Evaluation Question 4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

This is my answer for my Evaluation Question 4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

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Evaluation Question 3: What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?

This evaluation question asks: What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?

Throughout my construction of my three products, I conducted many forms of audience feedback to gain insight in how my target audience would be attracted to a product enough to consume it. By conducting this research, we would be able to create an effective promotional package for our artist.

We started off our research into our audience by asking questions to a random sample of people, trying to understand the mainstream genres of music, why music videos are important and gaining the general reasons for watching music videos to truly understand how to allow our audiences to consume our promotional package, making it effective for our artist.

Our questions were:

1. What makes an artist memorable?
2. What genres of music do you listen to?
3. Do you watch music videos?
4. What platforms do you use to watch music videos?
5. What is your favourite music video?
6. Why?

These questions enabled us to gain enough information about our target audience in order to construct our music video to the standards and expectations of our target audience.

We also created a survey on surveymonkey to gain information from the public who were not in our video to see if the answers from the video differed from the survey.
These were our results:

The majority of people who answered the questions were around the age of 17-20 years old, which is the age group we were targeting aiming for as our audience.

The majority of answers for this question was female, and we were targeting our music video towards females as it is a pop video about a relationship, and so our answers from this survey was very helpful in providing information about our target audience.

Half of our answers for this question was Pop music, and we also had 20% of answers for country music, which is the two genres of our music video. This allowed us to gain more knowledge of our target audience. 

The answers from this question allowed us to create an effective image for our artist, we were able to use their answers and develop our artist into effectively conforming to our audience's expectations.

The majority of answers showed that the public do watch music videos, and so our target audience would watch our music video.

The answers from this question gave us an insight into why the public watch music videos and the impact a music video could have on the audience.

This provided information on the platforms the public watch music videos on. Our most popular answer was YouTube, with 100%. We also had an answer for Television, which shows that people watch music videos on many different platforms, and so it provides many ways our music video can be consumed.

By using this question, we were able to gain information about the music videos our target audience watched. This worked in our favour for some of the answers were based on Taylor Swift, who was a big inspiration throughout our project, and by comparing their answers to the answers they chose in the above questions, we were able to gain a full idea of our target audience.

During the construction of our music video, we decided we needed the target audience's feedback in order to make our music video a success. By doing so, we created a rough cut of what the music video looked like so far, and asked the audience two questions: "What Went Well?" and "Even Better If?" These two questions allowed us to gain information about the aspects of the music video which our audience enjoyed, and particular features which the audience thought could be improved.  

This video allowed us to gain information from our audience on what went well in our video, and we gained answers such as the speed of editing was very good, the lip-syncing and the background. One really good thing about the answers our audience gave for the question "Even Better If" was that we already had those ideas in mind and we had already filmed that footage which would suit the audience's answers, and so we were overjoyed with the feedback we received. 

After our final music video was created, we decided to conduct another audience feedback video to see if our corrections fit with our audiences expectations. By creating this audience feedback, we were able to see if our audience enjoyed our finished music video.

We used the helpful advice from the audience feedback for the rough cut to make a better quality final music video which will suit our audience's expectations. 

We then created the next part of our project, which was the digipak. We asked for feedback on our digipak, such as what did you like about it? Did it fit with our music video? Would you be able to recognise it as our artist straight away? 

Most of our feedback was very positive, such our use of the tree image which fit with the nature location of our video. We wanted the album to fit with the name, Ordinary Situations, and so the nature effect worked well, which our audience noticed and enjoyed. One piece of criticism was that the front of the digipak did not automatically relate to our music video, however it still worked in our favour. 

The positive feedback was:

• Effective use of images
• Memorable
• Helps to understand the narrative
• Effective however simple design

We also asked for feedback from our audience on our artist's magazine advert. 

The feedback we asked for was how to improve the album and what was successful about the album, such as picture placement, colour scheme, font and text placement. We gained positive feedback on it, such as it related to our digipak and it would be recognisable. Also that it was memorable and it had consistency throughout our promotional package. 

Through our use of audience feedback, we have learned how to make our promotional package effective for our audience enough for them to consume it and enjoy it. 

Evaluation Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts

This is my answer to my evaluation question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts, which i answered through my use of a website called Popplet.

