BLOG FINISHED

I have finally come to the completion and end of my A2 media blog. I hope you enjoy both my music video and print products. I have tracked and recorded my journey throughout A2 on this blog and you will find all of my ideas and work throughout it. Thank you and enjoy!

Final Practical Products

Music Video


I'm a mess- Final Cut from Laura Greenley on Vimeo.

Advert Design

 

Album Design 

Evaluation Q4

Here is my evaluation question 4 using a voice recording on soundcloud to discuss how I used technology. Enjoy.

Evaluation Q3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

My Initial Feedback
Throughout my project I have used a mixture of verbal feedback and online feedback from all aspects of my work from members of my target audience. This has been extremely useful in helping me to develop my work and skills both in video editing and in photo editing. 

Target Audience
-Who is my target audience?
After having done some detailed research into music genre and choosing pop music as my chosen music genre I discovered that it would be appropriate to aim my project towards teenagers and young adults. By choosing this target audience I was able to easily and regularly receive audience feedback from my friends who were part of my target audience.
I didn't want my products to be tailored to a specific gender group but instead I wanted it to be relatable to all sexes within my chosen age range.
-What specific techniques did I use to appeal to my target audience?
I included specific elements within my music video and ancillary products that I thought would appeal to members of my target audience and that would be relatable to teenagers to further build the relationship between the artist and the audience. These included elements such as:
-Using teenage actors- by having my actors of the same age as my target audience I thought that it would maker my video more realistic for my younger audience. Girls would be able to relate to the girlfriend character if they had ever been through a bad breakup and boys would be able to relate to my leading male if they have ever been through a hard time and turned to using bad coping mechanism to be able to get through it.
- The theme of young love- most teenagers tend to experience a few relationships during their teen years and this theme can be appealing to them as they can understand the complexities of the situations and can connect and empathize with one or both parties involved.
-The inclusion of alcohol- this element applies to some but not all of my target audience. There is a strong inclusion of alcohol throughout my video which can be appealing to some of the older members of my target audience who enjoy drinking or who have had any experiences with turning to alcohol to be able to deal with there own problems.
-The close up shots of my artist in my ancillary products- By including close up shots of my artists head this has enhanced Mulvey's theory of male gaze and the attraction of members of my target audience who were female. I specifically asked my artist to use a smoldering facial expression to make him appear more sexualized, and enhanced this further by using bright lights to highlight his features. This technique was aimed more at my female target audience rather than the males, but could also be applied to men to.

Use of focus groups
-How did I use focus groups? 
I decided to use focus groups in a number of ways in order to receive feedback on my work. I found focus groups to be a particularly useful way of receiving group feedback from my target audience in a quick and easy way. I gathered together groups of audience members that were both part of my target audience and in some cases of a slightly older demographic- just to get another fresh perspective on my work. I did this at different stages of my work (at the beginning, during the middle stages and at the end) so that I could constantly develop my ideas and ensure that my product was appealing to the right group of people. I found focus groups easy to set up and I was able to use many of my friends to form these, knowing they would give me honest opinons and constructive criticism.  
-What have I learnt from focus groups? 
By using focus groups I have learnt that sometimes your intentions as a director aren't always as clear as you think they're going to be to the audience. For example, at the ending of my music video I have a range of shots leading up to a final close up shot of my actor overdosing. A few members of my target audience received this differently and had thought that he had just fallen asleep rather than overdosed. This feedback made me think a lot about how I could have made my intentions clearer through some of my shots but I also quite liked that my audience were able to make up there own minds about what was happening to my main character. I have also learnt from conducting focus groups that it is important to get a second opinion on some of the decisions you are thinking about making. I showed my focus groups images and designs of my two ancillary products and asked them for opinions on colour schemes and the style of images that I should use for both products. They agreed with my that the colour scheme should be bold and stand out so that it is eye-catching. They also agreed with my choice of close up shot of my artist as the main image that I should use on both my album and my advert. They liked that this built up a connection between the artist and the audience and immediately engaged them in the product. 
-Using the feedback I received from my focus groups and if I were to re-do my project what would I change? 
If I was to re-do my project I would make the narrative of my video more overtly obvious, as this was clearly a hazy area for some members of my target audience. I would also work more closely on my editing of my performance footage so that the lip-syncing elements were tighter and more in time. This was another area that was picked up by some members of my target audience and something I identify as an area of weakness within my video. I would certainly hope to develop my skills both within production and post-production stages of the performance element to improve my video overall. I would also perhaps experiment more with playing around with the pace and timing of some of my shots within the video, particularly towards the beginning. I chose to make the pace slower at this moment so to build up to the dramatic peak of the video later on, however some of my target audience commented that a quicker pace would also have a similar effect on the video and build up the tension further. 

