Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The project we were assigned to was the creation of making a music promo and two other promotional products for advertisement purposes of the artist as well as the song/album release. We used the website ‘unsigned.com’ to come across an unsigned, new artist and chose one of their songs to base our project around. The song we chose from the unsigned artist was then the song used to create our music promo and using this, as well as artist information we created a digipak and a magazine advert to advertise the artist and song/album release. Most bands use these aspects of advertisement as they are looking at expanding in the music industry as well as getting their name across all major music channels nationwide.

The purpose of these three elements – the music promo, digipak and magazine advert is to promote the new artists work towards their target market. Without these promotional materials artists don’t have a greater chance of connecting with their audience successfully due to a lack of exposer being viewed. These promotional materials aim to give of a better understanding and knowledge about the artist as well as giving the target market an idea of what the artist and their music is about.

The aspects within a music promo will help show the personality of the artist to the target audience as some of their own thought, ideas and opinions would have been involved so the audience can create their own opinions on the song as well as the artist. The record company that was responsible for the release of the artists will also benefit from the artists promo as it gives them a chance to be well known as to just being heard over the radio etc – it gives the audience an understanding of what name fits to the face.

Here is an example of a digipak from the artist Rihanna which is a method used for more advertisement of her as well as her music. Rihanna is a huge artist and is well established. As you can see the main focus of this is Rihanna, she is featuring on all the covers due to her being her own selling point. The eye catching images of the artist, album name and other features of this digipak are features we are hoping to use within our digipak, as well as our production and magazine advert also.

The main purpose of a music promotion is to promote the artist/band in the best possible way. This could be done by creating a unique, different music promo to make the artist stand out to other artists as well as to gain more attraction from the

target market. This way a wider range of people will be encouraged to listen/watch the artist perform which would increase sales. Having the audience watch the artist perform gives them a sense of creation behind the lyrics as well as the narrative being shown in the video. Various aspects would be expected in a music promo from people watching, these are,

Performance – shots are expected to be mostly of the band/artist performing and can range from shots such as a close up which would simply just show the emotion of the performer singing to an establishing shot to show the surroundings or shot of the band/artist. Shots of instruments are often shown; this can be done from a variety of different shots but will show the idea of what genre is being performed as well as giving a better idea of the band/artists style.

This shot is from the band McFly with their song ‘That Girl’. As you can see their performance side of their promo is based around shots of the band as well as them playing the instruments. This is something pop rock artists do within their promo which is something we’re hoping to achieve.

Narrative – this is often the second part of a music video due to most promos being mixed between performance and narrative. Narrative is often used to focus the audience of the story and meaning behind the lyrics to which the artist thinks – this would depend mainly on the genre of the track also. Different artists would have a different approach of how to show narrative in their music video, some would tend to be straight forward to help show the audience the ideas of their music as well as the emotions they want the audience to come across. Others can act simply on performance which would also depend on the genre of the track whereas some promos could mix between the both. There are three main parts that music promos seem to be based around; one of these is illustration which can simply just show the lyrics on the screen throughout parts of the promo, this keeps the promo simple yet still effective. An example of a music video using this method is ‘Fireflies by Owl City’ – this promo involves the artist playing a keyboard while other gadgets move around him. Various words are a stand out and are illustrated through electronics in the room.

Amplification is used in a music video and is based around not displaying the lyrics of the song on the screen and still manages to keep the meaning of the song focused on in a different way – this would mainly be used in marketing promotion. Finally, disjuncture is completely different to illustration and is used to ignore the meaning behind the song and display a different meaning throughout the video compared to the lyrics. This is still an effective part of displaying a music video/promo but could confuse the viewer into what the lyrics actually mean.

Camera work – camera work in a music promo simply depends to what genre of track is being used for example, within a rock or pop promo camera work would be quick and fast to keep up with the beat of the song and could also connote closely towards the artist/band. However, within an acoustic genre music video camera work would be smoother and less quick paced for example, a slow zoom effect would take place that would simply just work well together with the slow paced song.

Editing – when editing a music video the shots usually change within the beat of the song which would connote successfully with the audience when synced well. If it is not structured well within the song, editing would not be successful and the music promo wouldn’t be as successful. A lot of different shot types are used depending on the genre used however; most promos involve straight cuts as they are simple and work effectively with the beat of the song. The one shot that is used repeatedly is a close up which is used as the main focus to the audience to the performer/artist. This would suggest the audience feel closer to the performer – something they may not achieve when seeing them live. Normally the only sound heard within a music promo is the track itself however; unconventional music promos have an effect of putting the sound of the narrative through to set the mise-en-scene of the promo. This is something used effectively that will connote with the audience successfully.

The mise-en-scene in music promos again depends on the type of genre – locations vary from each genre for example, rock genres would typically be located at a rock concert of some sort whereas an acoustic genre would be location somewhere more peaceful such as outside in a park, field etc. The mise-en-scene would work effectively depending on the track as well as props used to create the atmosphere.

This pop rock promo helps show how genre affects the style of video as it shows establishing shots of the band on various occasions during the performance part of the promo as well as this, mid-shots or close-ups of individual band members are used when the focus is on them musically. This connotes that the band are the main attraction of the promo itself. There is a simple idea behind the promo by using both narrative and performance keeping a mixed view to the audience to see, letting the song be the main element throughout the promo.

Elements included in a pop rock genre are;

Foundations by Kate Nash)

 Moodswings (To Come at Me Like That) by Charlotte Church)

Both these videos influenced us a lot when creating our music promo due to the elements used within these. This is the use of stop motion used effectively that we were hoping to achieve in our promo as well as connoting to the audience successfully through this. Although Kate Nash isn’t a pop rock artist, Charlotte Church is a successful pop artist so we able to use elements within their promo and change it slightly towards ours.

This influenced us as we enjoyed the stop motion used within the music promo when watching. In the clip, Charlotte Church is sat in the same room on the same chair where stop motion is used in the changing of her clothes. We than aimed to do this while Jack (the performer in our music video) sat on the bed, singing the lyrics while he’s clothes changed. This was due to us thinking this was a simple, yet effective way to create a pop rock promo successfully connecting to the audience.

This influenced us as well due to the success of stop motion that has been used within this promo. In this clip, Kate Nash has used the success of objects around the mise-en-scene to move in the form of stop motion. This works well in the style of her song – something which we tried to create when planning/filming/editing our music promo. Using the lyrics from our chosen song we came up with the idea of using the clock as stop motion and how it would move from each clip, creating stop motion. If worked well, this would be something simple, yet effective within our music promo.

We kept our music video conventional in showing the performer singing to the song in the performance side of the promo. This showed his connection towards the song as well as to the audience. We had an equal amount of mix towards the narrative and performance within our video to which we were influenced by Kate Nash and her video ‘Foundations’ – this is due also due to the fair amount of mix between the two. We kept the editing to our promo relatively simple – something a pop rock promo tends to do. We had straight cuts between each shot. We thought this was something that would fit within the song as well as providing a simple effect to the promo. As well as this, we had various shots in slow motion compared to others to create a sense of time going slowly – something that connects to the lyrics.

We used a variety of different shots ranging from long shots, mid shots to high angle shots etc. This was a way of showing the actor at different angles throughout the promo and how it showed what happened throughout the day as it seems – connecting to the lyrics successfully.

We used the same location for our music video throughout the performance and narrative but used this effectively to our advantage. We used the setting of a house as we thought this fitted in well with the lyrics we analysed. For the pop rock genre, the location simply relates to the lyrics and how the artist wants to get across the song to the audience, either through narrative, performance or both. Locations can vary from outside through garages showing the band performing to having the artist perform on stage to their audience – something that shows a connection between the artist and audience. This can be shown in Rihanna’s music promo ‘Cheers (Drink to That) as it shows her performing to her fans as well as showing her life outside performing.

This is an example of a promo by Rihanna who has used conventions of the pop rock genre successfully for example, both narrative and performance has been used. Her performance side has been shown through her performing to her fans on a stage – a typical element used in a pop rock promo. However, her narrative side of her promo is shown by her having fun outside her performer zone – simply doing things other people would do. On the other hand, Kate Nash and her promo Foundations have used the same setting throughout. It is simply set in her house and has moments where she is singing along to the lyrics – something we used in our promo. Other times is when narrative comes in and she simply does things round the house connecting with the lyrics – also something we contained in our promo.

Conventions of a magazine advert and digipak:

Magazine advert conventions contain,

·         The name of the artist/band

·         Information on tour dates – places etc

·         Release date

·         An image of the artist – often the main focus of the advert

Digipak conventions contain,

·         The name of the artist/band

·         Album title

·         List of tracts

·         Background information about the artist

·         Reviews – from magazines – used to increase sales

·         Images of the artist/band – stills from the promo

  

·         large, centred image marketing the artist

·         white and gold text – stand out from the background

·         additional information – shows the success of the artist

·         includes record labels – show who the artist is signed to

·         artists name

·         album name

·         each element of the digipak contains an image of the artist – showing she is the main focus

·         stills from the promo

Before creating our two promotional activities a lot of research had to be done in order for this to be successful towards marketing our artist. We decided to use elements of the promo for both of these in order for them all to connect successfully as a promotional package for example; we used t-shirts in our promo to spell out the song title ‘fun’. We then simple used this as the main background in our magazine advert as well as a section of our digipak. We had the actor/performer of the promo as the main, centred image of our advert to show who the main focus is. We also used this image in the digipak as well as other conventions of a digipak such as lyrics of the song, track titles etc to create these two activities. This way the promo, digipak and magazine advert connected well together creating a successful promotional package our target audience will enjoy.

·         Key information for advertising purposes – a subtle title is shown not focusing the image

·         The centred image of the performer/artist shows he is the main focus and relation towards the production itself

·         The colours portray the overall genre of the artist – bright colours suggest the song is fun and well as eye catching due to the ancillary tasks

·         The information is clear and easy to read

·         Key information showing tour dates and background information about the artist – something the audience would want to know

·         Having the lyrics placed on the back of the digipak gives a connection to the audience – also having the track titles would be something the audience would like to see

Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

These three products work well together as a promotional package as they successfully advertise the artist Ryan Helman. They all include the same elements for example, the t-shirts with the song title on, the costumes the performer is wearing, the sign displayed with the artists name etc. This way the audience is quickly aware that these three belong together and work successfully in promoting the artist. As well as this, we used the same features throughout our package for example, same images, font style, and stills from the promo which all link together well and each individual element will promote the other one successfully as well as promoting the artist successfully.

Each element of this promotional package will be exhibited using familiar media methods for example, music channels, music magazines and record stores. This is because our target markets still use these methods to find out about a new artist as well as enjoying their music style. As our promo is related in the pop rock genre, our video will fit into these media methods due to the conventions used which our target market will enjoy as well as it running throughout all the promotional packages also. This will therefore create a positive amount of attention towards our products as well as create a good amount of promotion towards them. However, the only problem with these media methods is that less people are visiting these types of stores and finding their music in other ways such as newer media methods for example, Facebook, YouTube, ITunes and on the web. This is why we will also be exhibiting our promotional package through newer media as more and more people are now using this method and listening/buying more music this way. Therefore, if we don’t use this type of method there is a chance that we could miss out on a large number of potential audiences that we could target our package to. The advantages of more and more people using these methods is that our package will be easily seen and spread to various target audiences which would likely increase our sales.

We would also need to think about where our individual products would be distributed from and how choosing the right one will be a success for the whole promorional package. After researching several music instiutions I have chosen 4 music to broadcast and promote our music video due to the channel fitting the pop rock genre well rather than channels such as Karrang. As well as this, this could work to our advantage as 4 music creates connections with other music channels, so our target audeince may see the advertisment on another channel by not purposly watching it.

Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

When carrying out our audience research we thought we’d get a much wider variety of responses through interviews rather than using questionnaire results. This is due to questionnaires not always allowing the person answering to give the results they think and give responses they think is correct for the questions – this would mean the results we have would not be valid. Using an interview process allows the interviewee to be more open about their responses as well as giving a reason for their answers with clear explanations that we can work from. The question asked were ranged from what is your favourite music promo to what conventions to you expect to see in a pop rock genre promo. As the responses were more clear and typically better to work from we were able to start developing our own ideas into our promo using elements round in our audience research as this is what our target market expect to see.

From our audience research we were able to see that there were a few conventions that we should use when creating our pop rock genre promo. One of these was to combine narrative and performance so a story was going along as well as the artist advertising themselves musically. As well as this, the comment quick shots were used so the promo didn’t linger too much. For this to happen a maximum of a 3-4 second scene would take place as most records in the pop rock genre have a typical beat of 4 seconds so this is an easy place to add in various different shots.

I feel that this method of collecting data is more successful than others due to the amount of information we received from our intended target market - these are people aged18-27. However, if we were able to ask a few more people, still in our intended age range, we could have got more results to work from. This still worked well though and we were able to use these results to produce a promo that will typically fit in with their expectations for this specific genre for example, quick shots working towards the beat and a mixture of narrative and perormance.

As well as this, we carried out another set of interview responses relating to our promotional package as a whole.

This feedback was a success due to us finding out what elements worked well within our promotional package and what didn’t. As it was from another individuals point of view, we were able to ask a variety of aged people to see what all targets markets said. This helped us work out that if we were to do this again, what elements we would change as it didn’t work to the success we hoped and what elements we would keep as it worked well. It also gave us a clear understanding to if we were able to get the message across successfully to the target market and whether or not is was clear enough to understand. If not, then this would be something we’d need to change as it may not be a success in sales if it went in the market.

Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

To overcome to issues of copyright we had to use the website ‘unsigned.com’ to find an artist and a track from them to which we would use to produce a music video from. The websites layout was very helpful as it had drop down menus to what genre of music was there so it was easier to find tracks that we liked. This helped us find a track quickly and start planning what to do next. As well as this, information was listed about artists as well as the tracks available which we were able to listen to freely. Using this site meant that we were able to use the song freely and have a better chance of contacting the artist for their permission, soundtrack and lyrics of the chosen song.

We used the social networking site Facebook purely for the fact audience research had to be done to what people thought of our music promo within the pop rock genre. We thought this would be a good source due to this being a well-known site that most people use nowadays. We were able to post up our video and see what responses we got back, good or bad. We also used the site Windows Live Hotmail to contact the artist for his permission to use his song. This method was quick and simple to use and within a few days he had emailed back with the lyrics and soundtrack to the song we chose to use.

YouTube was a beneficial site due to us being able to research into different genres of music videos as well as those in our chosen genre so we would explore conventions that we could possibly use within our promo – watching pop rock promos gave us the chance to see what worked well and what didn’t in that type of genre. As feedback is given on YouTube videos we were able to see certain individuals responses to certain videos and whether or not they production was a success or not.

iMovie was the technology used when creating our music promo – this was a programme used within a Mac and what is used mainly in the media department. We were able to use this for copying over our footage, selecting certain bits and editing them together in the form of a music video. Certain elements like transitions and effects would be used when needed or necessary within promos

As well as this, Photoshop was also used in the making of our ancillary tasks of making a magazine advert and digipak. We were able to use this programme to create a professional looked product and different effects could be used on for example, cutting pictures, using the magic eraser tool etc. we were able to use this programme to the best of our ability and help us create our plans we had set to a professional finish. Although sometimes throughout creating our ancillary tasks we used the programme Paint as a backup for Photoshop – this is due to it having relatively similar elements so if Photoshop wasn’t working we had a simple solution to use.

From this piece of work I have learnt and developed new shooting skills while filming our final production. This has helped me have a clear understanding of what shot types work effectively and create a more successful production as well as improving the overall aspect of the promo for example; having various different shot types creates an overfull better production. This is something that I understood well and helped me create more effective shots to make the promo more effective. I have already learnt that having a high quality camera provides a high quality image – this is something important in a music promo as the shot needs to completely clear and how planned through research. This way the focus can be zooms of various aspects such as the location etc. This is something I learnt through my preliminary as we didn’t focus much of the location and more of the characters and story behind the lyrics. For our main production we made sure we focused on every aspect in detail including the setting so the audience had a better understanding on the whole promo.

From this piece of work I have learnt and developed new editing skills in an effective way so the final production didn’t go over the top in editing techniques. We used the editing technique of using stop motion within our promo as we thought it would work well within the lyrics. As well as this, we thought that we could make this music video a little humerous so adding this make it quite effective. By using these editing effects created a unique music promo that works well with the lyrics. Editing is something I feel I have improved on since my preliminary as we didn’t try any unique editing skills and worked effectively.

Through using the programmes on the Apple Macs I have learnt how to develop me three products successfully to a high quality standard. iMovie was used to create our music promo to a perfect finish with various editing techniques used with these. This was a way we could change our ideas easily and play around with different editing techniques to see if they worked well. Photoshop was also used for the usage of creating our digipak and magazine advert. This gave our products a high quality finish and also gave us the chance to play around with editing to see what worked effectively. By researching beforehand, we were able to see other artists promotional packages in the same genre to see what aspects were used effectively. This way we would use some of their ideas into ours. From looking at our promotional package, we used the same format throughout. We used the same images, text and overall appearance so the audience was aware that they all belong together. This shows a development in skills as well as using techniques that I haven’t used before – something the hopefully worked well.

We used iMovie to edit our final production as well as adding transitions that fitted in well – this helped our final production have a professional look towards it. We used the editing in this programme to change to past of some footage to a much slower use – this helped us create a longer, lasting effect that worked well.

We used Photoshop to create our two ancillary tasks – a magazine advert and digipak. This was used to prefect our products more professional as well as using various aspects of other artists promotional packages. We used the editing in this programme to create a professional finish to our production as we could crop, overlap certain images to create a style we thought suited the promo. With this in mind, we used several of the same images throughout so the audience had an idea that these products all work together effectively.

Some problems that we were faced with whilst filming were;

The use of props was an issue when filming as were unfortunate to not have a key prop that we needed. As many pop rock promos have a performer singing many with props of instruments we thought about having our performer singing along to the lyrics with a guitar. We asked a good friend of ours if we could use theirs but when we got to filming it was no longer in use. This caused a problem for us as we didn’t have time to replace it. To overcome the issues we just simply had the performer singing the lyrics with no props. Although this did put us down and make our production not as effective as it could have been, there was nothing we could do.

Other problems when filming was the issue with lighting. As we were filming inside for our location, there were various points were lighting would shine in the windows causing problems with the camera. This was then hard to film as we had to be careful where to film as the light was putting up the brightness contrast. To overcome the issue we simply just shut the curtains and put on a source of light, this was the picture contrast stayed the same throughout the production. However, when editing onto the macs we still had a problem with the lighting. This meant we had to change the contrast on some shots using the editing tools on iMovie. This gave us a better picture to work on and saved us going out and filming again.

The last issue we faced was the lip syncing through editing and how our performer would get the lyrics spot on with the track. We found for most parts this wasn’t an issue but some other parts were just so out of sync we couldn’t use the footage as it didn’t match. To overcome this issue we simply just slowed some of the footage down. As we already had certain footage slowed down purposely for the promo this wasn’t a problem as it fitted in well. This gave us a more successful clip and professional look as the syncing worked successfully. However, some bits are still slightly not right, but not too obvious to tell.

I used Blogger as a mean of writing down all our planning towards our actual production as well as our ancillary tasks. This helped us keep a clear track and order of everything we did so we were able to see what we had achieved when coming to the actual making of it – this was helpful due to it being quick to find as well as extra research into various aspects of these three products.

We used various search engines as a way of finding information for research and planning. Search engines such as Google was effective as it gave us thousands of reliable results which we could work from. We also used these search engines in a way of contacting our artist – this was useful as we were more aware of the artist we were producing a music promo around and how we might use his background of music a story behind the lyrics.

We used the programme iTunes for sourcing our chosen track. Once we contacted the artist and he sent us a copy of the track, we could easily copy it over to iTunes which gave us an easy access to the song at any chosen point while filming. We would then simply add the song into our finished production for better quality of the track.