postive outcome, although there was plenty of room for improvement.
Although I have found that the Magazine cover (magazine and album cover 1) that was produced by me and Hannah Tabor got quite a mixed view, mainly resting on 8/10. But varied between 7-9. I believe that this is a very good review as it shows that it is realistic. This is also shown in my Album covers aswell, this gives me the idea that the audience felt that all our album, magazine and video interlinked, which is what we were aiming for as it helps the audience to piece them together if they were to see the album on a shop store or a the article in a magazine.

Question 4

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Presentation5

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By Lauren Pollard

Final Evaluation - Lauren Widdop

Introduction

For my A2 Media Studies coursework I was required to create; - A music video - An album cover - A magazine advert I worked with Hannah Tabor, Muhammad Patel and Lauren Pollard. I made a generous contribution to the planning and finalizing of the location shots, costume, genre, etc. I also filmed quite a lot of the footage as the majority of the planned locations were very near to were I live.

Target Audience We came to the conclusion that females, aged 16-25 would be most interested in our product after we tested the song amongst a varying group of people and distributed questionnaires, with results coming back showing this specific audience to be majorly satisfied.

Our U.S.P: To bring something different to the market, with a memorable artist whom audiences can realistically relate to.










The Music Video – “A distinctive art form which can allow really interesting creative opportunities” (P Fraser 2005)
- Absolutely anything?
- Does it follow the codes and conventions?
- Does it last the length of the song (or longer)?
- Does it feature the artist (although it doesn’t have to)?
- Does it tell a story? - Is it visually memorable and worth watching again?
- Does it create a strong brand image for your artist?
- Is it a creative artifact of interest itself?
- Is it the main reason you’d flick on the music channels?

YES! Genre

What genre is it?
There are two elements of genre within my coursework piece;

1. Music Video
2. Experimental

We thought that with the experimental genre we could be as creative and experimental (shall we say!) as we’d like.

Codes and Conventions

Okay, so we know what a music video SHOULD follow. Does ours?

Did I do anything different? Why is it vital to do something new with a genre?

Genre music videos must offer more of the same to satisfy the audience’s expectations. But also offer something new so that they don’t become boring.

- “Repetition is a key element in the way audiences understand and relate to narratives” (O’Sullivan, Dutton & Rayner, Arnold, 1994)

- “The idea of an audience’s foreknowledge will obviously lead to a certain set of expectations. It is these expectations which are then used to catch the attention of the audience whenever a film is being publicised” (Price)

My group didn’t follow the genre codes and conventions religiously - ‘the same, but different’ (N.Lacey)

We chose to follow an Experimental genre which basically enabled us to work on a blank canvas, including and getting rid of what we desired.

For example:
- We took inspiration from ‘Introducing Joss Stone’ - We based our album cover (very loosely) around it - We liked how the artist was facing away from the camera with her bare back












- We then had the idea to Photoshop our image of the artist onto a cartoon like cover – with inspiration from Paolo Nutini’s album, ‘Sunny Side Up’.
- Link in really well with our Experimental genre
- Produce something less predictable like your typical artist sat with a guitar, ripped jeans and back combed hair! With regards to our music video, I feel that we acted innovatively because most Pop/Folk songs don’t have an Experimental genre to them, they usually follow the typical Narrative and Performance genre.

“GENRES MAKE THE WORLD APPEAR MORE PREDICTABLE AND LESS COMPLICATED”

Why did I think my innovations were likely to prove successful?

Branding and Brand Image
One of the main and most important purposes of a music video is promotion. The music video is a promotional tool for the artist and is a way for the audience to see the music in a visual context. Although music videos sometimes (not always) serve as a catalyst for CD sales/artist song downloads. This is where branding comes into it!

"Advertising any given product is only one part of branding's grand plan" (Naomi Klein)

The above quote can be related to artists and music videos. It explains that a brand is not just there to advertise, but to create a foundation for where they can build up a relationship with the audience. Branding is about creating an image that people link to, this image should entice them into buying their music and make them want to watch their videos over and over again.

