Final Products

 

 

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

 

3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?

1st Questionnaire

 

The first thing that I did in order to get audience feedback was to create a questionnaire which would warrant answers to help decide what I would do for my music video using the preferences of the audience.

 

 

 

 



 

 

Seeing as though it was easier to gather people around my age as they are apart of the friendship groups and my classmates, 13-18 dominated the results. This would be ideal seeing as though I was aiming towards this particular audience with my product.

 

 

In accordance to what era of music is liked the best, Pop and Rock would be the most common. Most likely due to the fact that they are very broad genres that can have many sub genres within them. This is the reason why I had chosen a mix between the two, I knew for a fact that the narrative within my music video wouldn't necessarily hold to any specific genre and that would effect the connection between the audience and the product. It the genre is not labelled, then the audience cannot relate to it.

YouTube was the obvious winner in terms of popularity. Web 2.0 allows the audience to view things within seconds and through this the audience are easier to please. This particular development with technology makes the music industry must more relatable to the audience. In terms of my music video is it bound to capture the attention of someone who dedicates them selves to particular genres. Spotify being the second most popular due to its availability through the use of apps and the youths today holding this sort of technology in their hands having the ability to access it any time and as many times as they please. That and its free. In terms of music channels, television is still a strong medium to this day due to its constant ability to evolve and adapt to audiences needs. This is a type of gimmick that always has to compete with a rival form of media such as the computer and the telephone. Television has set times and schedules in which you are able to view things (until of course sky and its record and rewind capabilities) Phones and computers have the luxury of being free range and its content accessible whenever possible.

 

Most people enjoy watching what they understand and something that you aren't able to understand because its abstract and unnecessary don't have the same appeal. Having to interpret something on your own means that you have to work to be satisfied with what you watch. Understanding what you are watching completely gives immediate satisfaction. This is why abstract is so uncommon and unpopular, the creators make it hard to understand and thus the audience don't want to understand it. This is why narrative as well as performance is so popular. Due to this I have decided to have a narrative whilst also adding some form of abstract. Because regardless of what the audience dislikes and likes, abstract has always been a concept of intrigue and thus they may be more involved in the journey but are not pleased with its outcome. Abstract is also something that is left for interpretation and is a postmodern development, some imagery that's close to fantasy may just be excepted since the creators wanted it to be there and regardless of the fact the audience may understand it or not, visuals are still something that they are interested in. This means that I may have some free range in what I put into the music video and ancillary texts to make them interesting.  

 

2nd Questionnaire

 

 

 

In order to get the questionnaire around I emailed it to various people who I know (though no permission was asked to show there names so in the screen shots are tutor numbers) in total, 21 people participated in this questionnaire and they varied from subjects. Though most of them were media students, some of the participants studied Art, Graphics, Photography, Maths and Music. This was to ensure that I had a variety of answers and which are less biased than me or the people whom study media.

 

My Thoughts

 

Due to the results of the 1st questionnaire it was decided what my music video would be based on and what it would consist of, all I had to do then was choose the song.

From the results of the 2nd questionnaire it became apparent that the continuity within the 3 texts was quite strong.

 

Conclusion

 

The abstract/narrative based video proved to be interesting but could have been understood better by the audience. This and the other 2 texts also could have had a better sense of ideology that was clearer for the audience to understand. Though the audience research was helpful and gave insight to the positives and negatives of the 3 texts, more audience research of a wider variety should have been done as well as focus groups would have helped.

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

Due to the fact that I am the producer of my media product, it would be easy for my to answer the questions since I will be biased in my point of view, I would only answer entirely positively or entirely negatively this would mean that I would have unreliable results about my products. I have made a questionnaire to ensure that I get a variety of answers and suggestions in order to improve and get an idea of how I have developed through the year.

 

In order to get the questionnaire around I emailed it to various people who I know (though no permission was asked to show there names so in the screen shots are tutor numbers) in total, 21 people participated in this questionnaire and they varied from subjects. Though most of them were media students, some of the participants studied Art, Graphics, Photography, Maths and Music. This was to ensure that I had a variety of answers and which are less biased than me or the people whom study media.

 

Respondent Graphs 

 

These are samples of questions that have been responded to and have the capabilities of being put into a graph. These are the results that it came up with.

 

 

Out of the 21 respondents, editing was the most popular due to the fact that it is the convention that dominates the music video seeing as though it was the intended main feature. Through this I can see that it has worked. When is came to explaining why, those who said editing generally expressed that the syncing with the beat of the song is very effective, an example: 'The editing is effective since it matches the beat of the song'.

