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Video Evaluation

This is a video of my group and I talking about our product, how we came to research and create it.

Evaluation

Our media product uses, develops, challenges forms and conventions of real media products firstly by the video being a stereotypical love story. It has a narrative that is easy to follow and has a twist. (The girl likes the boy, finally gathers up the courage to face up to him and finds out he is in love with someone else.) This follows the typical conventions of an acoustic music video because it is usually about love and a scenario that can happen in real life. Our narrative fits with our target audience; it is aimed at teenagers 13-20 years old. It fits well because this is situation which presents numerous issues for teenagers to deal with. People can relate to the video and therefore will purchase it.

The video itself is a narrative and a performance, when editing it was suggested that the performance was in black and white, this was there to show it was not part of the narrative.

This challenges some conventions of a real media product because most of the time the performance is wanted to link directly to the narrative and most of them are in the colour. We thought that by changing this the message of the song will be put across clearly and our artist will be seen more as the singer she is than just a girl acting in a music video.

We used the artist in the narrative (as shown on the left) because 'use somebody' is her first song, she is new to the music industry and we thought that putting her in the video would help to get the audience recognising her as an artist and listening to her songs.

The video helps develop forms of real media products because it is there to tell a story; for example when the artist is sitting at the window and see the lead male walk past the way she uses facial expressions and body language connotes that she likes him, the way she is hidden behind the window shows that she is shy. We used the shot for when the words "someone like you, and all you know, and how you speak' were sung. We did this so it linked to artists emotion from the shot. We always tried to link the words with the shot to help tell the story but we also developed our knowledge as directors to get the artist to portray this in her acting scenes. We feel this develops forms of real media products because this is what a lot of media products do, especially for the acoustic genre.

We followed typical conventions of media products by using editing to help put our music video together and make it flow. An example of this is when the scene changes; at the beginning of the music video she is watching the sunset. We then put in cross fade, this allows the transition of the shots change smoothly but also acts as a 'dream like' movement in which someone is remembering the story. This fits well with our narrative because the song is a slow tempo and is about the past, things moving slowly or barely changing. The editing programme we used was 'Adobe Premier Elements' .

The Cd covers followed the conventions of a real media product indefinitely. We used a close up of the artist for our front cover image and kept the continuity of font, colour and style through our media products. The close up allows us to advertise the CD when it is on the shelf, it speaks for itself. The audience is drawn into the picture which then leads onto them looking at the name and the CD name. A blur is used in the background to ensure all focus is on the artist and it makes her face stand out more as it contrasts. An effect from Photo Shop ' Lipstick' has been used to make her eyes blue. This stands out against the black and white background and the colour blue connotes calmness and is a natural colour for our outside world (e.g sky) this follows the conventions of the acoustic genre. We made the picture black and white because in the song 'use somebody' for our music video we decided on a narrative and performance. To distinguish between the two, we edited the performance to show in black and white, this is why this picture has been edited in this way to, linking it to our other products. I feel that these edits have followed conventions because real media products will have been edited and changed to make the product itself look better in order to get it to persuade people to buy it.


The tour poster follows the conventions of a real media product because continuity has been kept throughout, the tour poster was one of the last products made and we had to ensure that it reflected the rest of out media products. You can see this with the font; her name is the same and this font resembles a signature which makes it authentic and portrays that this artist is real to the audience. The colour is feminine and stands out against the black Background, once again advertising who the artist is. We have put the dates underneath her name and near the top because they are important information that the audience needs to know, the quicker they find it the more time they have to explore the artist. We have challenged the characteristics of a tour poster slightly as we haven't used an image of the artist on it. That is why the name is at the top and big, because that is how she is going to be recognised. We haven't used a picture because if she is off to do a tour she should have an audience already and will be famous enough to be recognised just by her name at this point. The picture of a set has been used, this set looks like it is ready for the artist to go on stage and perform. We used the chair and microphone in this way because it adds a sense of mystery to the poster and will persuade people to investigate to find out. I think that adding mystery is a good idea because it helps to sell the products.





The combination of our main product, and ancillary texts is effective because it illustrates how we have created a complete promotion package. The video is effective, and we know this because of the positive feedback from our focus groups.As a group we decided to keep the same idea’s in our minds throughout for each product we were creating. This ensured that we could keep a consistent theme and style throughout the media products. This linked them as a package because of the similar styles and themes throughout, when put together and combined, I think our products work very well together. It was important for us to make sure that our music video, CD cover and Tour Poster combined together well and had similarities between them. This is because we wanted out products to look realistic and professional, we wanted them to look the best they could but also link.


