New technologies are constantly evolving to make productions more professional and accessible to the masses. Technology has broadened the arena for more people to become professional with their work. There are more tools accessible within technology to make the quality of their work more professional, whether it is films, music videos or photos. The internet allows the consumer to make direct contact with the production of another's work from the comfort of their home; they are able to experience someone else's creativity of different genres: blogging, still images, short films and music videos. Digital cameras are vital for filming music videos as they can retrieve old footage and are compatible with new media technologies such as Adobe. The digital camera allows better zoom and the increasing pixels, quality and resolution means better definition.
Once I had filmed the music video I was able to use a new edition of Adobe premier elements, which allowed me to cut- off sequences in the film which I did not need and to add-in transitions that made alternate scenes flow together. One transition which I used a few times was "cross-dissolve". I used this transition when the main character is standing at the bus stop and dissolves off the screen which then dissolves to him biking. This created an illusion of time- making the video pan over a long time period but in reality it is only a few seconds. For the planning written work I used "blogger.com" to post research into my target audience, music industry and genre and into planning the print productions and video. Blogger has become more advanced over the two years I have been using it for my media A level work, and it saves any work every few minutes automatically. This advance is very useful, when using other media technology- Microsoft Word I have lost my work due to my laptop running out of battery or accidently exiting work, these technologies are still manual for saving work. Once I had made the music video I was able to post the video onto youtube.com. This website has now become essential to publicising media texts especially music videos.
I believe this will help unknown artists such as Tom Sutcliffe who can rise to fame through the free publicity. Lily Allen rose to fame through the media website "MySpace", this shows how small unsigned bands can achieve global success in a very short time, through free publicity and progression of technological advances. YouTube is accessible to all audiences and is free. It has a simple layout with easy access to videos. This means it isn’t a time consumer for many audiences who require videos straight away. Another phenomena that has moved forward with technological advancement is the ability to become more intimate with a wide audience. Many people have become famous overnight with personal footage on Youtube. A persons art and creativity can be broadcast by popular demand and word of mouth move onto other areas of media like television.
The website "totallyunsigned.co.uk" had hundreds of unknown bands listed ready for record producers to easily access. Tom Sutcliffe stood out to me, and fit the acoustic genre perfectly. On social network Facebook, many unsigned bands can set up a page which can be accessed by a global market, making it cheaper for producers to promote their artists. After I had When making the print productions- advertisement I used Photoshop. I was able to edit a still image from the music video of the main character Craig and edit it black and white, enlarge the image, and add text. This would appeal to the specific audience as they could correlate the image with the music video. However through it being slightly different from the music video it engages better with the print productions which consist of alternate covers. Even though the print productions differentiate the genre is the same, it conveys the theme of "alternative rock" of using more abstract art and design.
Using Photoshop elements for the print production- advertisement, I was able to see how the image would look if it were drawn, painted, sketched or oil-painted. This was very useful as it made a perfect projection of the still image. I would not be able to create the same style or background image if i were to draw it by hand. Technological websites have allowed me to create slide shows broadcasting my creativity skills and promoting the music artist, through websites such as "prezi.com". Other sites which were fundemental in promoting the artist "tumblr.com" through this website I posted updates on the track list and embedded the video for "Cigarettes" by Tom Sutcliffe. The video was reposted by many audiences which helped promote him to a wider audience.
The website also allows for creativity over the genre in which I labelled him-"acoustic folk" as I could make my own background theme and stylise the chronological order of the planning. The audience on tumblr was my friends and people I knew which meant i could incooperate themes that would best suit them to make the production more appealing to younger audiences.
Sunday 3 April 2011
3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Questionnaire Media:
1) What do you believe to be the message in the video?
2) What genre would you describe the video?
3) Can you relate to any of the characters?
4) Do you think the ending is effective?
5) What are you favourite music artists?
6) What is your favourite genre of music?
7) Which radio station do you think this artist would be heard on?
8) What are your favourite retail shops?
9) What are your favourite activities?
10) Which sequence in the video, do you like the most?