Examples of feedback I have received
-Here are some examples of the different ways in which I have received feedback for my work apart from just my focus groups. 

-Here is evidence of a questionnaire that I created using surveymonkey.com. The questionnaire was compiled of 10 questions and helped me to get anonymous audience feedback on my work. 

-Here is some evidence of feedback I have received on my blog from my media teacher. These screenshots have been taken from my first and second last rough cuts of my video. This was a particularly useful method of feedback as it was constructive, detailed and specific to different elements of my work. 

 -Here is evidence from a blog post where I have responded to verbal feedback in a discussion I had with my media teacher about the ways in which I could resolve some formatting issues I was having with my ancillary products 

 -Here is evidence of how I have utilised social media sites such as Facebook to try and receive feedback from members of my target audience by asking them to comment on my work. 

What have I learned from this feedback? 
-In conclusion, the feedback I have received from both members of my target audience (teenagers and young adults) and audience members such as my parents and teacher has been extremely useful in helping me develop my ideas and designs. My target audience in particular have given me feedback that has allowed me to design and create a video and set of ancillary products that are tailored to their needs and tastes. I believe that I have been successful overall in my attempts to produce products that have been targeted at the pop music genre and young audience as I have received an overall positive response both verbally, written and through my survey. However, I have learnt that it may have been useful to use audience feed even more frequently that I did, as they became the most useful way to be able to improve my work and correct my mistakes. However, my products were made with my target audience in mind throughout the whole process, which has allowed me to create products that will appeal to them whilst reaching their expectations as to what they can expect from the pop music genre. 

Evaluation Q2

For evaluation Q2 I decided to create a Prezi presentation to present my findings and thoughts on how  effective I thought the combination of my main and ancillary products were. Here is the final Prezi, please enjoy.

Evaluation Q1

 Here is my evaluation Q1. I have ended up breaking this question down into a mixture of a vlogg and powerpoint presentation shared using slideshare. In this question I am evaluating how my products have used, developed or challenged real media texts and I hope that you enjoy. 

Evaluation Q1- powerpoint from Laura Greenley

Product Survey

In an attempt to try and gather some audience feedback on my work I have decided to create a short survey using the site surveymonkey.co.uk. In this survey I am trying to gather feedback on all three of my products and see whether members of my target audience firstly like my work and secondly have any improvements for my work, letting me know whether I could have done anything differently or if anything could be done to make my products more professional.

 

 

Here is a screenshot of how I have tried to send my survey to members of my target audience via email. I have provided them all with copies or links to all three of my products and a link to the survey itself.

I am hoping that by completing this survey my audience will be able to provide me useful feedback and constructive criticism that will benefit any future projects that I may undertake.

Music Video- Final Cut

Here is the final cut of my music video. I have re-done my drug dealer scene so that it no longer includes Elleah and I have tried to sharpen up some of the performance footage. I am now happy with the overall video and feel it is effective and suitable for my target audience. Whilst some may argue that the pace is slow in places, I have done this to add to the dramatic build up of the narrative to show the decline of the protagonist and how it worsens over the course of the video. I will now aim to get some target audience feedback by posting my work onto social media sites.

Please enjoy my video!

I'm a mess- Final Cut from Laura Greenley on Vimeo.