We kept the colours, font, artists name the same throughout and this really enhanced the look of our products because there was a consistency. We look at ways in which we could make our products look professional and came up with a music logo 'MOR' this logo can be found on our products and is there to illustrate the music company and also to show the products are linked together. 

We asked a total of fifteen questions, below are ten where the focus group picked from one the the answer we had given. The other five required the group to give their own opinion.
We asked an equal amount of females and males to answer the questions and they were from a range of ages. We did this because we could then approach different target audiences as well as the target audience we wanted to aim for. We found that all the participants understood the narrative and this meant that we had clearly portrayed the story and our intentions of the video gave out the message clearly. The audience all thought the video was suitable for teenagers and adults, this illustrated that by setting a target audience

Technology played a major part in the research construction and production of our products. It helped us use sources to research music videos; which in turn helped us and gave ideas for our music video. We could access CD covers and tour posters to study and analyse and this supported us in making our own because we could look at the codes and conventions which made the ancillary products look professional.

You tube has allowed us access to music videos which we researched and analysed; this helped us look at the music video in detail. We looked at genre characteristics, relationships between lyrics, visuals and the music, inter-textual references. We also camera angles and shots, by doing this we could pick apart the videos and note down what detail we could use and follow in order to create our product to the best it could be.

When evaluating the video we could use you tube as a base in which to advertise the video and create focus groups for feedback. This really helped our evaluation stage because we could gather feedback from people after they had watched the video and then use any opinion they had to correct the video to improve it. It allowed us to target a wider audience from all around the world and see how the evaluation stages of creating a music video works. The evaluation stage on you tube also acts a research stage for the future.

Photoshop is another programme we used for the creation of the CD covers and tour poster. After using the internet to research CD covers and tour poster we explored each one and took traits from them to produce our own. After creating mock ups of what we wanted we began to take pictures to use. Photoshop is an editing programme that helped to manipulate the picture to how we wanted it and to add text and other images.

To construct the CD covers and tour poster we wanted to keep a consistent style throughout and photo shop allowed us to do that because we could save the different fonts and colours to use on each one. We created our own music logo ‘MOR’ and photo shop allowed us to do this through the use of inserting pictures and editing it with text. Photoshop has programmes to create effects and this can be seen on the back of the CD cover, we created a ‘spotlight’ effect and it was to relate to the artist on stage with spotlights but also to act as a way to reveal the songs.

Photo shop has been a good programme to use because it allows you to keep a consistent theme, and can do a number of things in which you can use it to control what you want. Photo shop allows you to give your products a professional look and we had good feedback about it which meant we had followed all the codes and conventions and direected it at the right target audience.

Our Finished Music Video

Audience Feedback Questionnaire

This is our audience feedback in graph form, we did the feedback like this because it made it easier to understand and make it easier to evaluate our product. We handed out 10 questionnaires 5 to males and 5 to females; these people were between the ages 11-44+. We did this because we wanted a fair range of people to recieve feedback from.

As our target audience was 13-20 females, we thought that asking these two questions would help us to see if we had achieved what we wanted. The results show that the focus group feedback think its is suitable for teenagers and females, however a fair quantity thought it was suitable for both gender which was a bonus for us aswell could expand our audience.



Tour Poster

This is our tour poster, it follows the design of our CD covers with font, colours and layout. The background is black, this is because it is the same on the CD cover, but also so that the main image and writing stands out.

We used a picture of a chair and microphone as the main image because the album and tour is called I'm ready now. The image shows the stage set up ready for the artist to go on, connoting she is ready now. It also represents the main song form her album; the music video we created "use somebody" because we took the line "I'm Ready Now" from that song. It portrays her life and is telling the audience that she is ready to go out into the music industry.

The artist's name is in the same fount and colour as the CD cover to keep the codes and conventions of typical music commodities. By placing the name at the top, it automatically draws in the audiences attention because of the bright colours and because it is at the top of the poster. 

The name of the album is directly underneath, this matches the CD cover and also informs the audience what the tour is called. It is in the colour white because it represents her to be pure and angelic because this is her first tour. It also stands out against the black background, and contrast showing that there is some mystery in her tour because the colour black represents that.

