Question 2: How affective is the combination of your main and ancillary products?

For both my main and ancillary tasks, I thought I should create something simple as Chris Cohen is quite a simple artist. I decided to have the continuity between both the music video and the digipak and magazine advert; the use of black and white colour tones was the basis for this continuous simplicity.

 

At the beginning when we first chose the song ‘If You Only Knew’ from Chris Cohen’s selection of songs (www.unsignedbandweb.com), we needed to choose what our video would be like. Because the nature of the song was unhappy as it was a song about relationship break-ups, so the colour tone needed to suit the mood. My production group and I chose to use black and white throughout the video (apart from at the beginning) to show the distance between the male and female character and to show the sadness they were experiencing. This is carried on into the ancillary print productions which are both fully black and white with only a touch of colour; blue around the edges of the album title and colourful Spotify, HMV and iTunes logos on the advert.

 

The genre of Chris Cohen’s music is of the acoustic genre, which is very simplistic and minimalist. I decided to reflect this in my work and use simple colours and fonts throughout my post-production and print work. I based this all on close ups of the guitar and wanted to focus on the instrumentation and the photo of the couple. The black and white, again, shows the simplicity and upset within the genre and meaning of the song. Most acoustic songs are about relationships and therefore this works well. The pictures that I used for the album cover are, in the majority, stills from the music video. Apart from the front cover, all these pictures show the continuity between the two products. The picture on the magazine advert took some debate to choose, but I eventually went for the picture on the back cover of my digipak. It represents the artist and the instrument beautifully and really boasts the work of the artist. Because we didn’t have a physical artist, we used the character in the video as our artist, and added performance elements into the video.
The main and ancillary tasks are linked in so many ways and this reinforces the meaning and the solitude represented within the song ‘If You Only Knew’. If we were to use bright colours in the music video, it would make relating to either character more difficult for the target audience, and lose the focus that is pushed upon the relationship. I feel that the music video and print productions reflect the conventions of the acoustic genre. We included lip syncs, close ups of the instruments and of the facial expressions of the characters, and a happy ending. These all played a massive part in linking together the main and ancillary tasks.

The importance of the continuity between all of the products is that we are creating a promotional package that can consist of many platforms. For example, Radiohead produce albums and music videos just like we have, but also have other products under their belt such as Radiohead water bottles, rain macs, etc. If we were to continue on the same path and carry on with our promo package, we would create simple things for our extras:
- a Chris Cohen guitar pick
- a branded notebook
- a signed photograph of Chris Cohen
- a guitar

These are just some of the many things we could sell to increase the platforms that are included in the Chris Cohen promotional package. This could possibly increase the popularity of Cohen himself, and would therefore create a new basis for his music.

Final Music Video

This is the final cut of our music video for Chris Cohen's 'If You Only Knew'.

Magazine Advert for the release of the Digipak

Magazine Advert

Final CD Cover

Front Cover

Lyrics

Biography

Behind CD

Back Cover

EXCITING!!

Today in our media lesson, we checked Chris Cohen's (our artist) myspace blog and he hs written a comment and posted a link to our youtube roungh cut music video! This means he has watched it. I will youtube our final version and send him the link to that! :D :D :D :D

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=489014703&blogId=527501584

Media and Collective Identity notes

How do I create my identity?
• Clothes
• Job
• Appearance
• Friendship groups
• Sexuality
• Childhood background
• Education
• Wealth/status
• Religion
• Ethnicity
• Mother tongue
• Technology
• Video games
• Age
• Family
• Friends
• Social class
• Community
• School, clubs, groups, hobbies
• Social networking sites

How does the media communicate collective identity?
How do media texts arouse audiences’ sense of national pride or disgust, antagonism or ambivalence?