How did I attract my audience?
I did this through the different elements that make up my media project, these being;

Audience Feedback: My Thoughts
I believe that the feedback we retrieved through the questionnaire varied a lot. Of course I’d love to sit here and type about how my project got a 100% thumbs up, although that’s not the case.

We distributed 14 questionnaires amongst 8 males and 6 females, thus bearing in mind that females are our primary target audience and therefore I feel this reflected in our feedback.

“What are your initial reactions to this video?”:
- This question received a lot of similar answers with people commenting about how they enjoyed it.
- Although one thing that the majority of them slated was the lip syncing.
- I have to agree with this, as when I look back at our video, I feel there could be some minor tweaking with the miming.
- Although I am happy overall with everybody’s initial comment reactions.

“Is it something you would be interested in watching again?”:
- 70% of our audience stated that they would want to watch our video again.
- I feel that this is quite harsh because 30% claimed they wouldn’t want to watch it again.
- Although when I looked back these answers were from males, which could be why, as we primarily focused on pleasing a female audience. - It is important that our video is liked and people want to watch it again, because that is the focus of music videos for them to be repeated on music channels.
- Overall I am happy that over half said yes.



“Which was your favorite part and why?”:
- If I was to be asked this question, I would say that the best part of the video was the Green Screen, reason being because it is different to what you would usually see and increases the authenticity of the video, making it a lot more interesting to watch.
- Although, the majority of people said that their favourite part was the black and white scenes.
- I can understand why viewers would enjoy this section of the video because it does look professional and is just overly nice to look at.
- Although, it was one of the easiest parts of the video to create, which does anger me slightly, making me think that if the whole footage was edited black, white and slow-mo, then could it have been more successful with our target audience?
- Overall, we got a really positive amount of feedback from our audience with the majority claiming that the authenticity of the video was good.
- I was happy with this because one aspect that we worked hard on was making it look like something you would see on MTV/Viva.

“How authentic does our music video/magazine advert/CD album cover look?”:
- With regards to our CD album cover and magazine advert, I was really disappointed with the feedback we received.
- The majority of ratings gave evidence that our target audience believed our print pieces not to be authentic.
- All that I have to say to this is… EXPERIMENTAL
- We went out of our way to make both of these as cheesy and ‘kitch’ as possible, taking inspiration from Paulo Nutini’s album Sunny Side Up.
- I feel that our audience didn’t relate to our ancillary tasks and understand that we were expressing our artist’s individuality through the print products.
- Due to our plans for creating a cartoon-like album cover, we had to start from scratch and draw everything ourselves (for copyright purposes), thus leaving us with a piece of software that didn’t allow us to draw what we needed, hereby leaving us struggling.
- Although we worked with what material we had and produced good print products.
- If I was to produce my print products again, I would probably go about it in a simpler way to make the brand image more obvious and do something that the audience would connect with better i.e. a typical “indie” themed cover of the artist sat in a field with a guitar.



“How does our music video reflect the Experimental genre?”:
- This question received a lot of positive feedback and I was happy with the results.
- The majority of our target audience said that the black and white flashbacks were ‘extremely good’, this was presumed as a lot of people claimed this to be their favourite bit of the video.
- I personally feel that our music video did reflect the Experimental genre due to all of the elements from the green screen right through to the locations.
- I feel that my thoughts reflect in the feedback and we seem to have proven successful with the presentation of our genre through the music video.

“Overall, what do you think we could have improved on?”:
- I am happy with the constructive criticism gained from the customer feedback with nearly 100% of the people asked mentioning that we could have improved on the lip syncing – and I totally agree.
- Something that somebody mentioned was that we could have included a few more transitions and when I look back I agree.
- I feel that the video could have ran a lot more smoothly with a few more shot transitions.
- But, apart from these aspects, not a lot else was mentioned – which I have to say, I am relieved about.

