The Final Music Promo:


If I Had My Way:

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

Final Digipak:

Final Magazine Advert:

I created synergy between all the tasks so they were easily identifiable. The italic writing is commonly used amongst R'n'B products and therefore will be recognised by current R'n'B listeners. We used this in all three of our tasks to make each product recognisable to the R'n'B audience. Especially at the start of our music video it is important so if watching it on television people do not just quickly turn it over. Also by stating the name of the song at the start of the video it will allow potential audiences and customers to know the name of our song in case they wish to purchase it.

 Also the continuous colour scheme of black and gold creates a relationship amongst the ancillary tasks. The use of lots of pictures of the artist allows her to be recognisable and allows the audience to feel as if they know her as a person and not just as a singer, therefore they are able to relate to the story and her when they hear one of her songs.

The ancillary tasks are used to try and sell my music video and her album, therefore there had to be a distinctive link between all three. The colour scheme allows the traditional, stereotypical values of R'n'B products to be shown allowing audiences to establish its genre.

The reasons i chose the pictures i did and the way in which they are shot is due to they are shots that we have used in our music video and therefore create a synergy between all three, the reasons for these shots is to allow the audience of our music video to understand the narrative.

When looking at my album cover, you get the feeling that the video will be neatly done due to the glamorous patterns used. Therefore we can build a good impression on the audience before they have seen the video.

I used a mixture of both black and white and colour pictures as there is both used in our video and therefore when watching the video or looking at the album cover or magazine advert the audience will be able to create the link or synergy themselves feeling more involved with the overall album.

What have i learnt from audience feedback?

To gather feedback from my chosen audience (R'n'B listeners) i undertook several questionnaires at many different stages of the course, this was to ensure that my audience were kept in mind and so that what i produced would be successful.

The questionnaires included both open and closed questions as using both gave me comparable and detailed answers that we could use and develop.

The first questionnaire we undertook was at the very beginning of the course which establish what genre we would do and who our target audience was.

I also took questionnaires after each task i had created as this helped me to gain ideas on what the audience was looking for and whether or not each task would be successful. Therefore the audience were vital in the production as they shaped my tasks final production.

To gain feedback on my music video i posted it on Facebook the social networking site, so that viewers are easily able to leave their thoughts and comments. I have taken a few of those ideas and in co-operated them into our video, once discussing them with my group.

In older posts in the same label category (Evaluation) you will find my questionnaire results, and how i in cooperated the ideas into my final product. They are available in written or graph format.

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

Throughout the course of making my tasks of a music video, album cover and magazine advert i have used many media technologies which have helped me through the processes to finish. In the following paragraphs i will outline when and why i decided to use each technology.


Research:

You tube: This program allowed us to view many different music video to help us to know what was already on offer, from this we were then able to decide whether or not to use, develop, or challenge the stereotypes in these videos. When doing this i updated some posts about our findings, you will find these under the research and planning label on my blog.

Television Channels: This was a great aid as you could see what you thought when they appeared it no particular order you could see what characteristics stood out to you and therefore you would gain an understanding about which stereotypes or characteristics you would want to use and which ones to steer clear from.

The Internet: This was a great way to find out extra information about artists and background information about them. It also helped me to find theorists and their theories about the findings i had made, therefore i was able to link the two and gain theories to support my ideas.


Overall Evaluation: You tube was good as you could find exactly what you wanted to find, although with television channels you were more able to point out different characteristics that stood out because you did not know what was going to come next, although the song that came on after may not relate to your genre and therefore may be time consuming.

The Internet is a fast way to find out exactly what you want to know in just a few clicks i was able to find out a lot i didn't know about R'n'B artists.
I found the blog a great way to keep track of my ideas, i was able to blog my ideas as soon as i either thought of them, or found them and therefore i could research into them further adding more and more detail throughout the course, enabling me to gain a lot more research than i did in AS as we were limited to our scrapbook.


Planning:

I-movie: This program helped us a lot in our planning stages as when building our storyboards, me and my team were able to see what effects and editing techniques were available to us and therefore we were able to create our storyboards, knowing that we would not come across many problems as we had already checked that we were able to do it.

