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

The Task



How we used conventions of the genre





Directors' Commentary

Influences on our work

A big influence to us was the Mumford and Sons video Whispers in the Dark. We were very keen on the style of editing in this video. This promo is kept constantly interesting and watchable because the screen is split into quarters. We felt that this was a very effective technique because it means there is always something to watch, because four different things are happening at once. The shots change at different times, but usually cut to the beat which is another idea we were inspired by. We liked that the shots change one after the other rather than at the same time. This would be quite challenging because we would have to almost create four different videos that are engaging to watch. While we used this idea throughout the video, we thought it would be effective if at some points we returned to just one shot on screen. We though this emphasise certain lyrics or mark the turning point of the song when the girl starts to sing very angrily.    

Having studied the editing of Whispers in the Dark quite closely, we also adopted the idea of having the shots come onscreen one after the other, and having the moments when the shots change staggered. Again, this would ensure that audience interest is maintained. The pictures below show how we had the shots appearing one after another. We enhanced some of the ideas we got from the Mumford and Sons video by trying different techniques. For example at some points we had the same shot but four of them on screen, sometimes we had the same shot but mirrored it and other times we paused shots so only one would be in motion.

Another video that inspired us was the iconic Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel. We found the use of stop motion to be very interesting and would bring another element to the video. A lot of videos use the same sort of techniques throughout the entire video, buit we were keen to keep ours changing. We thought about ways to use stop motion in our video while not making it comical like in Sledgehammer, and making relevant to the tone and themes of the song. We chose to link it to the lyrics ‘ink settling in’, ‘they crack and bleed all over again’ and ‘piercing in my spine’ by having lines drawn down the performer’s arms and back like crack in her skin. This was very successful because it is quite a dramatic image, and it was especially effective when the cracking happened to the strumming of the guitar. 

The mise-en-scene of our video was inspired by Adele’s Rolling in the Deep. The styles are quite similar because we have the idea of lots of symbolic occurrences seen in the video, like how in her video we see china smashing, glasses vibrating and her singing alone, and in ours we show paint dripping, objects being destroyed and the singer alone. These events have connotations of anger and heartbreak and we though images like this would work the feeling of our chosen song. The performance and narrative are closely combined in the style of these videos.

Gotye inspired our music video as well as our ancillary tasks. Because he is an indie pop artist whose music shares the acoustic feel that our song had, we looked at how the video suited the sound of the music. It is a video entirely filmed in one room - much like our video. We also liked many of the shots used; close ups to see the emotion of the singer and mid shots to see the body and the action of the video while still seeing the singer's face. This is another video that used the stop-motion technique, and our use of it ended up being quite similar. We drew cracks along the performer's body while they drew lines from the walls onto the body. I think that looking at how this video executed this unusual and quirky tone, and the events built up as the music did, was a good guide for us and our own planning.

Magazine Advert and Digipak

Question 2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Script for our presentation:

For further information about the combination of our three products:

Our three promotional materials work together mainly because of the themes that are seen running throughout the three of them. The unique selling point of the video is the use of paint. This is the main theme in the video which we created from using the lyrics of the song. Because this is the main points of interest in the video, we thought it would combine the main product and ancillaries well using synergy. People would remember seeing the paint in the video and make the connection when they see the digipak and magazine advert. This is what makes a successful promotional package because there is a clear image that connects the three.

We also made sure that the image of the artist stayed consistent as well. In all three materials she is wearing the same dress and has the same hairstyle. This is another way we connected the promotional package, because it makes the artist recognisable. It is also good to promote the artist with one image because it highlights what sort of artist she is and what to expect when watching her video or listening to her music. The designs of the digipak, magazine advert and video tied in nicely together, especially with the use of colours. We made sure that the paint colours were pastel colours because this would be more feminine and overall more attractive than bright saturated colours. In the two ancillary texts we stuck to the four colours teal, blue, pink and purple. These colours looked very pleasant together and they matched some of the paint colours used in the video. I also think the fact we used the design of the advert for the front cover of the digipak was a good technique because it connects the two products and shows a well thought out promotion package.