What would I do differently?
There are two things that I would go back and mend if I could;
• Lip syncing
• The design of the print products

- The lip syncing was an obvious thing that needed changing because of the slight out of sync-ness about it. Although, I would probably have asked our artist to put a bit more emotion and expression into the miming, to make the video appear a bit more authentic.
- The design of the print products was one of the only thing that we received fairly negative feedback on,I feel that our audience didn’t really ‘get’ what we were trying to portray and the fact that we were reinforcing the Experimental genre. So, if I was given another chance I would change the design and create something more realistic and predictable.

Use of creative technologies – skills I have learnt... - Technology is the usage and knowledge of tools, techniques, and crafts.
- In today’s society technology plays such a huge part and without it a lot of organizations would fall apart because of how reliant people have become upon it.
- I believe that without the aid of the following technologies my media project would not have been created as successfully as it was.

Construction:

Research/Planning:

All of these technologies have been fantastic and extremely effective:
- Effective
- Played a huge part in the creation of my music video/ ancillary tasks - Without them I wouldn’t have been able to carry out this project
- The college provided me with up-to-date cameras and computers
- Proved effective because of how complex it was
- Offering me unlimited features for a professional-looking end product - The software was effective and up-to-date
- Had features that provided me with the opportunity to play around with and enhance the authenticity of my media product

Conclusion
Research and Planning
Throughout the research and planning stages I feel that I paid a really hefty contribution. At first we felt a bit intimidated by one of our group member’s conscientiousness towards the coursework, although when I look back I feel that this definitely sparred me on to work hard and up my game.

The first bit of research I did was an evaluation of a music video. I then researched into the song that we had chosen to use for our video. I was given the topic ‘narrative’ to research and display information with links to why narrative is important and what its all bout. I believe that I produced detail blog posts here but when I look back I feel I could have done more work on the research aspects and posted more on the research of the music video.

I also created a poster advertising our needs for a model for our video because we were struggling to find one. Once we had found our artist I displayed pictures of her on the blog and reasoning to how we found her. I took pictures of the shot locations and posted them onto our blog with a description of their whereabouts and why they are ideal destinations. As time went on I my contribution definitely increased and my posts were becoming more frequent on the blog.

I contributed to the research of CD covers that were an inspiration to us for our album design. We all wrote a post on the blog about our day out filming our the Christmas holidays to keep our blog updated as to what stage we were up to in the planning and early creation stages of our music video.

I filmed a lot of the first bits of footage and believe that I was a major player in the filming process, I think the only footage I wasn’t there for, was the Manchester green screen shots due to other commitments.

Throughout the editing stages of our music video, I do feel that I may have been a bit too active, as I took control quite a bit but I put this down to me being extremely conscientious and I wanted our pieces to be finished by the deadline but to a really high standard.

I contributed to the creation of a mood board for our ancillary tasks and I also produced an analysis of an album cover, keeping my contribution to the blog and the workload overall high. Me and Muhammad shared an equally active role in the production of our album cover and magazine advert, we were together for the shooting of our photographs and frequently updated the blog together. We edited all of our material together and contributed both of our ideas, showing both personalities in them.

Once our video was complete and uploaded, our blog had 70+ posts on it, which I think is really impressive! I played an extremely active role within the production of our video and print tasks and enjoyed the highs (not so much the lows) and would definitely do it again.

My products

On a whole, I am extremely proud of the outcome of both the video and ancillary tasks. I believe that the video would be something that you would see on MTV or The Hits with its authentic look, this is also backed up by the audience feedback we retrieved.

My favorite part of the video would definitely be the Green Screen. This was such a challenging task, which we took onboard and made a success. Our audience feedback proved that the black and white memory aspects were popular, this increasing the interest of our video.

I believe that our ancillary tasks worked really well together, although the audience feedback claimed that they didn’t match with the music video. This riled me because when creating our album cover we did it with Paulo Nutinis, ‘Sunny Side Up’ album for inspiration, making it as cheesy as possible to link perfectly with the Experimental genre. I feel that our audience didn’t relate to, or ‘get’ our print pieces at all, which isn’t good on our behalf because the target audience are important for us to link strongly with.

