I recorded a directors commentary as part of my evaluation focusing on the use and development of the convention of lip syncing referencing specific examples in the video.
Thursday, 23 April 2015
Q1 Directors Commentary
I recorded a directors commentary as part of my evaluation focusing on the use and development of the convention of lip syncing referencing specific examples in the video.
Sunday, 19 April 2015
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I feel that my three products work in symphony in terms of brand image as I have used several ways of feeding in similarities to the products to make them look similar and to appeal to my audience in the same ways.
The font 'Hacked' was used in all three media products as I felt that the pixelated look to the font not only illustrated 'crookedness' that I associate with the name The Crookes but also because it emits an edgy, cool feel which is part of what I have built for my artist image. This typography is used on my digipak to show the name of the band and is subsequently used in the same way on my advert, and this continued use makes the combination effective as it presents a running image and brand, thus making the band more recognisable and distinguishable to my audience.
In terms of styling, both the artist and the two girls acting, their clothing was very stylish but casual which added to the relaxed image presented in the song and my desired image for the artist. In the advert, again the clothing is very simple and casual (plain t-shirts) which supports the laid back image from the video. Although no clothing styling took place in the production of the digipak, the images of the sea and waves and the way in which I altered the colour balance also highlights the relaxed impression throughout the music video and advert.
My referencing to zeigeist (dominant trends and preferences in a certain time period) in my main product and ancillary texts makes them effective and successful as a combination. In my music video, the zeigeist that I have referenced is the street art movement, showing all of the impressive graffiti, especially because I feel that indie audiences are more artistic. Additionally, the location of Camden is very popular and iconic and so this could appeal more to my audience as they would know about and enjoy going to Camden . In my digipak, I have also used key things from today's zeitgeist such as the geometric shapes (the triangles) as there is a huge trend of minimalistic and geometric graphic design in much of the modern design work and in advertising and so by using this in my digipak, it makes it more familiar and on trend with design work. Additionally, my advert heavily focuses on trends and fashion that is most popular at the moment;
the beards/stubble on the band members is linked with the popular beard trend that is most common in London, where a large part of my audience would be from, and so this would be familiar and fashionable for them. the tattoos on the band members is also part of the modern day zeitgeist as tattooing, specifically sleeve tattoos are a growing trend, not only in the rock and indie music industry but in the mainstream public as well. By including elements of zeitgeist, it has made my products more effective in the sense that there are elements that are easily recognisable to everyone and links in with current trends in the indie and rock genre.
I asked my target audience feedback group if watching the music video makes them more likely to buy the album.
6/10 said that it made them more likely to buy the album as "listening to the song made me remember the video so I would buy it (the album) as it reminded me of the video" - this suggests that the video has been successful in staying with the viewer after they have seen it, making it more memorable.
Also "yes, the girls and singer in the video were having fun, which made me happy, so I would buy the album as it would put me in a good mood" - The music video and digipak emit a positive and up lifting feeling which is passed on to my audience, and so by having this running theme, it makes them more effective as one influences the other.
1/10 said they were less likely to buy the album because "I didnt like the song, it was too 'pop' for me so I wouldn't buy it because it's probably pop influenced too and I prefer monochrome album artwork because it usually means the band is more 'rocky'". This perhaps shows that I havent entirely appealed to my audience as the digipak is not dark enough to connect with fans of rock music.
Lastly, I looked at the psychographics (their wants/needs) of my target audience and found that it was to relax and travel, get away from everyday life. In my three products, I tried to relate to this. In my music video, the narrative is about having fun, relaxing with your friends, and the song is about letting go and living in the moment, not worrying about everyday life, "I like the video because it makes me feel like I have escaped for a bit, im living in their world and having fun with them". Likewise, for my digipak, the waves and sea images that I used, the location offers an escape and implies that the music on the album will make the listener feel good and forget about 'the real world' for a while. The advert too I feel that my main product and ancillary text are effective in addressing the psychographics of my audience and providing them with what they want.
Overall, I feel that the combination of my main product and ancillary texts is effective as there are constant running themes through all three of my products which directly relate to appealing to my audience, and from my target audience feedback, I feel that they have related to it and respond to my products in the way I had hoped.
The font 'Hacked' was used in all three media products as I felt that the pixelated look to the font not only illustrated 'crookedness' that I associate with the name The Crookes but also because it emits an edgy, cool feel which is part of what I have built for my artist image. This typography is used on my digipak to show the name of the band and is subsequently used in the same way on my advert, and this continued use makes the combination effective as it presents a running image and brand, thus making the band more recognisable and distinguishable to my audience.