Pictures: Me and my team went out and took location shots to ensure that we were going to create the exact effects that we wanted. We came across some problems in doing this and therefore were able to sort them out before we had filmed, therefore we did not waste much time.

Internet: We again used the Internet in our planning stages as we had many ideas individually and therefore used a program called Facebook to share them, as this gave us all an opportunity to say what ideas we had and then as a group we were able to come to a decision on each one, sometimes we made compromises whereas others we were able to develop certain ideas.

Overall Evaluation: By using these media technologies for planning we saved ourselves a lot of time as we did not come across as many problems as we would have done without the aid of these programmes.


Construction:

Video camera: Although we had used these before in AS, it had been a while since we had used them, therefore we had a practise go first to make sure we didn't make any mistakes. We filmed parts several times to make sure we got the right outlook on it and therefore we didn't have to go back and film certain parts otherwise slight differences would have been noticeable. When uploading and beginning to edit we realised we had to go back and film a bit again here we had to use a certain type of lighting to make the weather look the same otherwise the storyline would not look continuous.

Editing: We used a more modern version of i-movie this year to edit our music videos. This gave us more opportunities as more effects and techniques were available to us.


Hard drive: Whilst editing our music video we backed up our work onto a hard drive therefore if anything did go wrong then we would have a second copy. This hard drive came in handy when going to the CLC building as we were able to take our work with us and connect it to their computer, which had even more techniques for us to use.

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

After doing all the research into R'n'B genres we were able to define what is expected in a typical R'n'B music video and therefore i am able to outline how we used, developed and challenged these conventions in our own production of an R'n'B production:

Conventions:

• Dull lighting, except of girls
• Male gaze shots used a lot
• Patriarchal
• Big expenses cars and houses
• Men wearing lots of jewellery
• Girls often wearing just underwear or swimwear
• Many girls often crowded around one boy/man also known as 'pimping'
• Lyrics and video often about relationships (make-ups, break-ups and cheating)

Use:

We used the stereotypical lyrics and video storyline, we done this so the genre was easily recognisable to an audience, although we put our own twist on it as we wanted to come away from the stereotypical audiences. We chose to use this convention as we believed it to be important in keeping the R'n'B audience as if they didn't recognise the usual setting of the video they would be likely to turn the channel and find something more to their taste. Our lyrics are used to tell our story that's why we wanted to write them ourselves, the storyline is about a girl who gets caught cheating on her boyfriend and he finds out. Therefore this follows the stereotype of the storyline and lyrics about cheating in a stereotypical R'n'B music video.


Develop:

Instead of using expensive houses, which the majority of R'n'B listeners cannot afford we film in the local town, this enables the R'n'B viewers and listeners to be able to relate more to our video. This develops the conventions of real media products, because not many people can currently relate to their video instead just seeing the video as 'the American Dream'. If the audience can relate to it they will feel more involved with the story and maybe even share emotions. The idea of them sharing emotions may make them want to see more from this artists to see if they can relate to more of their videos and therefore we create a long lasting audience.


Challenge:

Our video challenges the current conventions as the girls used in our video are fully dressed and not in underwear and bikinis, we did not want to include this as we believe it shows patriarchal control, when we believe it should be of equal control, therefore we have shown both matriarchal and patriarchal control in our music video. We also went against the stereotype of the male usually cheating on the female, instead the female is cheating on the male.Instead of the men wearing lots of jewellery we had the male and female characters in everyday clothing, therefore it can also be related to better by the audience.We used a variety of different shop types, but we did not wish to include the male gaze as we believe it does not represent women in the correct way.Another way in which we challenge the conventions is the fact that we used natural lighting as we believe this gives a more realistic outlook on our video helping people to feel involve and help them to relate to the storyline that is being unfolded.

Questionnaire results:




· Most people prefer my second attempt at the magazine advert

· The majority like the image that is used

· They like the image due to either the pose or the positioning mainly

· Most people either like the layout or the image best out of the options given

· Most people would not change anything about the magazine advert

· The people that would change something, the majority said it would be the colour scheme

· The advert would stand out to most people

· The advert does look like it belongs in the R’n’B genre

· The advert would encourage most people to buy the album

· Half the people asked said it challenges the conventions, whereas the other half said it conforms to.

Question ten Results: