Evaluation - Question Four

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

(Written by Lola and Mackenzie/ Edited and made by Mackenzie)

In order for us to edit our ancillary products; the digipak and advert, we used the most recent version of adobe photoshop. We chose to use this form of media technology as we thought that it gave us the best effects that fitted with our pop genre. The main feature we used within photoshop is colour correction as the original photos looked somewhat dull and did not fit with our music video. We were lucky enough to have the access to these facilities and if we did not then we would not have had as good an outcome as we did, the looks would not have been as professional and we would not be satisfied with our work. 

To do the majority of our research we used youtube to search existing music videos to get inspiration to influence our ideas for our own music video. We couldn’t have completed our research nearly as well if we had not used this feature because we needed to have that extra research to help us find out about the different audience needs within our target market within the pop genre. We had looked at inspiring videos produced by; Beyonce and Rihanna. Youtube has also been our main source of where we have been uploading our practice shots, the rough cut and the final cut. We have done this in order to show our class in a simple way in order to make sure that we gained a lot of feedback. 

When thinking about gathering information in order to make our music video attract the correct demographic group, Survey Monkey allowed us to reach out to our target market, in order for them to help us gather precise information on what our music video needed to include, based on their likes and dislikes. Once creating the survey on their website, we were fortunate enough to share this survey onto social media platforms such as; Facebook. This therefore enabled us to receive a lot of responses since it has been shared out to a lot of people in order to gain accuracy within our product. 

To film our music video we used a range of different high tech equipment. We decided that this year we would use a DSLR camera as it gave a much higher quality than we did last year. This made our video look a lot more professional as we could use different techniques like pulled focus which we couldn’t last year. We borrowed this camera from a friend and so did have to fit in with when we wanted to film with his schedule but as we were very organised this was not an issue. Also, we used a tripod, an LED light that attached to the front of the camera to light up our actress’s face in some scenes and lastly a dolly to create tracking shots. 

To edit our music video and put everything together we used a program called final cut 10, this was an excellent application as it had a lot more features compared to previous versions and allowed us to create more cool effects, made our lives easier in how to edit and all together was a benefit to editing our music video. Also, we used Blogger which is an online program to upload all of our posts about our music video online. we had sections on research, construction and final on there. It was useful as then we have all of our work in one place. 

Evaluation - Question Three

Question Three: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary products?

By Mackenzie Dickey and Lola Gray 

Evaluation - Question Two

Question Two: What have you learned from your audience feedback? 

(By Mackenzie Dickey)

When thinking about the different ways in which we could audience feedback about our initial ideas on our music video, and who our target market would essentially be, we decided that we would make a survey on Survey Monkey, in order to get a fair amount of responses, in order to help us through the construction of our production process. By adding a questionnaire for our target audience to respond to, it has enabled us to constantly improve the way in which we construct our practical work by taking on board constructive criticism. Approaching this different technological method has been a great success, and we will most certainly use it again in some way, shape or form in order to collect information for our media products. The main aim of the survey that we produced was to see who our main target audience was, and what their likes and dislikes are in order to make sure that they are captured by the music video that we have produced. Questions asked in the survey consisted of 'What is your favourite band', 'How old are you' and 'What is your preferred genre of music'. These questions therefore helped us to pave a clear and descriptive overview on our target audience. When analysing the results that we had collected from the survey, it was obvious to us that the main gender and age range of people that would watch our music video are; Females from the age range of 11 years old to 20 years old. This is because of our music video being within the pop genre, and the fact that the song is about love. Since the age range came out to be between the ages mentioned above, it meant that we were able to connote the meaning of love in different ways, in order to emphasise the meaning of the song a little bit more. In order to receive the amount of responses that we got, we were able to share the online survey from Survey Monkey onto social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, since it is free to do so; meaning that a lot of people are able to see it. This is therefore representing how it is a development from the other types of research that we have done, since it is secondary research.  
After a lot of construction and progress had started to get underway, we decided that we were ready to show our rough cut music video to the class, which would help us get detailed feedback from other knowledgable media students who are also in the same boat as we are. One of the points addressed to us in this feedback was that towards the ending of our music video, the narrative seems to slip away a little bit and it seems to just be performance shots of our actress dancing. Another comment was made on the fact that when our actress was dancing in the pit, some of the floor space can be seen, which makes that particular shot look a little bit out of place; masking was suggested in order to overcome this. However, as previously explained, masking that shot proved to be very hard since there is a lot of movement happening in the shot. Overall, everyone seemed to like the way in which we have filmed and edited our video, and most of the audience seem to really like the silhouette shots that we have included of the couple and of the performer. 

Evaluation - Question One

Question One: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge conventions of real life media products? 

(By Mackenzie Dickey and Lola Gray)

Here it is evident how our music video uses, develops and challenges conventions of real life media products: 

Performance Shots 

In a typical music video of the pop genre that uses a lot of performance shots, the focus is on the main star of the music video which helps to make the star image profile. In our music video to the song 'Crazy In Love' we thought by having most of it made up by performance shots would help to connote the lyrics to how the star is emphasising her emotions through her lyrical ballad movement. When looking into different types of performance shots that we could do, the ones that stood out the most to us were the simplistic ones that just had one solid lighting colour and a plain black backdrop; which helped to highlight the actress that was delivering pure emotion and commitment to the song, by letting her lyrical mind slip away into the music. In my opinion, these performance shots that we have done contrast nicely with the rest of the music video. This is because the rest of the video has been filmed with natural lighting, which makes the shots more varied and a lot more clarity has been put into it. By also creating a few silhouette shots of the dance in the dance studio, it has allowed us to portray the star in a desirable way and create a strong image in order for the target audience to feel and relate with what she is feeling. 

