1) In
what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
The task we were
set was to create a music video for an unsigned band as well as produce a
digipak and either a website or a magazine ad/poster. The purpose of these
being made and sold as a production package is so that it reaches out to a
large audience of different age, countries and other audiences. These made
together make the song and video reach a very large audience. For example, the
video will advertise to audiences who use websites such as YouTube and allow
them to easily access it and a digipak will advertise to people who see it on
sale. A website also allows for advertising on the web as anyone can look at
the bands. Compared to real product, ours fits many conventions, especially the
digipak. This is because our digipak uses a very similar layout to other real
life products. It also fits in with other digipaks because it has a lot of similarities
to real products, for example, I front cover, band information and pictures,
and this is conventional of a digipak. Our website and video also follow
conventions of similar products.
There are multiple
conventions required in a music promo, such as camera work, mise-en-scene,
editing, performance, narrative and actors. It is important to stick to
conventions so that the viewer knows what to expect from the promo but also so
the promo fits in with already existing products. However, you could also say
it is important to challenge a convention so your promo is different and
memorable. One convention that is always relevant is the mise-en-scene needs to
be relevant to the genre. For example, a rock promo would conventionally use a
performance setting for their performance parts, such as a stage or studio,
whereas a pop promo would possibly use an abstract environment or fantasy
setting. The editing in every promo is
usually fast unless it is a song similar to a ballad. The camerawork must also
be varied; this means a mix of shots such as mid, long, close ups. These need
to be varied in numbers to make it look good and interesting. Performance is
also very important as it shows the band or artist and their performance of the
song. A narrative can also be very important too as it can tell a story behind
the song, this can be very important to some artists if they want to tell their
story. Amplification, illustration and disjuncture could also come into play
here as you could amply the narrative to make it seem more interesting, use
objects or to illustrate a narrative or come up with something completely
abstract and strange, this is disjuncture. All of these are used in promos, but
the one that makes the most interesting music promo is disjuncture. We decided
not to use this as disjuncture could lead to confusion about a narrative and
the promo in general. The editing is also important as it can change the pace
of a music promo from slow to fast, this will seem to increase the speed of the
song too.
The purpose of a
music promo is to advertise and promote a song or artist. This is to help them
gain further popularity across the world. This will get them noticed by the
public as well as their intended target audience as well as People they may not
have targeted. In my research, I looked into a few music promos of the genre
pop punk, which our song is from. I found out that the editing is usually fast
and has many performance shots, such as many All Time Low music videos. These
have narrative too but many shots are just of performance. I also found out
some basic conventions. These are that usually, the band members are all
younger than 30, they wear teenage style clothing and the males usually have
longer or styled hair, whereas the females usually have longer, usually dyed
hair. We stuck to these basic conventions as the style of clothing we used is a
teenage style as well as all band members being younger. We also stuck to the
hairstyle convention apart from dyed hair as we felt that challenging this
convention would give the promo a slight increase of realism.One way our media
product uses conventions is through the use of mise-en-scene. In many music
promos with the genre we chose (pop punk), the band members often perform on a
stages well as within an alternative setting. We stick to this convention as
our promo was set on a stage as well as in a house. This keeps with the
conventions of a pop punk promo as we use a stage in our promo as many other
video do. We also used the alternative setting of the house which also fits
with the conventions as there is more than one setting. However, you could also
say that using a house challenges conventions as quiet often; the alternative
setting is outdoors or in an unusual area. We felt it was a good idea to
challenge this convention as to make our promo seem as realistic as possible.
We also stuck to conventions of pop-punk mise-en-scene by use of costume. Pop
punk promos use either a smart casual look with clothing or a casual look. We
chose to use both of these. We did this by having three of the band members in
smart casual, but with sleeves rolled up to show casual further and the singer
in casual clothes. This makes it so we stuck to the conventions of costume but
also challenged it as we did not just use one type. We challenged it because we
thought it would make the promo more interesting and give it more of a “DIY”
(do it yourself) look that pop punk entails.
