Evaluation

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

In media for our A2 portfolio we were asked to produce one main product chosen independently from a list of options including; produce a music video and two subsidiary promotion packages or create a film trailer also with two additional ancillary texts. I chose to produce a music video as I wanted to challenge my knowledge within the promotional video field of media and the conventional forms advertisements and promotion. Conforming with the music genre was key in the production of this promotion video. I wanted to produce a video with a lot of meaning and that was relevant to the lyrics. Before starting my video i looked into other songs of different genres including 'Third Eye Blind' and 'Alicia keys' and in the difference between the two videos, there is a prominent contrast between them. This told me that the difference in genre means that the video is going to be very different. I looked into some more of Paolo nutinis work, including the song 'Candy'. I think that this music video had the biggest connection between one of his existing music videos and mine. This included slow motion shots and short clips. There was not an existing music video for 'these streets' song which i think worked to my advantage because whatever features i decide to include is going to be all my ideas and creative. There are ways in which my product fits conventions, one way in which it fits conventions is the way my music video cuts the the beat or the rhythm of my song. Generally most music videos cut to the beat of the music so therefore i wanted to include this convention to make it look professional. I edited the colours of my music video. To do this i had to go through every clip and edit the colours birghtness and contrast. Generally in most slow songs, the music video incorporates slow motion clips, so i decided to include this effect in my music video. At first i wanted to start the music video off at a slightly normal pace, not including slow motion effects and throughout the song i wanted to include more slow motion effects, this will signify the music getting more meaningful as the song goes on.

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

In the music industry it has become habitual that when a new album is released there are promotion packages also produced so make the album successful. This is a very important stage in the music industry as without the promotion it is unlikely to sell as well. Before making my two ancillary texts i had to research and plan what i was going to do in relation to conformity and genre. Looking through some existing promotion packages its clear that they need to reflect upon the style of music it is going to be promoting. For example in Paolo Nutinis latest album 'Sunny Side Up' the design of the album cover is colourful, complimented by the use of a cartoon character to represent the artist. This is very opposing to the style of my album cover, the reason being the contrast between the style of the two albums and the significant difference between the pace and meaning of the songs. When making my two subsidiary products IE the promotion poster and album cover, this was using basic skill learnt at As level in making my double page spread. I have a keen interest in photography and when planning what image i would have for these products i recalled upon some pictures i had taken previous to this project. I decided to use my final images because of the relevance to the genre. I manipulated these images with adobe photoshop and Microsoft publisher. This was merely a question of editing the colour and fitting the appropriate texts and fonts onto the page. I found my font for 'wordart'. however i wanted to make the style more personalised so i edited it on format to make it look more individual keeping in theme with the design aspects i had planned. Also i needed to contemplate whether i would have similar looking album cover as my promotion poster.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Our audience feedback was a set task with the aim of enabling us to gain outside knowledge within this field of work that we were unaware of. The advantage to the audience feedback was the accessibility to analyse the feedback and know different aspects within the video that could be improved. I asked three of my friends to view my video and give me feedback. Most of the feedback that i received was positive, however, this didn't really give me an insight to where i may have gone wrong. In response to this problem i structured a third and final question which was 'Are there any parts in particular in which you thought could have been improved on?' this question led to answers which would tell me what features of the video could be improved on. Aspects such as brightness and contrast, and including the use of more people. I think that the use of more people would have made a lot of sense as the song itself mentions a lot about people and emotion. There are some points in the music video that the colour and contrast is a bit too strong, for example the point in which the lyrics say 'searching for the change that i lost somehow' the contrast is too strong so therefore Paolo nutinis face is hard to make out. The people who have seen my music video generally liked the slow motion effects that i incorporated in my video, so if i had the chance again i would definately keep this effect. I think that this effect was a simple yet effective move. The slow motion was a symbol indicating the purpose and the depth of meaning to the song. Generally people enjoyed the colours of the video, This was something that was time consuming, however looked nice when it was finished.

