Evaluation

For my foundation portfolio, I chose the brief that required me to create a music video and two ancillary texts that relate to the brief, these being a cd/dvd digipak and a album release poster.
At the time of picking our briefs, we had the option of whether to work in a group or alone to prouduce our main text. I chose to work alone, as I felt it would be easier to get things done, as I would only have myself to rely on. It would also prevent any creative differences and I could develop my video in a way that suited me and to the style that I wanted to create.


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

Main Product:
I felt I both used and challenged media conventions to a high standard within my work. Before starting my work, after choosing my brief, I looked up the conventions of the brief that I had chosen. To do this, I watched various different music videos from a variety of different genres and artists, so that I could gain an idea of the sort of things that I could achieve with my own music video. From the onset, I already had a song in mind what I wanted to use for my music video, 'Nothing Compares' by Pixie Lott, so this formed the basis for my brainstorming on the kinds of ideas and conventions that I could feature in my music video. The song I chose is a powerful and emotional ballad, so I looked up different types of artists who have produced tracks such as this, like Kelly Clarkson, Delta Goodrem, and Taylor Swift, and took ideas from the way their music videos were presented. In emotional ballads, it was more common for the music video to be a narrative with a plot and setting, rather that the artist performing the song to the audience in that way, so I decided that this was a convention that I was going to have to follow to achieve the best results for my work. I also decided that to make I would not include any miming in my video at all, as I felt that this could make my video look unprofessional and tacky if done wrong, and because my actress I chose for the video didn't actually sing the song that I chose, then it might not have looked right.
I wanted my music video to be almost like a little mini movie, and the main thing I wanted to ensure was emulated from my video was emotion. Because the song I have chosen evokes emotion and sadness anyway, I had to make sure that my video followed this. This was very important when choosing the plotline for my video and casting my main character, as she would have to fulfill the characteristics of someone who is very sad. Luckily for me, the actress that I chose, turned out to be very good at giving me the look that I wanted, and I think if I chose anyone else to be my main character, it would not have worked as effectively.
I wanted the ending of my video to shock the audience, with an unexpected twist to the plot. The narrative I created throughout my video gave the indication that my character had just broken up with her boyfriend and was sad about it. But then at the pivotal point of the song, where it speeds up and then turns soft, I wanted to create my twist. Instead of having the girl break up with her boyfriend, she was really mourning him, as he had died. I think this was a good twist, and the way that I pulled it off was effective, in that it evoked the right emotion that I wanted.
I got this idea from the 2003 Disney film 'Tuck Everlasting'. This film features a similar ending, where the male character goes back to be with the one he loves, only to stumble upon her grave, and he then realises she has died. I wanted to lead my audience on in doing this, so that they would be shocked at the twist when it happened.
Another way that I think challenged media conventions was the effects that I added to my final video. I originally planned to edit my video in black and white, as this would add simplicity to the shots and make the storyline and the actress seem innocent and pure, which is the idea that I wanted to portray. After having an experiment with the different effects on the editing suite, I found an effect called Colour Leave, where I was able to drain out all the colour in my shots, so that the colour remaining is dull. I chose this effect, as I thought it would emphasize the lonliness of my character and the idea that the colour has gone out of her life with the passig away of her boyfriend. At the end of the video, I have used a bright pink flower, and because of the lighting at the time, the colours of the flower looked absolutely stunning and it stood out really well, so I thought it would be a shame to get rid of that particular colour. Using the Colour Leave tool again on the editing suite, I found a way to select the pink colour of the flower, and leave the colour there, and drain everything else, and this made the flower stand out from the rest of the shot. I also wanted to leave this colour in my end shots as I wanted it to be symbolic for my character letting go of her sadness towards her boyfriend and moving on in a way, and I think this worked well also, as well as making the sequence look interesting.

I think I have stayed in keeping with media conventions to do with music videos, in the way that the action of my music video relates to the song lyrics that I have chosen to go with it. While I have not literally followed actions described in any of the lyrics like I could have done, I think the general mood and theme of the song is portrayed in my music video, as the song is about missing someone you love. I think if I had chosen to make the action in my video literal in relation to the lyrics, it would not be as effective, as it would be too obvious and perhaps cheesy.
The locations that I chose for my video were also an important part of expressing the mood of the song. I wanted half of my video to be shot inside, in the character's home, and the rest on exterior locations, where my character is seen walking about, eventually arriving at the tree at the end of my video. The interior location I used was at my house, as it was easily accessible, and because my house is very homey, I think it worked well. Also my bedroom that is featured is quite feminine, which suits my character.
The exterior shots I chose were all abandoned and empty places, such as fields and country lanes. I chose these particular places to, again, convey my character's lonliness and emptiness to the audience. I think these locations also add a beauty to my video, better than a crowded urban street would.
Throughout my video, my character does not look at the camera at all. I chose to have it this way, as I didn't want any connection between the character and the audience, I wanted the audience to almost be looking in on my character in secret, gaining an insight into her feelings and her world. I felt this worked well as the audience could still connect with my character and her feelings, although not through direct eye contact, but they could still feel as though they could relate to her.

Another convention I think I have followed in my music video, was relating my character and the plotline to the audience that I was aiming to promote my video to. Having decided that my video would be of most interest to females around the age of 14-21, I was able to form all of my creative decisions around this. The appearance of my character was perhaps one of the most important factors of this. I chose Levi as my main character as I felt she would look good on camera, and also because her dark hair and pale skin would create an innocence and unconventional beauty about her, without a lot of makeup and fakery that is common among teenage girls nowadays. I chose to dress her in a floral floaty dress and khaki green coat in the exterior shots of my video, as these worked well with her hair colour and skin tone, the two items worked well and looked good with each other, and the garments are feminine and girly, creating the perfect image for my character. I had her wear a floral ring, which stands out in the shot were it is seen, and it continues the floral feminine theme that is conveyed throughout my entire portfolio.

Ancillary Texts:
I think I was able to keep and challenge the conventions of my chosen ancillary texts very well.
My digi-pak in the end looks very professional and artistic, and when comparing it to actual front covers, it looks like it would fit in being sold in a music shop. I think in order to make my front cover effective, it was important to keep the design as simple as possible. I did this by only using three things on my front cover, these being the background artwork, the title, and the subtitle of my album.
By keeping the same stylistic features on my digipak, such as using the same artwork and the same fonts throughout, I feel I have kept to the conventions well here.
When researching CD covers, I noticed that the name of the artist is usually featured in a bugger font than that of the name of the album. This was a convention that I followed when creating my own CD cover for my digipak, with the name of my artist featuring considerably larger than the name of my album. I decided on this because I chose not to feature an image of my artist on the front of my CD, so I felt it was important that the audience became familiar with the artist in some way, and this was my way to do so. I felt that the name of the artist was more important than the name of the album too, as this is what the audience is most familiar with, rather than the name of the album, especially when shopping for such things, where the CDs are organised by artist name, not album name.

A convention that I challenged when creating my digi-pak was featuring an image of my artist on here. I decided against using an image of my artist, as I felt this was too common and predictable, and I wanted the audience to appreciate the album for the music and not for the artist's appearance. I chose to use original artwork as the main design feature instead, which I think added a fun, feminine edge to my digipak. Using original artwork also ensured that noone would have an album looking the same.

Another convention that I followed in the creation of my digipak, was the use of the same fonts throughout. This is often used as a stylistic feature on albums, and I used it on mine to create coherency and consistency throughout my digipak. Instead of only using one font though, I used three instead, and alternated on whereabouts I would use these. I used the fonts in different ways each time, such as making the font bigger, although the fonts were still the same and this was important. The fonts that I did chose were all handwritten type designs, which I chose because they looked as though my artist had actually taken a pen and written on the top of the CD. I wanted my digipak to look personal, which reflected the nature of my song, and I think this worked well. The name of my artist, in particular, and the font I chose to display the name, looked as though it was my artist's autograph, or they way she would write her own name.

I think the combination of the artwork I used, and the fonts, were all effective in appealing to my target audience of predominantly females aged 14-21. This followed conventions because all the CD covers that I researched had a target audience in mind, and the designs reflected this. By using fun, feminine original artwork in bright fun colours, with feminine style handwritten fonts throughout, I think I achieved my goal of promoting my digipak to the audience.

I feel that the back cover of my digipak follows conventions, because when looking at other back covers, I think my design could easily fit in. I included an average number of song tracks, and the other information I included on my back cover was the sort of thing you would find on any other back cover design. This information includes record label logos, album production information, and artist media information. I felt the way that I displayed this information worked well and together with all of the other components on the cover, made it look professional and artistic.

I think that by displaying my digipak sleeve in the form of an artists note to the audience challenged conventions. Normally featured on the inside sleeves of albums, I have noticed that they just seem to bear an image of some sort, usually that of the artist. Again, I wanted to leave the image oher f my artist out of my design, and I thought to carry on the personal touch of my album, I could feature an artist's note to her audience. These are normally featured in smaller versions in albums, but because I was making my album feel personal, I feel it worked well as a big feature. I used the conventions of other artists notes that I have looked at, where the artist thanks her family, manager and the fans. I made the messages as personal as I could, with the intention to make my artist sound as lovely and kind as possible, so the audience would get the best impression as possible, which would benefit the sales of the artist if the album were actually to be sold. Again I used the same artwork and fonts as before, which followed conventions, as I was choosing to continue a design on in my digipak and link all the pages together.

