Evaluation

My brief was to create a promotion package for the release of a new album, which was to include a music promo video with two ancillary texts which are; a cover for its release on Digipak/CD/DVD and a magazine advertisement for the Digipak/CD/DVD. To further my knowledge on forms and conventions of the media products I was to create, I looked at music videos from the 1970's analysing their Mise en Scene, Cinematography, Editing and Sound. I compared these to modern music videos in order to ensure I met the right criteria; it was evident from my research that the 'indie' culture focuses more on high quality band performance involving live footage with a theme of a story throughout. I achieved this by creating a narrative for my music video and filming shots of musicians during rehearsals.

During the planning I had to consider the key concepts of LIIAR. Language is looking at the media terminology, I had to ensure that I knew the terminology for aspects in my production such as close ups, medium shots, film syntax, cross fade and that I understood what effect they created, for example an extreme close up allows the audience to see a characters’ expression. Ideology is the idea behind a media product, looking at the beliefs and values in a media product. In my media production of a music video, the meaning behind it was to create voyeuristic pleasure for my target audience and the way I created this was linking the footage to the lyrics and creating a narrative through it to keep it interesting. Institution is looking at how the band would be promoted. My chosen genre ‘indie’ is one of many subcultures, they are individuals who DIY all their work. Usually, they film themselves, write their own songs and promote themselves by using internet sources such as Facebook, Blogger, Myspace and Youtube. This is the reason I chose to upload my music video onto the Youtube site and post onto my blog, to create the image that the band was self promoting their work as their ‘indie’ culture would do.

The Audience is who my media production is aimed at and looking at things I need to do to aim correctly. My target audience was the students and to ensure my video was aimed at them correctly I did some audience research by creating a poll on the side of my blogger. Representation refers to the construction of a text looking at how people, places, objects and settings are supposed to look like. For example, some of the footage is in a snowy atmosphere and the singer is alone, by having the white atmosphere it creates an empty lonely place until the girl appears and makes everything seem brighter again.

With the use of magazine articles and my prior knowledge of this form of media I created a promotional advertisement for my Digipak/CD/DVD. I had to ensure I included the essential ingredients for the success of my product which are the band name, price tag, date of release, an image of the product, a plug on what is included in the product and the store it is available at. I learnt this from looking at a variety of CD covers that had essential information on, this appeared on all of them such as bar codes, copyright details, band name, songs on the CD, music company, images and a DVD logo (because my promotional package includes a music video on DVD). I feel that the combination of the ancillary texts and main product met the required brief.

For the majority of the project for example the research and planning, I was working as an individual, I found this easy and it was a process I was accustomed to. The difficulties arose when the work involved other people for example the shots of the fairground were shot in October as it was mostly done on my own, however I found that co-ordinating the people I used in my video more problematic. It was a real challenge for me trying to get everyone together at the same time in order to get enough footage, allowing sufficient time for individuals to learn their lines and ensuring that deadlines were met for completion.

My target audience are students aged 16-21, with a high interest in music particularly the 'Indie' culture. In order to target just students I created a poll on my blogger to find out their likes and dislikes about my work. I also researched the band of song I was using, this was important because I therefore knew what my target audience like about bands like them. The reason for this specific target audience is because students are an easy population to target. Most students in their spare time go on websites such as Facebook, which is one of the websites an Indie band would promote themselves on. Also by choosing students to aim my work at, it made it easier to find out more about what they like, because I am surrounded by students of different ages everyday at my college.

The idea of a target audience is identifying someone to aim my product at and it is important that they enjoy what I create because they are who I am aiming it for. Once I had created my ancillary texts using the results from my poll, I created a questionnaire for feedback on my music video. This involved the students having to rate from 1 (very poor) to 10 (very good) on a set of questions for example rate how well the lip singing went with the song. I handed thirty one questionnaires out split between one AS media class and one A2 media class to get a variety of student ages. From my audience feedback I found that the majority of them liked my music video and thought that the shots and footage was good, with mainly scores of 8-10. My main weakness appeared to be the use of shots and location; if I were to do this project again I would definitely consider these points in much more detail throughout the planning.

In the construction and research phase there was more written work for the planning, part of this was the design of a storyboard which I scanned into the computer to post on my blog; which is a website used to display my work. The reason for using the blogger website was because I had used it last year for my media work and it received a positive response. It is easy to use, it allows me to upload photos, videos and html references, also the main benefit is that I can access it anywhere.
To research the band I went on their official website and I also used You Tube to watch videos and analyse their conventions. For further audience research I created questionnaires on Microsoft Word which I printed and handed out to my target audience once they had watched my production.When I began creating my music video I used my own video camera because it was hard to get hold of one at college as so many people were using them. To ensure that my video techniques were good, we were given technical input on how to do basics shots and how to frame people correctly. On top of that we were told not to do any hand held shooting, so that our footage wasn't shaky and blurred, we were advised to use a tripod. For some of the filming I had to use a portable spotlight and ipod speakers to play the song for the singer to sing along to, this was a huge benefit because when it came to editing it was easy to get the miming in sync.

Once the production was complete I had to let the technician know, so that he could help upload my footage from the camera through a USB lead into the editing suites. I then had to re name each clip in order that I knew what they were, after this the technician logged me into the suite to start editing my video. The technician taught me the basics of editing for example how to do fades, cuts and overlapping images. Before I started to edit I uploaded my chosen song from disk so that I had the music to edit along to. Once my video was complete I burnt it onto a DVD and tested it in a DVD player to make sure it worked. In order for my production to be viewable on my blogger, I uploaded it onto Youtube and then posted it up onto my blog which also represents how the ‘indie’ culture would promote themselves.

The programme I used to create my ancillary texts was Microsoft Publisher; I measured existing texts to get the measurements to upload onto Publisher, with the intention that when it came to producing them, they would be a realistic size. The main reason for using the software Microsoft Publisher is because I wasn’t fully confident with the Photoshop software which is a slight disadvantage because this software is an International Standard Graphics and Image manipulation software, however this is not available on my home laptop therefore Microsoft Publisher worked well. All the images I used on these texts were still images from my music video; I used these due to the results on my poll. For the font of the band name I used the website http://www.dafont.com/ to get the design from. Once the texts were completed I printed them off and for the Digipak cover I glued it together onto cardboard and cut it out and took photographs of it looking like a real Digipak case. A similar technique was used for the magazine advert promoting the Digipak, the Publisher article was printed off and I placed it into a magazine to get an idea of what it would really look like.

To ensure that my music video contained enough content and conventions, I analysed it in the way I did with existing texts earlier in the planning. I have written about the editing, mise en scene and cinematography. After doing this I do believe I have included enough conventions to create voyeuristic pleasure and follows traditional forms and conventions of real media text therefore my video is a success.

If I was to do this project again there are many things I would do to make the end result better. Such as I would choose a genre I am much more familiar with, even though I do like indie music, I am fonder of more Pop/RnB music. I would most definitely do much more audience research, perhaps asking more questions related the music in general not just my work. I am aware that I left most of the filming a little late, which encouraged me to rush around which could have made my work look sloppy. The main aspect I would ensure I did better would be evaluating my work as I progress and being able to criticise my own work so that I could improve it.