My target audience is 14- 22 year olds so I handed out the questionnaires at college, pubs such as “The Playhouse” and “The Red Lion”, and another teenage popular destination; the art school, and the Forum. I wanted to find out if the music video to be not only widely accepted as part of the genre of “acoustic folk” but to be enjoyable to watch and entertaining as a media product. I handed out sixty questionnaires; here are a few examples of the answered questionnaires... The layout was simplistic so that the reader wrote exactly how they felt without the need to personally elaborate with lots of detail, so that I could generate a basic understanding on what the norm thought of the video.
The first question was asking what the viewer thought the message in the video was. This question was important in showing whether the themes of love and relationships were clear throughout of if the storyline was too vague. The video message seemed to be clearer to the females than the males questioned. Romantic movies have higher popularity with females than males, statistics show on www.imdb.com . This could show why the message of love was more easily understood by the females who answered the questionnaire. Many of the males who didn’t answer the first question by saying it was about love and relationships, thought the message of the video was about freedom and the memories the main character has.
One person answered with, “main characters’ need for freedom and wanting to escape from a life he may not want anymore”. This answer was interesting to me as it shows the possible negative outlook males may have felt from the video, but it could also show how the males saw a realistic motif in the storyline, whereas the females saw the naive part of falling in love with the perfect person. In the second question I found that many people answered with “alternative” which is a sub-genre to the “acoustic” genre I aimed to produce. Primarily the genre I chose was “acoustic” but the ancillary texts have aspects of other genres- folk and indie. This was deliberate as to emphasise the acoustic genre as a new genre I wanted to link other similar genres. The other genres have very similar artists and all three are sometimes used to cross-over each other by artists such as “Florence and the Machine” and “Foals”.
The answer sheets showed that the females on the whole, thought the ending was effective in showing how the main character is biking towards the distant future of his life and is travelling away from his past. In the feedback form, the majority said that the radio station they’d expect to hear “Cigarettes” by Tom Sutcliffe is “radio one”. This was the expected radio as the radio plays all genres of music, the song wouldn’t be played on radio stations like “kiss” radio. However I thought that more people would think the song would be played on a radio station such as “Kerrang”. From question 9 I wanted to see the trends of activities of people that liked the genre “acoustic folk”. In the video the characters are seen at “The Playhouse” which is a generic location for the intended audience, therefore in the question sheet I wanted to see what other things the main characters could have been doing in the video to fit the specific genre. The ending question was meant for me to get analysis on the video to see what scene in the video worked the best. The most popular sequence could be stilled and featured in the digipak to draw in the intended audience. There was another questionnaire specific for other media students which asked them to identify the genre, main colours of the video and the main image of the video that stands out and how the video may appeal to the audience. This questionnaire helped me to find out if the technology used was effective.
From the answers I have learned that "acoustic" music trends are growing in popularity with youth. Many volunteers who answered the questionnaire and were in their late teens said they like not only folk music but also jazz. This is very enlightening to see younger people enjoying stereotypically "older" generation music. I therefor believe I have represented an artist who appeals to wide audience through the naturalistic lifestyle and how the video connotes happiness within life.
1) What do you believe to be the message in the video?
2) What genre would you describe the video?
3) Can you relate to any of the characters?
4) Do you think the ending is effective?
5) What are you favourite music artists?
6) What is your favourite genre of music?
7) Which radio station do you think this artist would be heard on?
8) What are your favourite retail shops?
9) What are your favourite activities?
10) Which sequence in the video, do you like the most?
My target audience is 14- 22 year olds so I handed out the questionnaires at college, pubs such as “The Playhouse” and “The Red Lion”, and another teenage popular destination; the art school, and the Forum. I wanted to find out if the music video to be not only widely accepted as part of the genre of “acoustic folk” but to be enjoyable to watch and entertaining as a media product. I handed out sixty questionnaires; here are a few examples of the answered questionnaires... The layout was simplistic so that the reader wrote exactly how they felt without the need to personally elaborate with lots of detail, so that I could generate a basic understanding on what the norm thought of the video.
The first question was asking what the viewer thought the message in the video was. This question was important in showing whether the themes of love and relationships were clear throughout of if the storyline was too vague. The video message seemed to be clearer to the females than the males questioned. Romantic movies have higher popularity with females than males, statistics show on www.imdb.com . This could show why the message of love was more easily understood by the females who answered the questionnaire. Many of the males who didn’t answer the first question by saying it was about love and relationships, thought the message of the video was about freedom and the memories the main character has.
One person answered with, “main characters’ need for freedom and wanting to escape from a life he may not want anymore”. This answer was interesting to me as it shows the possible negative outlook males may have felt from the video, but it could also show how the males saw a realistic motif in the storyline, whereas the females saw the naive part of falling in love with the perfect person. In the second question I found that many people answered with “alternative” which is a sub-genre to the “acoustic” genre I aimed to produce. Primarily the genre I chose was “acoustic” but the ancillary texts have aspects of other genres- folk and indie. This was deliberate as to emphasise the acoustic genre as a new genre I wanted to link other similar genres. The other genres have very similar artists and all three are sometimes used to cross-over each other by artists such as “Florence and the Machine” and “Foals”.
The answer sheets showed that the females on the whole, thought the ending was effective in showing how the main character is biking towards the distant future of his life and is travelling away from his past. In the feedback form, the majority said that the radio station they’d expect to hear “Cigarettes” by Tom Sutcliffe is “radio one”. This was the expected radio as the radio plays all genres of music, the song wouldn’t be played on radio stations like “kiss” radio. However I thought that more people would think the song would be played on a radio station such as “Kerrang”. From question 9 I wanted to see the trends of activities of people that liked the genre “acoustic folk”. In the video the characters are seen at “The Playhouse” which is a generic location for the intended audience, therefore in the question sheet I wanted to see what other things the main characters could have been doing in the video to fit the specific genre. The ending question was meant for me to get analysis on the video to see what scene in the video worked the best. The most popular sequence could be stilled and featured in the digipak to draw in the intended audience. There was another questionnaire specific for other media students which asked them to identify the genre, main colours of the video and the main image of the video that stands out and how the video may appeal to the audience. This questionnaire helped me to find out if the technology used was effective.
From the answers I have learned that "acoustic" music trends are growing in popularity with youth. Many volunteers who answered the questionnaire and were in their late teens said they like not only folk music but also jazz. This is very enlightening to see younger people enjoying stereotypically "older" generation music. I therefor believe I have represented an artist who appeals to wide audience through the naturalistic lifestyle and how the video connotes happiness within life.
2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The digipak effectively represents the “acoustic genre”, with the generic object of the “guitar”, the locations and the narrative. This is also seen in the music video, (the generic still image of Craig playing the guitar in the music video). The guitar connotes the lifestyle of the “busker” which is associated with the genre, the locations convey the ideology of summer through the sunny country views, which metaphorically communicates the narrative of “freedom” and “the journey of life” mirroring that of the music video (as Craig is reflecting on the memories he had over the summer and the friendships he valued at the time).
As the characteristics of the music video are quite generic and include conventions of the indie, acoustic and f0lk genre, I wanted to add artistic elements to make the digipak and advertisement stand out as being a creative design which portrays the artists’ personality. To make sure my idea would fit in with the genre I looked into similar artists’ advertising. The CD cover which inspired my back cover was Damien Rice’s, “Live from the union chapel”. The image is hand- drawn, which makes it unique and authentic, which was a label I wanted the digipak to have. Rice’s CD showed the conventions of the folk genre, through the warm organic colours in the countryside, and the centre-drawn head. 
The head could represent a theme of peace, through it bowing slightly, thus conveying the mood of the CD of a soft calm state. Thus a moral message is conveyed to the intended audience. In the narrative of my music video, there is a philosophical message, about how friendships end but others begin and how it isn’t the end but merely the beginning, as “one door shuts another door opens” but more importantly the message of caring for others and not solely thinking about [your own] feelings, is a message that appeals to lots of people if not all, and is a philosophy sympathetic to this genre. The writing on the image looks like typewriting, making the CD vintage and conveys the possible old fashioned qualities that would appeal to the intended audience. My cover could be described as looking like it has been drawn by a child, conveying a current theme in the acoustic genre of advertising to all ages and types of people such as families but primitively the art appeals to the particular audience. 