Problems Exporting

So I'm currently trying to export my video from my editing software and it keeps announcing there's an error after its exported about 60% of the footage. I'm not quite sure what's happening and why it keeps crashing but hopefully I will be able to fix this very soon.

(THE VIDEO IS FINISHED I SWEAR)

Progress Update

So over the easter holidays I haven't managed to spend as much time on my media work as I would have liked to due to being in work most days and having issues with sorting out my adobe membership to pay for my editing software. However, I have just completed what I am hoping is my final video cut (I need to double check it over on my mac, as my old laptop is a bit hit and miss) and now I can fully focus on completing my evaluation. 
I have already started Q1 and Q2 which I will also try to complete by the end of today, or at least by the end of Monday. For Q1 I am creating a video comparison and for Q2 I am creating a Prezi presentation. Once I have completed these two questions I will move onto looking at Q3 and Q4. 
It's been a frustrating easter, but the end is seeming near now!!

Final Digipak

Here is the final version of my digipak, I have taken the images up to the orange dotted lines on my template and lined them up to the vertical and horizontal lines as best as I could. Overall I am happy with this product and am confident that there is a clear link between this product, my advert and my music video.

Final Advert

Here is the updated version of my advert with added iTunes logo and text to strengthen the formatting. By adding the 'download on iTunes' logo it helped to make the bottom bar where the website addresses feature more symmetrical. Also by adding the text 'THE ALBUM' this helped to establish what product I was advertising as this wasn't necessarily as clear as it could have been in the previous version.

Overall I am very happy with the final outcome of my advert and I think that this links nicely both to my digipak, video and chosen genre.

Complete Advert

 

Here is the complete version of my magazine advert that goes alongside my video and digipak, please enjoy.

Complete Digipack

Here is the final complete version of my digipak design, please enjoy.

Institutions

Music Video Institutions 

What are they? 

Music video institutions are companies who help produce and fund music videos for their signed music artists. As audience members we then watch these videos nearly everyday as we are intrigued to see what new music videos are starting trends on the internet and also what new music specific artists are bringing out, this process is then enhanced by social media sites such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. There are four main institutions and they are: 

- EMI Music

- Sony Music

- Universal Music Group

- Warner Music Group 

EMI Music

EMI Music brings artists and fans together by driving action and creating value wherever music is experienced. Artists on EMI labels include Katy Perry, The Beatles, 360, Angus & Julia   Stone, 5 Seconds Of Summer, Sam Smith, Alison Wonderland, PEZ, Something For Kate, Bastille, Beck, The Kooks, Morrissey, Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand, George Michael, Neil Diamond, The Vamps, Empire Of The Sun, The Aston Shuffle, Arcade Fire, Ricki-Lee, Bob Evans, Banks and many more.

EMI Music provides EMI’s roster of artists – as well as independent labels and artists – with a global menu of commercial services and seamless access to an expanding range of revenue streams and business models, including digital and physical distribution, sales, press and promotion, marketing, licensing, synch, brand partnerships, live recordings and merchandising.

Sony Music

Sony Music Entertainment Inc, provides music labels and recordings of artists and international superstars. Sony Music Entertainment Inc, was formerly known as Song BMG Music Entertainment and changed its name to Sony Music Inc, in October 2008. The company was founded in 2004 and its headquartered in New York. It offers hip hop, country, classical, gospel, pop and rock archival recordings and labels. 

Sony Music is one of the world's most well known music companies, as it includes ownership and distribution over music companies such as Arista Records, Columbia Records, Epic Records, J Records, Jive Records, RCA Victor Records, RCA Records, Legacy Recordings, Sonic Wave America and others. 

Sony Music's featured artists include Avril Lavigne, Beyonce, Britney Spears, Chris Brown, Foo Fighters, Foster The People, Glee, Jackie Evancho, Pitfall, Sade, Shakira, Willow Smith and many others, who have all become music superstars. 

Sony Music has a worldwide distribution access for music artists who went to be well-known around the globe, this consists of artists promoting their music in different countries around the world to attract a good fan-base that will mainly stick behind them through their career. 

