Dear Moderator

Dear Moderator,

I have finished my project and I hope you enjoy reading the blog. 

Evaluation Question Four

Over the whole project I have used an extensive amount of different technologies to produce what I have produced. The research and planning, construction and evaluation challenged my capabilities from the very start but at that point I knew I was going to learn a lot more. From the very onset I encouraged my self to use new technologies in producing things even if I had never used them before, because I knew that by challenging myself the outcome would be much more prosperous. However I didn't just invest into completely new technologies within this project I used technologies that I had been familiar with previously and expanded on them - using them all to their full potential. For this project the main theme of technology that was consistent throughout was the use of computer software and the internet. Without the use of a computer clearly nothing really would have been able to have been completed because of how many opportunities it gives us. Below then is a list of everything (Software, websites etc.) that I used on the computer to help me through this project.

Final Cut Pro
Blogger
Fireworks
GIF maker
Youtube
Soundcloud
Facebook
Google Drive
Gmail
Google+
Prezi
Slideshare
Dafont.com
Preview
iPhoto
Pages
Keynote

The range for programs I used for different stages of this project is undeniably extensive, but I still tried to make using them easier and less time-consuming for myself. For instance, Google played a huge part of this project due to its interconnectivity over different media platforms. Since Google acquired Blogger and YouTube the process of creating a blog has become a lot easier, and this was the same for me too. I used Google Drive to back up files which I could then directly access from Blogger, and I also used Google+ to automatically upload pictures I took on my phone which I could also directly access from blogger.

The powerpoint below further shows how I used technology throughout this project to help better my progress.

The videos below show exactly what I learnt most within two of the biggest pieces of software I used throughout this project: Final Cut and Fireworks.

Evaluation Question Three

Throughout this project I have collected audience feedback at different stages of each of my products. The feedback has been extensive and useful and has definitely had a huge impact on my project’s path right from the very start with the treatment. But I have got feedback from a wide populous from different ages and overall different backgrounds, so before I took my feedback directly and immediately started changing things or not I had to decide which part of the feedback was more important to me. Of course though audience feedback from loads of different people was still a very good thing, but more specifically it was more beneficial to find out the feedback gained from my target audience.

Firstly I had to work out who was my target audience - I knew it was going to be people who liked the genre indie. I firstly had an idea that my audience would be both males and females aged between 16-24 year olds but what I wanted to know more was what kind of people in that group liked and disliked things etc. For this I used the theory from Michel Maffesoli of Urban Tribes to find out which tribe my target audience was in. There are many tribes in the UK and many different aspects to each of those tribes (which makes them very specific) but I managed to narrow down the tribes to one main one. My main tribe I was focusing on was the Leading Edge whereby people within this group would listen to band such as Bombay Bicycle Club and the Drums and lifestyle would consist of going on Soundcloud and watching videos on Vice. So I took this information and collaborated it with other information I already knew about my target audience and created aspects in which to appeal my products to and advertise them also; and here’s that list: 

• 16-24 year olds
• Male and Female
• Enjoy bands such as Bombay Bicycle Club, Radiohead, The Drums and Arctic Monkeys
• Consume internet heavily on sites such as Soundcloud, Facebook, YouTube etc.
• Are into independent style media where mainstream media created by giant media companies isn’t normally that appealing.

So in order to see how much I achieved reaching out to my target audience throughout this project I created some interviews. Two interview consisted of people within my target audience and one who wasn’t. The reason for this was so that I could get a wide perspective on my video to understand if it appealed as much outside of my targeted audience.

 An interview with Ellie Kousoumis a 17 year old Art student. 

An interview with James Dyer an 18 year old Music Student. 

An interview with 45 year old Anne Donald. 