I wanted the image to add closure to the digipak but at the same time draw them in to want to hear more of Tom Sutcliffe, consequently buying his next album. Jeff Buckley’s “Mystery white Boy” inspired my advertisement. Buckley is a similar artist to my chosen artist “Tom Sutcliffe” as he plays “soft rock” and his clothing is alternative. 
This represents how he thinks and acts differently to the norm in the music industry and it is widely believed that this differentiation comes naturally as it wasn’t until after his death that his music became international appreciated, as at the time, his music didn’t quite fit in with other music artists, such as, “Coolio” and “Mariah Carey”. The binary opposition of red, white and black makes the image stand out. The white colour emphasises the heading “mystery white boy”. The position of Buckley mirrors that of Eva Cassidy in “Eva by heart” by facially turning away from the camera with no eye-contact. This was something I wanted to add to both the advertisement and the digipak, through this body position the audience is slightly detached to the artist making the narrative open and relatable as the audience can make their own narrative. I liked the idea of the audience listening to a song and immersing themselves into a daydream making the lyrics individually important. By adding the generic object of the “guitar” it makes the pose a characteristic of the genre. For the inside pages I decided to mix both pages of Craig from the music video and more artistic themes that reflect the characters personality and the conventions of creativity in the acoustic genre.
The head could represent a theme of peace, through it bowing slightly, thus conveying the mood of the CD of a soft calm state. Thus a moral message is conveyed to the intended audience. In the narrative of my music video, there is a philosophical message, about how friendships end but others begin and how it isn’t the end but merely the beginning, as “one door shuts another door opens” but more importantly the message of caring for others and not solely thinking about [your own] feelings, is a message that appeals to lots of people if not all, and is a philosophy sympathetic to this genre. The writing on the image looks like typewriting, making the CD vintage and conveys the possible old fashioned qualities that would appeal to the intended audience. My cover could be described as looking like it has been drawn by a child, conveying a current theme in the acoustic genre of advertising to all ages and types of people such as families but primitively the art appeals to the particular audience. I wanted the image to add closure to the digipak but at the same time draw them in to want to hear more of Tom Sutcliffe, consequently buying his next album. Jeff Buckley’s “Mystery white Boy” inspired my advertisement. Buckley is a similar artist to my chosen artist “Tom Sutcliffe” as he plays “soft rock” and his clothing is alternative. This represents how he thinks and acts differently to the norm in the music industry and it is widely believed that this differentiation comes naturally as it wasn’t until after his death that his music became international appreciated, as at the time, his music didn’t quite fit in with other music artists, such as, “Coolio” and “Mariah Carey”. The binary opposition of red, white and black makes the image stand out. The white colour emphasises the heading “mystery white boy”. The position of Buckley mirrors that of Eva Cassidy in “Eva by heart” by facially turning away from the camera with no eye-contact. This was something I wanted to add to both the advertisement and the digipak, through this body position the audience is slightly detached to the artist making the narrative open and relatable as the audience can make their own narrative. I liked the idea of the audience listening to a song and immersing themselves into a daydream making the lyrics individually important. By adding the generic object of the “guitar” it makes the pose a characteristic of the genre. For the inside pages I decided to mix both pages of Craig from the music video and more artistic themes that reflect the characters personality and the conventions of creativity in the acoustic genre. The shot of Craig sitting in the field shows the mood of the song “Cigarettes” as tranquil and peacefully happy. The inside cover of the guitar being engulfed by waves of colours shows the “hippy” genre, which has themes of peace and relationships which are important in conveying the narrative of the artist’s song “Cigarettes”. The idea behind the image was to make the audience believe they were looking at Tom Sutcliffe’s original notes for the song “cigarettes”. This would make the picture unique and authentic to the consumer. A factor of the target audience would be their interest in abstract art. Which is why one of the main locations in the music video is that of “The Playhouse” a pub which is stereotypically metaphorically “home” as many art students and alternative people who listen to the acoustic genre.
