Q4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

To find our unsigned band we first looked on the website www.unsigned.com as we wanted to avoid and copy write issues as the licencing and ownership of the bands original songs can impact the way that the promo is filmed or interpreted. However we could not find any bands that we connected with or could envision creating a video for so we decided to go on Youtube and see what we could find on there and we found the band Call Atlantis. We listened to their track and we knew that it was the right song for us to use. We came across the song ‘What if the Zombies Came?’ when we were looking for inspiration from the band Paramore as we knew that their videos could be very basic but effective which is what we wanted to create. Once we had listened to the song we researched the band and found they had a website stating that they were an unsigned band which meant that we could use their song as they would not have any copy write interference. We also looked to see if the band was on any social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter as we wanted to get an idea on what the bands following was like and to see what people thought of their music. This also meant that we could get in contact with the band and ask for their permission to use their song. Upon discovering that they had already produced a music video for another track they had written (posted on their social media fan page), we decided to use social networking sites to look at our audience research and to promote the video as the vast majority of people have Facebook allowing them to view the video and allowing us to get feedback from the video and our research.

To research further what was expected of a music promo we used Youtube to look at many different genres of music and how they represented the genre and the conventions of each genre. Throughout this process we used the theorists that we had studied, such as John Stewart’s modern media theory, Julia Kristiva’s absorption and transformation theory and Laura Mulvey’s  male gaze theory, and applied them to the promos that we looked at to see what was the most conventional theory used within the music industry. We decided  that we wanted to apply more than one theory to our promo as we wanted to be unconventional and use different people opinions to create contrasting views on the promo making it more memorable to our audience.

Youtube also helped us to analyse what was popular at that time and what was associated with these videos as we wanted to see what people found interesting and what shots were used specifically to each genre. We also looked at the promo’s that were created previously within the pop punk genre and analysed them in detail to see how we could either replicate or take inspiration from them. The promo that I found most influential was the Mr. Brightside promo by The Killers. They are of a similar genre and have create a very influential promo by using fast paced editing to suit the pace of the song and have used a multitude of shots and angles that make it look visually more interesting.  

The technologies we used to create our texts were iMovie, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, photo studio’s (to create our photos for the digipak and the website) and mobile phones. We wanted to use iMovie as it was the quickest way to create the video in the time that we had as we had a lot of complications and re-filming to get to the point where we could actually edit the promo together.
Even though it was more basic than Final Cut, I still learnt how to use iMovie effectively and how to create a more interesting promo by using multiple shots and clever editing techniques. We wanted to create the other texts with Photoshop and Dreamweaver as we had members of our group that were more experienced with using these particular software’s. We also used a photo studio to create the photos for the digipak and the website as we wanted to make them look as professional as possible and we did not feel that we could get the best quality images with our phones as the megapixels on the camera were higher and it also allowed us to gain experience with the studio and how the slightest lighting adjustment can have a great effect on an image. However we used our mobile phones to record the performance shots as we felt that they were a better quality and picked up the lights and the effects better. This also gave us more manoeuvrability with the camera as we could move with it more as it wasn’t heavy nor did it need any other components to film the shots (such as tripods etc.)   

Throughout the filming process I have learnt a lot about how to construct a music promo and the different shots that are needed to create a visually interesting piece. The multitude of shots and angles that were needed to create a promo were more important than when we created other videos as they needed to be more fluent and exciting to watch.

Editing a music promo was a new experience for me as I had never edited in such detail before and I found it challenging but very informative as it allowed me to experiment with shots and lip-syncing. Using the MAC’s was also another interesting experience as I had not used the MAC since creating our last video but I picked up the skills quickly and was able to edit the video in detail and at a good pace.

Whilst we were filming our promo we encountered some technical issues that put some of or filming on hold. This meant that we had to improvise and be prepared for anything as we needed to ensure that the promo was of a good quality 

The technical issues we came across when filming the footage for the promo was

•        Low level lighting- able to gain lights from behind the camera to produce more light on the performers.  

•        Camera Quality- because the normal handheld cameras were not picking up the lights well and were looking grainy, we decided to use our mobile phones to film as the camera quality was better.

•        Soundtrack whilst filming- we needed play the soundtrack whilst we were filming to ensure that we could get the lip syncing correct when we were editing so we had to have someone holding the phone with the soundtrack near the camera.  

•        Restrictions with movement- we had restrictions with movement however we worked with the space that we had and set up shots that would be effective and easy to get to.

Overall, the production went well and the products that have been produced are of a high standard and are authentic and interesting for our target audience.

Our Media Technologies

Q2. How effective is the combination of your main productand ancillary texts?

The products as a promotional package are very well constructed. They each have an individual purpose and they advertise the band respectively and professionally. As a group we decided to create three products that would advertise the other as it would be more beneficial for our audience and it meant that we could promote other areas and aspects that would promote the band and the products more.

The conventions that an audience member would normally see in a pop punk music promo would be:  

 I feel that throughout the three texts there could have been more work done to improve them as some areas look very amateur and rushed. For example, there are areas in the video where the camera (especially in the tracking shots) are shaky and this makes the video look unprofessional which is what we were trying to avoid. As stated before the three texts work synergistically to promote each other. The promo its self promotes the band and the quality of a live gig that that the audience would expect to see. The promo is then advertised through the Digipak as it has the video included with the CD.

The Digipak also has a link to the website that was created for the band which promotes the Digipak and the promo but also gives the audience additional information which would direct them to buying the merchandise which would include the Digipak. We wanted to use convergence with our three texts as we knew that the appeal for digital products has increased over the years making it more popular if we promoted the texts on certain websites and magazines that the audience tend to use such as social media websites like Facebook, instagram etc and magazines such as Q and Karrang. However, we would also promote the texts in music stores which would give us a better opportunity to appeal to our target audience.
Even though we wanted to promote the texts on both digital and hard copy we felt that we should push the a digital package more as most people watch music videos online and like to view things online as a matter of convenience as they can take their devise round with the products already downloaded on it. However, there are downfalls to promoting the texts on a digital platform as there are ways that audience members can download them for free making no profit for the band or the companies that have created the products, whereas if the texts (other than the website) were hardcopies, the possibility of this happening would be avoided.

The promo would be shown on both new media and traditional media as this will allow our audience to view it easier. There are, however, downsides to having promoted the promo on music channels is that a lot of people tend to watch promos and videos online as it is a more accessible place to view promos however people do still use traditional media which was why we decided to promote it on music channels. The synergistic links between the website and the digipak is mainly the images and the information because we wanted to make sure that the audience were getting as much information about the band as possible.

The package we looked at Green Day for our inspiration as we felt that they had influential and creative packages that made the audience recognise them instantly. We wanted to use this as it set us in the right direction and gave us the ideas we needed to create an effective promotional package. We used John Stewart’s modern media theory and we wanted to incorporate and reconstruct areas of the texts that we had looked at previously to create a new media text that would be appealing to the same target audience. The overall combination of all three texts work well together as the audience feedback was very positive but had some constructive criticisms which would help us improve the texts. I feel that these texts would be appealing in music stores as they have both original and conventional aspects throughout the products

Q3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

The feedback from our audience helped us to gain an understanding of what they wanted to see in a music promo and what they expect to find when watching that specific genre of music and also what they would expect to find in a promotions package. The initial research started off with vox pops so that we could get an idea of what the audience looked for in a promo and what they found appealing about watching them. We got mixed view on why people watched music promos and what they expected to find in them but this helped us to create something that would be overall appealing for everyone. Further on in the creative process when we started developing our initial ideas for the promo we wanted to get the audience’s input on the ideas we were coming up with which was beneficial as we realised what we could achieve and what things would be practical or not giving us the opportunity to re-evaluate our ideas and come up with new ones such as using illustration or amplification to make the promo more relatable to the audience and also using disjuncture would appeal more to an indie rock or pop genre more than a pop punk genre. 

The audience research was very important to the success of the video and the ancillary tasks as it was important to understand what the audience wants so we wanted to make sure that the products that we were producing were appropriate for our target audience as this would increase the amount of products we sell and what the audience are looking for out of a media product. To ensure we got the best possible research we created a focus group to review what we had done. The feedback was quite positive as we had looked at the previous focus group and we followed most of the ideas that we had created initially. However we felt that we needed to gain more feedback so we decided to put the promo and the ancillary tasks on a Facebook chat to see what other audience members thought of them. Because we wanted to use new media to promote and analyse the audiences responses we felt it would be beneficial to use social networking sites as we felt that this was the best way for us to advertise the products to our target audience and gain accurate feedback.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTSbaIQ2Zc0 Focus group video

We decided to use the a poll everywhere as it was a faster way of getting the audience feedback and also allowed us to use new media technologies instead of using a more traditional method, such as questionnaires as we felt that we wanted to show off what we could do and also it was more practical as it would reduce the time meaning that we could inform the audience what we intended to do with the products and what we wanted to achieve.     

The Feedback sheets from our focus group

These were the responses we got from the poll everywhere questions. Overall the feedback was quite positive. This showed that the research we had done had payed off as we have created three texts that are appealing to our intended audience. 

Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The task assigned to us was to produce a Music Video Promo, a Digipak and a Website as a package for a specific genre and target audience to promote an unsigned artist’s album release. Each element of the package works in different ways to entice the target audience into buying the album. A Music Promo is designed to show the audience the band image. It gives the audience a chance to see the band giving them the opportunity to understand what the band would be like if they were going to see them live. It also gives sponsors that may be supporting the band a chance to advertise some of their other products as product placement, for example, Katy Perry’s ‘this is how we do’ music promo features brands like Gucci, Prada and YSL (all popular brands that cost a lot of money and are known for high-end fashion that a lot of celebrities wear).

This is a good way for different well-known brands to be advertised as young, impressionable teenagers will be drawn more to these product placements as they associate them with famous Celebrities and singers making them more susceptible to it. In our promowe used product placement by showing the names of the makers of each of the insturments we used as this would make some audience members inclined to purchase the same instruments. Digipak’s are a way of giving the audience more than just a CD as a digipak gives the purchaser a brief insight into the bands biography as well as a little biography about each member of the band. They can also be used as a way of getting a limited edition version of the album on release but with added extras such as mini posters and individual images of the band. The Digipak is also designed for the purchaser to be given a DVD of one of their live performances as well as the CD so that they can hear the album beforehand and they can watch the live gig to see how the band perform the songs live. Digipaks can be a way of promoting some of the bands merchandise and discounts for that merchandise on either the bands or the manufacture’s website giving the band a better opportunity at promoting the merchandise as well as more indepth information about the bands background and the band members. An essential part of the bands advertising scheme is to have a website for additional information such as tour dates and locations, ticket prices as well as the bands official merchandise. The website will have some of the same information as the Digipak however it will be in more detail giving the audience additional information on the band members and the tour dates/locations so that the band can become globally recognisable.  We used inspiration from the limited edition ‘Green Day’ albums ‘Bullet in a Bible’
and ‘Greatest Hits’ as we felt that they conveyed the bands personalities and the simplicity of the digipak’s made the look more appealing as they are not over crowded with unnecessary items which was the look we wanted to achieve with our own digipak as we felt that it would be more beneficial to go with a more simplistic approach to the text.  We decided to use amplification for the digipak as we wanted to take a line from the song and use it as a visual representation for the rest of the texts that we are creating as we felt that this would make the texts recognisable when being advertised and would also make the products more unique. The Green Day digipak’s are mainly image based however as this is the band’s first digipak, we wanted to give the audience more detail about the band itself and the band members so that they could become more acquainted to them making them more recognisable.   

The products that we will be producing will be synergised as this will make it easier for the audience to associate certain products or images with the band making them more inclined to purchase the products. The same images will be used throughout the product line as we want to make it recognisable straight away. There have been discussions of using convergence to ensure that the products can be used on multiple platforms such as gaming consoles and tablets as there are vast quantities  of audience members who would benefit from having these products on these platforms as they can store the products or download them on iTunes etc making the text more accessible and the more platforms the product is sold on the more profit the band would make and would also make it more appealing to the audience as it is using modern media technologies.

 A pop promo has a multitude of elements that need to be considered when being created such as the mise-en-scene, performance, narrative, camera work, editing and actors because everything that appears in a promo has a reason and so these things need to be thought about in great detail before being put into the promo. For each genre of music these elements change. For example, in Nikki Minaj’s Anaconda, the mise-en-scene is very exotic and the costume is very provocative making it very appealing to the male gaze and uses close ups of some of the phallic symbols and provocative areas of the women’s body.

Whereas in Oasis’ Some Might Say promo, the mise-en-scene is very 1990’s (baggy jumpers and jeans with trainers) and is set in a concert area. The camera work is slopping in places however this adds to the authenticity of the promo as it represents the bands persona and shows them as being a relaxed group. The conventions also change depending on which genre and target audience the promo is being made for. The genre that our group decided to study was Pop Punk as we felt that it would be the most interesting genre to study and it was also a favoured genre throughout the group. This genre also comes with a multitude of benefits for editing as it is fast paced and requires a lot of instruments which tested our editing skills as the music needed to be lip synced and the instruments needed to be in time with the music as well as the pace being quickened to make the video more exciting.

Our Influences

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLjTOpkplyI

Location/ Set – Narrative

The location for our narrative was set in the lead singer’s (Courtney) house as we felt that it looked the most appropriate due to the colour scheme of her living room and also it is a large house allowing us to film multiple shots at different angles giving us more footage to use when editing. The reason we wanted her living room for filming was because the colour scheme was different shades of green and slight hints of blue and white which is the main colour scheme of our ancillaries and we wanted to make the colours stand out as the colours emphasise feelings such as jealousy, sadness and envy which is what we wanted to convey throughout the video. We felt that having the promo in a homely environment would be unconventional as it wouldn’t be common for a promo to be based in a comforting environment.

Location/ Set- Performance:

The location for our performance was on the stage in the school hall as we felt that it would benefit the promo as we wanted to create a concert like situation as we wanted to use our inspiration for Oasis as we saw this a lot in their videos and we felt that it would be appropriate for the circumstances. The colour of the curtain also linked with the colour scheme for the ancillaries which were another appeal for filming there. We used inspiration from Paramore’s music promo ’That’s what you get’ as it was set in a homely environment and we felt that this would be appropriate as it was unconventional for a band of  the pop punk genre to be in a and it would set as a good contrast for the promo as the stage is generally associated with a lot of nervous energy whereas the home is thought of as a calm environment, whoch we found evident in Paramore’s video.  

Costumes:

Courtney- we wanted the lead singer to stand out from the other band members and looking at the colours that other bands had been wearing, we felt that a baggy white shirt and skinny jean were the most appropriate as it shows the artists being quite relaxed and casual however looking smart which is what we wanted to convey through the costume. We were also using the conventions of a typical 90’s pop promo as we felt it give the promo a more retro vibe but still keeping in with modern styles   

Luke- because we were looking at the pop punk genre, we wanted to have an actor that looked very pop punk however we wanted him look fashionable for this era of music so we decided that he should look similar to Courtney and have a plain black t-shirt and black jeans showing that he is very casual. This is also represents his frame of mind about the relationship between him and Courtney. We wanted to make Luke look retro too, as the style of modern day clothing is resulting back to that era and we wanted to make the promo relatable to the modern day audience which was why we felt that we should use a retro style of clothing but put in in a modern environment.

Tom, Bailey and Sam- again leading with the smart casual theme we decided to have the three boys wearing smart trousers and shirts. We decided to have Bailey and Tom wearing black as we felt that the small amount of colour being shown form Sam’s shirt would be enough to resemble the colour scheme.

Props- to make sure that the promo was believable we decided to use real instruments as this would create the illusion that the actors playing the instruments were actually playing the song. The instruments consisted of two guitars (which looked like Fender Stratocaster’s which were are very popular brand of guitar used by bands of the pop punk genre) a drum kit (which was a white colour making it a contrast to the black costume) and a microphone so that it looked like Courtney was actually singing the song and like she was at a band practice.  We also used an iPhone for the narrative props as we wanted the video to be relatable to our target audience and now days a lot of people have an
iPhone making it more relatable and modern. One of the key elements the we decided to focus on was the high heels that are featured in the song as we felt that this would be an unconventional way of representing the genre as it has elements of both pop and punk throughout and we wanted to convey these elements by using the conventions from both and combining them. We felt that the guitars conveyed the punk elements as they are most commonly associated with the punk genre and we wanted to use a prop or an item of clothing that would be associated with the pop genre which was why we decided to make the high heel shoes a key element of the production as they are items of clothing that people would associate with the pop genre which also gave us the opportunity to incorporate the illustrated high heels from the lyrics of the song as this would synergistically link with the other media texts. 

Editing

The editing for the promo was the most difficult aspect out of everything as it needed to be lip-synced and needed to be cut to the beat of the song. The reason we wanted the promo to be cut to the beat was because it is a very popular aspect of a lot of music promos as it builds pace and makes it more exciting when the audience member is watching it. We wanted to conform to the stereotypical editing style of most pop punk videos by cutting to the beat as we felt that this would be the best way to edit as it would fit in more with the conventions of a pop punk promo. Even though we didn’t use Final Cut Pro, we still found it challenging as we found new ways of editing on iMovie as we found ways that would allow us to use more precision with our editing rather than using the traditional methods.

Shooting Schedule

Theorists

John Stewart - modern media - "incorporates, raids and reconstructs"
Julia Kristeva - "any text is the absorption and transformation of another"
Laura Mulvey – The Male Gaze- 'Men see women actors and look ‘at’ her but when they see the male actor they see ‘with’ him. Women are therefore made to see in the same way as men.'

MoodBoards- Ancillaries

Moodboards