In terms of styling, both the artist and the two girls acting, their clothing was very stylish but casual which added to the relaxed image presented in the song and my desired image for the artist. In the advert, again the clothing is very simple and casual (plain t-shirts) which supports the laid back image from the video. Although no clothing styling took place in the production of the digipak, the images of the sea and waves and the way in which I altered the colour balance also highlights the relaxed impression throughout the music video and advert.My referencing to zeigeist (dominant trends and preferences in a certain time period) in my main product and ancillary texts makes them effective and successful as a combination. In my music video, the zeigeist that I have referenced is the street art movement, showing all of the impressive graffiti, especially because I feel that indie audiences are more artistic. Additionally, the location of Camden is very popular and iconic and so this could appeal more to my audience as they would know about and enjoy going to Camden . In my digipak, I have also used key things from today's zeitgeist such as the geometric shapes (the triangles) as there is a huge trend of minimalistic and geometric graphic design in much of the modern design work and in advertising and so by using this in my digipak, it makes it more familiar and on trend with design work. Additionally, my advert heavily focuses on trends and fashion that is most popular at the moment; 6/10 said that it made them more likely to buy the album as "listening to the song made me remember the video so I would buy it (the album) as it reminded me of the video" - this suggests that the video has been successful in staying with the viewer after they have seen it, making it more memorable.
Also "yes, the girls and singer in the video were having fun, which made me happy, so I would buy the album as it would put me in a good mood" - The music video and digipak emit a positive and up lifting feeling which is passed on to my audience, and so by having this running theme, it makes them more effective as one influences the other.
1/10 said they were less likely to buy the album because "I didnt like the song, it was too 'pop' for me so I wouldn't buy it because it's probably pop influenced too and I prefer monochrome album artwork because it usually means the band is more 'rocky'". This perhaps shows that I havent entirely appealed to my audience as the digipak is not dark enough to connect with fans of rock music.
Lastly, I looked at the psychographics (their wants/needs) of my target audience and found that it was to relax and travel, get away from everyday life. In my three products, I tried to relate to this. In my music video, the narrative is about having fun, relaxing with your friends, and the song is about letting go and living in the moment, not worrying about everyday life, "I like the video because it makes me feel like I have escaped for a bit, im living in their world and having fun with them". Likewise, for my digipak, the waves and sea images that I used, the location offers an escape and implies that the music on the album will make the listener feel good and forget about 'the real world' for a while. The advert too I feel that my main product and ancillary text are effective in addressing the psychographics of my audience and providing them with what they want.
Overall, I feel that the combination of my main product and ancillary texts is effective as there are constant running themes through all three of my products which directly relate to appealing to my audience, and from my target audience feedback, I feel that they have related to it and respond to my products in the way I had hoped.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
As part of my evaluation, I asked a group of 10 people from my target audience of boys and girls aged between 16 and 23 to obtain a better understanding of how successful my music video, digipak and advert are.
Firstly I asked what do you think the genre of this song is?
I gave this question in my questionnaire and a comment answer instead of a multiple choice to leave the judgement completely down to my audience.
Half of the people I asked thought it was indie, 3 thought it was pop and 2 thought it was rock. I am pleased with this feedback as it is primarily indie but has elements and influences from the pop and rock genres too and so I am glad that this came across to my target audience.
What did you like about the video?
"the idea of fans attending a concert"
A male member of my target audience spoke about the concert sing-along vibe which I am glad came across as concerts and live shows are such an important part of the indie genre and bands within it. I have learnt from this that my editing and mixing in the girls lip syncing too does convey the idea of fans being able to sing along with one of their favourite artists and that this element is appealing and interesting to my target audience as they can identify with singing along to their favourite song.
"the girls having fun connotes strong friendship"
From an 18 year old member of my focus group of target audience members, I have found that the narrative element appeals more to the female part of my audience more as they can identify with them easier. The girls went on to say how the 'strong friendship' element appealed to them as it was something they could recognise or aspire to.
"how the video is synchronised with the music"
By editing to the beat of the music and keeping up with the fast pace of the song, this has appealed to my target audience. I understand that having the video synchronised with the track makes the music video more appealing and easier to watch as well as holding the attention of viewers throughout the song.
"the use of photos at the beginning and then bringing them back throughout the video and seeing the girls out doing those activities"
Many of the people in my target audience feedback group enjoyed the running theme of photographs and capturing the best moments in your life which is essentially what the song is about. By having an ongoing repertoire of photos, it enabled me to constantly refer to the narrative and what the girls were doing as it embodied the key themes of the song itself.