Another way we use
conventions is through the use of editing. In many promos of the genre, the
editing alternates between fast and slow, but has more fast cuts. We used this
in our promo effectively. We did this by using fast cuts with many different
shots in the performance part and slower cuts within the narrative. This is
conventional of a pop punk promo as they are known for energetic looking
promos. We did this with the use of editing. The editing being fast also made
it fit to the music. We also used cutting to the beat which is also
conventional of a pop punk music video to fit the beat of the track with cuts.
We decided to use these conventions as they work very well with any piece of
music within the genre and make it seem faster and more interesting.
We also used
conventional techniques of cinematography and camera work with our promo. These
conventional shots, such as long shots, mid shots and close up used, where all
used in our promo. We used these in our promo for different effects. We used
many close ups and mid shots within the performance part of our promo as they
show the band members and their surrounding as well as also showing them
playing their instruments. For this reason, we also used a few long shots to
show most of the band members together. We also experimented with camera
movement within our promo which many existing products also use. These made our promo all together more
interesting as well as fitting conventions. However, in the narrative part of
the promo, we challenged some conventions. For example, we used an extreme
close up at one point. We used these to show the two characters speaking and
arguing. We challenged the convention for use of this to show arguments as
close as we could to realism as well as showing some emotion. We also used a
mirror shot. This is also unconventional as not many promos use it, if any. We
did this as it gave our promo a unique part as well as also fitting the lyrics
“Staring back at me in the mirror”. We also used a few angles within our promos
such as high and low. These gave different views of the performers and band
members as they made it more interesting and fun to watch. However, this is
conventional as many promos also use high and low angles for the same reason.
We also tried to use the rule of this as to keep the main part of the action
with the centre third of the promo. This is the main location for the action
within promos so we stuck to this convention.
We also used
sound conventions within the promo. Even though we muted the ambience of our
clips, which is conventional of pop punk and other promos so you can hear the
music clearer. We used it to match the editing to the beat (cutting to the
beat) and increase the pace of the editing. We also used sound to perfect lip
synching within our promo. This allowed the promo to look realistic as the
singer actually seemed to be singing the song we used. We also tried to do this
somewhat with the instruments being played as we tried to match the guitar strums
to the music as well as the drum beats, which we succeeded and also failed at
different times. However, we still managed to match the majority so the promo
looked very realistic. These are conventional of a music promo as they are
mainly showing the band performing, exactly how it should be live, so we tried
to stick to that convention.
In conclusion, I
feel we tried to stick to conventions as much as possible whilst also
maintaining realism to the promo. This all together made an interesting,
realistic but conventional promo. This makes it not feel out of place with promos
within the same genre of ours as well as most other types of promo.
2) How
effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I feel our promo and ancillaries
work together really well as a promotional package.
This is because in the promo, we
really used the idea of lyrics to on screen action, such as the “Put your high
heels on” line. We used this line a lot and also made it so we could link it
together with the digipak. This was done by a photoshoot of the shoes that
Courtney was wearing in the promo and using that and a microphone as the front
cover. This effectively links the promo to the digipak as well as them all
linking together into the narrative and promo as a whole. Our website also
stuck to this as we used some images from the website on the digipak too, as
well as taking the idea of shoes and inserting a picture of the front cover of
the digipak onto the website as well.
This links all of the tasks
together synergistically. Split apart, these tasks would not be very effective
or link together, but as we have them all linked together by use of image.
Altogether, our product comes
together well and we can see a synergetic link between all parts of the
product, ancillaries included. This synergy will make is easier for the band to
get an image out there as well as get more recognition. Since they all link, if
a user find one of the ancillaries, they will also find out about the album and
the album will make them find out about the video and so on. This allows for
more publicity for the band.
We also intended to use convergence
to further the reputation of the band. The video will be available on YouTube,
which will give the band more reputation on the internet. The song would also
be put onto iTunes which would mean converging with Apple to distribute the
album. The advantage of advertising the band like this is it leaves them open
to users of the internet, which a large amount of the population are, as well
as some of these people possibly belonging to a record labels. Getting Call
Atlantis to sign to a record label would be even further enhance convergence as
record labels offer regional, national and international distribution. This
would allow their music to be bought all over the world and increase popularity
as they can be listened to across the world.
