Closing Le Blog Off Formally! (Literally)

Final Progress Review Blog

This is my final progress review blog, and unlike last year I am a lot more consistent of these types of blogs where I look back evaluate my growth in terms of blogging. Last year, blogging was fairly new to me, where I lacked writing skills, presentation skills and skills in general but over the year I picked up some valuable skills which I keenly applied to this year, whilst learning a bunch of new things. Compared to last year, I'd happily say that I have become a more refined and knowledgeable media student who knows how to write, how to present, and what makes a media product right and wrong. This year I have been able to meddle in editing vlogs, interviews and music videos essentially making the whole process a lot more fun, only when the videos don't mess up and corrupt, like it did many times this year and last. I began to use a lot more types of ICT which undoubtedly helped with the presentation and interaction my blogs offered. I do feel my blog contain quite a lot of information regarding every stage that had to be taken when making our media products and after, where I don't really lack any gaps and such. I feel that my individual post are up to a good standard as are most if not all my blogs, in which I have included extra blogs such as behind the scenes, concert analysis and being a runner on a music video which was the most exciting this that happened to me this whole in terms of media things. 

Progress Review Blog

Evaluation Question 1:

“In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

This is a short video of examples from my own music video based on the theories and the influences that I have mentioned from the above newsletter. 

Evaluation Question 2:

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

When talking about a combination, it would refer to the term synergy which is the  certain aspects of one product that relates to another product, and in our case we refer to how the music video relates, and links to our ancillary products, the digipak and advertisement. When planning the synergy of all our products, we had a clear idea of what kind of aspects we would try keep consistent throughout the creation of all our media products, and these were the;

• Colours - Colour scheme throughout all media products
• Costume - Makeup, Clothing, Accessories 
• Mise en scene - Locations 
• Identity - Artist Image
• Text - Font, Font colour 

  

  Red Lipstick
   throughout
   music video



Music Video - Red, Green,
White and Black Colours

Starting off with the colours present in our music video, we came up with a set of colours that we wanted to be as a recurring aspect within the video itself, and somehow bring all or most into our ancillary products. Most of these colours essentially interlink with all the other synergy aspects that we combined into our media products. The colour scheme that was mainly present within our music video was white, black, green and red, and these were either found in the locations we used or the costumes the artist wore. The first mix of colours that was seen in the music video was during the introduction, where there is a green bush with red flowers, a location that was constantly on repeat throughout the music video. The whole introduction also had a red bar across the footage. As the location had a good mix of colours, this was incorporated through the colours found within the costume. The artist wore a red scarf that is similar to the red flowers along with a white dress and black leggings and throughout the whole music video, she constantly wore red lipstick. 

Location used in both ancillary 
images and music video intro

Ancillary: Green, White, Black
and Red Colours 

These selections of colors was also present in the digipak and advertisement I created. The images I used for the ancillary products had the colour red from the lipstick and flowers, the green from the green bush behind the artist and the white through the white font I decided to use. Although the red within the ancillary products is not as dominant as the red in the music video, I thought the use of the green, white and black colours were enough as the red would be too intrusive if I had made it less subtle and more dominant. The location of the images used in the ancillary products was also a location that we filmed for the music video which unfortunately was present only during the introduction of the music video. 

Digipak (Front Cover)

Black clothing in white tree location
with green background

The green, white and black colours of the ancillary products also link to another scene of the music video, where there is a strong resemblance in terms of colours and costume alike. This scene was with the white trees along with a full on green background, whilst the artist was wearing all black. Like my ancillary products, there is a green background from the green bush, and the colour white from the text, and the colour black which is extremely dominant mainly in the advert due to the black gradient I used and black clothing of the artist. Although the location is different, the use of colours is extremely similar and is something consistent throughout. Between both my ancillary products, the digipak and advertisement contain a good amount of synergy due to the repetition of various aspects from the colours to the text.

Advert

Accessories and Jewellery
used in music video

The reason I kept the image for the advert and digipak the same is because I wanted to constantly emphasise the image of our artist, which is simple, yet sophisticated, which will help connect with her audience. This image is constantly apparent in the music video as the costume of the artist is very simple yet has some stylistic and sophisticated look due to the accessories and vibrant colours. The artist would constantly wear jewellery that complimented her clothing which would either be black or white, whilst in other parts of the video, the artist would be seen wearing vibrant colours such as the red scarf that is constantly seen throughout the video. The simplistic imagery of the artist is further seen where she only wears a full on black or white outfit, whilst the costume connotes some sense of sophistication as it is not over the top. This simplistic element is also carried into my ancillary product as the artist in the image is wearing mainly black providing some visual link between the music video and ancillary products. Due to the black gradient and white text used in my advert, the colour scheme between the music video and ancillary product is heightened as these are the main colours we have based our artist on to reinforce her image of being stylistic, simplistic and sophisticated. 


