Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
https://youtu.be/Ax1FVkCIgsA
Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
A music video and its ancillary texts must have a sense of
identity and similarity in order for it to succeed. Throughout the entire music
industry all songs and their respective ancillary texts will connect through
their use of colour and artist, therefore meaning that the target audience will
recognise the artist and the style that they have.
A key example of a prop that appears in multiple parts of my
music video and ancillary texts is the drug packet. The packet is a key part of
the music video as it is the catalyst for the ending of the storyline and the
death of the main character. He sees the drugs as a source for all of the bad
in his life and wants to change it. The drug packet is seen on the back of my
digipack (where the songs are) and it keeps with the similarities and sense of
identity that the music video and the ancillary texts have. The packet of drugs
is also the main image on the magazine advert and these tie into the rest of
the products well.
Another example of synergy between the products is that the
artist is featured on the digipack, the music video and the magazine advert.
While the artist is not the main image on the advert he is still featured in
order to keep it within the same brand.
In order to show the genre of my music video through the
digipack and magazine advert I had to work out what my audience wants. I did
this through questionnaires.
In order for my ancillary texts to appeal to my target
audience there had to be similarities between each product:
·
The Camerawork
·
Editing
·
Mise-en-scene
o Costume
o Location
o Props
·
Artist
The
Camerawork
Throughout my music video I used a lot of close-up shots as
well as mid-shots in order to make the artist as close as possible. In a lot of
rap videos the artist is near the camera in order for the audience to feel a
connection to them. This meant that when it came to the ancillary texts I had
to incorporate them within. For the main image on the front cover I had the
artist as a silhouette with a mid-shot that starts with the legs. This link
with the digipack and shows that the digipack is for the music video
Editing
The editing for the digipack and magazine advert is very
similar with the colour scheme of a black background with white text to convey
the information. This however, was different to the editing used in the music
video as in order to portray the message. The main artist was often featured
near an urban setting (brick walls, alleyways and garages) and this was to add
realism and relatability for the audience towards the artist. However the
narrative of the video has the effect at the end of being in black and white
while also being in reverse in order to show that what happens within the
narrative and how it will all happen again.
Mise-en-scene
All of the characters in the music video are wearing a
similar style of clothing. This is so the audience will recognise that the
artist as being from this sort of background and upbringing, which is the
entire purpose of the song. The audience has to be able to realise why this
happens and how to stop it and having the characters wear the same outfits in
the music video, digipack and album cover means that this will happen.
The locations are all typical places that you would see in a
rap music video, an urban environment and the storyline takes place in a
similar environment; however it is slightly more run down in order to properly
emphasise the situation that people are in. However location is not a major
part of the ancillary texts as in both the magazine advert and digipack it is
based on a black background.
The main prop is the drug packet and as spoken about earlier
it plays a huge part of all of the music video and ancillary texts.
Artist
The artist is the main focus of the music video and therefore
he has to be a key part of the ancillary texts in order for the audience to tie
him to the brand that is being created. The audience will need to be able to
link the artist to each of the products. This can be done through the album
name, the artist’s image and the colour scheme. The colour scheme is black
backgrounds with white text in order to clearly show the information. The album
name is ‘Homeland’ which links to the song about the artist’s background. The
artist is featured on all of the products and being in similar clothing across
all products in order to create the consistency.
Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?
For my audience feedback I asked my audience to answer a
short questionnaire about the video, digipack and advert.
VIDEO
I have included some quotes that I was given while asking for
feedback on my music video:
“The lip-synching was
on time with the song”
“I liked
the way that the storyline was incorporated”
“The
locations felt real and as if this was a place in decline”
“It felt
like we were looking into someone’s life, which is the purpose of the song”
The first verse of the song is from
the artist’s perspective and this means that it is a first-hand experience of
the life, while the second verse is from the artist’s brother perspective. This
means that each verse has a different feel and can help the audience to
properly feel what it is like to be there.
I also had some feedback on how I could have improved my
video:
“I felt as
though the storyline could have had more in it. I feel like there are more
questions to be answered about character motives”
I do agree with this point as I
believe that the main characters decision to try and get away from his life was
a bit sudden. Also when the main character attacks the dealer, this may have
been slightly out of character of him.
“At some
points the artist is slightly smiling, which could draw away from the message
of the song.”
This is true and it could slightly
draw away from the message, however these shots are very quick and therefore
most people who watch the music video will not notice this.
“I thought
the ending of the video, with the story being reversed was a bit confusing and
I didn’t quite know why it was happening”
The ending of the video is to show
the audience that what they just watched will happen again and again, and this
is why I have the beginning start to play in order to showcase this. The
purpose of this is so that the audience will take notice and try to help people
who are stuck in that sort of environment.
DIGIPACK:
I asked people to tell me what they liked and disliked about
my digipack and here are the quotes:
“The colour scheme
suits the genre and links well with the magazine advert”
“I like the idea for
the front cover, but I’m not entirely sure if it works”
The idea for
the front cover was that the two silhouettes would form a sort of gate or archway.
This would link to the title of the album which is ‘Homeland’ as it is about
where he was brought up. The gate signifies that the artist is letting people
to view his upbringing.
MAGAZINE
ADVERT
“You can tell even with
a quick glance that they (the ancillary texts) are advertising the same product”
“The dark
theme works as you realise that this will be a hard hitting album, which is
what you get from the song”
Both of these means that the
synergy amongst my products works as my audience knew they were advertising the
same thing. Therefore I believe there is a connection there.
Question 4 - How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
For my music video, I had to use many different platforms in
order to showcase and develop my work. These platforms ranged from simple software
such as Microsoft Word to more complex ones such as Adobe Premier Elements 14.
Blogger was used in order to post the entire project. I used
Blogger to be able to see all of the work and where I need to improve.
In order to research music videos used YouTube to watch them,
this meant that whenever I wanted to make a reference to a music video I could
go onto YouTube and find it. I used Google to find out information about the
background of my song and artists that are within my genre. I used Google Images
to find pictures of music magazine adverts, digipacks and screen shots of music
videos. I used GIPHY in order to use gifs and moving imagery in my work, this
makes it more visual and interesting as well as helping to showcase my point.
In order to write my risk assessment, questionnaire, call
sheet and music video treatment, I used Microsoft Word. I already had a
detailed understanding of how Microsoft Word worked. During my time working in
Word I did not challenge my existing knowledge instead I built upon it.
I used Microsoft Excel in my audience questionnaire results. The
graphs were easy to create and easy to understand, this means that I can
quickly look at my results and see how to improve my work. I gained a lot of
ideas from my audience questionnaires as it allowed me to see what my audience
wants from a music video.
The camera I used was the Nikon D3200 and this was a camera
that I had not used before and this meant I came across a few challenges when
filming such as the auto focus function. I wanted a shot with the drug packet
as the main focus; however the camera was auto focussing on the actor instead.
I found there was a button on the side of the camera that turned on and off the
auto focus to manual and I got around my problem.
In order to edit together my music video I used Adobe Premier
Elements 14. I had previous experience with Adobe Premier Elements and editing
together videos, however I had not done anything to the level of a music video.
This meant that I had to learn new techniques in order to make my music video
the best it could possibly be. In order to make my music video work I needed to
line up the lip-synching that the artist was doing to the lyrics of the actual
song. I had to spend a long time trimming clips and adjusting their placements
within milliseconds in order to make the artist look like they are singing the
song.
To create my digipack and magazine advert I used Adobe
Photoshop. Before the music video project I had a limited knowledge on the
process however once I watched a tutorial on YouTube I quickly picked up the knowledge
that I needed to create the ancillary texts.
