Evaluation Question 4

This project relied a lot on technology. When using media technologies in this project I considered carefully how I could present my different blog post to make visually interesting instead of having large blocks of texts consistently. Instead I found creative solutions to try and present my information in different ways. For example I used Sliderocket to create my audience profile and Prezi to display my evaluation.

The theory of technological determinism affected our project. For example using blogger in order to distribute our rough cut and final music video we had to go through Youtube in order to upload it on there as you couldn't upload straight on their website. However now thinking about it this was probably a good choice to use as it was more globalized and more accessible which increased the interactivity of our audience feedback. Technological determinism also was to my advantage as I had to two professional software. One being Sony Vegas which allowed us to create a professional looking video. And the other being Photoshop which let produced professional designs for my digipak and promotional poster.

Web 2.0 technology was very important in this project. Through Web 2.0 we could directly involve our target audience in the interactivity by inviting them asking for their opinions on rough cuts and my digipak and promotional poster design. YouTube and Facebook were the two main Web 2.0 websites Which I often used throughout the planning, creation and feedback of our video. Using Facebook in creating my print products mean't I could instantly receive feedback from my target audience rather than trying to organise a date to meet up and discuss it which saved a lot of time. We were also able to communicate as a group through Facebook so we could share ideas quickly to each other which helped immensely as we all have different timetables so it was hard to arrange a time we could all get together. Web.20 helped us to share photos and existing videos towards our research and planning which was very helpful towards this project.

Evaluation Question 3

Throughout this project the audience feedback had been vital in creating and developing my products. The audience feedback has been really helpful in helping me come up with creative ideas on how to make my products even better. I gained audience feedback throughout this project during different tasks.

We started getting audience feedback when we presented our pitch so our audience could access our ideas and get a clear picture what our ideas for the music video. The feedback we got overall was positive and our audience seemed to like our concept and our chosen idea for the genre. They did say they were concerned about the weather though as most of our filming would be filmed outside.

Later on at the editing stage we did a rough cut of our music video which we got audience feedback to what we had created so far. To get some new ideas we asked a focus group to check out our rough cut which we asked them questions relating to our video and if they had any suggestions of the development.

We made these changes of our video of what our focus group suggested in our final cut.

When creating my print products I got feedback while I was designing. I created a draft which I put together a Facebook group to get their opinions. I posted font ideas and design ideas which then got commented on.

When we created our final cut of the music video I grabbed some last pieces of feedback from my target audience using a program called Skype which I print screened each conversation i had with my audiences. I spoke to them individually rather than a focus group discussion as I thought it was more easier for the target audience to have their say rather than having people talking on top of each other. I asked them similar to questions I asked within my focus group so i could compare to see if the feedback was more positive so I could see if our changes had been successful. Skype allowed my target audience to type freely what they wanted with it being private where they wasn't being interviewed via video. Having Qualitative feedback is more helpful in this project as it lets you have a better understanding on people's opinions rather it generating a number of statistics which doesn't help you with any ideas.

From getting feedback for my final cut I can answer the following questions:

How have the audience read the values expressed in your video?

According to the cultural studies approach they are three different ways an audience can view a text, which is preferred, negotiated or oppositional. All of the feedback I got in my feedback for my final cut was preferred which means the audience recognized the determination driven by the soldier and empathy for the fact he lost and just wanted to get home.

Some examples of preferred reading I got were as followed:

"I understand that the person is from a military background and is returning from war. He is trying to find home but cannot remember exactly where it is.  After searching the town he finds the correct house with his girlfriend waiting for him."

"the character is sort of on a journey, he's trying to get back home... to the one he loves"

"yeah i understand it. its a soldier coming back from war and not being able to find home."

If our audience read our text in a negotiated or oppositional way they would have either bought in outside influences and opinions (such as relating the media text to their own experiences of someone being in the army) or if the reading was oppositional, they would have disagreed with the storyline base of the video.

What have I learn't from my audience feedback?

I have learn't many things from conducting my feedback for my final cut. I asked my audience six specific questions relating to my video which all included genre, representation, performance and improvement. My feedback was mostly all positive with them giving us great comments about our video. Some of our audience related our videos to other music videos such as rise against and the script which are the same genre as us. It was also apparent that other audiences couldn't relate our video to other music videos which shows our originality of our story line. All of our audiences understood the narrative easily and gave positive comments on how well the performance looked with the lip syncing being spot on. There was an odd criticsm on the drum playing however we found this an issue as we knew no one who could actually play the drums so we had to improvise wish I think we did quite well with considering.

What would I do differently if I was asked to complete this project again?
If i was to do this task again I probably would experiment more with different techniques which one of our target audiences suggested doing. Also I probably would take more time filming the scenes so its smooth, some of our sorts were slightly shaky which didn't look that good, because we were on a strict time scale we were rushed some nights and didn't have time to reshoot that scene. If i was to do this again I would make sure I used a tripod in most of my shots.

This is my feedback of my digipak. From receiving audience feedback for my final product I can see that it has been successful and popular on my audience. I asked them the following questions;


1. Do you think my digipak and advert represent the music video I created well, if so or if not why?
2. Do you think it looks professional?
3. Does it suit my genre of pop/rock, why?
4. Does it appeal to you?
5. Would you change anything to improve them?

My audience feedback thought my print products reflect the mood of the video well and has a clear link, this shows I have been successful at promoting and branding the video. All of my audiences said it looks really professional with a clear house style. They all agreed it suits my genre of pop/rock due to the colour theme and the bold elements and would be something they'd expect to see in the store. Everyone said it appeals to them with a few saying they would even buy it if they saw it on display in a shop which shows the product has done well in the marketing aspect. And finally none of my audiences said any suggestions to improve my print products which tells me its at the highest standard as it can be.

