Evaluation: In what way does your media product, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Throughout my initial research I thoroughly looked into music videos within the indie/alternative genre in which I wanted to focus my product around. From this, I found that videos inside the genre are so vast with many not sticking to a particular pattern unlike pop or R&B. In ways this was good for me as it allowed me to do what I wanted without challenging the typical forms and conventions so much that it had an effect on whether the audience liked it or not. Despite not following any specific guidelines I still tried to give the video an indie/vintage look to it and I believe I did this well. For example, including props like the guitar and Beatles-esque clothes/hair are similar to what fans of the artist wear meaning people could relate to and potentially enjoy the video more than they normally would.

As I mentioned previously, I wanted the video to be completely narrative based with the artist featuring in the throughout it. However, I didn't want it to be performance based with the artist singing or lip syncing to the lyrics either. I looked at a video for Arctic Monkey's single 'Suck It and See' before coming up with my own idea. The video met the forms and conventions that I knew I wanted to include in my own product with the artist featuring as the main character of a narrative based music video yet no lip syncing or major performance included. Although this video is completely different to my own it influenced me quite significantly and helped me create my final finished product.

This video as well as my own in regards to Todorov's theory both start off in a state of equilibrium of the narrative. This changes as the main character/artist is given the task of funding himself some money for beer. As the video finishes, the narrative meets a new equilibrium as he walks into the distance with his beer and no longer has any problems to solve. 

As well as Todorov, I also believe my music video follows some of the forms and conventions of Andrew Goodwin's theory and meets some of the 8 codes that he proposed. One for example is 'Links between lyrics and visuals'. As my music video as a whole is continuously narrative throughout without any interruptions there are no direct links between the visuals and the lyrics at the same time. However, the general mood that the lyrics of the song give off such as 'stuck in speed bump city where the only thing is pretty is the thought of getting out' and 'in this trouble town, troubles are found' heavily influenced the music video and it's overall idea. By just making it purely narrative and giving it a black and white effect, I tried to make it look as if the main character had quite a bleak life with no job and flike Miles Kane for example feature in their videos and decided not to challenge this idea and took it forward myself. Because I obviously couldn't get the actual artist to feature in the video I asked my friend Nathan to act as 'Jake Bugg' which I believe he did a good job of. Including the artist in the music video was particularly important for me in my opinion as I made the decision to use a 'logo' for the album art of the digipak and poster rather than a picture of the singer. This is so members of the target audience can get an idea of what the artist looks like and who is he before perhaps going on to purchase the album or vinyl. 

Evaluation: How effective is the combination of the main product and ancillary texts?

Before I even began to create the ancillary texts I knew it was important for me to combine them with the main product in a different ways and I believe I did this quite effectively. By doing this, it means the audience can hopefully recognise the artist much and the similar theme between the ancillaries in particular. As I made the decision to not include the artist in the video I knew this could be quite difficult so considering the different methods and ways in which I could combine the main product and ancillaries well was important.

The first ancillary text I made was a website for the artist. I made a number of links from the music video on the website. For example, on the home page I included a screenshot of the artist from the video so people who may have seen the video previously can automatically relate and realise they've come to the right place as soon as they enter. I also made a gallery page which included screenshots from the video as well as official photos of the artist. Finally, on the Music Videos page, I added the actual final product so people who may not have already seen the music video but have come across the website can check the artist out.

As the front cover of my digipak obviously didn't include an image of the artist or one taken from the music video I had to consider how I could implement a link between them. I came up with the idea to include a picture of the artist taken from the video on the booklet inside with the lyrics of that particular song displayed over it too. The vibrant red colour of the text (the same colour as the limited edition vinyl) looked great on the black and white background image in my opinion and again people would be see it and immediately be able to relate to the music video. Alternatively, if they had not already seen the video they may then go out to look for one online. 

Regarding the poster, I didn't make a link between it and the main product as I knew it was essential that the artwork of the album cover featured on it for marketing purposes. Also, I wanted to keep it quite simple and minimalistic so adding any unnecessary information could have defected the purpose of the poster.  

If I came to create another music video I'd like to try to include the actual 'logo' of the artist as seen on the digipak in the video itself so people who watch it could see it and then relate to the album they see in the shops or poster they find in a magazine perhaps resulting in them purchasing the record or CD. However, as the image was taken by my friend who was on holiday in the Netherlands this would be quite difficult on a small budget. Despite not being able to do this, I believe the combination of my main product ancillary texts was very effective and come together to help increase the overall sales of the record should it be sold in the shops. 