The last thing that combines all my media products has to be surrounded around the type of text I used. During the introduction of the music video, the artist is introduced as "Yasmin Feruz", the font used in the music video was "Century Gothic", which was simple and sophisticated like the image we were trying to create for our artist. I thought it was pretty important to keep the font for our artist's name the same between all the media product make the link in terms of synergy far more stronger than having different texts. For all my ancillary products the places where the name of the artist was present, I maintained the "Century Gothic" font,  whilst the rest of the text was in "Ostrich". 

Within the advert, the information regarding the album is centered around the artist's name which happens to be the largest thing following the image of the artist, essentially emphasizing her presence and selling her as the artist. The information itself is all very compact and neat which highlight's the whole simplistic feel of the advert whilst it also generates a stylistic effect due to the white and black colours also highlighting a sense of sophistication and professionalism. I purposely made the artist name distinct to the album information consistently from the outside of my digipak to the inside and all the way to the advertisement as I felt all the emphasis should be on the artist themselves. This is something that we applied in the music video, where the artist is always present on the screen, and the camera essentially follows her around highlighting her presence and importance, we sold the artist. By taking these appects of the music video, and incorporating them into my ancillary products in one form or another, the audience will be able to see some clear links between all media products.

One existing product that is fairly similar to mine in the way it uses synergy with all its other products is from Jessie J, and the links to her music video "Wild" with her ancillary products, the advertisement and digipak. The video itself is made up of a lot of white and black, which emphasizes the simplistic aspect of the video, something also apparent in my music video.

The white and black from the video is also seen in both her digipak and advertisement, which strengthens the link and the ability of the audience to identify the synergy. The white background of the digipak and the advertisement resonates with the prime location in the music video, where Jessie J does her singing and dance routine. This goes to show that a recurring colour scheme is useful as it makes the synergy a whole lot stronger, and helps construct strong visual links. Jessie J's bald head is her image and identity and is constantly reiterated through the repetition of the same portrait in the ancillary products. The video also features Jessie J drawing attention to her new image as she is constantly touching and showcasing her bald head in her performance.

When looking at all my media products, I do feel there is a good sense of synergy between all products due to the way the colour scheme bonds with  the use of text, essentially creating some strong visual links. When creating the music video, we had to keep in mind all the stuff that we wanted to use as synergy, by carefully focusing on what we were filming, we began to construct a better idea of what we could include in our ancillary products. By doing this, our audience may find it easier to identify the many links that we have included throughout all our ancillary products.

Evaluation Question 3:

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

LE ANIMATIC! 

Evaluation Question 4:

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

This is the audience responding to the music video and ancillary products!

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A2 Media Studies: Audience Feedback to Music Video and Ancillary Products from Amirul Islam on Vimeo.

This is my response to the audiences response to the music video and ancillary products!

my response from Amirul Islam on Vimeo.

EVALUATION - Question 1

In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 

What was said in the vlog above:

In our music video we develop Andrew Goodwin's theory which is breaking the 4th wall hence there is a relation between the artist and her viewer. Most(if not - all) music video's break the 4th wall for the same purpose. This is why following this convetion was essential and would help promote the artist. 
Additionally we also followed Vernallis' theory by having consistant jump cuts, basetracks and camera movement. I have not seen a pop music video that does not follow her theory - if the theory was challenged the music video would have been boring and dreadful to watch. Recording basetracks meant a variety of shots to choose from when editing and making jump cuts and this means the audience is entertained. It would have been unpleasant to have one or two shot types used for a music video which lasts for 3-4 minutes. The camera also moved to the music video; it was never still and if some shots were still - we made them short and produced jump cuts. We also edited to the beat. 
The group and I decided to challenge Mulvey's theory - we did not want to attract the male gaze as I thought females should have more of a role in music videos rather that be presented as sex objects. Artists such as Adele, Emeli Sande and Ellie Goulding herself go againt Mulvey's theory as they show themselves to be ladies rather than objects. I feel that challenging this convention was the right option as. I would want Yasmin Feruz to set a good example to her audience considering that the target audience is females. Being a good role model would leed this artist to have a bigger fan base because if Feruz is a good role model then she would be liked by other women who are not speciffically targetted. 