The designs of the three products represent our performer in quite a unique way. The dramatic photographs in black and white with a serious expression show her as quite an artistic and creative way. It gives the impression that her music is more thoughtful and has meaning to it, rather than a typical pop star whose image has bright colours and fun materialistic images. This artist is concerned about her music and the messages she tries to convey through it. The way we reference the Marilyn Monroe artwork through the ancillary tasks suggests that this singer knows a lot about art, and has a lot of different inspiration. 

Obviously the magazine advert will be displayed in a magazine, but it is important to make a good choice in exhibition so it is a magazine that will be read by the target audience. Magazines like Kerrang may be a successful music magazine, but it is specifically for the rock genre. The advert would not be seen by our target audience – young females- in a magazine like this. It would probably make more sense for our artist to be promoted in magazine like Shout! Which – although they are not specifically for music- they will be read by the target audience. With the bright feminine design of our advert it would suit a teen magazine such as this, because it obviously has the right target audience. In magazines like Shout! There are interviews with pop stars and celebrities, so even if this isn’t specifically a music magazine it will be relevant to a lot of the content. This is the sort of magazine that may have an interview with a singer like Andrea Storm Kaden so it would work well with the whole image of the artist. 

Because our artist is up-to-date and relatable for young people, it is important for her promotion to use new technologies. The digipak has a stylish design so it would be important for it to be promoted in stores like HMV, so it can actually be bought as a physical album. However we would promote it on iTunes as well because this is how a lot of music is bought nowadays. It is crucial that we make her music available to download because it is such a simple method for people to buy music, and people are more likely to buy music from the internet which they can do at home than going to a shop to buy an album. We would want to use both these mediums because – as seen through the intertextuality of our ancillary task designs- we want Andrea to be represented as retro and value traditional things like having meaningful music and not selling out by adhering to the ‘Male gaze’, but we want her to be up to date as well by using the current technologies to reach the audience.

We must also consider where the music video itself will be exhibited. Until recently they were only viewed on music channels on television. However with the proliferation of smart phones and tablets people can watch them wherever they are. They can be found on websites like YouTube but they can also be shared through social media like Facebook and Twitter. This is an incredibly effective way of sharing videos, because people can send it to their friends, share it and discuss it. It is a very good way to get buzz going, for example we could create a Facebook page for Andrea Storm Kaden and we could promote the video through this. In addition, this is a medium popularly used by teenagers and this is our target audience. The positives of this method is that the video can be watched anywhere at any time, it is becoming increasingly popular, people can get talking about the video and it will reach more people. The problem with putting it only onto the music channel is that they are becoming less popular. People do not need to wait for the video to come on television anymore; they can watch it whenever they want on the internet. 

Question 3) What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

For any further details on what I have learnt from audience feedback:

We used a number of different methods to collect feedback from our target audience. This was throughout the whole process from research and planning to the editing. The first form of audience research we used was from creating a vox pop. A vox pop is a technique used to collect the opinions of members of the public on a certain topic. They are not planned but instead have honest responses because the interviewees have not heard the questions previously. It is a good way of getting a fast and honest response from many different people. We used a vox pop in the early stages of planning for our music video and asked the following questions: What is your favourite music video and why?, What is your favourite music genre?, How/when did you last watch a music video/what music video?, What conventions do you like to see?. We asked people around school from different year groups, which was fortunate because we were planning to create a video for younger people. This meant that the feedback really applied to us and what we were planning to do. It was helpful because it gave us a mix of views that were honest. The only disadvantage of this technique was that because people were being put on the spot, they often became anxious about what they were saying and questioned whether they were giving the ‘right’ answer, so some ended up not being in much detail when we would have liked them to expand a bit more. I analysed the vox pop responses and from this drew some conclusions on how it would affect our video. For example, many people had said that they like to see performance of the artist in music videos, so we ensured that we include it. People also said that they liked close-ups of the artist and use of animation, and this did result in us using these elements. 