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

Constructing the Magazine Advert

We researched into magazine adverts and what type of information needed to be included in the advert to make our advert look professional and like a real magazine advert.
We used Photoshop to construct our advert, and we decided to use the same image of the tree as was on our front and back panels of our music video for we thought it would be familiar to the audience and they would be able to recognise that it would be our artist's advert. We also used the same font for our text as it would allow consistency throughout our digipak and magazine advert.

We then included the artist's name, and we decided to make the advert look popular and give her an "up-and-coming" vibe and so we also added other information, such as "Brand New Album."

We then added ratings from magazine companies, such as NME and Mojo, to make the advert look successful and professional, and to catch the attention of the audience, as they will want to know more about the five star album.

And this is our finished Magazine Advert.

Constructing the Digipak

This is our finished Digipak 

We used a digipak template to understand the placement of the photos on the digipak, and we had to manipulate all of the photos in our own way by the use of photoshop.  We had to create different photos for each panel to make a successful digipak. We wanted the front and back cover to smoothly connect and so we used the same image spaced over both panels. By doing this, we used the correct measurements for each six panels, and we connected the front and back panels together with a 1cm to the width for the spine of the digipak. 

We also created 11 songs for the back of our digipak to create the feeling that it is a full digipak, and we decided to make the title of the digipak one of the songs on the back, like what most digipaks have.  We also got an image of a barcode for our digipak to make it more professional and make it look like a real digipak. 

This is the font we decided to use for our digipak as we wanted a font which could be blended into the branches. However, once we tested out our idea we decided it would be best if the title would be just below the branches. We thought this font would be most effective as it has a tree branch effect to it, which is the focus of the front and back panels. 

This is our information page for our artist on the inside of our digipak. We researched about digipaks and looked into the information that goes on the artist panels. We decided that using a white background and the side of the tree like the front and back panels would be effective for our information page as it is subtle and it gives consistency to the digipak. 

These three images are on the inside pages of our digipak. They were all manipulated on photoshop with the vignette filter to create an effective tone to our photos.  The middle photo was manipulated to make James fade out of the photo by placing an exact photo over the top containing only Kendall in it. This creates the effect that James has left her life as their relationship is over, which would be effective for our audience. 

This is our finished digipak. We had to flip the three images at the top to make the upside-down so that it would create a perfectly presented digipak.  We then placed a cd holder over the middle photo to make the digipak look real, like it was ready for the cd to be placed o the digipak.

Magazine Advert

Audience Feedback for Finished Music Video

To understand how effective and successful our music video was to our target audience, we had to ask a few questions and gain feedback from the members of the audience and gain knowledge of the aspects which were effective and parts of our music video that could have been improved. However, we gained little to no negative feedback on our music video; the audience seemed to enjoy it.

The questions asked were:

1. Did you enjoy it?
2. What did you think was successful?
3. Where do you think we could improve?
4. What was your favourite part of our music video?
5. What is your impression of this type of video?
6. What is your impression of the artist?
7. Do you think this video has been effective in branding the artist?
8. Would you buy the album?

Our feedback was predominantly positive, with feedback which would have made our music video more successful, yet our video could succeed without it. We gained information from our audience, such as how the two scenes at the beginning and the end with the train worked well together, which is what we had planned on, and so we are really pleased that the audience enjoyed those scenes. I was also very happy that the answers for branding our artist were very successful, for the audience thought the video really helped brand the artist. 

Our advice on how to improve the video really helped us understand what the audience wanted in order to effectively consume our product. We gained answers such as more of the storyline, choice of studio location, which we definitely agreed on, a different location, and we thought the advice was very useful in our understanding of our target audience. 

Another positive aspect from our audience feedback was that the answers we received for "Would you buy the album" was that most of the audience said they would buy the album, some said maybe, and some said no. When we asked the people that had said no, they replied that it is because it is not their type of music, which we was very pleased with. 

Comparing this to our audience feedback for our Rough Cut, we are very pleased with the answers we received. We have worked on the answers we received from the rough cut, and it seems to have worked as we gained positive feedback for our final music video, and so we are glad with the results from our target audience.