1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The music video fits into the acoustic folk genre through the lighting. The sunlight reflects on the camera creating an ambient atmosphere for the narrative. It also connotes summer and the ideologies that fit in with it, such going on a bike ride, going for a picnic, and going to either the beach or camping.
The clothing fits in with this genre but also of the indie genre through the colourful modern clothing and the vintage elements of the old style bags. The lyrics and storyline convey the genre through the friendships and love they have. This challenges new conventions of some genres- hip-hop, r’n’b and indie pop, in which the lyrics and video convey a superficial lifestyle that aspires the audience in perhaps a negative way of living their “utopia”. The digipak conveys the acoustic folk genre through the unique drawings which show the artistic element to the genre, which in turn connotes the themes of peace and an organic lifestyle. On the back cover there is a picture of a chicken which represents the countryside which shows the conventions of the folk genre. I decided to use the “acoustic” genre because I could link other genres in to it, thus making it become a sub-genre.
The other genres I like are “folk”, “indie” and “soft rock” which have elements that interlink them; such as the “country” locations and themes of nature. Making the concept sheet I found music artists which fit the genre like Laura Marling. Marling was interesting to me because she was initially an acoustic guitar but her genre changed between two of her albums, form “folk” to more popular “indie”. From this I chose the time reference for the production of the music video- as summer/ autumn, and made up the clothing and style the video would have. I wanted the clothing to portray the organic theme in the “folk” genre. As I was setting the video in summer/ autumn the clothing would have elements of the “hippy” culture. Looking into the genre I found a massive theme of “nostalgia” of reference to looking into the past with either happiness or regret (Damian Rice- “The Blower’s daughter”) and through wanting to make a “summer tune” I chose to make the narrative a mixture of performance and back story.
This would mean a performance which engages the audience and portrays the back story to be relevant. As the artist is unsigned I went onto websites such as, “totallyunsigned.co.uk” and on this website I found Tom Sutcliffe, and could picture the music video for the song. To capture the ideology behind the video I made a shooting schedule aiming to finish the shooting before November and if any footage needed to be re-done it would only be the inside shots as I would have focus the earlier months as I would have focus the earlier months on the outside footage. Because the people involved in the music video (i.e. the cast) had busy schedules made it possible to have structure and finish filming in time before the season and whether changed for winter.
This was very important to finish before as on the storyboard there was shots of the main characters at the beach and at a garden party; however in the shooting of the music video I decided against the shots and wanted to capture more shots of “The Playhouse” as this would make the location significant to the main characters as it would show routine in their day-to-day lives and create a sense of familiarity to the audience as they would become almost an intimate person in the characters lives. Because the video is only three and abit minutes the repetition it to be over a long period of time. To break up the emotional friendship and attachment I captured sequences of the main character Craig biking down old country lanes in Postwick to represent change in the narrative and focus the attention to him. To make the sequences more authentic I rode on a bike behind the main character and filmed.
This engages the audience to make them feel part of the film and also shows the themes of “vintage” and “homemade” in the genre. To represent the genre of the video more precisely the costume worn by characters were more alternative to the mainstream fashion. I looked into the costume of more indie music videos and to fit the genre Craig wore a simple scarf, t-shirt, a blue shirt with jeans and to convey the “past” memories Craig wore a deep blue knitted jumper. Even though I want d the clothing to be a precise mirror of the jumper I didn’t want to stereotype and wanted to make the video ideology appealing to all audiences. I used a range of ethnicity to widen the audience, such as the main character Craig whom is mixed race, Scottish and Pilipino. The props however had to be generic to promote the genre values of the guitar, drinking tea, smoking cigarettes and riding a bicycle. The storyline in its basic form could portray students leaving home and moving to university and the new relationships and possible end to others they may make.