I gained a lot of information from these interviews as I was successfully able to see how my video worked in the eyes of others and if they liked it or not and for what aspects. Collectively, the feedback I got from the interviews was all positive but the different people had different perceptions on which aspects they liked the most. Ellie Kousoumis enjoyed the artistic side to the music video thoroughly and said that it was "visually simulating". When I researched into indie music videos I knew that the artistic side was a vital part of any music video and this was representative in videos such as Little Black Submarines by The Black Keys. Therefore this perspective was very satisfying for me as it proved that my work with the music video had accentuated the indie artistic side perfectly. James Dyer, the second interviewee,  felt that the personal feel to the band and the way they worked with each other in performance worked really well towards the music video, and this also was one more aspect that was pleasing to hear. This of course was pleasing because another important aspect of indie music videos is that the bands are very personal with each other and there are only a few of them playing like the band The Front Bottoms. So therefore I feel that from this audience feedback I could clearly see my successful progress in incorporating the indie style to my music video and subsequently making it appeal to my target audience. However the last interviewee, Anne Donald, wasn't part of my target audience and therefore the feedback from her was a lot different - but I was still able to learn a lot from her. She said that although she doesn't watch many music videos at all, and therefore hardily any indie music videos, the music video I created still enticed her as the audience and the cartoon world kind of reminded her of the 'Beatles'. This shows me that my video does appeal outside of my target audience, and this was exactly what I wanted. It was clear that it still encompassed aspects of an indie music video with the first two interviewees' comments, but then it was able to appeal to people that I wouldn't have thought it would have appealed to. 

After gathering all of this information from these three interviewees I looked at theorist Stuart Hall to take the information even further and to learn more about my video and the audience. Stuart Hall talks a great deal about encoding and decoding within media and how media collects different perspectives in three different categories. Mainly then, the perspectives focus on the narrative of a music video and their meanings/messages and at the start of the project I knew that the kind of perspective I wanted to gain for my music video was one that Stuart Hall calls 'The Negotiated Reading'. The Negotiated Reading is a concept whereby the audience partly believes/understands a text but then uses their own experiences to reflect upon the rest of it and understand it fully that way. All of my interviewees said that they understood the story and followed the character on the journey throughout. However they said that they understood the themes mainly, such as optimism, and that the abstract themes were the most prominent rather than the story being told explicitly. This was exactly what I wanted, and although it could be argued that the reading of my music video is therefore a dominant/preferred reading whereby the audience fully accepts what the author intends, I still feel my music video is a negotiated reading piece as I incorporated polysemic meaning for the audience to understand in their own ways.

Although I learnt a lot from the feedback at the end result of my project, I also learnt vital information from my feedback throughout the project at different stages. Gaining feedback wasn't difficult and I use the typical way of directly asking people and used the internet to ask for people's feedback also. 

These two images on the left and right are scanned images of feedback we gathered in class. This feedback was very extensive and we gathered it for our two rough cuts throughout the projects. Written feedback was very useful for us because the directness of the way we did it made people put down their honest opinions and a lot of opinions also. This meant that we could both gather positive feedback and constructive criticism which helped us greatly when going back to our rough cuts and changing them to better them. When we asked for feedback over our treatments, rough cuts etc. we were quite open with our questions as it allowed the audience to give a wide, expansive answer to the question. This worked well with the style of questioning and then after the open question we asked for a number between 1-5 at where our treatment or rough cut etc. was at in accordance to different factors. This was just extra information for our own benefit to see where we were with a proper statistic. This method overall was one of the most beneficial for our feedback as it had many advantages and little disadvantages to it. It helped us mostly in gaining the most information we possibly could to better our music video. We learnt also that sometimes understanding the video and the aspects of it was difficult for audiences, and this was mainly because we were so involved with the production and creation of the video that we may have overlooked some aspects and how easy they were to be perceived correctly. This meant that overall the audience feedback gained through this approach kept us on the right path to creating a good music video. We kept on pushing for feedback at different stages so we stayed on that path and I believe that was the perfect thing to do as the video wouldn't be the same without it.

The next approach I took to gaining feedback was using the social networking site Facebook to reach to an audience that wasn't doing a similar project as me (compared to the people in my class) and therefore had no knowledge of the products and their creation. I knew though that when asking questions on Facebook I had to make them closed questions, multiple choice, so that more people would feel obliged to participate. When asking my class the probability of answers from everyone was pretty much 100% whereas on the internet it is a lot lower, and that's why I asked a question such as the one above for my magazine advert so that it didn't take much time to participate. 

I then took the answers and created the pie chart on the left. Clearly there was an overwhelming decision of what should be used for my magazine advert but I didn't take that aspect and go completely with it. In this instance I knew that 'No.3' didn't have a strong relationship with my other products, but 'No.2' did. Therefore I took what I learnt from this feedback and how many people liked the look of the 'No.3' and collaborated my own ideas and mixed 2 & 3. This shows that although I appreciated the feedback greatly and it was a huge help, I still needed to take into account what I knew about my products in order to create the best possible magazine advert for my project. 