Finished Music Video

Audience feedback for our rough cut

We wanted to create a video format for our feedback to get accurate answers of our video to see what they really thought of the video. We started by showing some individuals the video to allow them to see the video before the questions. We decided to ask them two questions:

1. What Went Well
2. What Can Be Improved

After listening to their feedback and watching it through again, we decided to add more narrative to our video and make the video more interesting by gaining more footage of Kendall and James to successfully display their relationship to the audience so that we can use pathos and apply Stuart Hall's reception theory to our audience to get a preferred reading of our music video.

Digipak

Model of the Media

There are many links throughout the media, creating a model of the media.

Sexism in music videos

Sexism in Music Videos

Sexism is an increasing issue in the media industry, particularly regarding women. The issues occurring over sexism is based on the drastic difference on the presentation of men and the presentation of women. Laura Mulvey's theory is very significant in sexism in the music industry, especially her theory on the Male Gaze. The theory suggests that the male gaze denies women human identity, relegating them to the status of objects to be admired for physical appearance. This is when women are subjected to the male's entertainment: they are only there for sexual purposes, which can be in many ways, such as their sexual dance moves and skimpy costumes. Sexism in music videos is mainly targeted to gain male attention, and even when women consume texts, they have to be subjected to the voyeuristic treatment of the female body. Andrew Goodwin theory proposed that there is frequent reference of voyeuristic treatment of the female body, suggesting that women are designed to be 'objects of desire'. 

Robin Thicke - Blurred Lines

Robin Thicke's controversial music video for Blurred Lines created a massive debate on sexism in music videos. This video no doubt suggests that women are only for male's entertainment. The controversial lyrics, such as "I know you want it" and "Do it like it hurt," created such chaos which ended up in 20 university student unions banning the record. The girls in this music video are highly exploited to sexism as they are wearing very little clothing (in the explicit version, they are topless) which proves that women are just objects of sexual desire to gain the male audience's attention and gain more consumption. The men in the music video are treated differently as they are fully clothed, highlighting sexism issues in this video. This video supports Laura Mulvey's theory as the women are subjected to the male gaze in every aspect, and it applies to Goodwin's theory as the women have a dance routine, and they are subjected to voyeuristic treatment, two of his suggested characteristics of music videos.

Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball

Miley Cyrus' music video for Wrecking Ball caused a massive outrage due to the controversial sexism throughout her video. This video creates a debate over whether Miley was exploited by the music industry, or whether she was exploiting herself to prove a point. There is an amplified scene throughout her video of Miley swinging on a wrecking ball, appearing to be naked, and she also licks a sledge hammer in a very provocative manner. Audiences argue that this video sends a wrong message out to her younger fans; the fans who knew and loved her for her role as Hannah Montana. However, others say that Miley is exploiting herself to get rid of the 'Hannah Montana Sweet Girl' image and fashion a more grown up appearance, making the statement that she is no longer the innocent Disney star. Sinead O'Connor warned Miley to "Not let them prostitute you!" However, it seemed to me as though Miley was exploiting herself, conforming to Laura Mulvey's theory, to appeal to the audience by presenting herself as an object of erotic desire.

Lily Allen - Hard Out Here

Lily Allen created a very feminist video for her song "Hard Out Here" as it is making fun of videos which present women in a sexist fashion. Her video is a parody of current music videos which exploits women, such as J Lo's video for "Booty." Lily's video shows how hard it is for women to be treated fairly in the music industry these days, as women are expected to look a certain way. They have to be skinny; she sings "if you're not a size 6 then you're not good-looking," however girls have to also have a big butt and boobs, and a pretty face "or you'll end up on your own." This shows how women are treated unfairly in the media; they have to look perfect or they aren't worthy of people's admirations. Lily is trying to show the audience that sexism in music videos is a major issue, and although the women in her music video are sexualised by having barely any clothes on and sexual dance moves, it is to prove a point to the media, and show what happens behind the camera. This video conforms to Andrew Goodwin's theory as it presents a voyeuristic treatment of the female body and contains a dance routine.

What is a digipak?

A digipak typically consists of a gatefold (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD/DVD attached to the inside. It means the CD comes in a cardboard flip-out case rather than a standard plastic hinged case.

Digipak-style packaging is often used for CD singles or special editions of CD albums and the tall DVD digipak is often used as a premium package for DVD's and DVD sets. 