Influential music video's 
JAI HO - PUSSYCAT DOLLS

The music video to 'Jai Ho' by the pussycat dolls was a influential music video which  i found appealing and very useful. The location where it is all white and the camera is on Nicole had my attention as a fan. The reason for this is because of the amazing white lighting and the props which just dangle around her. Base tracks and jump cuts were used in this part of the music video a lot which made it exciting to watch. Her performance in itself was amazing as she really gets herself into the song and we can see this through her eyes; she confidently looks away and shows that she knows what she is doing - at some points she closes her eyes which portrays her as a strong artist. 

This music video links to the one my group produced. We had white trees which were used as the prop but had a green background rather than white. The green in these shots allowed the sub-genre of Indie to come out a bit more as the song in its self is actually Pop-Indie. These two colours are consistant throughout the music video as we have a location with green leaves and also Yasmin Feruz is wearing white/cream in almost every shot. 

DISCO LOVE - THE SATURDAYS

The music video to 'Disco Love' by the saturdays also was an influence to me. The main things which i liked about the music video was the structure. There was three main locations and three years which were being presented and this gave the music video a fantastic structure to it. I felt tat having this structure meant that it seems like these young girls are going on a journey as it starts of with one locationa nd ends in another. 

In our music video we also had main locations however we did not use one location at a time. However when watching the music video it did feel like a journey as the artist starts off singing in one location and ends up in another. I felt that this journey helps build a relation further with the audience as it is almost like they are going on the journey with the artist - Andrew Goodwin's theory helps built the relation. 

ANCILLARY WORK 

The ancillary products followed conventions too. Usually in digipaks and adverts there isn't more than two fonts and three colours; the reason for this is because if there was then the products would look ammature and messy and this is the reason why i followed this convention as i wanted my ancillary pieces to look sophisticated and proffessional. There are links between the music video and the digipack which is the colours, synergy and font. The font of the artist name is consistant and could be seen as a piece of synergy as it could be what allows the artist to be noticed. The lipstick which is the main synergy stays consistant as that is what the artists is remembered by; the most clear example of how this piece of synergy is emphesised is on the inside panels where the actual disk is a extreme close up of the lips(lipstick). 

The digipak also consists of what goes on real media products such as the catalogue number, record labels, barcodes and copyright information. All these conventions means that the final piece starts to look professional and would fit in music shops. Also these conventions give the audience what they need to know about the artist; what would we do if one of these were missing?

In some ways some people may see that I have challenged the genre of the music which Yasmin Feruz specialises in - because of the ancillary work. A lot of black was used as that is the main background of the two products and this goes against the convention that pop media products should be all bright and have vibrant colours.

On the other hand there are pop artists such as Ellie Goulding herself which use black as a background although it may be a bit different for Yasmin Feruz as she is younger than Ellie Goulding.

Usually people may expect a 17 year old girl to use bright colours for her digipak and advert rather than dark colours - 17 year old aren't expected to have a 'sophisticated' look to them.

Cher Lloyd and Little Mix may be something which they expect to resemble to Yasmin Feruz. I guess I chose this sophisticated look because females mature at a young age and to portray them as girly, fun and immature all the time wouldn't be fair on those who are 17 years old and mature.

An influencial album cover was by Rebecca Ferguson as i thought that the black that was used in her album really allowed her to stand out as she was wearing black. The colours on her album was very similar to the ones which i intended on using and I thought the colours complimented each other and therefore stood out even though there is a black background. The structure of the back of her album was also influential as it had the sophisticated look which I was after and therefore I did the same layout as her album.

EVALUATION - Question 4

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

MUSIC VIDEO
Improvements given from rough cut
Two main things which were mentioned for us to change in the rough cut feedback is below.

After getting these two critics we changed the shot where the artists hair was in her hair. We also fixed the parts which were out of sink. 

Feedback from cinema viewing

When the music video was shown in the cinema we got quiet a lot of positive feedback. There was not much negative feedback. Below are a few quotes which I took from Amirul's video of a few people giving their feedback. 

"The colours were really bright and vibrant and I like the way she was moving about, the beats, cutting to the beats - I really liked that"

"The video fit with the song"

"Your artist looked like she was really into the song"

"I liked the lighting because it's a pop song and not dubstep or whatever"

"She was wearing white and when she was wearing white the background was white..and erm when she was wearing the red scarf there were like red and pink flowers behind her and I though that was really really good; you chose the locations really well"

From this feedback I have learnt that the main strengths of the music video was the colours which were used, the lighting and the locations. Below is one of the comments which I thought were the best comments we received by Anthony.