We put the tour dates directly underneath the artist's name so it is the next thing that is seen. We have done this because the audience would want this information as quick as possible.

Overall I think that the tour poster is effective because it creates mystery for the artist, persuading people to see the tour. The people who look at the tour poster will generally have her album and would be her target audience, therefore an image isn't needed to draw the audience in because they would already know who she was.

Cd Cover inners

This is our left Cd cover inner we have kept it extremely simple. We have done this because the focus in on front and back cover and the CD inside the case. By just writing 'I'm Ready Now' in the bottom right-hand corner we are just repeating the name of the CD  to the consumer as it is important they remember the name. It is has being kept minimal because all the covers have been edited and designed in the same way.

This is our right CD cover. This also is simple because they CD covers most of it in the case so pictures and elaborate designs are a waste of money and time. We have used the black background again as it is our design of the CD covers. In the bottom right-hand corner we have put the record labels logo. This is there to promote the logo and also to represent the artist.

Cd Cover Back

This is the back of our CD cover. We kept the font and colours the same as the front of the CD, we did this because it is part of the same product and looks tidy, and professional. The back ground is black this colour connotes mystery, however in the top right-hand corner there is a spotlight effect that was edited on 'Photo Shop'. We did this because this CD is part of the artist's show, it gives the effect that it is at a concert and shining on the song titles as if were revealing them.

The song number have been written out in white we did this because the acoustic genre is very relaxed, we did not want our product to be formal with capital letters so we moved away from the conventional ( 1. Rainy Day) and put our own spin on it. The names of the songs follow, they are in the same colour as the artists names showing that they are linked with the artist and they are hers. The names of out songs have been thought about and linked to a theme matching acoustic genres which is love and life. Each title will be a personal song for the artists and their name suggests that. They are down the left third because the spotlight is in the right third and is suppose to revealing the songs in that setup. To make our Product look professional we have added a bar code and a copyright fringment.

We created a logo ( MOR Music) and this represents the artist and puts her with a professional record label and also advertises the record label for future clients. We used the image of headphones in the logo because they are a simple, and great representation of music.

Overall the back of the CD cover has been kept simple, we haven't used an image of our artist on the back because the one used on the front is very powerful and eye catching enough. The simplicity on the this cover suits the genre well.

Cd Cover Front

This is the final front for our Cd Cover. We used a close up of the artist because it will look extremely effective when it is on a shelf. This is because it can be seen from far away and will draw the audiences attention in. Another reason we did a close up is to show off the artists facial expressions which are there to connote 'longing' and 'waiting' this is to reflect our narrative from our music video so it all links together. The artist has minimal makeup on and we asked her to do this to fit the typical conventions of an acoustic singer. Usually they are naturally pretty and do not wear a lot of makeup, this is because this genre is seen as natural and pure; true beauty is within.

This picture has been edited (On Photo shop) from the original so it fits our product well and will sell the product and the artist. Firstly this picture was changed form colour to black and white, we did this because in the song 'use somebody' for our music video we decided on a narrative and performance. To distinguish between the two, we edited the performance to show in black and white, this is why this picture has been edited in this way too. It shows that the artist is the one telling the story even though she is in the narrative you have to separate her from it.

The second edit was cropping the picture, we needed it to be a close up and having too much of the picture ruined this effect. I then used photo shop to blur out the background. I did this because it allows the consumer to focus on her picture and nothing to distract them in the background; the artist is the unique selling point and the most important part of this commodity.

We decided to make her eyes stand out, so I used a tool called 'lipstick' to colour them blue. I did this because it makes her eyes stand out and draws in the attention of potential consumers for the artists music. The colour blue is calming, it can be strong and steadfast or light and friendly and this fits in well with the acoustic genre.

The writing on the CD cover is saying her name 'Lucy Jennings' we used a slanted font; this represented that she was delicate and we wanted it to look like she had signed it herself. The colour we used was a light coral, this colour is very feminine. It contrasts with the background so it stands out and could be related to the summer, illustrating that the album is upbeat and happy. Her name is in the bottom third, I dont think it is important enough to be at the top but she is a new artist and therefore her name is still needed to associate the album with her. The words 'I'm Ready Now' is directly underneath her name. This is the name of the album and is put directly beneath because the audience will see that after they have been drawn in from the picture and the name they see the album name. We used a simple clear font for this because it is there to make a statement, it is to tell the world she is ready to share her music and move out into the society. It is also a main line from the song used for the music video which keeps everything linked and shows its relevance. It is in white so it is seen and that colour is seen as pure; she is just starting out fresh and pure so it reflects her.