What is included in a digipak?

A digipak often contains:

• Photographs/Pictures - usually at least one will be of the artist, and another will be of a scene which will reflect the mood/genre of the record. 
• Track list including song-writing credits.
• One box with a disc impression, like a circle over an innocuous background that shows where the disc will go or alternatively the design on the actual disc).
• A band/artist information section (names, instruments, additional musicians,  copyright, and year of release, etc.)
• Barcode, QR, and a logo for the record company.
• Possibly reference to other albums by the same artist.

This colour scheme for a digipak works very well for this band. The front and back covers are very eye-catching as they are black with a white illuminated light, which would be effective in grabbing the audience's attention. There is consistency throughout the entire digipak as it continues the black and white theme in every panel. Also, the information page is just a subtle black background with white writing on it which is simple yet it works very well for this digipak as it follows the same lines as the back page with the song titles on. As this band is the indie genre, they tend to not follow normal digipaks for boy bands, and so they did not have a picture of the band on the front of the digipak, instead they followed the simple, intriguing fashion for their front and back cover of the digipak, allowing the audience to gain more interest in the band, and also suggesting it's more about the music than the attractiveness of the band. The CD itself is fully black, however it did not conform to the rest of the digipak as the CD is matte black, whereas the writing on it "The 1975" is written in a shiny black colour which stands out and would catch the audience's attention subtly. The font used throughout the digipak is very distinctive yet simple, which would help the audience's familiarity with the band and make the band easy to recognise. However, the photo of the whole band is spread across the two inside pages of the digipak, the photo that would be on the left of the digipak and the middle where the CD would be placed. This is quite effective as the audience would recognise the band and would gain more interest in the digipak. Their outfits also fit the colour scheme, which creates consistency throughout the entire digipak.

This digipak for Katy Perry's album "Teenage Dream" is very effective for it relates to her song for "Teenage Dream." She has the colour scheme of a baby pink, which could make her seem innocent, however the photos of her surrounded by the baby pink contradict the innocence of the colour as she is naked in the photos, therefore conforming to Andrew Goodwin's theory of women being subjected to voyeuristic treatment, and Laura Mulvey's theory of the male gaze, which is also present in her music video for "Teenage Dream". Perry also has another trait in this digipak which relates back to her song, which is the use of sweet imagery. Her CD's are the images of a lollipop and a doughnut which again adds to her innocent look. Katy Perry's middle and information panel are a connected image of her sitting down in between some cakes, again presenting sweet imagery. However, the information section does not take over the whole page, unlike "The 1975" digipak, which could suggest that she is more famous than them but also that her image matters more to the audience than her music, which is the opposite of The 1975.

Rough Cut

This is the rough cut of our music video. We still need much more cuts and footage, and so we will be filming more, and continuing to edit to create a perfect successful music video.

Shot List

Shot List
Scene	Shot Number	Description
1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8	Medium shot of train station platform, 2 seconds long. Sound of train- digetic* Medium shot of the train approaching. 2 seconds in length. Sound of the train increasing. Diegetic/non Diegetic Closer Medium shot, Train continues to come, two seconds long. Non-Diegetic sound. Train arrives, long shot of artist from across the platform. Non-Diegetic sound. 2 seconds long. Medium shot of artist getting on the train, Non-Diegetic sound, lasts roughly a second to two seconds. Close up of face, one second in length, Song begins, Diegetic. Cuts to new location, Close up of face, Singing begins, 1.5 seconds long. Long shot of artist sitting on train, 3 seconds long, non diegetic sound
2 1 1 3 1 2 2 2 1 1 2	9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19	Frontal frame, close up of face, singing continues. One second in length. Non-Diegetic. Medium shot Cuts to train, sitting in a seat, no lip-syncing. 1.5 second in length. Medium shot of standing in front of a wall 1 second in length. Close up of holding hands walking 0.5 – 1 second in length. Medium shot on train 2 seconds in length. Copy of shot 7, 1.5 seconds length. Still medium shot of singing 2 seconds Close up of singing, 4 seconds long Medium shot, artist sitting on the bench with partner 2 seconds Medium shot, fades to just her sitting on the bench, 3 seconds Cuts to Close up of singing, 4 seconds long