TA - DUM!!!!!!!!!!
Here are the final products.
I hope you enjoy learning about how I reached this point!
Wednesday, 28 April 2010
Advertisement - The Finished Product
I feel that this design:*creates synergy between itself and the digipak
*shows what it is advertising well as the most important information is prioritised in size.
*is eye-catching as the center image draws the eye in, while the triangle that surrounds it points up to the most important part: the band and album name.
*includes all the information that was regarded as highly seeked/highly important in the survey-results.
*is effective when placed along side the digipak design and the music video as you can tell that there is a connection between them.
*is effective even though the imagery is different to the music video because the girls' legs with the roller skates still give the connotations of youth and fun.
*is effective as the reviews are all enticing as they are complimentary of the album and the group. They are quoted from Q, Alex Zane and NME which Indie music followers would recognise and value.
*is effective as the smaller copy at the bottom provides the other essential information that was considered less important in the survey-results.
*is effective as I referred to Marina & The Diamonds' advertisement, taking influence from the layout. This meant that my final result resembled a real media text.
*is effective as the imagery is interesting, which was important to the people surveyed for the digipak, and thus applies to this design. It would also attract the 78% of my target audience who preferred Marina & The Diamonds' jewel colour-scheme. 70% of the surveyed people said they'd find images of outer space more appealing, too.
Audience Feedback on Our Music Video
Today we thought it would be interesting to collect some audience feedback by filming a few of our target audience's reactions. After having watched the video - and in one case, whilst watching it - I asked the following questions:
- Which genre would you put our music video under? - All of the people surveyed associated the video with the Indie genre.
- What were the best and worst aspects? - The people we asked thought the best aspects were the editing style, the introduction with the overlay of the two pieces of footage, and the excited feeling they got from it. The worst parts were considered as the lighting and lack of dancing in some parts.
- What was your overall view of the music video? - They said it was a really good video and they enjoyed watching it. They felt that it appealed to them especially as they were into Indie music.
Saturday, 10 April 2010
Conventions used in our music video
In order to adhere to the brief set for us in A2 media, it was vital that we used and conformed to the conventions from real media texts. Through the research of real media texts, such as films and music videos, we were able to complete the two briefs successfully.
Research
We have researched music videos such as The Kooks’ ‘Naïve’ and Metro Station’s ‘Control’. As our music video for ‘Happiness’ was a party scene, it was important that we broaden our perception of the conventions of such a scene. We did this by researching further into other types of media texts; watching the ‘Skins’ promotion and the house party scene in ‘American Pie’.
Costumes
Costumes for the production were carefully picked out and we used ellipses editing to remove anything that would hinder the representation we wanted to create. To give an example of this, we cut out takes of people who did not conform to the Indie representation. In general, the cast of our house-party style music video wore clothes that fit the Indie scene, i.e. cute dresses as opposed to the sexy dressed one would expect in an R&B video. The central protagonist was styled as an archetypal ‘Indie-Cindy’ of the moment: with a checked shirt, high-waist shorts, a crop top, long blonde hair. Additionally, there is a recent trend of wearing masks to parties (demonstrated in Metro Station’s video and also in the TV advertisement for Smirnoff) that we adhered to. We designed a bunny mask for her to wear as this would highlight the fact that she is the protagonist and would fit with the song’s title: ‘Look At That Rabbit Go!’. It was also important to reinforce the fact that the bunny (ie. Girl) was being chased by the fox (ie. Boy), and so included a male character adorning a fox mask.
Location
The location of the promotional music video was fitting to conventions of a young, indie party scene. It was obvious that we had to use a house as a set, to adhere to conventions shown in Metro Station and You and Me at Six’s videos ‘Control’ and ‘Kiss and Tell’. These two videos show familiar settings, like a living room, to hold the scene of a house-party. We took influence for the dim lighting from the promotional advertisement for ‘Skins’, but mainly from The Kooks’ video for ‘Naïve’. These media texts were researched via Youtube.com as well as via the television. This meant that we were adhering to conventions recognisable to a range of the Indie genre’s target audiences.
Gender Representation
Our approach towards gender representation in ‘Happiness’s video was influenced by real media texts. Our research showed that the female was more powerful in music videos, but still retained the use of the male gaze. An example of this is Little Boots’ ‘New in Town’. Thus, we have represented her as the central protagonist. She is young, fun-loving, in the male gaze and the centre of attention. This was represented through her costume and via camera and editing techniques.