One aspect that I think we could have included to improve on our video, would be to include shot transitions to make the general feel of the video run more smoothly. Although, apart from this I am genuinely chuffed with how our coursework has resulted.

Overall
I feel that I was a really good team member and played a consistent and active role within the researching, planning and creation of our coursework. I am proud of how involved I was and I don’t feel that I could have done anymore, thus proving that I worked to my full capability.

If I was to do this coursework again, the only thing I would change would be the design of the album cover because our audience didn’t relate to the image we had in mind. Overall, I am the proud creator of a music video, album cover and magazine advert. Good work gang!

Index

Final Evaluation - Hannah Tabor

This year i have worked with Muhammad Patel, Lauren Widdop and Lauren Pollard. The project gave us the option of producing either a film/ Television trailer or a music video and as a group we decided that it would be more interesting to do a music video. For the main task of creating, shooting and editing the music we worked as a whole but when it came to the ancillary tasks we split into pairs and designed an album cover and magazine advertisement. I contributed to the tasks by:

• edited some of the footage
• Helped shooting the footage
• Creating the CD covers
• Contributed to the research.

Our Target Audience

Target Audience

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Genre
When asked what genre is most people will say it is something to do with the type of narrative used in media texts, literature and music but what they don’t know is that it is much more complex than that. Genre is not static but constantly renegotiated between the industry and audience. Graeme Burton thought that the best way to achieve this is by using a combination of the familiar and the unexpected. In the sense of an ideological level genre can close down the complexities of life whether it is for the duration of a blockbuster film or for just a matter of minutes. The main genre we will be concentrating on is pop-folk music. This sort of music is not featured in the official music charts very often which would seem like a problem yet “our unique selling point is that our product is the individuals who prefer following music of their own accord and own interest” (Graeme Burton) This makes it harder for artists to get noticed and signed but there have been several artists which have become successful which gives hope to our product if it was to be released.

Successful Pop Folk Artists

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When it comes to music videos there are 3 types:-
The narrative which is when a story is being shown that relates to the song. Artists can feature but it is not essential.


Performance is when the band are performing throughout.

Last but definitely not least is experiemental in which artists and producers show the music in a different light.




Codes and Conventions: Music video.

1. Lyrics influence the music video (If I were a boy – Beyoncé)
Beyoncé lyrics talks about how she believes that guys take women for advantage and that if the roles were reversed she would be different. The video reflects this by her and her husband switching positions sort of like the film Freaky Friday however they are in their own bodies. It shows how the couple acts and reacts to the situations and people around them.

2. Artist is performing (Tik Tok – Ke$ha)
Throughout the song the artist is shown performing whether it is in a bath tub, on a street, in a car or walking into a club. It helps the audience connect with this new upcoming artist and give them a feel for what her personality is like.

3. Pace of editing fits the music (Rude Boy - Rihanna)
At the beginning of the video it has the sound effect of a DJ’s deck being scratched when this happens the video reverses slightly. Also when it says “BOOM BOOM BOOM” the words appear on screen in sync with the music.

4. Code of dress reflects the mood of the song (The Fear – Lily Allen)
She is dressed in Indie, feminine clothe. This reflects the song as she talks about change when she says “ Life’s about film stars and less about mothers” Also, it shows how much society has changed. She walks into a manssion in this "common" clothing and yet gets treating just the same as a person of a higher status would have.

5. Genre of the music is represented by the mise en scene (Takin back my love - Enrique Iglesias and Ciara)
The song is about 2 people breaking up. The mise en scene is effective as it’s in a plausible setting of a house. Also there are photographers of the couple all around the house and included in some of the close up shots. The lighting has a tint of blue to show the emotions that the couple are feeling.

6. Camera shots/angles are used to represent the band/artist (Fat Lip – Sum 41)
Medium shots are used to show the band members playing their instruments and singing. Whereas the long shots are used for the comedy aspects within the video; to entertain the audience whilst showing their personalities.