There are a few pros and cons of
exhibiting media in a traditional style. For example, one traditional style is
on music channels on the television. This is an appropriate place to show our
promo as many people in our age group watch the music channels. However, the
less popular music promos are shown less than the popular ones, which Is a
problem for new music promos such as ours. However, it is also a good place for
advertising the band and promo as if it does get seen and the audience enjoy
it, they may do more research into the band and become more interested in them.
The perfect place for our music promo on these channels would be on kerrang! TV
as they display a wide verity of music video of punk, rock and metal. There are
many pop punk promos on this channel so our promo could fit in well and be
appropriate for the channel. This will then connect to new media as if the
promo is seen and enjoyed, the audience may start looking for them on the
internet. Once they do this, they may start following them on Facebook or other
new media technologies. There are very few cons for advertising the promo in a
traditional way. Advertising it in a new media technology way, such as on
Facebook, YouTube and the rest of the internet, also has very few cons. This is
because with advertising on new media, the audience will more than likely
stumble across the band as many people in our audience use these technologies.
However, one major con is that there are much more well-known bands than Call
Atlantis so the audience may only look for more popular bands instead. This is
one of the few problems of advertising in this way.
These advertising techniques of
traditional and new media also link with our ancillary tasks. For example, we
could go with a traditional and new media approach with our digipak. This is
because we could get the album into music stores, such as HMV and ask them to
display it so the band gets noticed through people physically seeing the album.
This would be a successful method as the digipak would be displayed near similar
bands, and if they see similar bands, they may take a look at our digipak too
then buy it to see what it’s like or listen to a demo track from the album,
then buy it if they enjoyed it. Even if they do not buy it, they may then go
looking for the band on the internet instead. Our other ancillary task, a
website will be advertised through the internet, especially through social
media as quite often, Facebook suggests similar pages to what the user has
already has liked. This means Call Atlantis’s Facebook page may be suggested if
the user likes similar pages. This will then allow them to be linked to the
website from the Facebook page. Not only this, the user may also be searching
for similar bands on the internet, and then if they see a band that have one of
their favourites as an influence, they may go look for that band, which they
will then find the website, advertising the band to them and making the band,
music and promo known to them. This is an effective technique as the users of
the internet have many ways to find out about the band so have a high chance of
finding them.
We tried to create a brand image
that links between the music video and the ancillary tasks. Our brand image
consists of emotions and colours, for example, we try to use as much green as
possible within the promo and also used a lot of green on the website. The
green is also supposed to symbolise jealousy as the narrative in the story
consists of a male cheating on his girlfriend. The impact of the genre had a
lot of effect on our music promo. This is because we wanted to stick to the
conventions of the promo, especially with editing which consist of fast cuts,
and lots of them. However, the genre of pop punk also had another effect on the
mise-en-scene that we used. In most pop punk music promos, the setting is in a
normal, everyday place. We took inspiration directly from this convention and
stuck to it. The genre also gave us influence for the costume that we decided
to use. This is because pop punk bands often dress in normal, everyday clothes.
We stuck to this too. This will also make the song appeal to the target
audience as they may also wear similar clothing to what the band members do.
Another way the products will
appeal to the target audience is through the use of social media and modern
technologies as most of the product will be available on the internet or
internet distribution sites such as iTunes for the digipak. The website will
also appeal to the audience as the use of modern technology will modernise the
band and show that they use digital technologies the same as the audience.
Our texts attract the audience as
they are available in many places the audience know of (shops, the internet,
etc.). This will attract them as they will see the band is modern and uses modern
techniques to be noticed. Another way our three texts attract the audience is
because of the styling of them. All of them use modern fashions, designs and
colours. This will attract our audience, who like new and modern things, to the
band as they will enjoy the texts more than older styled ones.
3) What have you learned from your
audience feedback?
I have learned quite a lot from
audience feedback. For example, in our focus group questions, we asked about
the narrative and if the audience felt it were appropriate. All the audience
thought that the narrative was appropriate for the age group. Another question
we asked was what shots they feel would be used inside of a music video for pop
punk, we received different responses such as long shots, close ups, mid shoots
and medium close ups. This helped us create our product as it allowed us to
know what shots the audience expect in a conventional video so we could stick
to them.