However I wanted to make the storyline applicable to older generation who may have been through similar situations. Therefore predomately my target audience was older teenagers. This narrative is appealing to this audience who can identify with characters is conventional to the genre. There is definite representation of youth in the music video which stems from the theme of isolation of the main character from his friends.
http://prezi.com/srl-9goo7enb/the-digipak/
The clothing fits in with this genre but also of the indie genre through the colourful modern clothing and the vintage elements of the old style bags. The lyrics and storyline convey the genre through the friendships and love they have. This challenges new conventions of some genres- hip-hop, r’n’b and indie pop, in which the lyrics and video convey a superficial lifestyle that aspires the audience in perhaps a negative way of living their “utopia”. The digipak conveys the acoustic folk genre through the unique drawings which show the artistic element to the genre, which in turn connotes the themes of peace and an organic lifestyle. On the back cover there is a picture of a chicken which represents the countryside which shows the conventions of the folk genre. I decided to use the “acoustic” genre because I could link other genres in to it, thus making it become a sub-genre.
The other genres I like are “folk”, “indie” and “soft rock” which have elements that interlink them; such as the “country” locations and themes of nature. Making the concept sheet I found music artists which fit the genre like Laura Marling. Marling was interesting to me because she was initially an acoustic guitar but her genre changed between two of her albums, form “folk” to more popular “indie”. From this I chose the time reference for the production of the music video- as summer/ autumn, and made up the clothing and style the video would have. I wanted the clothing to portray the organic theme in the “folk” genre. As I was setting the video in summer/ autumn the clothing would have elements of the “hippy” culture. Looking into the genre I found a massive theme of “nostalgia” of reference to looking into the past with either happiness or regret (Damian Rice- “The Blower’s daughter”) and through wanting to make a “summer tune” I chose to make the narrative a mixture of performance and back story.
This would mean a performance which engages the audience and portrays the back story to be relevant. As the artist is unsigned I went onto websites such as, “totallyunsigned.co.uk” and on this website I found Tom Sutcliffe, and could picture the music video for the song. To capture the ideology behind the video I made a shooting schedule aiming to finish the shooting before November and if any footage needed to be re-done it would only be the inside shots as I would have focus the earlier months as I would have focus the earlier months on the outside footage. Because the people involved in the music video (i.e. the cast) had busy schedules made it possible to have structure and finish filming in time before the season and whether changed for winter.
This was very important to finish before as on the storyboard there was shots of the main characters at the beach and at a garden party; however in the shooting of the music video I decided against the shots and wanted to capture more shots of “The Playhouse” as this would make the location significant to the main characters as it would show routine in their day-to-day lives and create a sense of familiarity to the audience as they would become almost an intimate person in the characters lives. Because the video is only three and abit minutes the repetition it to be over a long period of time. To break up the emotional friendship and attachment I captured sequences of the main character Craig biking down old country lanes in Postwick to represent change in the narrative and focus the attention to him. To make the sequences more authentic I rode on a bike behind the main character and filmed.
This engages the audience to make them feel part of the film and also shows the themes of “vintage” and “homemade” in the genre. To represent the genre of the video more precisely the costume worn by characters were more alternative to the mainstream fashion. I looked into the costume of more indie music videos and to fit the genre Craig wore a simple scarf, t-shirt, a blue shirt with jeans and to convey the “past” memories Craig wore a deep blue knitted jumper. Even though I want d the clothing to be a precise mirror of the jumper I didn’t want to stereotype and wanted to make the video ideology appealing to all audiences. I used a range of ethnicity to widen the audience, such as the main character Craig whom is mixed race, Scottish and Pilipino. The props however had to be generic to promote the genre values of the guitar, drinking tea, smoking cigarettes and riding a bicycle. The storyline in its basic form could portray students leaving home and moving to university and the new relationships and possible end to others they may make.
However I wanted to make the storyline applicable to older generation who may have been through similar situations. Therefore predomately my target audience was older teenagers. This narrative is appealing to this audience who can identify with characters is conventional to the genre. There is definite representation of youth in the music video which stems from the theme of isolation of the main character from his friends.
The digipak on Prezi
http://prezi.com/srl-9goo7enb/the-digipak/
Thursday 10 March 2011
Tuesday 8 March 2011
Other generic artists
Looking into other artist's advertisments I was interested in Florence and The Machine. In the advertisment the colours used are red, black and white; this binary opposition makes the advertisment stand out to the audience. The thing that makes the advert stand out is the generic slogan for the artist which can be identified by the audience even if the advertisement didn't convey the normal characteristics of the artists individual genre of music.
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