How did I use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

In terms of media technologies, particularly digital technology, I feel there has been an advancement over the two year course. This year has introduced me to some new technologies, acquiring new skills as well as developing existing ones.

Initially, with regards to research and planning, digital media has allowed me to be more thorough whilst investigating existing products for my music video. For example, the 24 hour music channels such as Viva and 4music enabled me to analyse conventions and styles of music videos as well as the Internet, exploiting sites such as YouTube for existing videos and people’s personal creative projects, really helped me to gain an understanding of what to include in my music video and how to include it. The use of Blogger for this blog, was particularly significant in aiding my research and planning, where I utilised all the features to my advantage such as adding hyperlinks and embedding videos, images and PDF files.

For the actual filming of our music video, we used a Panasonic HD Ready Camera, that is actually my dads, as we had a huge amount of problems with the school camera we used for our AS media film. We decided to use this camera as the picture quality is extremely clear, it came with a good, steady tri-pod,  the editing program supports the camera and most importantly, the battery life was very good (which was the main problem we had last year)!

The editing program we decided to use was Cyberlink PowerDirector, as we used this editing program for our AS film and therefore we already had a good understanding of how it worked. Although, we went onto the website to watch tutorials which helped us to gain a much further understanding of the editing programme and therefore helped to us with the editing process and enabled us to use more advanced editing skills for our music video. I feel deploying these new skills drastically enhanced the overall outcome of the video, increasing production values enormously.

As well as this, Photoshop CS3 played an important part in the development of my ancillary products, enabling me to create a very abstract and interesting image, from photo-manipulation, using an array of different image adjustments and filters. Without this, the designs would not nearly have looked as professional, abstract and interesting and therefore been less effective as real media texts.
Altogether the advance in media and digital technology this year for advanced portfolio has been huge, and has allowed me to be more flexible in my creative decision making, exploring new concept and ideas and successfully pursuing them.

What have I learned from my audience feedback?

In terms of audience feedback, initially, questionnaires were devised, for example the poll I created, asking the style of music video the audience preferred. Audience feedback is integral within the media industry, regarding film production as ultimately these will be the people viewing the product and therefore I made sure I obtained as much as possible during both research, planning, construction and evaluation stages. From the poll, I discovered that the audience preferred a performance based video, evidently a key aspect of my film. Had I not had this feedback, I may have opted for a different style of video and not pushed the idea of not having a narrative storyline for my music video.

During the production process, after each take we reviewed the clip, and showed different members of the public and the performers that are actually featured in the music video. This helped us gain knowledge of what an audience expect from a music video and the constructive criticism really helped us, as we could change or interpret the shots in a different way, making our final product the best it could possibly be. For example, we showed the dancers a section  of what we had just filmed of them performing, they really liked the shots but they thought it would be good for our music video if we shot them from a completely different angle/view, showing the audience reactions who were watching their show, as well as the dancers performance from a different, more interesting angle. Without this criticism, our music video would be very different as we would have just filmed them from a front view, therefore there would not be many contrasting and interesting shots of the dancers included in our video.

When the film was complete, I uploaded it to my YouTube account and subsequently linked this to my Facebook wall, where friends could view it. The feedback it got was extremely positive with lots of comments such as ‘amazing!’ and ‘fantastic work’ which made me confident that we had created a music video that our targeted audience are extremely interested in and impressed with. The fact these people actively decided to view my project supports the 'Uses and Gratifications' theory from Denis McQuail, suggesting that they chose to watch it for entertainment purposes, as a diversion (as Facebook is considered in itself) and to get intrinsic enjoyment which is primarily the purpose of music videos in order to promote the song.

Overall, from the audience feedback my music video received, I am confident that by following and challenging some of the conventions of a pop music video, that we have created a music video that targets specially to our chosen audience of teenagers and young people and that they have enjoyed to watch the upbeat and exciting video.

How effective is the combination of my main product and ancillary texts?