Universal Music Group

Universal Music Group, Inc.) is an American-French worldwide music corporation that operates as a subsidiary of Paris-based French media conglomerate Vivendi. It claims to be the largest music corporation in the world.Universal Music Group's global corporate headquarters are in Santa Monica, United States The recorded music business discovers and develops recording artists and then markets and promotes their music across a wide array of formats and platforms. Universal Music Group's publishing company, Universal Music Publishing Group, discovers and develops songwriters, in which they own and administers copyrights to musical compositions for use in recordings, public performances and related uses such as films and advertisements (through television, radio, posters, billboard and many more). UMG's merchandising company, Bravado, sells artists and music branded products by multiple sales point such as fashion retail; live performances and the internet. UMG's list is complied of artists covering the full music spectrum throughout the world including North American Artists such as Akon, Mary J Blige, Sheryl Crow, Busta Rhymes, Mariah Carey, Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj, Nelly, Jennifer Lopez, LMFAO and many more. European artists include Duffy, Bryan Adams, Taio Cruz, Cheryl Cole, Mumford and Sons, Florence + The Machine and many more. Asian Pacific Artists Vanessa Amorosi, Sa Dingding, Karen Mok, Will Pan, Alan Tam, Jacky Cheung, Bernard Fanning and many more.  

Warner Music Group 

WMG’s family of labels—including Atlantic Records Group, Warner Bros. Records Inc., and Parlophone—is among the most prominent and successful in the history of music, encompassing a global roster of acclaimed artists and an unparalleled catalog including many of the world's most popular and influential recordings. 

Warner/Chappell Music, the global music publishing company of WMG, is home to an extraordinary catalog that includes timeless standards and contemporary hits, representing works by over 65,000 songwriters and composers, with a collection of more than one million copyrights. Warner/Chappell also includes Warner/Chappell Production Music and Word Music Publishing. 

For more than four decades, WMG has been an industry-leading force in providing a world-class array of services designed to help artists and labels grow their careers and their businesses. Artist & Label Services is the umbrella for WEA (Warner-Elektra-Atlantic) – the pioneering WEA distribution and marketing network – and Alternative Distribution Alliance (ADA) – the groundbreaking global distribution company for independent artists and labels.

The family of UK labels is home to a diverse line-up of home-grown talent including Muse, Ed Sheeran, Biffy Clyro, Rumer, Foals, Plan B, Paolo Nutini, Lianne La Havas, Rudimental and Birdy. 

Digipak Template (without spine)

Here is a template of how my current digipak is looking, I have all the elements completed now apart from the spine which I will work on now. I think this all ties together nicely and is an effective album overall.

CD Label

Here is the CD design for my digipak, this is designed in the same style as the tracklist for my digipak and has been completed with the same copyright information that is included on the tracklist and the logos of the record lable and the CD company. The next section of my digipak that I now need to complete is the spine.

Rough Cut 6

Here is the link to my rough cut, I managed to get it uploaded in time before I left (thank god!) 

Enjoy

https://vimeo.com/155252410

Rough Cut update

I have a completed rough cut of my video currently attempting to upload itself to Vimeo (although it's been doing this all night and all through the night). Unfortunately I am at work all day today so I won't be able to wait for it to upload to be able to put it on my blog. I will try to sort out this issue as soon as I return from work.

Re-done track list

I have done some editing to the tracklist of my digipak and added a few featues that were missing in my first attempt.

I realised that I'd managed to use the wrong name for my artist in my original design so this needed to be changed so that I was using the right name and so that my branding was more consistant.

I also realised that I needed to include some form og copyright information in small print at the bottom of the design which I will discuss more in a sperate blog post.

Overall I am happy with this design and how it looks, I think it looks professional and ties into my front cover design.

 

Developing ideas for tracklist

Below are images of how I have developed the design for my tracklist for my album. This is just one design concept, but I like its simplicity and how the design is in keeping with my front cover designs. 

