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

When we were creating our main product and our ancillary texts, we had to think about the importance of the link between them. When looking at real media texts, we realised that there was a strong positive correlation between the aesthetics of the music video and the digipak and advertisement. In order for our own work to adhere to these conventions, we had to consider colour, costume, lyrics and mise en scene. We also had to think about the message that we were trying to convey, for example, in our music video, we performed against either brightly coloured or natural backgrounds. Therefore, on our digipak, we had our photograph taken against grass, included flowers, the clouds and thought about the overall band image in order for these two products to adhere to one another. 

Something else that we tried to incorporate into our main product and our ancillary tasks was the main star persona of Miss Melody. This is something that we have communicated through our use of genre and the concept that we have created. Miss Melody is stereotypically aimed at females between the ages of 8-18. This is because audience members would feel as if they could relate to the band members or aspire to be like them (which would be relevant for the younger audience that we attract). We also continuously reinforce the importance of friendship in our main product because of the unity of the girls seen in their general friendship, the cutaways and the dance routine, and in our ancillary texts through the composition of the photographs and the fonts, texts and colour that we use.  

Here are some examples of how we have emphasised the band's overall star persona: 

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

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

In this post, I will be discussing the forms and conventions of real media products. In the research process that I carried out before the creation of my media products, I discovered the conventions that have to be followed in both music videos and ancillary texts (the CD cover and advertisement). 

Here are the conventions of a Pop music video: 

1. There is usually a link between the lyrics being sung, and the visuals that we see on screen. 

 

2. There is usually a link between the editing and the visuals, like when a music video is cut to the beat of the song. 

 

3. There is usually high key lighting and bright colours. This attracts attention and drags the audience in. 

 

4. The costume in the video will be whatever is currently fashionable. This attracts a younger and stereotypically 'cooler' audience. 

5. The artists in the video are usually young, this is so their audience can relate to them. 

6. Most pop music videos contain a concept/narrative based on love. 

 

7. There are often references to both the artist and the name of the song to remind the audience of what they are about. 

 

8. The artist is often shown performing at at least one point during the video. 

 

9. There are often close ups of the artists face in pop video, this is so the audience gets a real connection with the artist.

 

10. Artists sometimes feature a recurring motif in their videos which makes them recognisable. This could be an item of clothing or a physical feature. 

Here are the conventions of a CD cover:  

1. The name of the album 

2. The name of the artist/band 

3. A photograph of the artist/band 

4. A barcode   

5. A spine (which also often has the name of the artist and album again)

Here are the conventions of an advertisement: 

1. The name of the album 

2. The name of the artist/band 

4. A photograph of the artist/band 

5. A website (more recent since modern technologies have improved)

6. Release information/a date 

 

7. A logo

In this video I discuss the ways in which my media product uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products. This was important in the construction of meaning within both my music video and my ancillary texts because in order for our products to look as professional as possible, inspiration needed to be taken from products that were similar to our own. The main artists that I took inspiration from were Little Mix, The Sugababes and One Direction. These are all artists from within the Pop genre.

Final Draft Ancillary

This is the final draft for our ancillary tasks. The advertisement is on top and then the digipak (or album cover) is beneath. We are very happy with the final outcome because it successfully communicates the Pop genre, whilst connoting our concept of bright, blocky colours and most importantly, friendship. We have also included all of the stereotypical features of an advertisement and a digipak, such as the band website, record label, a barcode and the the record label which they are signed too. All these elements ensure our work looks as professional as possible.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

 

For question three of our evaluation, we had to reflect on the feedback that we have received from our audience. We chose to ask questions to five different individuals with contrasting views and opinions. We asked them questions such as: 'What was your favourite part of the music video?' and 'What do you think that we could improve on?'. We chose to question mainly males about our video because we thought it would be interesting considering that our music video is stereotypically aimed at females. We carried out these questions because we wanted to know what people thought of our music video and how it could be improved. The most generic answer that we received from our question: 'What do you think we could improve on?' was that we needed to be even more enthusiastic within our performance. This is something that we have taken into consideration. Furthermore, our most generic answer that we received from our question: 'What was your favourite part of the music video?' was the London section that we filmed on Southbank and near the London Eye. This is something that we found challenging to film during the shooting process, but our hard work paid off in the end because it was very popular amongst our audience members. Another thing that was identified by our audience was the kick that we do as the final part of our dance routine, which we wanted to reinforce our unity and friendship within Miss Melody.

We also had to ask questions such as: 'Are we conventional of girl bands?' and 'Did the colour and mise en scene work well?' in order to get some answers that were specific to our genre and concept. The feedback that we received from these questions were very positive and the audience were very enthusiastic about the bright colours and the locations that we had used. We were also seen as conventional of girl bands by everyone we asked, reinforcing that our genre has been successfully established within our media text. During the planning process of our music video, we were adamant that bright and vibrant colours were going to be our concept and the main thing that we focused on within the video. This was something that was picked up by everyone that we asked and emphasises that our concept was also successful. 

Furthermore, it is very beneficial to carry out audience feedback and we have learnt things that we wouldn't have learnt elsewhere, such as contrasting views and opinions, what we need to improve on and why this is what we need to do. 

Here are some examples of the audience feedback that we received for the first draft of our music video. The generic improvements that we got suggest that we need to make our shots less static, increase the pace of our editing and add in more cutaways in order to contribute to the narrative of the video. These were all elements that we took into consideration when it came to the final draft of our music video. We added in cutaways such as the shots with the balloons and increased the amount of the dance routine that was shown. We also dramatically increased the pace of the editing, ensuring that it was still cut to the beat, but fast paced enough that it adhered to the genre of the video. Another piece of feedback that we took into consideration was the effort that we put into our performance. This includes things such as the enthusiasm that we give as Miss Melody. We tried to remove all parts of performance that didn't look as enthusiastic as possible.  

 

Here is an example of where we have used vibrant colour in our video, this reinforces our genre. 

Here is an example of where we have used cutaways, this contributes to the narrative of our video. 

 

Here is an example of a performance shot that we have encorprated into our video. This also shows our enthusiastic performance.

 

We also received some positive feedback that we tried to emphasise throughout our video. This was things such as the good use of the steady shots (meaning our filming was professional and controlled) and our mise en scene which was 'very bright and colourful', giving an accurate representation of the concept and the Pop genre. Furthermore, we thought that is was important that the unity within the girl band was continuously emphasised in order to attract our target audience. This is something that we have tried to reinforce through the use of the dance routine, the lyrics of the song, our performance and the costume/props that we use. Thankfully, this was noticed and commented on in our audience feedback.

Ancillary Task Progress

Here are some screen grabs from the improvements and progress that we have made on our Ancillary tasks over the past couple of weeks. The first screen grab is an edit that we created using PicMonkey, we had to crop out the previous background of the photograph, fill it in with baby pink and then at the hearts on top using the Bokeh effect. The second screen grab is the inside of our CD cover, we decided to use the image of my flowery shirt because it reinforces the genre and stereotypically, our target audience would be fashion conscious. The flower is also a reminder of the genre and the fact that flowers are natural and girly are representations that we want to adhere to within our album and especially our Feels So Good music video. The third screen grab was of an image that we decided not to use on our CD cover because it was too similar to our advertisement and the editing was not professional enough. The fourth screen grab is of our advertisement. To edit our advertisement, we used the brightness and contrast tool on Photoshop, we also had to think about the colour and the font that we used for our advertisement because it had to stand out, but it also had to be very contributing to the fact that we are advertising a girl band. The final screen grab is of the front cover of our CD cover. This is our strongest piece of ancillary work so far because all of the colours match and blend in with one another. We also had to think very carefully about the names of the songs on the rest of the album, our record label, and again the colours and fonts that we were using. I feel that our front album cover is particularly strong because of all these reasons. All of these screen grabs show our progress in the standard of work that we have created over the past two weeks.