Evaluation Question 2

After creating my print products I made a group on Facebook where I invited my target audience to give me feedback on my print products which I posted on the page. My overall feedback was quite positive with only a few minor improvements they suggested adding which helped me develop my final print products. They said the theme of the print products relate well to my genre of pop/rock with me using a common colour theme which is used in this genre. I always asked ideas for what font type would be the best for my genre which my audience chose. They commented on how I have a clear house style between the products which is a convention that every 'real media' product needs to have as you are creating a brand for your artist.

Evaluation Question 1

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

Where have your ideas come from? How were you inspired to do what you did?

We decided as a group we were going to use the song 'Chasing the moon' by My Future Lies. We all liked this song a lot and was the genre we liked to listen to. When listening to the song we thought of loads of ideas for the story line we could do for our video. I started brainstorming ideas for what the purpose was of a music video. Then I started researching and analysed existing music videos similar to that genre of the song and print work.

There really wasn't a major music video which helped influence our ideas as our concept was different as we didn't focus on binary oppositions eg relationships which tends to happen a lot in this genre, e.g. the script videos. When studying videos I found that most of them had some links between the lyrics and the visuals as stated on Andrew Goodwin's theory and this was a convention we followed. The song 'Hero of war' by Rise Against  and the film 'Saving Private Ryan' did help influence our ideas though this video had a slightly different story line to what we have its has a same concept of a soldier in denial and lost who he is. We based our video along the lines of the emotions shown in these videos of the soldier emotionally upset with what he's been through and just wants to find his way home back to his loved one. A main influence in our creativity was creating our mood board which helped us bring our ideas together with different emotions. We were inspired by some lighting choreography by similar bands of our genre, for example Simple Plan's video 'Save You'. The idea of having our main singer involved in both the performance and the narrative was inspired by the script where we looked at their song called 'Nothing'. This wasn't the only song of theres where the artist was involved in the narrative most of their songs did this, the Fray's songs also did the same which told us that this was conventional to do in this genre.

During the creation of my print work I referenced real media products to my genre to get an insight of what the layout tends to look like and the design of colours etc. I noticed black and white was popular in my genre which i chose to do and from this I think i developed a strong design of my digipak and my poster. Looking at existing similar artists it helped influence me on the individuality of each digipak and how there is a strong link between their theme of their print work to their music video. This had influenced me greatly on the design of my digipak giving me a reference point of where most things should be placed such as the bar code and labeling on an album design.

How did audience research direct your creativity? 

Throughout my project I conducted regular target research with my work. I used my target audience for their opinions and feedback for improvements.The main work I got feedback from my target audience was the development of my digipak and advert and the improvements on my rough cut which helped me create my final cut. The audience feedback which was conducted gave us a good insight in what they wanted and affected our editing of the music video as we listened to what they suggested and acted on that. We added more transitions which was suggested by them to create a smoother cut between each clip which made it look more proffesional, they also suggested adding an extra moon clip into our video as we were lacking in having enough scenes of the moon which the whole video was based on 'Chasing the moon' which we took on board and added in. I referred back to my audience profile and my moodboards during the start of my project to keep me on track and tried to keep consistent in my theme throughout the whole process.

How different are your products to 'real' media products?

Our video is very conventional compared to being different to real media products. Our video could be seen as different to other media products as we have a female within our band where you find most bands of this genre tend to be just male. The storyline of our video is quite conventional to our genre where the lyrics match the storyline. The colour theme is also conventional using a popular colour theme of this genre. We got to use the performance lights to enhance our video and experiment with different angles which let us create a more realistic 'media' product as this is conventional in most music videos to enhance the performance but none of this was different to what our genre does.

To what extent have you been original/how have you used redundancy and entropy?

Earlier in my blog posts I researched how videos can be redundant or entropic. When analyzing the same music videos of our genre we noticed most of the videos were mostly redundant than entropic which we took into account. However we wanted to add an interesting element into our video. After our intial ideas we decided we wanted to create a emotional journey of a soldier which the audience can emphasise with. This mean't we could include entropy in an redundant plot line which would appeal to our audience. The idea of journey is quite redundant as you can imagine someone walking to get to a specific place which is quite orginal. However we made it entropic by changing the settings and adding little querky things into the video. For example the still shots of the toy soldiers at the start of the video and the little kick the character gave at the end when he got to his home, this adds humour which makes it more interesting than him finally finding
his home which the audience wouldn't expect to happen which makes it entropic.
This is an orginal idea which doesn't normally get used in music videos of our genre.

Final Digipak and Advertisement

After getting some feedback on my digipak the changes I made which was suggested by my target audience was moving the track list to the left side instead of the right, I also added a barcode to my back cover which is conventional of what a CD digipak would have if it was on sale. I also made a few changes myself by adding the music labels logo, the bands website address and copyright information which I saw most CD digipak's had when i was analysing them which made my back cover look more proffesional and more appealing. I also created a design onto my CD to make it visually more appealing which follows the conventions of digipak's.

Most of the feedback stated that there was to much white on the top left image, to improve this I added some text from the band giving thanks which most digipak's contain somewhere in their pack. This got rid of the white space which there was at the top.

I only got one major feedback from my target audience on my advertisement which there was too much white space at the bottom. To improve this I added some star ratings from two music magazines, this made my advertisement look more appealing and more professional. However I decided to make a few changes myself to my advert, I thought about using a different photograph than the one I had before as I used that on my front cover and I wanted to vary my use of different photographs.

Time management update

This is an update of what I plan to do in the upcoming weeks where I will be coming to an end of my project

Advertisement draft and feedback