My extensive research and existing knowledge of DigiPaks and magazine adverts aided me in the production of my own texts, enabling me to create realistic, convincing products. Analysing conventions of ancillary products helped me realise how to manipulate the print narrative to ‘resolve the enigma’ – obviously being to promote the product and ultimately encourage audiences to purchase it. I attempted this for example, by offering key information in large bright coloured bold fonts to grab attention as well as combining popular online networking formats (facebook and twitter) as a method of synergy, as the audience is likely to use these sites and could therefore discover additional information about the artist.

My DigiPak and magazine advertisement poster are a very similar design, using images and colours from the actual music video. I wanted them all to relate in some way so it's a lot easier for the audience to recognise the ancillary products and link them to the music video, helping them to remember it and to hopefully buy the CD.

The images and colours I have used for my ancillary products are extremely bright, making them stand out on the shelf and hopefully help people to remember them. After researching into DigiPaks, I found that it is vital for your products to have a USP (unique selling point) as this will give my target audience a reason to invest and buy the product.

As well as grabbing the readers attention, it is extremely important to have vital information on the ancillary products, such as; release date, artist name, song titles, where to get it from etc. I have made sure that I have included these important things as without them, my target audience will not know where to get the song from and when, therefore no one will buy or download the song.

From the colours and images I chose to go on my ancillary products, they have helped to convey what the music video will be like, the genre of the song and video and hopefully will target the correct audience for my music video.

The text featured on my ancillary products is easy to digest, using simple but large, bold colourful font and elliptical sentences with the intention of sticking in the audience’s mind and is therefore effective as the audience is almost forced to gain a vast amount of information quickly without losing their attention.

All three products; the video, DigiPak and magazine poster, cohere due to the similar bright colours, bold text and abstract images, creating eye catching and exciting overall products and as a result I believe they form an effective marketing campaign.

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

Overall, looking back to my initial research into music videos of different genres, I'd say my music video develops the forms and conventions. In terms of the conventions of pop music videos, I feel my video follows these conventions as it involves dancing, bright, energetic and colourful scenes, has upbeat movement and camera shots and aims for a teenage audience. Although it follows these main conventions, it could also be seen to challenge them, as music videos often depict a story through different characters and locations (clearly professional music videos have higher budgets). In relation to my own music video, I have not created a particular storyline within my video as I did not feel it was needed with what I wanted to achieve to show the audience. I believed the dancers and people featured within the video did not need to be given a storyline as I wanted to create a sense of randomness and lots of things happening within my music video, to keep the mood upbeat and to excite the audience.


In terms of camera shots, music videos tend to include many long shots, close ups and mid shots. This is to create emphasis on the actors, location and emotions. Also, close ups are used not only to show emotions but to reflect the words of the song with the movement of the lips of the artist. I have slightly followed these conventions as I have included many close ups, mid shots and long shots within my music video to show audience reaction to the dancers, the performers faces/expressions and to show the general atmosphere on South Bank. I have challenged these conventions as I have not actually got the artist performing in the video (I'm certain this would be impossible to do for A2 media coursework), therefore my music video only features people on South Bank, that my target audience most likely would not recognise or know. I did not see this as a problem with my music video as I wanted the whole video to be about the atmosphere of London, the performers dancing and real people doing real things. I believe my target audience will appreciate this and will enjoy the upbeat movement and atmosphere throughout.


Editing is also an important part of the conventions of a music video as it can create the right mood and atmosphere that you want to convey within your music video. Jump cuts is the predominant editing technique used in music video's because it allows a sudden change from one scene to another. This is the main editing technique I have used for my music video as I wanted to create a simple but effective mood for the whole of the video, without taking the meaning away from it by using transitions such as fade and dissolve, which I feel can look slightly unprofessional and tacky if used for the wrong purposes.


I believe that my music video challenges the conventions of lighting within a music video as normally videos have artificial lighting which put the artist/s in an enhanced look. I did not have the equipment to do this in my music video, therefore I just used the natural daylight from the sun in my video, giving it a more realistic and natural feel to it. If I had the money and equipment to use proper lighting in my video, I would have definitely used it for the performers, to enhance what they are doing in the video and to make the video as a whole look slightly more abstract.