I have noticed that I have missed out adding copyright information on the the bottom of the design and this is something that I will need to look into more closely. I will insert this information just above the website links and the bottom of the design. 

  

Here I have simply added the same side panel that I use on the front cover to a plain black background. This not only fits with the colour scheme of black and white with the colour accent features but also looks bold and is a clear background for when I add in the text. 

 

The next step was to start adding some of the text such as the album title, the songs on the album and the X logo. Again I went for the same colour schemes of the front cover so that it tied the two elements of the digipak together. 

 

Finally I added some of the finer details to the tracklist, such as the names of the websites of the artist and of the record label, the barcode and the record labels logo. 

Genre

Media genre from Laura Greenley

Digipak Templates

Online I have found different template designs for possible digipaks for my work. In this post I will be discussing the benefits of each layout and finalizing my decision on which template would be best to use for my work. 

 

Template one gives me the option of using four panels that would include the front cover, back cover, CD compartment and inside panel. This would perhaps be more similar to some of the digipaks that I have analyzed for my research and could therefore be more conventional to my genre and artists style. On the other hand this gives me less photography options and I will have to be very selective with the images that I choose to use. As this layout is perhaps more simplistic in style it would require a lot more attention to detail in terms of the formatting, which would be some thing I would need to consider.

Template two is the larger template out of the two allowing me to be able to experiment more with the images I use and giving me more scope to enhance my artists 'star image'. This template includes the front cover, back cover, CD tray, the inner panel where the booklet will be placed and a second inner panel with front and back side that will cover the CD when it is closed. When looking back at my research into digipaks I didn't find many pop digipaks that had this layout. Whilst it gives me more space to promote my artist and his brand I don't feel that the additional panel is necessary for the type of ablum I am creating and would perhaps be a little repetitive in style with the imagery and design I am planning to use.

 

 

Overall I feel that the first template will be the template that I choose to use for my digipak. Whilst there are less panels available for me to use, the layout is more consistent and in keeping with my chose genre and I feel it will enable me to focus more on the finer details of the product so it creates an effect, professional and promotion digipak design.

Rough Cut 5

Here is another rough cut of my work so far. In this rough cut I have 2/3 of my performance footage sections added. Both sections are very rough and need a lot of work and tighter editing done to them but I thought it would be a good time to upload another trial to see where my video was at and the progress I've started to make. 

Enjoy!

 

Rough Cut 5 from Laura Greenley on Vimeo.

Editing is driving me crazy!!

I'm currently in the process of editing my performance footage into video and I can tell you it's truly driving me insane. The footage itself isn't bad- apart from a few shaky moments and lighting not being perfect- but the software is the slowest thing in the world!!

I'm wanting to get a rough cut done of the complete video, with performance footage before I post another sample of my video to my blog. 

Hopefully the software will stop running so slowly on my computer and this process will be made easier, but for now I will keep spending hours waiting for footage to render. 

I hope it'll all be worth it in the end.

Hope to have a rough cut uploaded in the next few days!!

Changing the artist name

As discussed in my formatting post I have decided to change the name of my artist from Ed Sheeran so that I can expand on my branding and experiment more with my artists individual style.

To generate a new name I started by looking on random name generator websites but realised that the suggestions that were coming up just didn't work or fit at all! 

One option we had was to just use my actors name but I didn't really like how it sounded and didn't think that it fitted with the brand identity that I was wanting to go for. 

Instead we decided to take my actors middle name (Matthew) and last name and combine them together and my artists new name is now Matt White!! I think this name has a bit of an indie feel to it and has bit of personality which is perfect for the direction of my branding. 

I will now begin to use my artists new name on my promotional designs.

Discussing Formatting

I have been discussing the formatting of my digipak and advert designs with my teacher today and we have spoken about changing around some concepts of the designs.

The overall style with the broken up images we agreed was effective and should be something that is a consistent theme throughout the digipak design. He suggested to me that it may be better if the broken up images were better selected so that they had more significance and impact for the overall design. This was something that I found to be a problem when I was designing the two products on Pixlr Express as it didn't give me the option to choose which sections of the image would be broken up. However perhaps I need to explore this idea by also using and experimenting with Photoshop to see if this is a more effective piece of software to use for my promotional designs.