Cutting to the beat

Every high quality music video that is produced has cutting to the beat, whether the music is fast, slow or has a varied amount of crescendo's; it is done in order to fit with the emotion and theme of the song, in order for the continuity to make sense. In our music video, we used cutting in order to build a suspense especially as the chorus crescendo's and the music builds up and is very dramatic before the actress sings 'Got me looking so crazy right now'. We didn't do this every time this appeared in the song, since we wanted to show a variety of performance shots that fit well with the narrative shots that we are also trying to portray throughout the song. Even though the narrative shots seem longer than the performance shots that are shown, when editing, we tried to make sure that each shot was an even duration of four seconds long. However, some of the narrative shots are a second or two out of that range that we had set. 

Couple Shots 

The couple shots shown are not your stereotypical love song couple shots. This is because we wanted to make this video a different pop love song, and more unique to ourselves. We didn't want the shots to be stereotypically what a couple would do such as; hold hands, hug or kiss because we both thought that it would just make our target audience cringe, as well as ourselves. By adding in our own interpretations of how the couple scenes needed to be shot, it shows how we were challenging ourselves against the normal stereotypes in order for this video to be unique and stand out. The love story wasn't the most important aspect either throughout our music video, which is also what makes it  different within the pop genre. This is because normally, the audience would expect the love narrative to continue and have a meaning, whereas in ours, the shots are varied showing that they are different, and the majority of the main focus is on the performer that is lip syncing and dancing with free lyrical movement. All in all, it fits perfectly within the style of how the song is sung, and how we put our own interpretations on how the narrative was going to be done. 

Ancillary Products 

The digipak that we produced fits in well with the music video that we have created, and has most definitely helped us to develop our final idea on how 'Crazy In Love' has been produced in the final edited version that is shown above. In order to make sure that the digipak included continuity and was consistent and made sense to our target demographic group, we included images that we took whilst we were filming at our different locations, in order to create a difference between our media products. The CD case enabled us to use six different images, which on one of them we included the lyrics to 'Crazy In Love', another had the track list of the album on the back of it, and the other four were just plain photographs that relate to the music video itself. We also made a poster which included a completely different image of the main actress / performer in our music video. The photograph taken for this was done in the dance studio with a very low lit backdrop in order to create a hazy atmosphere since most of the shots within the dance studio come across as a little bit hazy which is effective. The actress is looking down which shows her daintiness and how she is thinking about how 'Crazy In Love' she is. This fit our theme the best out of the two ancillary products that we made. The poster includes when the debut album is being released, the title of the album and the title of the song that we have made the music video for. This is very common and is used on many different posters that artists have made for them in order to promote their new single, tour or album. Not only is it informative, it ensures the target audience what to look out for so that it is recognisable and that they are desirable for the launch of this product.

Promotion of the Album 

Alongside the making of the digipak and poster, we wanted to make sure that is was comparable to the music video that we have created. In order to do this, we made sure that when making the poster advertisement we included in the bottom right hand corner the front cover of the CD 'The Lights'. This is to promote the CD and raise awareness for the products that we have created. This is very common with most artists within the pop genre that have these made for them. This is because it is potentially the best way to sell two products at once for a cheaper outcome. 

Titles

 As you can see, the type of font for the titles that we have used is 'American Typewriter'. I really like this font because I feel that it is very simplistic, yet it looks good and stands out against any background. This type of font in my opinion also fits in with the type of genre our music video is categorised into. The four screenshots that are shown to the left, is where Lola and I have decided to place the titles in the duration of the music video. The 'Crazy In Love' 

 title is shown for six seconds at the beginning. This is to allow our target audience to know the name of the song fully, so that they can get a full understanding of the video throughout. At the end of the video, with only four seconds to go, the titles 'Produced by Lola and Kenz' appears letter by letter to give lyrical effect. 

Colour Correction

Here is a snapshot of the colour correction that Lola and I have added onto this shot, which is shown towards the end of our music video. The original colour of the footage didn't really fit in well with the colour theme that we have throughout the video. The majority of the other shots that we have incorporated into our music video have all been colour corrected. This is because we both wanted to make sure that all of the shots throughout our music video co-ordinate and flow in the correct manner. 

Issues whilst editing

Whilst we were editing our music video, we had a sudden thought that the narrative parts of the video was starting to fall a part, which was then leading to our video not having a meaning and not enough lyrics and visuals were being linked in order to keep our target audience captured in every single moment that happens throughout this music video. This issue was that we felt that we didn't have enough footage of Alice and Jack to add in more towards the end of the video since we had already added in our favourite parts at the beginning. From the class watching the first draft of the video, we had received feedback on this, so we knew that something had to be done to this, in order to meet our audience needs and expectations. Without furtherado, Lola and I had managed to find some extra footage of Alice and Jack on one of the old memory cards that we had used on the day of filming with them.  Without hesitation, we added them into places where we both thought that the performance shots were looking too consistent, which therefore broke it up a bit, and brought the meaning of the video back to life. Another issue that we picked up on especially when we showed the first draft on the big screen, is that one of the shots when Lauren is dancing in the pit really is effective at all. This is because of the vast lyrical movement that she is making, the wooden floor in the pit is able to be seen which makes this particular part of the footage look completely out of place since it's not just Lauren and the black background being shown. In order to fix this, Lola and I tried our hardest to mask this piece of footage in the editing software, final cut pro 10. Unfortunately, this didn't go to plan due to the footage not being still so it was harder to mask, because a lot of movement is being made, and the masking just looked ridiculous. We tried our best, but it was impossible to correct.