What makes you feel British?
• The Royal Family
• Tea
• Fish and chips
• Doc Martens
• Parka
• Big Ben
• Doctor Who
• London Eye
• Houses of Parliament
• Buckingham Palace
• England Flag (St George) and Union Jack
• Farmers
• Terrace houses
• Cobbled streets
• Red letterboxes
• Red telephone boxes
• Double Decker buses
• Baked beans
• Corrie and ‘Enders
• Guy Fawkes
• Punch and Judy
• Chicken Tikka Masala
• Queuing
• Full English breakfast (fry up)
• Shakespeare
• Baden-Powell
• Marmite
• The BBC

FOCUS ON THE ROOTS OF SOCIAL REALISM IN FILM AND TV
You can reference:
• News
• Magazines
• Newspapers
• Radio
• Television
• Internet
• Film

Students should create case studies on certain feature films or television drama. They can reference any aspect of the media – sports events are especially explicit displays of identity.

Radio 4 Today programme 1.2.10
A discussion about Andy Murray losing the Australian Open against Federer. The discussion centered on collective identity, for example, if Murray had won he would have been called a great British player. Because he has lost, he is called a great Scottish player.

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

For my audience feedback I decided to use the social networking site 'Facebook' as it is the one I use the most, and I felt I could get a sample group from there that is close to my target audience. My target audience consists of teenagers and young adults from the age of 15 to about 25. The music video and print productions will appeal to both males and females, however, I think the music video will appeal more to males as the male character appears more and the storyline is more focused around the male. Furthermore, the song is by a male so that may contribute too. I also believe the productions will appeal to: esteem seekers who are acquisitive and materialistic and aspire to what they see as symbols of success, including things and experiences; innovators that are self-confident risk-takers, seeking new and different things and set their own targets to achieve; and strivers that attach importance to image and status as a means of enabling acceptance by their peer group and at the same time hold onto traditional values. Most of our audience, therefore, will be members of the lower B, C1, C2 and the higher D. But mostly C and D as they are only probably in part-time or small jobs, the smallest of which could be a paper round.

If I was to generalise, the audience would have small part-time jobs like paper rounds or shop assistants. This is generalised and may not be necessarily true. Most of my focus group have small part-time jobs, but a couple have highly paid jobs. The audience that we expect to view our music video and buy our CD can be of any race or culture but the video cast consists of only a white male and a white female so therefore those of other than white British culture may not have anyone to relate to in it and may not wish to watch it at all. If we were to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of our production, this would definitely be one of the weaknesses.

I ended up with a sample group of 11 people that I chose myself. These were the people that were either involved in a band, or knew what my work entailed. They were close to the demographic groups C1, C2, C3 and D. The important facts were that I had uploaded the JPEGs of my CD Cover and posted a link to my ancillary texts video and my final cut music video on YouTube. New technologies definitely helped me gain a wider understanding of what my target audience liked or disliked about my productions, and what they wanted to get from them.

My group consisted of 6 males and 5 females. They were aged between 15 being the youngest and 22 being the oldest, so overall were the perfect group for my target audience. I uploaded the pictures of my digipak and magazine advert to Facebook so that any members of my group could comment on them and specify what the liked or didn't like. I sent out a Facebook email to the whole of my focus group, and asked a couple of extra people that I had missed from the email but that I thought would be important in my overall conclusion. I had previously gained information from comments that people had left on my rough cut music video on YouTube. These were helpful and they also contributed to my final research findings that led me to the final version of everything. A lot of the points that my discussion group came up with were all similar to each other, and I realised that audiences do actually relate to the characters in the music video in the same way and have the same ideas.

I expected a lot more feedback from my focus group but only 4 out of the 11 replied. However, these comments proved helpful and I have just had to make do with them. I learnt that Facebook and other social networking sites were valuable in the research for my promo package. I felt relieved that I had such positive feedback; things like 'can't fault any of it, I love the simplicity' and 'the hand on the front cover draws the audience's attention to the CD'. For me, the best thing was that my target audience was in control of what they wanted to see on the digipak. If they didn't like it, they said what I should change. For example, the biography I had to change because one of my focus group members said it was too long. Therefore I have shortened it down.

Therefore I have learnt that the audience has such an impact on whether a music video/song/abum does well. If they do not like the appearance, they will not buy the product. I am happy that the continuity of my pieces is controlled and is consistent throughout. My focus group have led me in the direction of a better piece and, hopefully, a more successful piece.