7. Intertextuality (Sabotage –Beastie Boys)
The video uses the style of an 80’s Tv cop show.


Our music video

1. Lyrics influence the music video
When we emailed the real artist about what the song was about this is the reply I got “my life inspired me to write the song, and it's just about the crazy things that relationships do, I guess! Sometimes we put our partner above us, and it can be good to remember that we are equals. We have our own worth. We need to accept and love ourselves as much as we do other people” We reflected this in our music video by having the model on her own throughout, she was representing the independence and that we need to take time out to understand who we are and recollect our memories, skills and relax.

2. Artist is performing
Throughout we used clips of our artists singing for example using the green screen in Manchester city centre. Due to the direct address it helped her to connect with the audience, they could see the emotions she was experiencing.

3.Pace of editing fits the music
The majority of the video fit to the music. However, the first few shots at the beginning were fast cuts which contrasted the slow pace. Nevertheless it was effective as it allowed us to display the majority of the locations that would be shown throughout.

4. Code of dress reflects the mood of the song
The mood of the song is relaxed and due to the fact that the genre is pop folk we used costumes that were on more of the quirky side. The clothes were individual, flowing and feminine. Not only did it reflect the music it also represented the personality of the artist.

5. Genre of the music is represented by the mise en scene
During the music video we added in extra details and props such as the clock, chess board and weighing scale, this helped us to class our video as experimental but it also helped with the aspect of indie. The lighting contributed to the genre, the natural lighting helped portray a sense of reality and gives the impression that it is a home video, which includes lots of memories which allows people to relate to her.

6. Camera shots/angles are used to represent the band/artist
We used various shots in our project to help create different connections. The close ups to help her communicate with the audience. The steady camera was used to show this memory and give a feeling of reality and as if you were friends.

7. Intertextuality
We didn’t use as we wanted it to be unique.

Anything Different

Most music videos today are either performance, narrative or a combination of both. Due to the fact that ours is experimental it is the most obvious difference. We are able to add and delete any footage that we think is inaddequate. The use of the random footage of the clock, weighing scales and chess board all contribute the experimental element.

What did the audience think?

The audience liked the use of the green screen effect and the black and white. When asked what the black and white represents they replied with things along the lines of "it is from a different time". Although the effects used gain a postive review the song itself didn't seem to appeal to the audience.

Branding

Our logo

Our Logo

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How was the brand maintained?The logo was maintained in a variety of ways. Although the logo wasnt shown in the video the same conventions were used. The nature fact was used in both. In the music video the artist was shown in places away from urban areas reenforces the nature elements and in the ancillary tasks we use the local park.

The silhouette used on the cd is the relaxed image that we wanted to potray which is similar to the basement scenes. The nature element is reflected in the forest scene and also throughout the ancillary tasks. The back cover (bench picture) is in parrell to the scenes in which the artist is sat on the basement stairs as they both have a sense of the artist in deep thought.

Audience feedback

In order to see how effective our product would be amongst our target audience we conducted a pilot study. We distributed 14 questionnaires between 8 males and 6 females which was our target and secondary audience. The results showed us that a lot of people enjoyed the product yet some minor alterations were needed such as the lip syncing.

The majority of people that would not be interested in watching it again was males which was predicted as we focus all our designs mainly on the female audience.

The most favorite part of the music video for both the audience and me was the use of the green screen as it is different to what is usually seen in student films, resulting in a more authentic product. As well as the green screen a lot of people enjoyed the black and white effect, the audience recognized that this effect was to represent a different time and memories. These effects made the overall product professional looking. I am pleased with the feedback as we spend a lot of the time correcting footage so that it would look authentic.

The ancillary tasks produced by myself and Lauren Pollard received positive feedback with the ratings being high. We based it on real album covers and so it would look like an actual product that would be sold in stores. We use some of the key conventions such as the artist appearing on the cover and facing the camera.

When asked what could be improved we received the same answer from all of our audience and that was lip syncing. On the computer screen it looked reasonable correct however when on a bigger screen we could see that it was out of sync at times. This could be improved on. Some people also suggested that we could have included more transitions. We possible could have done but we didn’t want to make it look cheesy and over used.

