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. 

Construction: Day Ten

Today we worked on the ancillary tasks for our music video project which includes a digipak and and advertisement. We started with the digipak where we had to use Photoshop and measure out the dimensions that were needed for it to be the correct size of a real digipak. We then had to decide on photographs for the front cover (seen on the right) and for the song listings (seen in the middle). We made these choices because of the three girls lying on the floor looking upwards at where the songs are listed (in the clouds), however, we are still undecided at what is to go on the left of our first digipak. We then went on to decide on the typeface and the positioning of the text, this is important because the digipak must look as professional as possible. We downloaded several fonts from DaFont and used different fonts for the band name, album name and the song listings. We chose to do this because we want to make our digipak as 'un-static' as possible. We also thought that it was important that our song listings and album name were in clear, bold fonts that the potential audience would be able to read quickly and easily. 

Furthermore, we also want to incorporate the concept of our music video into our digipak and eventually our advertisement. This is focusing on bright and blocky colours that catch the audiences attention and reinforcing the unity of the girl band which is also important to our target audience (which is younger girls who see friendship as important). When completed, we want our digipak to be professional because it is important that the band that we have created would actually have potential within the music industry.

First Draft Music Video

Construction: Day Nine

Today, our group decided to re-shoot the green screens that we are going to be using throughout the video as our performance shots. To do this we had to independently set up the green screens in our media classroom, thinking about the lighting, framing and the creases (which were an issue last time). We done all this in reply to our feedback which suggested that the shots in our first draft video were very 'static' and we should include more close ups. When actually filming, which we can see a photograph of Amie doing underneath, we had to ensure that our lip synching was in perfect timing even more than before, because of the fact that the shots are now close up. Furthermore, as we can also see below, there are various shadows behind Amie when we were filming which were due to the placement of the lights, however, after uploading our footage we discovered that these can easily eliminated on Premiere Pro when we add the block colours that we want using the Ultra Key and then playing around with the saturation of the frame.

Construction: Day Eight

 

We have faced a number of technical issues when editing our music video. One of these issues has been with the green screens because there are visible creases in the background that have proven very difficult to remove. Our group tried using the Sixteen Point Garbage Matte, but it didn't work out well for our background, so we decided to remove the effect and go ahead with re-shooting our green-screen shots to get rid of creases in the background.

However, our group did use ProcAmp to modify the colour of the background for all of the clips. In Libby's green-screen, the creases in the background have gone, thanks to playing with the brightness, contrast and saturation of the ProcAmp effect. This is a more vibrant, brighter colour, that catches the viewers attention even more than before. It also adheres to our genre and links back to the concept that we had before we even starting filming, which was 'bright and blocky colours'.

As we can see above, there are visible creases and shadows in Maddie's shot (with the green background), but no visible creases in my shot (with the blue background) nor Amie's shot with the orange background.

These other clips look a lot more vibrant now than before, thanks to the ProcAmp effect, by playing around with the brightness, contrast and saturation. This manages to disguise the gloomy weather on a typical November afternoon in London. We chose to increase the vibrancy of these colours in particular because they are very conventional of the pop genre. We have incorporated this all into the narrative of the video which highlights the three girls having the perfect day.

Construction: Day Seven

We have been continued to edit over the course of this week. We also completed our first draft and received feedback from our peers which allowed us to understand further what we need to do to improve. We decided that we didn't have a wide enough range of shot types. For example, you can see in the bottom photograph that we have continuous long shots running through the video and we can see in the top photograph that we also have enough mid shots, so we need to work on different angles and close ups. We also decided (after looking back on various conventional pop videos similar to the one that we are trying to create) that we do not cut our clips quick enough during the entire duration of the video (see Move by Little Mix below) so in order to work on this we have been cutting clips and moving them around, whilst ensuring that they are still in sync to make the video faster paced and more exciting. This is seen in the middle photograph above. Finally, we have also decided to include more narrative in our work. This will mean shooting more cutaways which will give the audience the opportunity to understand the girls individual personalities. 

 

Construction: Day Six

This is a zoomed in section of the editing process that we have been going through on Premiere Pro. The blue clip on the top line is the clip of my green screen and the pink clip underneath is the colour that we have inserted to replace the green in the green screen. The green clip right at the bottom is the soundtrack to our music video that runs all the way through. 

During the course of the week, we have been continuing to edit using Premiere Pro, this has taught me various skills that will be valuable throughout the A2 course such as how to sync up the music to the actions on screen, how to cut clips and how to add a block colour behind us performing in front of the green screens (which is shown above in the second photograph). We have encountered several minor problems whilst editing such as clips last such as the music not syncing correctly and not having enough footage for when we got towards the end of the video, however, we have documented this and have already decided what to improve in our second draft.

Construction: Day Five

This is the photograph that we are going to use for our album cover. We believe that it is very conventional of a girl band (which shows a strong link to our concept) and reinforces the idea of unity and friendship because of our positioning in the photograph. The colours and costume (which are also included in our video) also prove that we are one artist and makes us stand out.

This is a photo of the view that we wanted to incorporate into the background of our music video.

The photos of us as a group that we could potentially use for our album cover, they are a perfect representation of us a group which is clearly reflected in the mise en scene of the image which highlights us being a group (in unity) and dressing in correlation which the genre which we are trying to adhere too.

On Friday, our group went to London to film because it was one of our locations that represent the perfect day. When filming we done several runs of the whole song in different locations such as the bridge that we are standing on in front of the London Eye and also a section of grass behind the Southbank. We also took some photographs as a group for our digipak and CD cover because we were in full costume and thought that it will be relevant. When filming, we encountered problems that we had to overcome such as framing, lighting and location, however, we managed to make all shots the best that they can be. Furthermore, we filmed cutaways whilst we were in London of what we saw as stereotypical actions for the girls to be carrying out, such as laughing, taking photographs, pointing at maps, posing with the street artists and jumping off of the walls. These will be inter cut between the performance shots throughout the video and will contribute to the narrative.

Construction: Day Four

Today we went to Morden Hall Park and filmed the bridge section where the three band members meet up and before they take the journey to their perfect day. We decided to use Morden Hall Park because it has a more picturesque setting. The photograph above shows me and Charlie setting up the camera and tripod in order to create both the perfect shot and to make sure our mise en scene was correct according to the genre of our music video. 

We have decided to re-shoot the clips that we took in Morden Hall Park because they establish the narrative (so they are very important) but they are not completely in focus, which is something that we need to work on to improve our camera work and mise en scene.  

Construction: Day Three

These are the photographs that I took when setting up the green screens for our second round of filming. In the first picture we see me, Amie and Maddie performing together as a group, we are wearing the appropriate costume and the composition of the shot has been framed so that we can see our facial expressions. In the second photo we see Charlie setting up one of the three lights that we used to film with the green screen and eliminate any shadows. In the third photo we see Maddie taking part in a solo test shot which we done perform each of us filmed/performed. Finally, in the fourth photo we see Amie helping to set up the green screen, something that we all took part in and allowed us to gain technical knowledge by doing. 

We also encountered some problems when rendering our work, so have decided to use Premiere Pro to edit the remainder of our video instead of Final Cut Express. This has already proven to be much more effective when editing together as a group. 

During editing, we realised that the mid shots that we took of each of the girls have a very high quality, but the close ups are out of focus and in some cases, blurry. This means that in order to have consistently smooth mise en scene, we will need to re-shoot these clips. These will mean that in our finished piece, we can have lots of performance shots that can be inter-cut with narrative and quickly cut, which is what we have been aiming for throughout this project. 

Construction: Day Two

These are some screen grabs of things that we decided to go back to Amie's house to re-shoot because of composition, lighting and mise en scene all of which we thought would contribute to making our music video more successful. We filmed Amie waking up again, which was immediately more successful and then we reshot Amie putting on lipgloss because of the dark lighting beforehand and also tried to see what it would be like if she put on perfume too. These will all take part at the beginning of the video and contribute to the narrative which we want to be conveyed as 'the perfect day'.

Construction: Day One

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These are screen grabs of the shots that we filmed on our first filming experience. They were shot in Amie's house in the bedrooms which are stereotypically pink and girly which we thought was a good representation of our genre. We did not have to lip synch when filming this section because it is going to be used in the introduction of the video where it is instrumental only.  We filmed each shot from a variety of different angles in order to get the best result possible. We also tried to use a variety of different shot types so the mise en scene is more varied. We then uploaded the footage and began to edit it using Final Cut Express.