In terms of sound within a music video, I have followed the conventions as sound is mainly the vocals of the song. Although, a common convention of a music video shows the artist within the video lip singing the words whilst either dancing or doing actions that fit to the words. I have challenged this with my music video, as I do not have the artist in my video and therefore I did not want it to look silly with someone else trying to sing the words instead. Lip singing is extremely hard to get right and to get in time with the song and I did not want to risk getting this wrong and ruining the whole video.


Costume can be a huge part of a music video as it can create the whole mood of the video, helping it to become exciting and interesting to watch, but also to reflect the genre.  Costume is an important factor because it can have a slight influence on how the viewers will dress, because they use some of the celebrities as role models. I feel my music video does follow the conventions of costume as the bright colours that all of the dancers are wearing helps to create a fun and happy atmosphere throughout the music video. These colours also make it more interesting for the audience to watch as they are bright and look amazing when the performers are all dancing together, forming abstract and interesting shapes. Bright colours are mainly seen in pop/hip-hop videos creating a lively and upbeat atmosphere, therefore the use of colours in my music video will help the audience to recognise the genre and to set the correct mood I want to portray.

From personally evaluating my product and receiving feedback from others, the video works especially well to the music as the action matches the upbeat and fast paced song. Also, I feel the lyrics fit nicely with the music video as it shows many different 'beautiful' people in London, creating a meaning to the song.

The making of my Ancillary Products

After previously researching the conventions of a DigiPak and CD cover, I found that I had more time to gather my ideas and get straight onto making it once my music video was complete.

From my research I found that the CD cover DigiPak should have a fairly simplistic design, but should include bright colours and abstract images so it stands out on the shelf. It should also include vital information such as; the Artist name, the song titles included in the CD, a bar code and the record company (name or logo). I felt if I included these specific details whilst making my CD cover, it should stand out on the shelf, it should give the right amount of information to the audience and most importantly, it should sell.

After researching into magazine posters advertising DigiPaks, I found that the poster has to include; release date, place of purchase, image that links to CD cover (either same image or image of the CD), artist name, record company and colours that make the poster stand out within the magazine. I found that it is vital to follow these main DigiPak advertisement conventions when creating a magazine article for the CD, as they should lead to a successful advertising and marketing campaign which will help to target and inform specific audiences about the CD and therefore hopefully sell the CD successfully. I would use my magazine advertisement in magazines that target my specific audience of teenagers and young people that love music, for example, girly magazines such as 'Heat' and a popular music magazine such as 'Q'.

I started off by watching through my music video and print screening shots that I thought would be suitable to use for my DigiPak and magazine advertisement poster. I then had to narrow these images down to the correct amount that would fit all sides of the DigiPak and for the main image on the poster.

I decided that the main image for the front of the DigiPak would be a certain shot we included in our music video, it was a huge poster that was in a tunnel on South bank. The poster was of many different faces in different squares, which I thought was absolutely perfect for showing the concept of our music video within the DigiPak and magazine advertisement. I also decided on a colour scheme before editing my chosen images,  so then I could incorporate it in each ancillary product. I chose to use the colours; red, yellow and green, as they are similar to the Jamaican flag colours and this is where the dancers in our music video originate from. I also love this colour choice as they are extremely bright and contrasting colours, making the CD cover and poster stand out from other things.

Firstly, I edited the main image I wanted to use for the front cover of my DigiPak in the program 'Microsoft Word' as it had all the effects that I wanted to use for editing this image. I started off by changing the colour of each person in their individual square to either green, red or yellow, creating a pattern of what looked best as I went along. The contrast of the different people in different colours was really effective, but I also wanted to make this image look interesting and abstract. I did this by trying out different effects that were on Microsoft Word, until I found one that I thought looked really effective and interesting. I was very happy with how the editing of this main image turned out, it was brightly coloured and interestingly abstract..exactly what I wanted it to look like!

I then chose another one of my images to edit, I decided to have the image of a close up on one of the dancers face whilst he was drumming. I chose this image as I believe it really creates the atmosphere of what the music video is like and it also shows the audience who will be mainly featured in the music video, giving them an exciting insight into what they can watch. I started by uploading the image into the program 'Paint' as it had the correct editing tools for what I wanted to do with this image. I changed the image into black and white and then started to spray his Jamaican style hat with my chosen colours; red, green and yellow. I thought this looked really effective as it is a unique idea, and because I coloured it in roughly without precision, it gave the image a fun and abstract feel. Once this image had been edited, it fitted extremely well on the back cover of my DigiPak and the song titles could be placed by the side of the image, as though he is almost thinking of them.