Technology
Hardware and Software

 To shoot all the video footage we used a canon MD235 Digital video camera that the college supplied for us.

·        45x advanced zoom

·         wide high resolution

·         widescreen tv

·         wide colour EVF

·         Quick start

·         LCD video light

All of these features allowed us to make a more professional looking music video. However the only disadvantage was the availability of the camera. Due to various other groups doing a project which required the video cameras it was harder to access one. Also while uploading footage it would upload in real time so to upload 30 minutes of footage such as the manchester scene which took 30 minutes

For both the music video and the ancillary tasks we took pictures  locations and the artist we  used a Panasonic Lumix Digital stills camera. It features

·         12 megapixel camera

·          5x optical zoom

·         USB connection

The pictures produced were good but not up to the standard required, the picture quality was adequate for our task. However, if we used a professional camera such as the ones used in photography the pictures would have looked more authentic.  The only disadvantage that was apparent was that it could be a bit slow at taking the pictures so it was difficult to take spare of the moment pictures.

To import, store, edit and distribute the footage we used an apple Mac. Due to the fact that i have always used a Microsoft computer it took some times to get used to where some of the applications were. After a few times of using the Mac it became easier and so objectives could be completed quicker with none of the quality removed.

Final cut express is one of the most famous video editing software that Mac has created and because of its success it has gone on to evolve and regenerate.

·         It is compatible with the most used formats in camcorders

·         Essential editing for video and audio

·         More transitions, filters and effects.

All of these features allowed us to be more creative however because of the extra and more complex tools it made it harder to use.

For the ancillary tasks, as it is more physical merchandise we will need to use Photoshop cs3. It is a quick way to make professional photo products such as magazine covers. Some of the main features include:

·         Colour correction

·         Cloning and healing tools

·         Blending layers

·         Quick selection

·         effects

These features help make the image look pristine and flawless. The errors in the colouring can be altered and corrected. For beginners (such as myself) it can be difficult to create professional looking photos, to overcome this problem I searched the internet and found various tutorials online which helped me to do basics yet create effective photos.

In The evaluation stages of the project i used Microsoft powerpoint 2007 to create presentations.

·         Get better results faster with the Office Fluent user interface. 

·         Create powerful, dynamic SmartArt diagrams. 

·         Create presentations quickly and easily by re-using custom layouts. 

·         Apply a consistent look and feel in one click

·         Dramatically modify shapes, text, and graphics with new tools and effects. 

  The software is  quick and easy to use.  It has the backgrounds available if needed and it is easy to create your own. However, the transitions on the 2007 edition are different from those on earlier versions and so took some getting used to.

Websites Used

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Conclusion

At the beginning of the research and planning one person was doing a lot of the work that was set. However, it motivated me and I found out extra information which would be relevant to the project.

For the first piece of research I watched and evaluated a music video. At first I was struggling with it as I wasn't sure what to look out for but soon I got the hang of it but then I research the artist so that I know her background information and genre of music. This helped me to evaluate the music video as I could relate the lyrics not only to the video but also her life.

In the planning stages I did the storyboard with the brief description. It allowed us to know which locations we were hoping to use and what we wanted to happen whilst there.

I contributed to the shooting of the video, I attended all the shoots that I could and set up the camera so it was in position for shooting. I took pictures of the locations and posted then on the blog. I helped out in the editing stages such as simple suggestions about colouring and effects.

I helped with the research of the cd covers that had been effective and inspiring. I also sketched some of the possible design ideas for the front cover. I took inspiration from blends that are found on help sites for Piczo. When it came to the photographs for the CD and magazine advertisement I asked the model if she wouldn't mind if we use her. I went to the park with one of my friends and did the shoot there. When I came to editing the images we did it together.

Overall I think that the project was a success, it received good feedback. It was a good experience and the entire group worked extremely hard.


Our Finsihed Products

Finished Products

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Hannah Tabor