Another thing we learned from our
feedback was in the vox pops. We learnt where the audience watched their music
promos so we could also use that to put our promo on. We found out that the
majority of the audience watched them on YouTube, so we also used that to show
our music video.
We also learnt a large amount of
our audience instead of using a CD to play music from, they often download it
digitally instead, and this means that the chances are, the album would be
purchased more from online distribution/download services, such as iTunes,
instead of going out to buy a physical copy. This means we would have to
approach the target audience through download rather than CDs, but still make
CD copies of the album.
We also learned from our focus
group that the audience would rather have a mix between narrative and
performance rather than majoring in one. They felt that a mixed music video
would be more interesting.
Audience research is very useful
during the production of a music promo and was very important to our promo as
well. This is because it allowed us to find out what the audience wanted so we
could appeal to them and interest them with our product. However, audience
feedback has a very few drawbacks but there are some. For example, if your
idea, which you think is good, is not liked by the audience when you ask them
about it, you will have to make a completely new idea. The same also applies if
they do not like the elements you have included within them. Another way that
it may not be the best thing is because it may draw your promo slightly away
from the genre that the song is and it would come across as strange in that
genre for pure enjoyment of a select few members of the audience and not the
audience as a whole. This could affect how much it is enjoyed by the main
target audience. To counter this, audience feedback has much more positivity as
it allows you to get a lot of opinions on your planning very fast, as well as
it being directly from your audience. You also get a good idea what your
audience do and do not like from this.
The first part of audience research
we did was creating a vox pop to get ideas about different things from
different people. We conducted this in the initial research stage of our
production. We went out into school and got different people from different age
groups to answer a few questions. One of these was their favourite music promo,
to which most of them answered music from the pop genre and one answered from a
heavier version of pop punk. We also asked where they watched their music
promos. All of them answered that they watch them on YouTube and on music
television programs. This helped us decide to create our promo specifically for
these two places. This meant we also had to make it appeal to the different
people who use these technologies to view their promos.
The second piece of audience
feedback we did was gathering a focus group and pitching our idea to them. We
did this during the research planning stage. We asked them a few different
questions about conventions they would expect within a promo. We asked them
about our narrative, which they all answered was appropriate and appealing, as
well as about stuff within the promo such as camera shots and costume. The
answers we got helped us decide what exactly we wanted to do. For example, the
different shots we got mainly consisted of close, mid and long shots, this
narrowed down the selection of shots we had and all together helped us decide
on what shots to use. This was a very important piece of research as we only
used people within our target audience to give us feedback, their feedback
especially helped as they are directly the people we were aiming the promo at.
We also used a variety of internet
technologies to research into promos of the genre we chose. From here, we could
get a rough range of what conventions are expected within promos within pop
punk as well as what the audience think of them in the comments. After viewing
some comments, it showed that the audience seem to enjoy a narrative within a
promo. This is because, judging by some comments, the audience may have been
through a similar story and can connect with the narrative, thus enjoy it more
and be connected with the band more.
4) How did you use media technologies in
the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used a different method than
unsigned.com to overcome copyright. Instead, I found the band on YouTube and
did some research into them, to later find out that they are unsigned. I came
across Call Atlantis by looking for music in the pop punk genre, which I enjoy.
I was watching a Paramore video and Call Atlantis appeared in the suggested
videos so I decided to investigate. They turned out to be very similar and
unsigned. This allows us to use their music freely but is always better to get
permission from the artists before its use but not needed for copyright free
songs. To discover similar products to what we wanted to create, we browsed
across YouTube to find other pop punk bands that are similar to Call Atlantis.
One particular example we found, that we knew of before, was Paramore.
We used their music videos to influence what
we used in our promo as they are very, very similar. We used similar shots,
such as close ups, as well as framing and camera movement. Their musical style
is also very similar to Call Atlantis as both are fronted by a female singer
and have very similar sounding music. This helped us get some inspiration as
since they are very similar, we could use conventions from Paramore videos.