Another method we used was a focus group. This meant we got a group of ten people to answer a set of planned questions about the song we have chosen, our ideas for a music video and music videos in general. We made sure that the people in the focus group were of our intended age range. These are the questions we asked: What genre would you say the song is? Do you like the initial concept? Why/why not?   Do you think that this is an original idea? What target audience would this appeal to? Is there any part of the concept that you would change?. Within the focus group we used a range of different question styles, for example, for some of them we asked for a thumbs up/thumbs down reply. This would give us a fast response without too much detail or discussion; it was just a yes or no question. For other questions we invited verbal feedback and discussion to get the group talking about it. This would be quite a natural way of getting opinions because people would normally have conversations about things like this. We also got written responses which meant people could go into a lot of detail, and also their answers would not be effected by anyone else’s because they had not discussed what they were writing.  Similarly to the vox pop, I analysed the focus group so we could draw some conclusions from the responses. Again this was a very successful form of research. It gave a lot more detail than the vox pop, because the interviewees were more confident to put forward their ideas when they were just discussing it in a relaxed way. This detail gave us more information to work with when planning the video. I also liked the range of methods we used in the focus group because we could learn what types of method are successful from this.

Another form of audience research we used was simply asking people individually their opinions and writing them down to draw conclusions from. After drawing the storyboards, we showed them to other people and asked their opinions of them. This was useful because we could record both positive feedback, and constructive criticism to build on. We used much of the feedback we received from this exercise for reference when filming and editing the video. This was a very simple technique, and was helpful because we gave people time to look through the storyboards and come up with some helpful feedback.

One of the most helpful forms of audience research we used was using polls. We signed up to the website ‘PollEverywhere’ which was very quick and simple to use. We could set up a question for the poll very quickly and ask lots of people to respond and they would text their answers to us. We used this when we needed a vote on what actress to use, when we created an early cut of the promo and needed feedback, and when we needed a vote on which magazine advert design was the most effective. This method was very useful to us, because lots of people could give opinions that are concise. The responses would come up on the website as soon as the text is sent, so we could see all of the replies together and as they appear. 

In order to gain final research for our completed products, we conducted another focus group. This involved the same people that took part in the one we did much earlier in the process. We thought this would be useful because they could see how the finished products looked in comparison to what we had planned. We first asked them to tell us if they liked the video with either a thumbs up or thumbs down. Fortunately all of them gave thumbs up, apart from one person who put theirs in the middle. This was very positive for us because we knew that we had been successful in creating a video that is appealing for these people, who fell into our intended target audience. We then asked them why they enjoyed it, and they all gave verbal feedback. We then asked them to write down what could have been improved and to give it a rating out of five for originality. The scores for originality were: 4, 5, 5, 3.5, 4, 3, 4, 4. We were very happy with these results because they were mostly high and were not below three. This shows that they believe our video was quite unique and this is something we were aiming for. The improvements given were mostly to improve the lip syncing in some places, use more variety of shots and maybe use less of the split screen. We thought that these were good points, because there are some points when the syncing is out slightly and if we had had more time or were to do it again we would address this. I also think it was an interesting point about the split screen because we had considered having more sections when we did not use it, but instead chose that this was to be the style of our video and wanted to use it a lot. It would have been interesting to see what the video would have been like if we had longer sections without the split screen. (Below will be the video of our second focus group).

In order to get feedback for the ancillary tasks, we set up another two polls for responses from the people in the focus group and from others we asked. Below are the responses:

This was another useful piece of research because we received positive feedback and constructive criticism. The responses for the digipak and the magazine advert were positive overall with some ideas for improvements. It was nice to see that for the digipak someone had made a connection with the paint and the meaning of the song. They thought it was good that it linked to how messy relationships can become. A few people also mentioned that they liked the colours used, and also that the different sides go well together and have elements that make them link. The fact that we made the ancillaries link to the video was definitely picked up by many of the people we asked because they thought this was effective. Someone commented that they thought the handprints looked childish; however this was contrasted by another person who pointed this out as something that they liked. It shows that perhaps things like this are really just down to personal opinion and taste. Someone said that the tracks on the back could be more central, and someone else said that they were hard to read. These were useful points because if it is actually difficult to read the track names then this should be addressed.

For the magazine the feedback again was very positive; people liked that it was clear what it was advertising, the connection to the video, how it represents indie pop, the colours and how it is attention grabbing. Someone also made the connection to the Andy Warhol picture which was really good to see, because it felt like we had shown the achieved the intended style. Someone mentioned that we could have used the red and white colours that are predominant in the beginning of the video; however we felt that we would not use these because they would not go as well with the colours of the paint. We wanted to limit the colours we were using. Someone mentioned that the cropping of the paint could have had more time spent on and we agreed that if we had more time then this would be something we would improve. Overall we were really pleased with the responses we got, the people we asked seemed to like the designs and the video very much, with just a few ideas of how we could improve. 

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

Created with Padlet

For further details on the technology I used in the production:

In order to find an artist for us to create a promotional music video for, we looked on the website Unsigned.com. This was because it is a way of finding an artist that has not yet been found by a record company to sign them. This would avoid copyright issues because we would know that the artist had not yet been discovered. We knew that we wanted to produce a video for the genre of indie pop, so we searched this genre specifically and found Andrea Storm Kaden. To get in contact with the artist we sent her an email. We asked her permission to use her song and she agreed, saying that if she liked it she would put it up on her YouTube channel. 

Throughout the whole process of producing a promotional music video, we used YouTube to find professional videos. This helped us in the early stages when we wanted to find the conventions of music videos in general, and those of our specific genre. Also when we were editing it was a useful tool because we could get inspiration for any issues we found. For example when we were unsure of a transition to use, or how long a shot should last we looked at videos that inspired us in the beginning like Mumford and Sons ‘Whispers in the Dark’. 

From the amount of filming that we undertook we learnt new skills about the process. For example, in the production we used a panning shot. We tried this two different ways to see what would work better. We did it just handheld for one try, and then tried it by holding the tripod and moving the camera from there. The tripod made the panning shot much smoother but the handheld shot had more control because it was closer and easier for us to watch on the camera screen what it looked like.

Another thing we learnt was about the lighting. Last year we had not used professional lighting but this year we borrowed a light from a technician. This really increased the quality of the video because the performer and the set was well lit, making the colours of the set and the facial expressions of the singer much clearer. It took us a while to get used to working the light, especially because we had to plug it into an electrical pack which was quite difficult to work. We did have two lights however one of them would not work, so we stuck to one and it still turned out well. The light was very useful because we could alter the size of the beam and move it back and forth to change where shadows were and to make sure the whole shot was lit.

Another thing we learnt was how to frame shots well. In the past we had not realised that you can frame the shot on the camera screen, but when you press record it cuts out some of the shot at the top and bottom. We soon got used to this issue and made sure that we press record to make sure everything fits before proceeding onto a take. 

To edit our video we chose to use the programme Final Cut Express. We started by using iMovie to get a rough cut of the footage, as this is a simpler programme and does not take as long to use. However it is not as good quality as Final Cut. We chose to push ourselves by learning completely different software from scratch, but it would result in a higher quality video because it is much more professional. Final Cut has more possibilities with editing techniques, and the footage looks better as well. We could not have split the screen in iMovie like we did in Final Cut, and we would not have been able to make the sections change individually. Final Cut also allows you to be more precise with editing, so syncing can be easier for lyrics. The difficulty with Final Cut is that after changing anything you must render it to view the video. This was very time consuming and made the editing process take much longer but it was worth it for a better video.

On Final Cut we learnt how to change the sizes of the shot and move them around, meaning we were able to execute our split screen idea. We also learnt how to do freeze frames so there would be some sections of the screen where the performing was miming the song and others where she was still. Using Final Cut we had to get used to controlling four separate channels along the bottom of the screen. Sometimes they would move along so we had to make sure it stayed in sync rather than moving around and making all of the footage out of timing.

An issue we found through editing was that at some points our singer had either made a mistake with the lyrics, or she did not open her mouth wide enough for it to look like she was singing the right lyrics. This meant it took a lot of time to find the right moment in the clip to sync to the song, or we had to shorten the clip to make it less obvious that it did not look right.

Another problem was that in some shots there were things that should not have been in the frame. Because Beth – our performer – was struggling to smash the guitar, Jess stood in to do this. We accidentally got her long hair in the shot, meaning that we had to crop it out and only use a small part of the clip so it was unlikely people would notice. There was also a part when I was throwing rose petals in front of a fan to blow on Beth’s face. I accidentally got in the corner of the shot so again this had to be cropped and shortened.

We still did use iMovie for one element of the video. At the last part of it we return to a full screen and show the footage rewinding so the paint lifts off the singer, the balloon inflates again and the guitar reforms. We used iMovie for this because we had used the rewinding technique before on there and it was very simple. Because this was one of the last parts of editing we did it meant we would save time rather than learning to do this on Final Cut. We exported this as a video from iMovie into Final Cut and it worked very well without issues.

A new skill we learnt which we were very happy with was the use of stop motion. We were inspired by this technique early on in the planning stages because we knew it was a technique we found enjoyable to watch, and wanted to learn it. When we were coming up with ideas for our video we created a short stop motion piece to display our ideas. We took lots of photographs of us holding a sheet of paper, and as we took more photos we added more words as if a sentence was growing on the page. We really enjoyed this task because we learnt a new technique from it that we would later use in our promo. We used the technique again for a short experiment when we were finding a way to show cracks growing down the arm of our performer. We wanted to do a practise of the technique to see if it would work and look good. We were happy with this, and then went on to use it in our promo a few different times.

Photoshop was another media technology that I had to become very familiar with for the production of the ancillary tasks. I had used it previously but not for a long time. One of the things I found difficult to understand with this programme was the use of layers. This was something it took me a while to get the hang of because it can be quite confusing. However once I had learnt how they work it made it much easier to operate. 

A very effective technique that I learned in Photoshop and used in the ancillaries was how to alter the colours of certain parts of a picture. I learnt that by using a magic wand I can draw around a certain part of a picture and make it into a new layer. For example here it was the paint on the singer’s head. I separated this from the rest of the picture, and because the paint was purple I changed it to blue using the hue/saturation option. Then because the singer’s face is a separate layer I could make it black and white with just the paint in colour. This draws attention to that part of the picture and makes it sound out which looks quite attractive. 

Another technique I learned was editing the opacity of images. At an early stage of creating this part of the digipak, we felt that the hands did not look very pleasant. Because the colours were so dark, they looked like they were supposed to be dead or dismembered hands. It also didn’t help that at that point all six hands were in quite claw-like positions. To change this we decided we would use different photographs so the hands would be in a range of positions. We also lightened the opacity of the hands, and both of these changes really managed to make them look more alive and elegant.

Blogger was a technology that I had used previously but used in a more advanced way for this unit. I learnt to create a blog with different headings on it so I could separate my work up into preliminary, research, planning, production and evaluation. Within these I put subheadings for different pieces of work I had uploaded so when they were clicked on it would go to another page.     

Exhibiting material online is beneficial because it means it will reach a wide range of people. It was helpful for us because we could show our digipak, magazine advert and promotional video and they could give honest opinions and feedback on the final products.