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

Media technologies influenced various parts of my coursework a significant amount and in a number of different ways and I wouldn't have been able to achieved what I have done without them. The website I used to publish my research, ancillaries and other aspects of my coursework was 'www.blogger.com'. I knew it was a legitimate and trustworthy website as it had been referred to me through several teachers and I'd also used it in the past for personal use. The blog allowed me to practically everything I needed to and was a great way to display the research I had carried out and discuss the decisions I had to make when creating my final product and ancillaries, etc. The fact that it had a feature that allowed you to upload images and videos too was very helpful and I took advantage of the pleasure to quite an extent. It wasn't just the Blogger website that I used the Internet for however, it was highly beneficial for my research and I used a number of websites relative to my topic/genre in order to collate it all together. Some of these included: 'NME.com' and 'www.rollingstone.com'. At first, video streaming websites such as YouTube and Vimeo were great too as I used them to look at music videos of previous A-Level students in order to try and get an idea of what I wanted to create and perhaps what genre I wanted to focus on. YouTube was also very useful towards to end of my project as I used it to upload my music video after completion. It was a good decision to use YouTube over other similar websites to stream my music video in my opinion as it's without a doubt the most popular and I found that my target audience primarily go to YouTube to look for music videos too. Also, with the advancement of Web 2.0 technologies, YouTube is now accessible on a number of different gadgets making my music video available to people on the go with android mobile phone, iPad's and other similar devices.

Other websites that were very important when completing my coursework were social networking websites Facebook and YouTube as well as emailing service Outlook. I used both Outlook and Twitter to contact the artist the artist to get permission to whether I could use the song for the music video which unfortunately I never got a reply to. As for Facebook, it was imperative for a number of different reasons. Essentially, I used it to get in contact with my target audience by creating an online questionnaire through one of it's Apps and specifically inviting different people to take part in answering the questions. Facebook was used to promote my video too. After I upload it to YouTube I shared it with my friends to watch and give me feedback, this helped increase the views and gave me ideas of where I'd gone right and wrong. A website called 'Prezi' was helpful too. It let me put text and pictures into an animated interactive presentation rather than just a blog post which gave the blog a bit of variety. 

I didn't just use media technologies for research and implementing different features into my blog but during the process of creating the film too. Originally, I planned on using the camera on my iPhone 5 to film my music video after being provided with a special tripod made specifically for smartphones. However, my teacher gave me permission to use one of the Media Studies department's video cameras and I decided to take him up on the offered in order to improve the overall quality of my final product.  The camera I used was a 'Fujifilm finepix', it was a great camera and gave the final product a much more genuine and authentic look to it in my opinion. Before actually going out to film the shots for my video, I tested the camera by filming and taking various different images around the house and garden. I then took these shots to Final Cut Pro X on the Mac computer and practiced editing them to get an idea of how to use the software before edited the final footage. At this point and when it came to the final editing itself, Final Cut Pro allowed me to use it's different features and techniques that aren't available on other editing software's and I generally found it easier to use than Windows Movie Maker after past experiences. 

In my opinion, after completing my coursework and evaluating the different media technologies I used throughout I personally believe the most effective and important was the camera equipment and editing software. It gave me the ability to make the music video look genuine and realistic and I feel that without it my final product wouldn't have looked like it did. 

Evaluation: What have you learned from audience feedback?

Upon completing my music video, in order to make it available to my audience, it was evident that I needed to present it to them through an online streaming website. I felt the most appropriate would be YouTube as it's the most popular and after asking members of my target audience the vast majority tended to use it over similar websites such as Vimeo. Also, I already had an account on YouTube and knew how everything worked after uploading videos in the past so that also played a part in the decision. Despite it being a global website with billions of people using it every day, this didn't mean the views on my video would shoot up. Therefore, in order to get feedback off my peers, I shared it to my friends on Facebook. As I'd previously sent out a questionnaire to a selection of my friends on Facebook regarding music videos I sent out a message to them to ask them to watch my video and perhaps give me some feedback. I was fairly pleased with the feedback I received from the video with four people liking the post and one person commenting.

Although I got a good reception after posting my video on Facebook I decided to post it on Twitter too. As I had over 1000 followers it would've been stupid not to. After sharing it to my Twitter followers, I only managed to receive one comment which wasn't particularly constructive but it helped increase the hits without a doubt. By posting on Twitter it aloud me to tag the artist's personal account too but unfortunately I failed to receive any feedback from him. 

Several people gave me feedback on my actual YouTube video too after sharing. I received over 100 views all together which was great as well as one like too. Being an avid user of YouTube I knew it is essential for a user that their videos get much more likes than dislikes to try and keep the bar as green as possible. By doing this there is more chance people will click on the video to view it in the first place as they know previous viewers have rated it well and dubbed it 'worth watching' in a sense. As you can see I am yet to receive a dislike leaving the bar 100% green which was very important for me. I also managed to get a number of comments on my YouTube video too. 