Paramore also influenced our use of mise-en-scene as well as the use of shots to
show it. In the Paramroe music videos, there are many different shots, most of
which centre the singer and make her stick out more from the rest of the band.
We also decided to use this.
We have learnt a few different
skills from the filming of out promo. One of the few examples was how to get a
very good lens flare; this made the shot stick out from the others as well as
makes it look more interesting. We created one in our promo by playing around
with darkness and lighting until we found a shot that looked very unique and
stuck out from others in the promo. Another thing we learnt how to do was use
objects such as wheelie chairs as an assistant for camera movement as it
allowed us to have a smooth moving shot. We used this during the moving shots of our
promo. We found moving, steady shots by hand very hard to do, we tried to use
other compromises, such as pulling the camera smoothly to the side, but it did
not work. Because of this difficulty, we found the wheelie chair and used it to
get our smooth movement without any jerks or bumps.
We have also developed how to use
editing software better, especially for lip synching. This makes the video look
realistic as it is perfectly synced to the singer. We also learned a few audio
editing techniques in iMovie such as removing video sound and making importing
music to use within the promos as well as increasing its volume. This made the
lip Synching easier as we could remove all sound from the clips and play the
song over the top to make sure the synching was perfect. It also helped us cut
to the beat as we could put in edits where the music changed beat.
During shooting, we also developed
the proper technique for getting good quality footage in low lighting by
focusing light on one part of the shot and then focusing the camera on that to
make sure the footage had lighting but you could still see the area was dark. This
created the lens flare mentioned above. This also allowed us to use very
dynamic lighting in our promo that we could control which not only allowed us
to get better footage, but overall, make a better looking promo.
There are important factors of
exhibiting your product online to get the band further recognition. For
example, creating a website for the band and putting the promo on YouTube for everyone
to view. This allows the band to get recognition on the internet easier. Creating
this product also gave us all further experience in different software. For
example, some of the members of our group did not know how to use Photoshop,
but during this project, they had to use it which gave them some experience on
how to use it. We learnt how to use different effects and filters to make our
products look better. When creating the website, it also opened the option to
use some very interesting brushes which allowed me to create a more interesting
and better looking website.
We also learnt how to do more with
iMovie as all of us knew how to use it, but not completely, but the further use
we made of it helped us learn how to use it more effectively. We learnt how to
use different effects and saturations to increase and decrease the lighting.
This also helped us stick with lighting continuity as sometimes; the shots had
different lighting due to different shooting times in the day. With the
saturation effects, we could make the shot seem lighter or darker which allowed
us to adjust to lighting problems we encountered. Using the saturation and
editing we learnt from iMovie, it allowed us to adapt our footage to fit the
genre.
I feel we improved over our prelim
with the skills we learnt during the creation of our product. For example, we
used much more of a verity of shots in our actual product than our prelim; we
also learnt how to use effectively because of creating the product. The verity of shots allowed us to create a
more interesting promo as they can easily be switched between and when done
very fast, it creates a sense of pace as well as increasing interest for the
viewer of the promo, If you switch between a verity of angles without breaking
the 180 degree rule, which could easily cause confusion if broken, the promo
will become more interesting. This is because a verity of shots makes for a
more interesting promo to be viewed. We also learnt that the use of angles is
also very important as angels also make for a more interesting promo. However,
we tried to not use as many canted angles within the promo as they did not fit
in well with the other shots, if we used them, the promo would have seemed to
create a sense of disorientation which we did not want as it was supposed to be
as realistic as possible. If you were going to create a promo that was supposed
to be confusing and make you feel disorientated, an extreme use of canted
angles would be useful, and to make it even further disorientation, you could
constantly break the 180 degree rule.
During production of a promo, we
also thought about the use of post-production effects. In the end, we decided
not to use these. This is because they can make the video effect heavy and look
non-realistic, but also make it confusing. We did however, consider using these
to make the promo more interesting, but some experiments we did, did not create
the desired effect so we abandoned the use of them. The only effects we decided
to use where toughs of lighting to make the shot look lighter or darker
depending on where in the promo it was. We learnt through this, that effects
are not needed to make an interesting promo and “raw” footage can still look
good and interesting.