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

Throughout the past two years i have progressed and explored different technologies within media that allows me to gain a better understanding of producing certain products. I have become very familiar with the process of hardware and software and gained a lot of knowledge within technology. Certain programmes that i felt restricted my progress was adobe photoshop. This is the industry standard photo manipulation software which allows us to access fonts and contrast aspects within an image and lets us explore a wide variation of sizes, textures and colours. I felt very restrict within this programme as i felt it was very difficult to use, there were some elements within the programme in which i didn't understand. Keeping in mind some of the useful tips that i learnt when processing my AS project, this helped me in the production of my music video as i already had a fairly good understanding on using some of the equipment. One piece of technology that i used was a Canon MD205 portable camera, this was very simple to operate, it is a basic recorder with record and stop on it. The shots were recorded onto a mini Dv (digital). This was an advantage having this camera because it means that what ever is recorded can be uploaded straight onto the LG editing suite using a fire wire connector. Unfortunately there were some negatives in using this camera. If i wanted to use the sound i had shot, i wouldn't be able to because the sound quality on this camera is very poor. Some shots i would have wanted to do at night but i was restricted by this camera as it is a single chip camcorder which meant that it was hard to use at night because the camera could not adjust to the darkness. Similar to our AS project, we were able to process all of our work on the computer on a web page called blogger. This was a huge advantage to me as it is easy to use and can be accessed by any computer worldwide, it is editable and easy to view. How ever, the down side to it being viewable by anyone could be seen as encouraging plagiarism. Some other downsides to using this website was a problem with adding posts. If i wanted to go back to a previous date and add a new post I was not allowed, so this created an issue with ordering my work, which became problematic throughout the later stages of my coursework.

Music Video

Audience Feedback

As part of our project we were also asked to collect audience feedback in aid to help us analysing certain bit which could be improved or other parts which looked good and had a lot of impact on the video.
I asked 3 of my friends to answer the following questions:
What did you think the purpose of my music video was and what was the video reflecting upon?
Do you think the music video reflected on the image of the artist and the music genre?
Are there any parts in particular in which you thought could have been improved on?

Participant one:
Question one: I thought that the music videos aim was to reflect upon life as an adult and includes aspects of the importance of freedom.
Question two: I think that the boy used to be in the music video suited the genre of the music and had a rugged look as that of the artist. As the video was set in fields and small streets with not many people around it really captured the genre and the topic of freedom.
Question three: I think that i would have used a lighter brightess and less contrast so the place looked brighter in some parts of the music video but the rest was really well put together and suited the song.


Participant two;Question one: I thought that the aim of this music video was to show a young man searching for something that he had lost, in this case, his childhood and the relation to stress and play implies that he misses those days.
Question two: I think that the editing really made the video look the piece, i liked the use of slow motion, it really suited the genre and the style of this song.
Question three: I dont think there would be anything i would change if i could do it, i think the use of colour and motion was really effective.


Participant three;
Question one: I think that the aim of the video was to promote the world as it is today and to show the good aspects of the world in a time where it is viewed negatively.
Question two: The song makes me think of freedom and fields, trees and people so i think it suited the lyrics in the song.
Question three; if i was making this video i would have used more people, there are some references in the song which talks about people and faces so i think it would have been good to include some more people.

Album cover

Back cover



This is my final back cover, I chose this image because I felt that it was appropriate in terms of relating to the song. The image shows a wooden wall and beyond the wall is a school. As the song i am promoting reflects on school life i thought that this wouldnt be appropriate. I edited the sky in this image to give it a better effect. i edited this on www.pixlr.com. Which is a free online picture editing programme.






This is the front cover. This is an image which i took in America. I felt that this would be the most appropriate image in connection to the genre of the artists music, as its very representative of the type of music that it is. My final cover is very opposing to my original idea where i wanted the artist on the cover. I felt that having a cover without the artist on is always very effective. This regularly is an indication that the artist is very famous and not in desperate need of more recognition. The album 'These streets' shows a different side to Paolo Nutinis musician skills as this album contains music of a more chilled out/blues genre.





Inside page









This is my final inside page. I wanted this to be in contrast to the album cover, this is very opposing in terms of image and style, however it relates to the cartoon effect of the album 'Sunny Side Up' and is in keeping with the colours of the sun on the cover.

In my album package i wanted to include some contrasting images. so i decided to go with the bright cartoon effect of the street which i edited on photoshop. my front cover image was unedited in terms of colour and contrast, however the writing that is on i edited on photoshop, using a simple font which i manipulated to look more personalised. My back cover is an image that i decided to use because i feel that the blue skies and wooden material together created a good effect. I edited this image in photoshop and www.pixlr.com. Firstly i heightened the contrast of the wood and second i selected the small area of the window and edited the contrast and brightness. I wanted the skies to stand out. I chose a font that looked good and in keeping with the theme and also similar to the font on my front cover. I decided to go with the colour black as it would stand out. I tried using a white font but this didnt not look good and it was difficult to see the words clearly.



Here is an example of one of Paolo Nutinis existing album covers;




In relation to my statement of the artist not in need to recognition, i think this album cover supports this. This album cover does not portray the artists face, just a cartoon, yet it is very effective.




Digipak





This template is an example of the conventional sizes that my cd case will have to obied by.

Final Advertisement

This is my final poster. After my second attempt and looking at the design elements i decided that some features did not look too good, for example in my second attempt i chose to have the title of the page central at the top of the page in large writing and the 'the new album' in the centre of the page also in large writing. After looking at the impact of this i came to realise that the large orange writing was not in keeping with the neutral design of the rest of the page. I chose to have the title at the top of the page slightly smaller and 'the new album' with the rest of the title. I changed the font of it completely and the colour. I made it smaller with a blue filling. I felt that this would be more suitable as the blue filling could be representative of blue skies. Something that i wanted to incorporate a lot of in the music video. I edited the advertisement for the live gig and made it smaller, however i left it at the bottom of the page still so it was in keeping with the rest of the page. I added other conventional features such as what other songs were included in the album.





Second






This was my second attmept at a poster. In this attempt i aimed to include the more nessecary qualities that an advertisement should include. For example, where the next gig by the artist will be held and the purpose of the poster. When the album is going to be released. I chose to have the main detail in a large font which would stand out on the page and make it clear what the posters aim is. The font i chose for 'the new album' was influenced by the album cover of James Morrison. I wanted this image to have a more effective impact by adding a feature to the page which would stand out. So in keeping with the genre of the music i chose a simple change which would add to the originality of the page which was fading the edge of the page out. This gives off an impression of clouds and dreams, a topic which is impiortant in Paolo Nutinis music.





First





This was my first attempt at making my advertisement poster. After this first attempt i looked into things and features that are missing that would be included in conventional advertisement posters. My main aim in this first attempt was to get the right format and create a font that would be suitable according to the music genre. My text was edited on word and i changed the colours and sizes so the font would suit the purpose. After creating this, i looked into what was missing. Advertisements for music companies were missing which i would have to edit and put them in place. I chose this picture as it looks very free, as the song is about childhood, I thought that this picture would proove very suitable. The reason i chose dogs to be on the poster was because dogs are seen to be very innocent and child-like which is relevant to the song.

Some pictures i could use

These pictures are some pictures that i have taken at all different time throughout the past couple of year from different place in the world. After looking at my collection of photographs i decided that these pictures are all very appropriate to go on the promotion poster.
The look of each of these images portrays a very simple way of life, it presents freedom, an aim that paolo nutini wants to portray in his music.




The first image was taken in december in the snow, i think that this shot would go really well on the poster cover as it links to a shot in the music video of a snow fight. This is the sort of street i invisioned when making my music video.

The second image was taken in America, Tampa Bay, i like this image because it is simple, yet i like the blue skies and the relaxed feel the image gives off. This could be an example of a working class, yet relaxed and pretty.

The thrid image was again taken in America, this image appeals to me a lot, because as mentioned in the lyrics in paolo nutinis song he talks about stresses of life, however i think this image gives off a working class feel yet it is attractive and very nice to look at.

The fourth image was taken on Beverley Westwood, i think that this would make a very good poster image as it captures a moment of freedom very well. As my dogs are running in the grass that is too long its looks careless and free, i also like the contrast between the grass and the sky.

The final option was a picture taken in America again and the reaosn i took this picture was because i wanted to capture the sun set, i like the shine of the sun against the road. The road is very quiet which, again gives off a feeling of freedom.

Font styles for poster

Looking into how important the title of the Poster is in attracting peoples attention i looked into website that would give me a wide range of options on font styles, this will give me a variety of options that i could choose from to title my poster.

The first option that i looked into was the type writer effect in which i found on one of my websites. I think that this font could be very effective if i put it on my poster as it looks very urban which would suit Paolo Nutinis image that he wants to portray amongst his audience. I want every aspect of my poster to suit my Artists style.






As my chosen song is about younger days and the lyrics relate a lot to childhood and the difference between childhood and adulthood, i think that ths writing font would be very appropriate in relation to the song lyrics. As this writing has a childs writing look about it therefore i thought that i could apply my knowledge of conventional promotion posters and album cover to my subsidary project.

First idea, breif poster

This is my first brief of my promoting poster, i chose to have a conventional image dominating the majority of the page to let the audience know who the artist is and also to portray the image. I wanted to have a large title over the top of the page to make it clear the name of the song, i decided to make the poster image link to the name of the song, so for that reason i chose to use the main image of the artist against the background of a busy or quiet street. Using the influence of James Morrison of his album cover 'Undiscovered' i decided that an option for the name style would be to have Paolo nutinis name is gold writing underneath the image of the street, the reason i chose gold writing was because i want it to look trophy-like.
I want to keep this poster simplistic but yet effective by including all of the important details such as, the artists style, the song name and the name of the artist, Paolo Nutini.