Male Gaze
It is interesting to me how we have adopted the 'male-gaze' in our video despite the face that we are female music-video makers. The idea proposed by Laura Mulvey, in 1975,was that women in films were there for display purposes only as the filmmakers were predominantly male.
We have adopted the male gaze as we felt that it would attract male viewers to have a voyeuristic response to this 'display'.Although we as females feel objectified and passive because of the representation, we felt it necessary to adhere to this convention as it appeals to the male part of the target audience. We counter-acted this partly in ordered to attract the female audience. Nowadays, women are more powerful and independent, so we have included an element of this by not being explicit, not featuring sexual content, and by subtly representing men as lusting but not having.
This un-provocative, un-sexual representation of women is evident in real media texts from the Indie/Alternative genre: for example in Little Boots and Ellie Goulding's music videos.They are pretty and attractive but not slutty.
Note:-
Powerful independent female artists (like Madonna) have changed things by being sexually provocative and 'in control' of the sexualised gaze.
Music
Upbeat to fit the indie lifestyle and representation
*used Jamendo.com
Influences:
Editing
*Bloc Party = editing cuts
*Ellie Goulding = overlaying of two takes
*Influences: Bloc Party, Ellie Goulding
Research
We have researched music videos such as The Kooks’ ‘Naïve’ and Metro Station’s ‘Control’. As our music video for ‘Happiness’ was a party scene, it was important that we broaden our perception of the conventions of such a scene. We did this by researching further into other types of media texts; watching the ‘Skins’ promotion and the house party scene in ‘American Pie’.
Costumes
Costumes for the production were carefully picked out and we used ellipses editing to remove anything that would hinder the representation we wanted to create. To give an example of this, we cut out takes of people who did not conform to the Indie representation. In general, the cast of our house-party style music video wore clothes that fit the Indie scene, i.e. cute dresses as opposed to the sexy dressed one would expect in an R&B video. The central protagonist was styled as an archetypal ‘Indie-Cindy’ of the moment: with a checked shirt, high-waist shorts, a crop top, long blonde hair. Additionally, there is a recent trend of wearing masks to parties (demonstrated in Metro Station’s video and also in the TV advertisement for Smirnoff) that we adhered to. We designed a bunny mask for her to wear as this would highlight the fact that she is the protagonist and would fit with the song’s title: ‘Look At That Rabbit Go!’. It was also important to reinforce the fact that the bunny (ie. Girl) was being chased by the fox (ie. Boy), and so included a male character adorning a fox mask.
Location
The location of the promotional music video was fitting to conventions of a young, indie party scene. It was obvious that we had to use a house as a set, to adhere to conventions shown in Metro Station and You and Me at Six’s videos ‘Control’ and ‘Kiss and Tell’. These two videos show familiar settings, like a living room, to hold the scene of a house-party. We took influence for the dim lighting from the promotional advertisement for ‘Skins’, but mainly from The Kooks’ video for ‘Naïve’. These media texts were researched via Youtube.com as well as via the television. This meant that we were adhering to conventions recognisable to a range of the Indie genre’s target audiences.
Gender Representation
Our approach towards gender representation in ‘Happiness’s video was influenced by real media texts. Our research showed that the female was more powerful in music videos, but still retained the use of the male gaze. An example of this is Little Boots’ ‘New in Town’. Thus, we have represented her as the central protagonist. She is young, fun-loving, in the male gaze and the centre of attention. This was represented through her costume and via camera and editing techniques.
Male Gaze
It is interesting to me how we have adopted the 'male-gaze' in our video despite the face that we are female music-video makers. The idea proposed by Laura Mulvey, in 1975,was that women in films were there for display purposes only as the filmmakers were predominantly male.
We have adopted the male gaze as we felt that it would attract male viewers to have a voyeuristic response to this 'display'.Although we as females feel objectified and passive because of the representation, we felt it necessary to adhere to this convention as it appeals to the male part of the target audience. We counter-acted this partly in ordered to attract the female audience. Nowadays, women are more powerful and independent, so we have included an element of this by not being explicit, not featuring sexual content, and by subtly representing men as lusting but not having.
This un-provocative, un-sexual representation of women is evident in real media texts from the Indie/Alternative genre: for example in Little Boots and Ellie Goulding's music videos.They are pretty and attractive but not slutty.
Note:-
Powerful independent female artists (like Madonna) have changed things by being sexually provocative and 'in control' of the sexualised gaze.
Music
Upbeat to fit the indie lifestyle and representation
*used Jamendo.com
Influences:
Editing
*Bloc Party = editing cuts
*Ellie Goulding = overlaying of two takes
*Influences: Bloc Party, Ellie Goulding
Sunday, 4 April 2010
Realising the effectiveness of the combination of the main and ancillary tasks.
Throughout the construction of my 3 media texts, it was important to consider the ways in which the combination of the music video, album art and advertisement were connected. This would therefore create strong synergy between both the products, furthermore it would ensure that my target audience is able to build a relationship with and a connection between the products when looking at the music video or the digipak.
How have you created synergy?
Creating synergy was very important to me in this project as I was keen to ensure that my target audience could make a connection between the three texts. If they could, this meant that the band would become well known and this would increase awareness and revenue.
I have created synergy by using the same iconography in all three texts. Using iconographies are helpful and easy to use if you want your audience to subliminally make links btween things.
The imagery and ideology that I repeated throughout my three texts were as follows: the girl with the bunny mask; the band and song title; the same outfit used for the protagonist, including the bunny mask; the idea of speed; the imagery of night (night-time in the promo video and the night sky in the ancillary texts).
Between the digipak design and the advertisement, I think there is especially strong evidence of synergy. Audience feedback reassured me that people would be able to recognise and find the digipak after having seen the advertisement's design.
Intertextuality was used in order for the consumer to be able to recognise the branding of the artist. Through this creative decision to reuse the iconographies the audience will feel as if they are growing a relationship with the artist (as she/he will be able to recall and recognise the artist). Our music video help intertextuality as the target audience would be able to realte it to an 'Indie' television show called 'Skins'. This show often has footage of party scenes and youth's rebellious behaviour.
I have created synergy by using the same iconography in all three texts. Using iconographies are helpful and easy to use if you want your audience to subliminally make links btween things.
The imagery and ideology that I repeated throughout my three texts were as follows: the girl with the bunny mask; the band and song title; the same outfit used for the protagonist, including the bunny mask; the idea of speed; the imagery of night (night-time in the promo video and the night sky in the ancillary texts).
Between the digipak design and the advertisement, I think there is especially strong evidence of synergy. Audience feedback reassured me that people would be able to recognise and find the digipak after having seen the advertisement's design.
Intertextuality was used in order for the consumer to be able to recognise the branding of the artist. Through this creative decision to reuse the iconographies the audience will feel as if they are growing a relationship with the artist (as she/he will be able to recall and recognise the artist). Our music video help intertextuality as the target audience would be able to realte it to an 'Indie' television show called 'Skins'. This show often has footage of party scenes and youth's rebellious behaviour.
What would you have done differently, but didn't do so as to please the target audience?
I would have thought that having imagery of the protagonist from the music video would be important for the consumer to be able to make the connection between the texts. However, the survey showed that the target audience were more interested in a design than seeing the real face of the artist. This is true to many real media texts' design in the Indie genre. For example, none of the following digipaks' covers feature the artist's face: The Foals, Friendly Fires; The Maccabees.
The research and planning process was vital to the production as I learnt the conventions of other real media texts which meant I could better shape mine by realising their conventions. Additionally, surveys helped shaped my knowledge of my target audience: their ideologies and preferences. Before all of this I would have thought that my target audience for the Indie genre would prefer a production without special effects and fast editing. However, I realised that these were features that would make my music video more effective. 100% of the surveyed people preferred Bloc Party's Helicopters' fast jump cuts to Coldplay's Strawberry Swings' stop animation from a fixed angle. The final outcome was effective as we have attracted our audience by using what they prefer; and from feedback we have learnt that it makes them feel a part of the scene and excited.
I would have thought that having imagery of the protagonist from the music video would be important for the consumer to be able to make the connection between the texts. However, the survey showed that the target audience were more interested in a design than seeing the real face of the artist. This is true to many real media texts' design in the Indie genre. For example, none of the following digipaks' covers feature the artist's face: The Foals, Friendly Fires; The Maccabees.
The research and planning process was vital to the production as I learnt the conventions of other real media texts which meant I could better shape mine by realising their conventions. Additionally, surveys helped shaped my knowledge of my target audience: their ideologies and preferences. Before all of this I would have thought that my target audience for the Indie genre would prefer a production without special effects and fast editing. However, I realised that these were features that would make my music video more effective. 100% of the surveyed people preferred Bloc Party's Helicopters' fast jump cuts to Coldplay's Strawberry Swings' stop animation from a fixed angle. The final outcome was effective as we have attracted our audience by using what they prefer; and from feedback we have learnt that it makes them feel a part of the scene and excited.
The Digipak
How did I make it?
Components of the Digipak:
- 2 images of the Universe from NASA.com
- 1 image of Legs with Roller-Skates from Flickr.com
- Photographs of The Female Protagonist (Rolerskating, Indie, Rabbit).
- Photographs of CD disc
- Elements of small print taken from The Futureheads' digipak
- Text
- Light ring for rim of CDs
- Polaroid from Google.com/Images
- Shape of a triangle (translucent)
I used Photoshop CS4 to create the digipak. I made use of many features: layers, blending options, opacity, etc. I organised my layers of components into groups in order to make the process quick and efficient. Research was important in the construction: I used Google, Flickr and Nasa's websites to source imagery that suited the design I envisioned for my digipak.
Components of the Digipak:
- 2 images of the Universe from NASA.com
- 1 image of Legs with Roller-Skates from Flickr.com
- Photographs of The Female Protagonist (Rolerskating, Indie, Rabbit).
- Photographs of CD disc
- Elements of small print taken from The Futureheads' digipak
- Text
- Light ring for rim of CDs
- Polaroid from Google.com/Images
- Shape of a triangle (translucent)
I used Photoshop CS4 to create the digipak. I made use of many features: layers, blending options, opacity, etc. I organised my layers of components into groups in order to make the process quick and efficient. Research was important in the construction: I used Google, Flickr and Nasa's websites to source imagery that suited the design I envisioned for my digipak.
Components of the Digipak:
- Images of the Universe from NASA.com
BECAUSE:- Stars and imagery of outer space if often used in real media texts for the indie/alternative genre.
- 1 image of Legs with Roller-Skates from Flickr.com
BECAUSE:- In order to create a connection with the youth ideology of 'Live Fast, Die Young', which the album's title reinforces: 'Look at that rabbit go!'
- Photographs of The Female Protagonist (The roller-skating, indie rabbit girl).
BECAUSE:-
- Photographs of CD disc
BECAUSE:- To create an authentic look to my digipak design
- Elements of small print taken from The Futureheads' digipak
BECAUSE:- To create an authentic look to my digipak design
- Text
BECAUSE:- To provide information about the product to the consumer.
- Light ring for rim of CDs
BECAUSE:- To create an authentic look to my digipak design
- Polaroid from Google.com/Images
BECAUSE:- This attracts the target audience, whose ideology is to favour vintage items.
- Shape of a triangle (translucent)
BECAUSE:- This creates a feeling of being an elite group: The Indie Group. Those who are fans or followers will recognise this icon which is a signifier of the Indie genre.
Saturday, 3 April 2010
Final Image of Digipak & Audience Feedback
How I distributed the survey and what I hoped to gain from audience feedback.
To gain audience feedback on the digipak, I have posted my work on social networking site 'Facebook' in order for friends to view it so that they could be surveyed on it. I used Surveymonkey.com to design my survey, and collected and analysed the results via this. The link I gave via Facebook was http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/L6V87CV.
After posting the digipak album cover onto the social networking site I have was able to learn and consider the constructive criticism from an audience's perspective. Furthermore, this allowed me to consider different ways in which I could improve the second ancillary task of creating and advertisement.AUDIENCE FEEDBACK
I constructed a survey using www.surveymonkey.com.
I created a link to the survey and sent it to friends via www.facebook.com.
I asked 10 people open and closed questions to see how they reacted to and absorbed the information given by my digipak design. The results will tell me if there's anything I need to improve on: and the results are positive!!! Every aspect was positive except from the fact that people picked up on how I did not have a variety of fonts. This is fine though as it was intended, and as long as the text is legible (which 100% of people say it is) then that's what matters to me. It was intended as the imagery used is quite complex - legs, polaroids, the universe, etc - and my creative decision was to ensure that the text was not also complex. As the results shows, this has proved effective.
THE RESULTS
100.0% could state the name of the band and the album.
This information is a vital part of the design of the digipak. I had to ensure that people could recognise what the product's content was.
100.0% assumes that the design adhered to the Indie genres' conventions.
It was vital to the success of my product that the design adhered to the conventions. I had to ensure that the target audience would be interested in it and recognise that they would like the music as it is 'Indie'.
100.0% agreed that the text was legible.
It's important for me that the audience to identify the song, band and album names, etc.
70.0% agreed that there was a variety of font and text sizes.
(The 30.0% who did not agree stated: "yes to sizes, there's only a couple of fonts"....sizes yes, fonts not really").
It's important that the audience can identify the important information presented to them (ie. smaller text used for the Small Print, and large text for the important band name and album name).
100.0% thought that the variety of font and text sizes suited to the design.
100.0% agreed that there is an approriate integration of illustration and text.
A previous survey showed that my target audience appreciate good design.
100.0% thought that there is an accurate use of language and register.
Accuracy shows professionalism and legibilty.
100.0% agreed that my design shows that I have an understanding of the conventions of layout and page design.
It was important that my audience recognised the design as being a digipak.
IMAGES OF RESPONSE SUMMARY FROM WWW.SURVEYMONKEY.COM
This information is a vital part of the design of the digipak. I had to ensure that people could recognise what the product's content was.
100.0% assumes that the design adhered to the Indie genres' conventions.
It was vital to the success of my product that the design adhered to the conventions. I had to ensure that the target audience would be interested in it and recognise that they would like the music as it is 'Indie'.
100.0% agreed that the text was legible.
It's important for me that the audience to identify the song, band and album names, etc.
70.0% agreed that there was a variety of font and text sizes.
(The 30.0% who did not agree stated: "yes to sizes, there's only a couple of fonts"....sizes yes, fonts not really").
It's important that the audience can identify the important information presented to them (ie. smaller text used for the Small Print, and large text for the important band name and album name).
100.0% thought that the variety of font and text sizes suited to the design.
100.0% agreed that there is an approriate integration of illustration and text.
A previous survey showed that my target audience appreciate good design.
100.0% thought that there is an accurate use of language and register.
Accuracy shows professionalism and legibilty.
100.0% agreed that my design shows that I have an understanding of the conventions of layout and page design.
It was important that my audience recognised the design as being a digipak.
IMAGES OF RESPONSE SUMMARY FROM WWW.SURVEYMONKEY.COM
Improvements to the digipak design
In order to conform to the expectations of the target audience, I have improved my digipak design further. From recent research, I found that a convention of the alternative/indie genre's marketing was to include a symbol that the audience could recognise. This symbol was indeed, a triangle.
As I have shown here, there is now evidence of faint triangular shapes in the design.
As I have shown here, there is now evidence of faint triangular shapes in the design.
1) I have added this triangle on the front cover. This will be the first thing the customer will see, and so I thought it would be very important for the symbolism to be included here. Even though I have filled the entire cover with it, it it not overpowering in the composition as I have lowered the opacity of the shape.
2) This image shows the digipak as a whole. This one demonstrates the importance of the triangle in the design of the front cover. I have left it out, to compare with the one above. I think it look lacking without it.
The two CDs have also had faint triangles introduced to their design at this stage.
3) This image just shows you all the layers and groups I have used in Photoshop to organise my production.
I organised them as following:
Cover Left
Cover Right
Middle
CD Left
CD Right
Background
4) This image illustrates a stage of my construction in photoshop. Here I was adding a Shape Layer. I lowered the opacity and made the layer an Overlay. The white edge around is just a selection in Photoshop and is not a creative decision.
OTHER ADJUSTMENTS
I brightened the text of 'Look at that rabbit go!' on the front cover. This was to ensure legibility after getting friends to proof read my digipak.
Saturday, 20 March 2010
Survey Results for the Advertisement
I advertised my survey on facebook via http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HWRHFJ9
RESULTS OF THE SURVEY ON THE PREFERENCES ABOUT ADVERTS.
1. Image + Essentiel information which is neither minimal nor over complicated is the preferred type with 63% agreeing.
2. 77% prefer the colourful jewel colours like Marina & The Diamonds’ advertisement.
3. 82% thought that they find it easier to find the digipak in the store if the advertisement’s imagery reflected the digipak’s.
4. 93% of people notice more music advertisements in magazines.
5. 100% prefer sans-serif fonts.
6. The most important information, and most seeked, were which formats were available, the review of the album, the release date and content of the product.
7. Imagery of outer space appealed the most to my target audience.
8. 78% didn’t care if they saw the protagonist’s face.
I will bear all of this in mind when designing the advertisement. I aim to please the target audience.
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