I also used Facebook's sharing option and got a few people to share my video on their own profiles as shown in the pictures surrounding. This was able to get feedback even from people I didn't know and this meant there was no bias factor involved and therefore their opinions held more credibility to the overall feedback.

This graph on the left is for my feedback gained from my digipak ideas. I asked people in my class for this and the percentages represent each person's individual likeness for each idea. Similarly to my magazine advert I also used this graph to see that two ideas were favoured and therefore combined the best bits of those ideas in my own way to create my digipak.






The whole project has been very extensive for me in creating each product and the amount of research and time I have put into the project has been immense. So gaining feedback from different areas in different stages has been a vital aspect of this project's development and outcome. I learnt a lot from feedback and it has changed my magazine advert and digipak's outcome and mine and my partner's video greatly. I took the feedback and used it to help utilise my own potential in creating something that appealed exactly to my target audience which perfectly shows the significance of audience feedback on a piece of work in making it the best it can be.

Evaluation Question Two

This project has been challenging for me, but it has tested my creativity and ambition in a positive way. The products that I have produced throughout this project have each been constructed through a lot of research and a lot of time spent thinking about each of the ideas I originally came up with for chosen product. The powerpoint below shows exactly my progress throughout, and how I aimed to create a set of products that collaborate very well with each other on a professional level.



Overall I believe that the products I created throughout this project collectively work very well with each other. In terms of how appealing they are and how recognisable they are to the target audience, my music video, digipak and magazine advert collaborate thoroughly as they incorporate similar aspects of design and construction. Focusing on my target audience was an essential factor of this project and I feel that I have taken the right steps to ensure that all of my products used the full potential to create the perfect group of products that if sold in real life would be comparable to real media products.

Evaluation Question One

    I took a lot of inspiration from many different media texts throughout the project; in order to create the music video that I did. I wanted to take a post-modern approach to the project by taking influences from a wide variety of both music videos and film as I thought that this way the aspect of inter-media would in turn make my own project original and unique. Though music video production doesn’t have as-strict guidelines to it than other media products - such as TV and Film - I still wanted my video to; firstly look like a music video and for this I took into account many theories developed by professional media theorists. Secondly I wanted my video to be recognisable to my chosen genre ‘Indie’ by my target audience.

Fight Club - Directed by David Fincher

Trainspotting - Directed by Danny Boyle

    The first thing that was on the agenda for me in creating this music video, was creating a strong narrative.I wanted that narrative to conform to aspects of narrative that Todorov explain within his theories, as well add in links to the lyrics within the story as one of Goodwin’s music video principles is to ‘link lyrics and visuals’. I wanted my video to have a strong message, and within the lyrics of the chosen song (Float On, by Modest Mouse) the overwhelming feeling was about optimism. I wanted to almost create a short film for my narrative as I felt this would work better for delivering the message, but then I still desired a visual piece that looked and felt like a music video. For the narrative I took inspiration from films such as Trainspotting, Fight Club, Wanted and many more, in order to show my protagonist’s break away from society’s ‘expectations’ and the typical ‘9-5 job’ but in my own unique way with a twist. Theorist Tzvetan Todorov, says that for a good story their must be an ‘Opening Equilibrium’ at the start where the lives of the person(s) in the story is at a stable point, and then as the story progresses there is one or many ‘disruptions’ to this equilibrium. There are then attempt(s) to solve this disruption to which the story ends in the ‘Ending Equilibrium’. 

'Just' by Radiohead (Performance)

My story follows this structure a great deal as I have my protagonist working in his office at the start - opening equilibrium - which is then quickly disrupted by his boss firing him, there are many more disruptions and solutions after this point until the end where the character finds himself at the coast, away from the busy city life, and is at peace once more - ending equilibrium. I believe my music video’s narrative is much more like a film’s rather than other music videos, but this is representative of the Indie genre as music videos such as Just by Radiohead and Breezeblocks by Alt - J both follow the same concept of telling a story comparable to ones seen in films through the medium of visual but more so music. 