The comments I received off my peers and target audience online overall was fantastic and I couldn't have asked for any better. One person who commented on my video felt that the video would have been better with 'some shots of the artist singing'. Although I was open to feedback I decided not to take this on board as the majority of my results from the questionnaire said otherwise and I wanted to focus the video solely on the narrative. If I did make the decision to include shots of the artist singing or miming in the future however, I'd like to do something similar to The Verve's hit song and music video 'Bittersweet Symphony' as I feel although it's ever so simply, it's very effective. 

I didn't just get feedback through social networking websites online but from in person through relatives and my teacher. Before showing it to my teacher, I showed the original video to my brother and asked him what he thought of it and whether there were anyway's it could be improved. As he'd studied A-Level media studies before I took his opinion into consideration. He suggested that I should include an extra few shots to indicate the busker in the video had gained money off a number of different people as before it looked like just one had all at once. I went out to film several more final shots and re-edited them together. Taking these remarks into my attention turned out to very successful in my opinion and I think that the video looks much better now than it did before. 

The response I got off my teacher after he watched the video was positive but again similarly to the comment on my YouTube channel, he felt some shots of the artist singing would have improved it so again I decided not to to take his opinion forward. Not only would this have gone against my original idea and the opinions of my target audience but I would have had to remove quite a large amount of footage from the video which consequently could have significantly backfired. 

From all the feedback I acquired I learnt that overall I created quite a good and effective music video which I'm very proud of. Despite not taking on board several comments from my peers I believe I have still achieved the task I was set and hope to attain a good mark for my work. 

Final Music Video

Here is my final music video. The footage was filmed over a single day and I used the iMovie software on the Macbook to bring it together to create the final product. Overall I am very pleased with the outcome and believe it suits the song and genre well. Thanks to my actor Nathan Hird for taking his time to feature in the music video as well as the Media Studies department at Walton High School for allowing me to use the camera and it's equipment. Uploading it to YouTube over other video streaming websites such as Vimeo seemed the most sensible thing to do as it is without a doubt the most popular and my target audience primarily use it to look for and watch music videos of their specified choice.

Music Video for Jake Bugg - Trouble Town 

Ancillary: Magazine Advertisement/Poster

This is the final design for my poster/magazine advertisement. I didn't have access to Photoshop at home unlike I did at school for my digipak cover therefore I used Microsoft Publisher instead. Despite the limited resources, I felt I managed to achieve my objective of creating an effective advertisement to promote the debut album of Jake Bugg. 

After researching album advertisements previously, I made the final decision to collaborate both the David Bowie and Miles Kane poster together and include some of the main and most important features from both when designing my own. Some of these key features including the release date so the fans are aware when the album is being released, the name of the artist in a large stand out font across the page and a review taken from the NME with their logo placed below so those who may read the magazine on a regular basis could perhaps see the logo and relate, resulting in them perhaps listening to Jake Bugg and then going on to purchase the album. As well as this, I displayed the link to the website at the bottom of the advert. I thought this was necessary as those intrigued by the poster could go there to find out more about the artist and perhaps listen to some of the artist's tunes, again prompting them to buy them album. 

I stuck with my initial decision to use the album cover as a backdrop for the advertisement rather than a photo of the artist them self  In general, I believe this is a much better way to market the product and would benefit the overall sales quite significantly. The final poster design could be placed in various different places including tube and train stations, bus stops, newspapers and magazines. Overall, I am very happy with the outcome and have faith that the minimalistic look of only the vital information being displayed will be effective. 

Ancillary: Poster/Magazine Advertisement Research

As well creating a website and digipak as ancillaries to help promote an album I made the decision to also design a poster or magazine advertisement. Although many people consider print based advertisement's to be disregarded after the advancement of online technology and advertising I still felt it was important as the posters could be displayed in magazines and public places where essentially a lot of people would see them.

 In order to get a good idea of what to include on my poster and what was typical of the genre and similar singer-song writers like Jake Bugg I researched some online. I came across two, one for Miles Kane and the other the official poster for David Bowie's new album The Next Day. As you can see from the photographs to the right hand side, each poster has an image of the artist which is also the album cover. Despite the fact that making the artist's face recognisable to the public is important, I felt that having the album cover on advertising would be much more effective. This is as the public would potentially see the advert and then notice the CD or Vinyl cover in the shop or online a few days later after identifying the logo previously from the advertisement. As well as the main image of the poster, the text on it was obviously a significant factor to producing a successful poster. As you can see from both the Miles Kane and Bowie posters, there is only very little but quite large text that just includes important information such as the release date, name of the artist and album, particularly regarding Bowie's. When designing the poster to promote Jake Bugg's album, I would quite like to take David Bowie's approach and perhaps include only a few pieces of important information. However, I must take into consideration that David Bowie is a worldwide superstar where as I'm marketing a product for an upcoming and considerably new singer song-writer, yet, I still believe the poster will look effective.