 

Out of the 21 respondents, 19 people said Yes and 2 people said Maybe, it became apparent that the dominant answer was Yes. The general understanding of what the music video and ancillary text in the case of ideology was sot of lost on those who said Maybe. An example of someone who said yes: 'All of the products connect seeing as though they use the same image. They work together well, you can see from that single frame in the music video the image that had been used for the ancillary texts'. (This was said by a media student) This showing that the ancillary texts fit together and that they are relevant to each other since the main image is included in all of them. An example of someone who said Maybe: 'I don't really know what the music video is about and how the CD cover and Poster links to it' (this was said by an Math Student) This showing that the experience of one person to another is different and may lead to different outcome when viewing all of the products together. It is something that the audience need to look and think about for a while before they can see it. Since media students have more ability to analyse something compared to that of a Math student.

 

 

Conclusion

 

From the information that I have gathered, it seems that the audience to agree to some extent collectively that the 3 products are effective together. Though this still may be a biased view depending on the fact that the majority of the participants were media students, though other students weren't used, it all depended on the majority. This would mean that the findings aren't all that fair. Although the majority did say yes to the question of whether or not the 3 products have continuity, the people who did say maybe did have a good point in saying that they didn't understand it. But seeing as though the media students are able to see more clearly what is right and wrong about the 3 texts, I would say that the finding are more effective in that sense.

My Thoughts (on own products)

 

From looking at my own products, I would say that the continuity is strong as they have included the same imagery as each other, so visually speaking they are similar to one another. In terms of ideology they do have the same ideology, yet it is the fact that whether or not it comes across clearly enough is questionable. This is something that I would want to change as it would then make the ideology more effective.

The main factor that justifies the continuity would be the main image that runs through each of the 3 texts.

 

 

With the CD cover and the Poster the continuity is clear due to the fact that it uses the same font and paper effects and colour scheme.

 

 

Gorillaz - Plastic Beach

 

The main example as inspiration that I used is the Gorillaz Plastic beach, this is an example of a cohesive package.

 

 

Melancholy Hill

 

 

In which the main image is used to connect all of the texts.

 

 

 

 

 

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

Textual Analysis of Music Video

The White Stripes - Hardest Button to Button

This music video is an example of what the music video has been inspired by as it used a bit by bit stop motion effect that I have used at the end of my music video seeing as though it was the original idea to have it all in that style.

Genre 

The song which I have chosen for my music video is 'Sunny Afternoon' by The Kinks. The Kinks are an old rock/pop band which you could argue have now entered the Indie or Alternative genre of today's music.Around in the 1960's onward to the 90's, they have an image that was reminiscent of The Beatles. The institution that they belonged to was 'Reprise Records', 'Universal', 'Columbia', 'RCA' and others. They were signed to both British and American labels which allowed them to gain a higher ground in their global recognition.
Being a popular band for their time, the genre would be of a pop nature. 

Conventions of Ancillary Text

These are example of posters which promote albums, these show the conventions of the ancillary text posters they are very simple and concise. They have the title of the album or artist, the website, the general information about what its promoting, the main image and the production company.

 In my ancillary text I have chosen to take inspiration from the Gorillaz Plastic Beach poster as it is simple and fits with the genre that I have chosen which is indie/alternative/pop/rock.

For this I went and looked at different fonts to see what would fit most within these genres.

 

The connotations that my ancillary text gives is that within the location there is nothing and this is the essence of what the whole reality is. The paper at the corners connotes blank space and a possible alternative reality that's creeping in from the corners of the actual reality. It is heavy with postmodern ideology in the sense that the lines between reality and media text is blurred which forms hyper reality.  

This shows the inspiration that I took for the CD cover of my ancillary text. Though they are different genres entirely, I though that since they have a similar ideology behind the text I though that it would be interesting to make them similar but holding different genre conventions in them.

The genre conventions in the Nero CD cover being that of a sci-fi nature and my own taking on a indie/alternative/pop/rock specification and managing to make the ideology both he same and diversely different.

In terms of post-modern theory when looking at the narrative structure of the music video. We can see that it reflects the ideologies of Michael Shore (1984) in which he expresses 'the death of content' and 'surface without substance' were in the video that I have created is never clear in what way the narrative is structured. The conventions themselves break the norm of genre already. The only thing that is focused on is the characters and their experience within the video. This is represented through costume and meaning behind lyrics and character. As a form of escapism that the audience wants to experience they are left with something that they cannot comprehend and try to put meaning to.