ANCILLARY WORK 

I also showed my ancillary work to the target audience and got some feedback.

A lot of people said that it worked as the vibrant colours in the music video and ancillary products stay consistent. Also the idea of the pink lips carry on throughout and its even more clear that it is the synergy is the lipsticks because of the lips in the digipack. 

Something that was said that could have been changed and improved was the black used in the ancillary products as too much black was used and less was used in the music video. Maybe a lighter colour like white could have been used instead as that colour was used in the music video. 

The comment about having too much black in the ancillary products are understandable. I also feel that I should have made the back ground colour white as there was a lot of white/cream used as it is a pop song. I feel that maybe if I did take this comment on board earlier it may have meant that the digipak was more noticeable and possibly more people may have had an interest in buying it.

Below is a detailed piece of feedback which I got from Mariam Ali.

EVALUATION: Question (4)

Some positive feedback from the Showing of the Music video at the cinema. 

There were constant feedback through out the year. 

- Pitch to class and teacher 

- Footage (base tracks) recorded

- Rough Cut & Anamatic Storyboard 

- Cinema review 

- Ancillary Work after finishing advertisement and album panels. 

(Video unable to upload)

These are the feedback that actually made a good impact in the work that we did throughout the media project.

The feedback from the teachers and students in the ancillary stage of our work were really useful. The feedback highlighted that some of the conventions of a CD cover were not met like the color and use of font. This was edited by thinking and researching font types and understanding which one will give a better impact for the CD cover and other feedback were generally for the music video. But overall without the feedback we wouldn't have created such a great quality music video as we did.

I couldn't get the video up but this was the speech that was said in the video (VLOG)
-   "By getting feedback for all stages of our work process I believe that it has enhanced my work to a better standard and can also help to get those little bugs in my own work fixed like the simple spelling mistake can be found when you are given feedback. This is why when reflecting and then improving can benefit your work and your standard of what you have done."

EVALUATION: Question (3)

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

This is the Anamatic storyboard.

EVALUATION - Question 3

Evaluation 3 from 09041996

Below is an example of how I used photoshop on my advert.

Below is an example of how I used camtasia. I used quick time player to record the screen recording how I was using camtasia. With this clip I would have wrote a bog post about how this certain part of the music video was influential and how I developed it into my media work.

Below is an example of how I used keek followed by blogger.

Below is how I used gifmaker. With this specific gif which I made I would have talked about how Ellie Goulding uses the black in the digipak whilst being a pop artist.

Lastly this is an example of how I used clipgrab. This specific download was used when adding the song in the music video which went over the lip singing. 

EVALUATION: Question (2)

How effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary texts (digipak and advertisement)?

The link between the music video and promotional package are the lighting and the scenary yet I didn't want to make the album only focused on one of the songs listed on the album back cover. So the aim was to make the album cover reflect some of the song title choices. The music video has a lot of greenery and natural settings in the background making the artist stand out more. 

The Locations:
Outside the Tate Modern, The merry-go-round near then London Eye as a winter event which was accompanied by winter shops selling Christmas based gifts. Also locations were at Trafalgar Square and an Alleyway near College: nearest to Angel Station. These clips filmed helped us to understand what kind of image we are trying to create for our artist and then the captured footage can be manipulated and adapted to create an amazing ancillary digipak for our artist. So we done a photoshoot and all decided that we love the images from the little park outside college due to the greenery and the sense of miss en scene. This created the synergy of nature throughout are ancillary work and music video. Also editing the music video with colour correction we emphasised the bright green natural colours in the shots.

This is a screen shot from the video showing that the image used is from the park which is  a unique clip and is not a base track. But this just highlights to the audience what kind of settings that the audience should expect.

The beginning of the music video links heavily with the ancillary due to the fact that the images for the album and poster are from this location and the way in which the rest of the video links is the scenes from the white trees outside the Tate modern. The idea of nature is used throughout the music video to emphasise the calm and natural personality of the artist. The gif shows some of the scenes that actually show the greenery and the natural settings in the clips even if the location is not in a natural setting like the clips from the alley way which also did have some greenery.

HERE IS MY ANCILLARY: Album & Advertisement.

By looking at the ancillary you can see that the colour scheme of the costume is something that we also had to keep a constant. White and Black dresses. We decided as a group that the main costume and the look should be dresses to represent an easy flow and make the artist look comfortable in the clips. The clip in Trafalgar square is different due to the fact its more of a blouse yet it has the same features of a free flow of movement abled by the artist and makes her look comfortable with what she is wearing that adds to the performance. 

The scarf was the first initial synergy that we wanted to use throughout but then thought since the colours change in the video then we might as well change the synergy thing that brands our artist. This is now the red lipstick. used in the ancillary and the music video in all clips and images. 

My Ancillary (Focus)
In my own opinion I believe that the text works well with the album. I have decided to choose two different texts to use in the ancillary. Which are: Century Gothic and Footlight MT Light.

This brings us to the audience. I believe that the way in which the album looks really simple with the image being the main focus can attract the audience that like bright images that spark the mood of being happy and feel joy. Psychological studies say that either blue or green make a person feel joy and feel calm. which is the sort of music included with in the album.  So the actual album cover can set out a feel/mood to what kind of music the audience/target market should expect.

EVALUATION - Question 2

(Planning) Question 1

QUESTION 3 (overview) 
I decided to make a prezi. that shows all the technologies used and also I'm looking to make a diagram of equipment and then label them to show what makes them so useful and how it was used.

I took some notes for Question 1 and 3. This was done by going back through the blog and finding the key blogs that will help me do the questions. I specifically looked at the theories by Andrew Goodwin and Carol Verallis.

EVALUATION: Question (1)

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

Influence / Inspiration

The main influence that I think contributed to the music video is the music video from the Saturadays and the music video from Gabrielle Aplin - Panic Cord.

The Saturdays - Disco Love
The reason why I could relate the Saturdays music video to the making of our music video is that I specifically liked the lighting in the music video and also I saw the potential of our music video creating the same sort of atmosphere as represented in the performance of the artists in the Disco Love music video and tried to copy the sort of performance used in their music video by telling our artist this it made the music video more 'powerful' in a way that the audience would see that the artist is into the song as much as she wants her target audience to be.

Gabrielle Aplin - Panic Cord
From this music video we used the same type of lighting due to the fact that the lighting is a little similar in the music video from the Saturdays but that one is more warmer where as the music video for Panic Cord is more of natural light so it varies in our shots. Some of the summer feel is shown in the scenes/clips from the shots in Trafalgar Square and then the other ones like the one outside the Tate Modern with the white trees are natural light. Also the shots for our music video's were almost identical to some of the camera shots in the music video of Panic Cord which are shown in the diagram below.

Left side is all from the music video from Gabrielle Aplin (3images) and the Right side is from our music video by Yasmin Feruz (3images)

Another music video that inspired us to create our own music video like we did was from a music video from the past student. (Group25) uploaded a year ago. 

25. Christabell Ndive, Juliana Lopez, Tamara Akotuah

Forms & Conventions in Ancillary

When doing the ancillary I stuck to the rules and made the album cover front/back the way most albums are created. However most album covers have things inside (the inside panels) where as I just used an image from the photo-shoot and thought that this could just speak for itself and make the inside panels look appealing and without adding more text it allowed me to add in the red strips that indicate/represent the colour of the artists lipstick and scarf (red) which was a synergy that we used throughout. More the lipstick than the scarf.

Inside panel of my album.

Genre
The way in which genre was addressed was the way we captured the lights and the way there was sun glares/lens in some of the music videos we looked at. The pop and indie genre was mixed up in the music that we chose: In my city - Ellie Goulding. The way in which we went about the lighting in the music video is not to worry about it when filming and then enhancing it in the editing process by changing the colours hues with colour correction. Also in my album design I used an artificial effect of a sunlight flare using the front cover and back cover to add the bright effect almost magical. The pop genre is all about repetition and making it recognisable for the audience so its sort of popular depending on what kind of person you are when it comes to music. 

FINAL ANCILLARY WORK

 

UPDATE 16/01/14

POLISHING THE FINAL DESIGN.

For now I will ask around and present my finished Ancillary Work and see if it is appealing for the target audience. The target for pop/indie music is hard to determine. It can easily grow on someone over the years or can be drilled into them by their surroundings. This is what it has been said in various reviews and articles from psychologists and general magazine writers.

By looking at this and doing the survey it allows me to think about the evaluation questions that I will be doing soon enough. The fist question looks at the conventions of music videos and this should relate to the ancillary work because by designing and creating a album cover back and front with a poster to go with it I'm sure that everyone had to think about the genre before designing. You cant design a Pop album that looks all dark and metallic like a rock album.