Finally the last edit is the border this just finishes the product off nicely as it neatens it up and helps to define the cover image.

Ancillary Texts Drafts

We hand drew some drafts before creating the ancillary texts so that we knew what we wnated before producing them on the computer programmes. It allowed us to see what it would look like before making it and this saved us time because it meant we could simply copy the design onto the computer.

Choosing The Song

We started to research acoustic songs, as that was the genre we chose.  We looked on the Internet and came across songs like:
I’m Yours by Jason Mraz
Hey There Delilah by Plain White T’s
Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen
Your Love Is Mine by Corinne Bailey Rae

These songs all represented the acoustic genre well, but were not what we were looking for. We wanted a medium paced song for a female artist to sing. We the looked at Kings Of Leon ' Use somebody' and throughout researching this song we found another version which was covered by Pixie Lott.
Here is the original song not the video.

This is now Pixie Lott's Version with video

There is a significance difference between the two versions and Pixie Lott's version was the perfect song for out artist to sing. We would have to make a few alterations to the pitch of the song to suit our artist and out our own spin on it.

Cd/ Tour Poster Cover Images

Here are some of the images we considered to use on the CD and Tour poster covers.

This photo really reflects an acoustic genre. It is sunny and in a park which shows it is all natural and summery. The model has sunglasses on; this illustrates that it is hot and is a common prop for an acoustic artist to have. We saw this in Jason Mraz's 'I'm Yours' music video. The reason we didn't use this video for our CD covers or tour poster is that the picture does not sell the artist. You cannot see her face clearly and therefore it is not as effective as seeing a close up of the artist and been able to see her eyes.

We used this photo for the front of our CD cover. We did this because it is a close up of the artist, you can see her facial expression clearly; we wanted her face to look as though she is longing for someone. This is because it reflects the song 'use somebody' and the narrative in our music video. The picture has been edited a little to black and white and this is because we wanted it to link to the performance from the music video ( which is also in black and white, to distinguish it from the narrative). We have done this because we wanted to tell the audience that she is the singer,and although she may be in the narrative she is the one telling the story .

The Project So Far...

We have had three filming sessions so far in which the majority of the video has been filmed. Editing has been going on throughout to make sure that we are ready for the next bit of video. Throughout the filming process, we have found it hard to stay on deadline as our artist is unavailable some of the time. This has a huge effect on us because we struggle to get shots filmed as she is the lead character in our music video.
Another set back for us has been the weather, in order to have good continuity we needed the weather to be dry and light. This isn't only to keep continuity but the snow, would not have fit in with our perception of what an acoustic music video is like; sunny, and bright days.
During the slow progress on the filming we have made use and started creating our CD covers and tour poster with some pictures we took of the artist before.

Artists Costume Ideas

We dressed the artist in a  similar top to this when we filmed the studio scenes. We did this because its a laid back outfit which could help to represent the acoustic genre.  The artist had a red checked shirt on, but when editing we decided to do the studio scenes in black and white. We thought that it would show simplicity but also reflect how she was feeling if we used these dull colours and made her clothes the same. The black and white was also a way to communicate to the audience that this was not part of the narrative.

We dressed the artist in some blue skinny jeans. These jeans were just a casual pair, and this just illustrates that the artist is the same as everyone else, she isn't a diva and her music is there for you to relax and chill out to. Once again this was in the studio scenes when it was set to black and white.

In the opening, ending and woods scene, we dressed the artist in a similar dress to this. it was pastel colours and had flowers on. We did this because we wanted her to keep to the acoustic genre of the girls usually wearing pretty flowery dresses. We also put a coat on her to illustrate the time of year it is,which is winter, as this is usually the time of year when being single affects people most. The coldness of the winter makes people feel down and this song is there to illustrate that it does happen and relate to people who are going through this.

There were many different scenes in which the artist had different clothes on and this was there to show that it was a different day and place. We did this because out narrative involves showing an unrequited loved over time and how everyday when she sees him shes never noticed. The different number of outifts portrays the amount of days she wastes on trying to attract his attention and how that itself didnt work.