The final image I decided to include on my DigiPak was the image of London, with the Big Ben and the river Thames in it. I thought this should be on my DigiPak on the middle cover, as the whole music video was filmed in London and I want the audience to recognise and appreciate this. I decided to mirror the image to make it look more abstract and interesting, then chose a 'grey sketch' effect, which makes the image look as though someone has sketched it in grey pencil. I thought this gave it a nice feel and made it yet again look abstract, I also felt it didn't have to fit in with the colour scheme as it would be on the inside of the CD cover and therefore it's purpose is not to stand out, but to inform the audience slightly, not necessarily with words.

Once I had transferred my edited images to the DigiPak template, I then had to add the essential things; bar code, artist name, song titles, copyright and production company. This finished off my DigiPak with a very professional look and followed the main conventions of a CD cover.
I was extremely happy with my final DigiPak as it is very colourful and abstract, making it stand out on the shelf, hopefully attracting my target audience.

I then moved onto the editing process of my poster, which I decided was going to have two of the same images as my DigiPak. This reassures me that the audience can easily relate the CD with the poster, making them remember it even more. The main image covering most of the poster is the same image, of the different people in squares, as the front cover of my CD case. I only edited it slightly more for the poster by changing the effects of different sections of the image to really abstract and contrasting images. These effects did all different things, one section was blurry, another was distorted, another was bold etc. They made a really effective and abstracting contrast which would make it stand out in a magazine and hopefully make people remember it.

I also added the edited image of the close up of the dancers face to the corner of the poster, in that section the background is white and this is where I put the important information; date of release, production company, song title, where to get the song from and Artist name. I decided to do this because I thought that this information needed to stand out from the rest of the poster and should be easy to read. I tried to put writing over the main image, but the black writing I wanted to use didn't show up well enough against the bright colours to use.

Once I had added this vital information, my poster was complete. I was happy with the end product as it would be sure to stand out with its bright colours and abstract images, whilst giving the audience the information they need to know.

BBFC Certification

Usually music videos do not specify a particular certification unless the material is particularly unsuitable and explicit. There have been cases where music videos have been given a certificate of 18 or even been banned in countries for extremely explicit content. For example, Rhianna’s video for S&M was restricted by YouTube and banned in eleven different countries. The song itself contains lyrics of a sexual nature, therefore inappropriate for people younger than 18 years of age. The media worked together to make sure, for example, if this song was played on the radio, certain words were to be bleeped out. Additionally, a ‘family-friendly’ video was aired on music channels, though only for 30 seconds as the real video is inappropriate for a potentially younger audience and is only accessible on Youtube for account holders over 18 years of age.

Regarding my own production, the song, lyrics and video is of a relatively light-hearted nature and contains no unsuitable content. According to the http://www.bbfc.co.uk/, I would categorise my video as being Universal as I believe all the content within my music video is suitable for all ages, whilst showing no disturbing images.

Suitable for all

It is impossible to predict what might upset any particular child. But a ‘U’ film should be suitable for audiences aged four years and over. ‘U’ films should be set within a positive moral framework and should offer reassuring counterbalances to any violence, threat or horror.
If a work is particularly suitable for a pre-school child to view alone, this will be indicated in the Consumer Advice.

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/classification/guidelines/u/

My music video could therefore be shown on music channels, such as Viva and 4Music any time of day to coincide with my potential target audience being teenagers and young people who enjoy Chris Brown's music.

The Final Product

Here is our final music video uploaded from my YouTube account. I am extremely happy with our final product and proud of how professional it looks, all the challenges we were faced with, were worth it!