"fun ending with the artist mucking about"
The playful, 'I don't care' persona of my artist was referenced a lot and in particular the males in my feedback group found Jeremy's acting and messing around sequence to be their favourite part as they said they felt it influenced them to be more fun and laid back as well as saying that it made the artist more likable and relatable.
What impressions do you get from the artist singing the song?
Again I left this question open to comments instead of multiple choice as I wanted a true impression of the artist. I asked this question because it is important for me to know if I have branded and sold my artist in the correct way.
3/10 said they thought he was cool, then 2/10 for all the other responses.
This has led me to believe that I have been successful in presenting my artist as I intended to emulate a cool, laid back artist as is typical of the indie genre. It also means that I didn't do anything to bring him across in any negative way and so he would appeal and attract my target audience.
What could be improved?
"changing up the shots of the girls-they got a bit repetitive"
"shots are a bit jumpy towards the end, edit them closer to the beat"
Based off of this feedback, I now know that, to fully maintain my audiences attention, I should have included a greater variety of shots of the girls singing perhaps in different environments, and also in my editing process, I should have more tightly edited the final shots more in time with the music to make the editing as clean cut as possible.
Out of 10, how clear is it that this is a digipak (album)?
I asked my audience this to simply see if I had met the brief of creating a digipak for my artist.
From the feedback, I have seen that my audience does in fact think it looks like an album.
"The front and back covers look really professional" - From following the conventions I had found in my research, I was able to create a realistic digipak.
"I like the simple picture as the background of where the disk goes" - The simplistic images and layout of my digipak appealed to my audience as well as the colours - "the colours are really nice and calm and make me feel chilled out", and so from this I can see that using relaxing imagery with a specific colour scheme has appealed to my target audience and the 'chilled out vibe' has been transferred from my digipak onto my audience.
"The track list is good, they stand out because the writing is in white and I like that the song 'Waves' links to the cover" - The choice of using white as my text colour worked well as it enabled everyone to see what was written on the digipak, and I was pleased that two people noticed that the album artwork was influenced by another track title.
Would seeing this poster make you more likely to buy the album?
As the advert poster's purpose is to sell the album, I found that this would be a useful question to ask.
8/10 said that it would make them more likely to buy the album. "seeing the actual band members makes me want to buy it more because I now know who is behind the music" - although the music itself is a main priority when buying an album, my audience said that seeing who the band are also influences their decision when buying music (perhaps a little superficial), and so I can see that by having the band members on the poster, it widens their appeal to the audience and shows that appearance is very important to many music fans.
1/10 said it would make them less likely to buy the album as they found the band members to look a little intimidating and too 'edgy', lessening the band's appeal to her.
1/10 said they were just likely to buy the album as "their appearance doesnt make me more or less likely to buy the album, I like the song so that it all that matters to me". This piece of feedback, be it small, reinforces the idea that to some music fans, appearance and image is irrelevant, the quality of the music is what matters.
From all of my feedback on the music video, the digipak and the advert, I have learnt that I was able to get across my desired image and impression of my artist and the genre of the song. Additionally, I have found that despite having quite a refined target audience, there is still variation on how different members of the audience react to my media products and so this, in the future, would make me thing differently when trying to appeal to a mass audience-ensuring there is something that appeals to everyone.
Firstly I asked what do you think the genre of this song is?
Half of the people I asked thought it was indie, 3 thought it was pop and 2 thought it was rock. I am pleased with this feedback as it is primarily indie but has elements and influences from the pop and rock genres too and so I am glad that this came across to my target audience.
What did you like about the video?
"the idea of fans attending a concert"
A male member of my target audience spoke about the concert sing-along vibe which I am glad came across as concerts and live shows are such an important part of the indie genre and bands within it. I have learnt from this that my editing and mixing in the girls lip syncing too does convey the idea of fans being able to sing along with one of their favourite artists and that this element is appealing and interesting to my target audience as they can identify with singing along to their favourite song.
"the girls having fun connotes strong friendship"
From an 18 year old member of my focus group of target audience members, I have found that the narrative element appeals more to the female part of my audience more as they can identify with them easier. The girls went on to say how the 'strong friendship' element appealed to them as it was something they could recognise or aspire to.
"how the video is synchronised with the music"
By editing to the beat of the music and keeping up with the fast pace of the song, this has appealed to my target audience. I understand that having the video synchronised with the track makes the music video more appealing and easier to watch as well as holding the attention of viewers throughout the song.
