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.