Andrew Goodwin's five main music video principles

  Once I had decided on what kind of narrative I wanted for my video the next thing was to work out how I was going to construct the video to make it look Indie and to make it actually look like a music video and not just a montage from a film. For this I took into account two music video theorists Andrew Goodwin and Sven E Carlsson. Goodwin has five main principles to which a music video should be constructed by (as seen in the picture above on the right). For the construction of my video I focused on three of the main five and these were: 'Thought Beats', 'Narrative and Performance' and 'Technical Aspects of Music Video'.
The 'Thought Beats' principle of a music video is Goodwin's theory that the what the audience sees on the screen should have been impacted massively by the song's rhythm and structure and consequently the two (audio and visual) should have a constant relationship with each other throughout the music video. For any music video I knew that this was the fundamental aspect that made it what it was and what makes a music video so much more artistic compared to other media texts such as TV shows; and this was the same for mine too.

'Little Black Submarines' by The Black Keys

  For inspiration and research I focused on two main music videos that were in the same genre as my music video to see how they structured their visuals in relation to their visuals. Seeing as my music video is comprised of both a performance and a narrative, I firstly looked at the music video Little Black Submarines by the Black Keys to find inspiration for my performance shoot. The video, alike to many other indie videos, doesn't focus so much on one of the band members as the Star Image and rather it presents the audience with more artistic shots such as a fisheye shot of the band members working the instruments, as well as long, wide-angle shots from the audience and many close ups of each band member and their individual instruments. Every blunt sound from the drums triggers the next shot and it is this relationship that is very apparent in many music videos and shows the 'Thought Beats' concept exceptionally. For my music video I took a similar approach but changed the way it was structured depending on whether it was the narrative or the performance. For my performance instead of every drum beat I chose many different methods such as the end of a lyric, or the end of a guitar strum because I don't think (compared to Little Black Submarines) the drum beats are that prominent, due to the pace and the different level of sounds through each microphone. However when I was constructing my narrative I did end up editing the clips to the drum beat. The reason for this is because I knew that for the narrative the concept of 'Thought Beats' had to be much more implemented into the video to represent it as a music video. However I think that the more significant reason to why I edited it like this was because if I edited the performance also due to the drum beat it wouldn't be a solid relationship throughout due to the fact that when the audience watches the performance part and the band playing it is the guitar and the lyrics that are more prominent and have more impact, and subsequently that was the reason I chose to edit it in accordance to them. The way I edited it differently to a typical indie music video like Little Black Submarines I believe shows the non-strict guidelines perfectly, as every song is different and every affect and effect you put to the video of that song will be different to every other video already out there.

'The Scientist' by Coldplay

    
   So the next principle I was vitally aware of when researching and just starting the planning for my music video was the 'Narrative and Performance'. Goodwin says that music videos should present repeatability and that narrative and performance collaborate together in order to not just appeal to a target audience, but to show an 'implied' story without giving away every detail. This very much links to my music video, but on the other hand I think in many ways my video and others within the indie genre challenges this theory to an extent because of how much the 'message' means to the video. In a lot of indie music videos it is clear to see that a lot of the time the message that is trying to be told in both of the song and the video is a lot more prominent than other aspects such as the 'Star Image' and attempts to advertise the song. 'Just' by Radiohead and 'The Scientist' by Coldplay both show this a great deal within their music videos. They both still incorporate aspects of music video that Goodwin talks about - thought beats etc. - but instead of advertising their album excessively through artistic attributes, or dancing etc. they focus on the meaning of the song as a lot of the time that's what is more important to the artist/band. This was our primary approach to the construction of the video but the main influence was the video 'Just' by Radiohead, as we liked the fact of having a performance part to the video whereby the band acted as storytellers for the narrative that went along side.

'Just' by Radiohead (Narrative)

   
 Sven E Carlsson also talks about performance within his theory, arguably more specifically though, as he talks about in relation to there being only two categories that music videos fall into: Performance and Conceptual. Within the performance category there are three types of performers to a music video, and within my music video, the band act as Televised Bards - whereby the band members act as singing story tellers that tell a story to visual images (narrative).

   The last concept of Goodwin's that I most probably took into account more thany others was how I used 'Technical Aspects of Music Video' in order to entice my audience, and present my video to be an 'Indie' video. I was inspired by a lot of different bands and their videos for this project and I was also inspired by a lot of films too, and therefore the production of the video (camera angles, Mise-en-Scène, lighting, editing and effects) had many shots or looks to it that referenced other media texts in my own stylistic way by using them and developing them.