Editing

When we had all of our filming material together, we transferred it onto one of the school Dell computers using a USB cable connected to the camera. We then transferred our footage to the editing programme Cyberlink PowerDirector, which we also used for our AS Media Film. Although we got to grips with the editing programme for our AS coursework, we decided to watch tutorials that were on the main website for PowerDirector; http://directorzone.cyberlink.com/tutorial/
These tutorials helped us to gain a much further understanding of the editing programme and therefore helped to us with the editing process and enabled us to use more advanced editing skills for our music video.

The main challenge we faced with the editing process, was cutting down the amount of filming we had to an amount that was the length of our chosen song, Beautiful People, which is 3 minutes 39 seconds long. We roughly had about 1 hour worth of footage which had to be cut to roughly 4 minutes.. this was a very hard and brutal process!

The first time we watched through all of our footage, we noted down the main sections that we definitely wanted to keep in our music video.

The second time we watched it we started to cut out anything that we did not feel was a main feature that we wanted to include in our music video, things such as filming of the Thames and a huge crowd of people, which we did not feel were that important to include in our video.

The third time we edited out sections of our filming that were not as good quality and as well shot as other parts of our filming, such as a shaky camera and bad lighting.

After these three times of editing, we were still faced with a huge amount of footage that we needed to narrow down to 3 minutes 39 seconds. We decided the best way to go about it was to watch through again, whilst looking at our general plot, and to put our filming in a rough order of how we wanted our music video to be. This helped us to establish what we currently had and how much of each different section of filming we had. For example, we had a huge amount of footage of the bike tricks and therefore we noted down that we need to chose only 4 of the best tricks we had filmed for our final music video. We had this process for a few more editing days which really helped us to brutally cut down our filming to more less fit with the length of our chosen song.

With the main editing process of cutting down our footage, we then started to put our video in the correct order that we had written down. After doing this and watching it through again, it was easy to see that the plot order we had first written down, was not flowing as well as we hoped it would. This brought us to the next stage of our editing programme, to order the film that flowed in the best way possible, which was a very long and difficult process but was well worth it! We were extremely happy with our progress and were very excited to fit it in with the music.

Once the song Beautiful People had been added to our editing programme, we then were faced with yet another challenge. Before adding the music we had our whole video in the perfect flowing order, but as soon as we added the song, we then had to make the action fit with the beat and words of the song, which we stupidly forgot to think about before ordering our footage. This was a long and fairly frustrating process as we had wasted a lot of time ordering our footage in the wrong order to fit with the song, but once we had finished editing our footage to fit perfectly in time with our song, we were extremely excited and happy as we had nearly finished! Once we had added the titles to our music video, we just had to publish it and we were done.

Plot and Filming Schedule

After examining the lyrics and listening to the music/beat from our chosen song 'Beautiful People', we managed to come up with an idea of going down to the famous South bank in London and filming a dance troop we have previously seen perform. We loved their routines and daring tricks used throughout and decided to do all our filming around them. The main sections of our music video will be the dance troop performing their routine live to an audience, from different angles and shots. The rest of the music video will be different acts and people along the South bank. Such as, singers, musicians, statues, skaters/bikers and general performers. By filming lots of different things from this one area in London, we felt we could really capture the atmosphere and heart of the people in London, linking to the lyrics really well. We also thought the dance troops routines would go perfectly with the fast and upbeat of the song, creating a happy and exciting mood for the audience.


We created  a filming schedule to ensure we could arrive in London and know exactly where we were heading, what time we needed to be filming by and roughly what camera shots we needed to use to create the correct effect for our music video.

Filming schedule:

Time	Content	Location	Basic camera shots
10.00	Film bikers doing tricks	Skate park-South bank	Low angle, close up, wide shot, mid shot
11.00	Performers, musicians, singers, shows	South bank	Close up, mid shot, long shot, wide shot
12.30	Dance troop	South bank	Front view, wide shot, close up, low angle, high angle, mid shot, long shot
14.00	Dance troop and audience watching	South bank	Side view, close up, wide angle, low angle, high angle, long shot
16.00	Views from riverside and bubble performer	South bank	Wide shot, long shot, close up, low angle

We followed this schedule as precisely as possible and the day ran as smoothly as it could! We managed to get everything we wanted to film, filmed within one day, leaving us with plenty of time to edit our music video. 

These are a few pictures from our filming day in South bank, London: