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

Our music video was of the acoustic genre. Artists such as the Plain White T’s and Newton Faulkner and James Morrison are acoustic artists. We used some of the conventions from their videos, challenged others and developed a lot of them too. We did this through the filming, the post production and the finishing touches to the music video, and in the designing, construction and finishing touches to the digipak.


Chris Cohen is a very simplistic artist. His songs are very monotonic and he only seems to sing about relationships. This is one strong convention of the acoustic genre, that all of the artists sing about a relationship being maintained, or a broken down one. This connotes a sense of pride or sadness, happiness or upset within the artist’s life and therefore makes the song and video more meaningful as a whole. I felt I should use this and reflect the same connotations into the music video for ‘If You Only Knew’. The lyrics for the song were very typical, and therefore we wanted to play on them. We took the opportunity to cut between the male and the female characters during the video, and to tell both sides of the story. This was a challenged convention, as normally, in most of the videos by acoustic artists such as the ones mentioned above, the story seems to be circulated around the male artist.
Telling the story was based on the photograph that was ripped at the beginning by the female in anger, and brought together at the end by both characters. Newton Faulkner’s video Dream Catch Me uses the photo as a basis for the storyline, and almost tells both sides of the story. We used the close ups of the female and male characters such as Faulkner does and developed them into the lip syncs from both characters. The video also uses close ups of the instruments and the photos. The photo is a big symbolic image in the video and without it the video probably wouldn’t make much sense.



Having the video in black and white was a choice we made as a group. The argument is in colour because it shows the couple together whereas the black and white layout for the rest of the video reflects the sadness that the couple are not together. I think the video also possesses a little bit of the male gaze. It is the female who comes back to the male, not the other way around. This could show that the female is weak and can’t survive without the male. The representation of the two characters is therefore biased, but I think it is naturally biased because of the nature of the genre.
Different to other acoustic videos, our narrative isn’t a linear narrative. We have a circular and convergent narrative. We start at the beginning but we keep coming back to the scene of the argument or flashbacks throughout the video. It is a convergent narrative because the two different stories of the male and female come together in the end. Typically, the videos that I have watched by the artists that are on Chris Cohen’s inspirations list are of a basic linear narrative from beginning to end. One video that is pretty much the same as our video has to be Plain White T’s – Hey There Delilah. It uses the close ups of the instruments and characters and also the typical break up story.



The continuity between the video, the digipak and the magazine advert I think is crucial. We are creating the promotional Chris Cohen package. For example, I own many James Morrison albums. All of them use the same font and the same style and the same idea. I used this convention and used the same font for all my lyrics, titles and comments in both my digipak and advert. I felt that using the stills from the music video in both too would link them together quite nicely. The black and white and the similarity between all 3 of the products emphasises the simplicity of the genre as well. Wacky colours would not suit the acoustic genre as it is just too simple. Some people associate colours with days, in the same way I associated the acoustic genre with black and white simple photography.
The conventions that I have used, challenged and developed have given me a greater understanding of genre and subgenre. Cohen’s music is very basic and similar. To create a promo package that has multiple platforms is difficult for such an artist, but I used the conventional ways that other artists have successfully used and put them towards my work. I feel that this has categorised my work and secured it within the genre it is intended.

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

During the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages of my final products, I used many technologies to achieve the overall finish. Firstly, our production group used the internet to find an unsigned artist, and to use their song. The internet proved very useful and was fast at giving us results in what we needed and listed in categories to make our search less stressful. We used the website Unsigned Band Web and this was very helpful also. I agree that we used this site as a last minute option, but the option was the only one available to us. The internet as a new media technology certainly proved itself useful at this point, and at a few other points during the stages. When Chris Cohen realised we had a music video on YouTube using his song, he used the internet and social networking site MySpace to spread the video link.
To film our music video, we used digital video cameras and a tripod. The cameras were very useful in that we could choose the settings for the shots; the contrast, the colour, the distance and the framework. I enjoyed working with the cameras because they were so easy to use, and quite self-explanatory. The post production was probably the most fascinating part. During the editing process we used Premiere Elements and this was incredible. You can use so many tools to improve a certain shot rather than having to re-film it, you can also change the speed of the shot; for example our argument scene at the beginning of our video was slowed right down to create a slow motion memory feeling.
With our digipaks and magazine adverts, we all used Photoshop. This proved entirely useful as well. I took photographs using digital stills cameras and my mobile phone and changed the colour to black and white. I also took stills from our music video on YouTube and put them in my CD cover. When in Photoshop, I could move the images about, change their contrast, add text to them, airbrush them and make them look more professional, and even control how much of an image I wanted, and crop the rest of it. I enjoyed using Photoshop as it really made a difficult job into a very simple design working time. In the beginning I was unsure about the whole idea of it, but I soon became accustomed.
Our whole work is put onto a blog to be assessed. We use the website Blogspot or Blogger. It is again so simple to use, and it’s easy to upload slideshows and PowerPoint’s too. A lot of my work is based around Blogger and its advantages are that it is easily accessible. I don’t need to give my teacher a hard copy of an essay or an evaluation; I can just simply send him a link to my blog. This way, I know that he has got it, rather than losing a paper copy. The disadvantages include the fact that a piece of work can’t be marked in much detail if it is on a blog. A teacher can’t pinpoint a sentence or paragraph or phrase in a blog post, they can only mark the text as a whole without detailed responses.
Media students are now becoming involved in the debate about Web 2.0 and ‘amateur producers’. Because we are producing work that is of a ‘professional’ standard (i.e. we have the technologies available to produce work of a high standard for our educational position), people in the media world with qualified media jobs are hitting out at us. Cheap distribution through sites like YouTube and Blogger is reducing the ‘street cred’ (if you like) of the media world. There are not very many jobs available in the media, and people feel that young and ‘amateur’ producers are exploiting this. In my personal opinion, we are not making films and videos to intentionally get a job within the media, we are doing it either for enjoyment, fulfilment, something to do or just because it’s what we enjoy.

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.

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

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.

Hello!

New media blog! Here it is!


Here is a video of my favourite song at the minute.