"the use of photos at the beginning and then bringing them back throughout the video and seeing the girls out doing those activities"
Many of the people in my target audience feedback group enjoyed the running theme of photographs and capturing the best moments in your life which is essentially what the song is about. By having an ongoing repertoire of photos, it enabled me to constantly refer to the narrative and what the girls were doing as it embodied the key themes of the song itself.
"fun ending with the artist mucking about"
The playful, 'I don't care' persona of my artist was referenced a lot and in particular the males in my feedback group found Jeremy's acting and messing around sequence to be their favourite part as they said they felt it influenced them to be more fun and laid back as well as saying that it made the artist more likable and relatable.
What impressions do you get from the artist singing the song?
Again I left this question open to comments instead of multiple choice as I wanted a true impression of the artist. I asked this question because it is important for me to know if I have branded and sold my artist in the correct way.
3/10 said they thought he was cool, then 2/10 for all the other responses.
This has led me to believe that I have been successful in presenting my artist as I intended to emulate a cool, laid back artist as is typical of the indie genre. It also means that I didn't do anything to bring him across in any negative way and so he would appeal and attract my target audience.
What could be improved?
"changing up the shots of the girls-they got a bit repetitive"
"shots are a bit jumpy towards the end, edit them closer to the beat"
Based off of this feedback, I now know that, to fully maintain my audiences attention, I should have included a greater variety of shots of the girls singing perhaps in different environments, and also in my editing process, I should have more tightly edited the final shots more in time with the music to make the editing as clean cut as possible.
Out of 10, how clear is it that this is a digipak (album)?
I asked my audience this to simply see if I had met the brief of creating a digipak for my artist.
From the feedback, I have seen that my audience does in fact think it looks like an album.
"The front and back covers look really professional" - From following the conventions I had found in my research, I was able to create a realistic digipak.
"I like the simple picture as the background of where the disk goes" - The simplistic images and layout of my digipak appealed to my audience as well as the colours - "the colours are really nice and calm and make me feel chilled out", and so from this I can see that using relaxing imagery with a specific colour scheme has appealed to my target audience and the 'chilled out vibe' has been transferred from my digipak onto my audience.
"The track list is good, they stand out because the writing is in white and I like that the song 'Waves' links to the cover" - The choice of using white as my text colour worked well as it enabled everyone to see what was written on the digipak, and I was pleased that two people noticed that the album artwork was influenced by another track title.
Would seeing this poster make you more likely to buy the album?
As the advert poster's purpose is to sell the album, I found that this would be a useful question to ask.
8/10 said that it would make them more likely to buy the album. "seeing the actual band members makes me want to buy it more because I now know who is behind the music" - although the music itself is a main priority when buying an album, my audience said that seeing who the band are also influences their decision when buying music (perhaps a little superficial), and so I can see that by having the band members on the poster, it widens their appeal to the audience and shows that appearance is very important to many music fans.
1/10 said it would make them less likely to buy the album as they found the band members to look a little intimidating and too 'edgy', lessening the band's appeal to her.
1/10 said they were just likely to buy the album as "their appearance doesnt make me more or less likely to buy the album, I like the song so that it all that matters to me". This piece of feedback, be it small, reinforces the idea that to some music fans, appearance and image is irrelevant, the quality of the music is what matters.
From all of my feedback on the music video, the digipak and the advert, I have learnt that I was able to get across my desired image and impression of my artist and the genre of the song. Additionally, I have found that despite having quite a refined target audience, there is still variation on how different members of the audience react to my media products and so this, in the future, would make me thing differently when trying to appeal to a mass audience-ensuring there is something that appeals to everyone.
Friday, 27 March 2015
Feedback - 27/03/15
What went well:
Alicia has done Directors commentary on lip syncing and editing to the beat (part of question 1). she is now completing the rest of question 1 using a table on Powerpoint.
Even better if:
many of the points are in not for - e.g. challenging instrument performance form and convention - make sure you expand on these points.
There are some aspects of research and planning that need to be added to the blog-remember the deadline for this is next friday.
Alicia has done Directors commentary on lip syncing and editing to the beat (part of question 1). she is now completing the rest of question 1 using a table on Powerpoint.
Even better if:
many of the points are in not for - e.g. challenging instrument performance form and convention - make sure you expand on these points.
There are some aspects of research and planning that need to be added to the blog-remember the deadline for this is next friday.
Wednesday, 25 March 2015
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)