Here is a list below of all the music videos, films and TV shows I researched into in order to produce my own unique intermedial, intertextual product. 

   All of these different products of media inspired me in one way or another; whether it was a film's strong narrative, a music videos creative and artistic performance, or a TV Show's/Film's artistic directorship for different types of shots and looks. Below is both a mind-map of all of the texts and how they link and a video to show the comparisons between my music video and other existing media texts that I looked into.

Colour Palette showing the colours mostly used in 'Indie'-type media products.

Test from Kristian Coomber on Vimeo.

Final Construction: Music Video

Final Construction: Magazine Advert

Final Construction: Digipak

Magazine advert feedback

         I uploaded all three drafts of the magazine advert to Facebook to get some feedback, and there was an overwhelming decision. As you can see most people voted for the third one out of the lot and I guess that was both a positive thing and negative also. I my self liked No.3 and No.1 equally, but I knew that No.1 conformed more to the 'recognisability' factor and to the overall branding side of things for my chosen band.                                                                                                      I talked to some other people about the magazine advert and why it was so good and there were a few consistent themes that arose. Firstly the main one was that everything was easier to see in this one, and I think was mainly because of the approach I took. My style for this was similar to the Thirty Seconds to Mars's advert where the font style/gig poster was used. Another theme was that it stood out because the other drafts had too much going on. Especially in No.2, there was too much writing within the image that was close together. I believe the simplicity and the centred text of No.3 makes it the best.

Although I do really like No.3 and everything that it does incorporate, I do really like No.1 and the amount it links to the music video and my Digipak. Therefore for my final magazine advert I feel it'd only be the best decision to create a new advert based on the positives from No.3 and No.1.

Magazine Ideas & Drafts

      I want my magazine advert, digipak and music video to be very resemblant of each other so that my target audience will be able to spot the products more easily. To do this I have decided that I am going to correspond with the approach I took with the digipak and create a magazine advert that includes a lot of the dream world scene in it. This I think is a really good idea for advertising. Firstly because of the point I made about the three products resembling each other and therefore creating a recognisable brand, but secondly it appeals to my target audience. Most music magazine adverts that advertise bands' albums have the album front cover embedded into the advert one way or another and mine shall be no exception. Furthermore, considering my digipak research and how the genre indie and its style has a lot to do with drawing, I want to continue the theme here. I want to mix Computer Animation and hand-drawn animation once again with my advert and include many elements from both the video and the digipak. 

     Although I could just place the album front cover on the advert and then just add in some more information, I decided to try and once more challenge my creative ability and try to add in more aspects that will be more suited to the magazine style/form. I have a lot of different ideas going on, but I've rounded up my best ones and put them into this top 3 below, enjoy.

      A lot like the Thirty Seconds to Mars magazine advert but with some aspects of the album entwined with it. For this style then it would be mostly font-based, a lot like a gig poster. I feel that this would be a very good idea for my target audience as the Indie genre and its following has a big reputation for having a passion for lovely-looking gig posters. I will most probably have three different fonts and three different colours (based on everything I have used for the video and the digipak). The different words will be at different sizes and angles to produce an overall artistic look to the advert. I also want to take the approach of The Verve in their magazine article and centre everything. 


Idea No. 2 is a lot like No. 3, but the main aspect of the advert would be based around a picture of the dream world. A lot like The Verve's I will have a picture of my dream world behind the text. However considering my research on Empire Magazine and how they integrate elements of their adverts and covers I want to take the same approach and integrate my album name and band name into the surroundings of the picture. I feel this could make it a lot more personal and it will look a lot more creative/artistic too.  The picture will also be landscape orientation.

    My favourite idea of mine actually comes from a mix of the two ideas above. I want to have an advert with the dream world picture for definite as this will add to that resemblance and brand recognisability factor. I also want to integrate the wordings into the advert, and to make it look like a gig poster. However for this idea I want to use a photograph also as the main aspect. One idea is to have the bottom half of the character's smiling face, and then the pictures in the background. Either that or the top half of the face (looking happy and inquisitive) peering out of one of the sides on the A4 sized image. The grin/inquisitive-happy look will give the emotion to the advert that is conveyed through the music video. 


No.3

No.2

No.1