 We also discussed elements of the text that was on both products. We agreed that the title of the album was effective on both products but that some of the finer pieces of text needed to be focused on in more detail. For example, making sure that the text is aligned in the right format and adding brand logos and bar codes to make the products look more authentic. This is something that again I may need to use Photoshop for after getting the basic editing completed on the Pixlr Express site.

Finally it was suggested that I use a different name for my artist other than Ed Sheeran as my artists style may differ somewhat from his. This would allow me to have more freedoms in terms of branding and I would be able to experiment more with style.

My next step now is to decide on the layout of my digipak and to start developing my ideas, getting them closer to the final what the final products will look like.

More trial designs

Trial Designs

Here are two initial and very rough designs for potential digipak and magazine adverts using Pixlr online photo editor. 

Both of the designs have a strong focus on the artist so that the star image is strongly enhanced. This was something that I found was very common in the existing media texts that I looked at and so I decided it would need to be an important feature of my work if I were to truly follow the conventions of my genre. I have also used the same boxed effect and font style on both promotional items. I chose this font as it was very similar to the types of font Ed uses on his album and other promotional items. Whilst it is a bold font it isn't over whelming and again allows for the image to have a greater impact on the audience. 
To link with my music video I decided to tint some of the image in black and white but so that the work stood out and was a bit more abstract to fit with Ed's musical style I have kept the closer shots in colour and I'm really happy with the effect. 
I'm aiming to try and get some feedback on these trials from members of my target audience (12-20 year olds) so I can see how to improve on my designs and what else needs to be featured. 
I will keep creating and uploading more trials in the meantime.

Advert Analysis- Olly Murs

Here is my analysis of Olly Murs' advert for his album right place right time. Here is a copy of the advert so that you can see what I am discussing in this podcast. Enjoy.

 

Advert Analysis- Kings of Leon

This is my analysis of the Kings of Leon advert for their album 'Only the night'. Here is an image of what the advert looks like. Please enjoy this podcast.

 

Digipak Analysis- Rihanna

Digipak Analysis- Rihanna from Laura Greenley on Vimeo. 

 

Here is a copy of the digipak that I am discussing in the music video

Digipak Analysis- Ed Sheeran

Digipak Analysis- Ed Sheeran from Laura Greenley on Vimeo. 

Here is my second vlog digipak analysis. As mentioned in the video I will also attach an image of Ed Sheeran's album below so you can see what I am discussing.  

Digipak Analysis- Jason Derulo

Digipak Analysis- Jason Derulo from Laura Greenley on Vimeo.

Here is the first of 5 video analysis' I will be doing on digipaks.

Action Plan

I have created a basic action plan from now until half term outlining deadlines that I have set for myself for when I will get my tasks completed. I believe that these deadlines are realistic and allow my enough time to complete my work as well as the other commitments I have outside of the subject. In order to be able to focus on my evaluation throughout half term I need to complete this list of work. My main focus for this week will be to complete 5 digipak analysis' and re-shoot my performance footage for my video.

Digipak and advert material

I am currently in the process of creating video analysis' of existing digipaks for my print product research that I aim to get posted onto my blog over the next two days. I decided to these in a video form as I realise that I could be a little more adventurous with my presentation of some of my blog posts. 
I will also be looking into music magazine adverts and discussing them perhaps in the form of a sound cloud post. 
I aim to do 5 of each type before going out and getting some test shots for my album cover, which I intend to do with Ben when we re-film my performance footage on Wednesday night. 

Filming Update!

Finally after was has felt like an eternity I will be filming my performance footage with Ben on Wednesday night!!! Over the next two days I will gather together my props and secure my location so that everything is in place. 
It feels like I've been trying to sort this out for a lifetime so hopefully everything will go to plan and we will finish filming quickly with good quality shots.