The second ancillary text I was asked to create was an album release poster to accompany and promote my digi-pak.
I feel I succeeded in producing an authentic looking poster, as I tried to follow conventions as much as possible to ensure that my poster looked good.
To link it with my digi-pak, which was an important convention that I have noticed, I used the same artwork and fonts that I used throughout my digipak. I felt this connected the two products very well, however by using only a section of the artwork, instead of the whole thing like in my digi-pak, this prevented my poster from looking boring and too similar to my digipak.

Like on most album posters that I researched, I included pull quotes from publications that gave reviews of my album. I chose extremely complimentary language to use in my quotes, to make my album sound amazing, and to obviously make people go out and buy it. The publications I chose to feature were 'Rolling Stone' and 'Cosmopolitan' magazines, one being a music magazine, and the other being a young woman's fashion magazine. I felt these would best fit with my album, as it is a feminine girly album, hence the 'Cosmopolitan' review, but I thought it would be best to also include a review from a music magazine, so as not to as bias reviews.

I followed conventions again, by featuring a small image of the album cover in the bottom right hand corner of my poster. I chose to display this, so that the person looking at the poster would know what to look for in a shop when searching for the album. I felt this also made my poster look professional, and authentic.
I also decided to use an image to represent my artist on my poster. I decided upon doing this, as I hadn't used an image anywhere in my digi-pak, and felt it wouldn't be in the album's best interest for the artist to remain completely anonymous. I used an image featuring the girl from my video, wearing the same outfit, which perhaps followed conventions also, as it linking the poster in with the video.
Just like on my digi-pak, I also included the artist's name in an overpowering, large font, as I wanted this to be what the audience noticed first, and would associate this with the album.


How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I feel that my combination of main product and ancillary texts worked rather well in the end. I wanted all my ancillary products to be feminine and to reflect the character in my music video and the type of song that I was basing my music video around.
The stand out feature in my music video is seen in the last 30 seconds of footage, with a bright pink flower standing out from the fairly colour-less background. I felt this image of the flower would make a lovely logo almost, so I based the artwork I created for my ancillary texts around this flower idea. I based the rest of the artwork design around the bed duvet that is just seen in my film, which is covered in a floral pattern. I think using these two aspects of my video as influences in my ancillary texts works well, as they are subtle design features, but also have a purpose and show coherency between my texts. I think the idea of using original artwork in my ancillary texts worked really well, as I could choose how I wanted the design to look, and it would make my texts look more professional and artistic if done properly. I used the same piece of artwork throughout my ancillary texts to link them together. I used a brighter coloured version for the front cover of my digipak as this was the main feature and I wanted it to stand out, whereas on the back cover and inside sleeve, I used a paler version as this was to be used only for the background and not to be the main focal point instead of the information being presented. I also used the artwork in my album release poster, but instead this time I used a section of the artwork and made it bigger. I did this so as not to bore my audience with the same design, and to add a bit of variety within my texts.
In the photo used for the album release poster, I used the actress from my film. I asked her to wear the same outfit seen in the video, to show a link between the two texts, and I asked her to do her hair and makeup similar to the video to add the same effect.

I feel that I emulated the personal theme I was going for throughout my portfolio of products very well. I feel that the personal touch on my digi-pak with the fonts and original artwork tied in well with my main product, which was also very personal, as it was an insight into my characters thoughts and feelings and emotional journey to letting go of her deceased boyfriend.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?
To gain audience feedback, I tried to get as many people as possible to watch my video and look at my ancillary texts in the editing stages until I had finished the final products. I think it was very important to ask my peers what they thought of my work, as they are my audience and their opinions matter more than my own as my work is there to cater to my audience and not myself. I worked closely with the actress of my video and conversed with her on ideas about the way to structure and edit my video and such things like that.
I also created a poll for my blog, which I opened up to everyone. Because this is anonymous, it allows my audience to reveal their real opinions on my work, so I gain realistic and constructive critisism based on that. From looking at my poll results, I think my work has been successful, as everyone has given pretty much positive votes on my work, which is what I wanted.
The poll results show that my peers agree that my video and ancillary texts attract my target audience of 14-21 year olds. The results also show that the narrative and overall presentation of my video is easily understandable, which is an important factor that I had to take into consideration when creating my work.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
I used a variety of different media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation, some that I had not used before so was not sure how capable I'd be of using them to a high standard.
The most important media technology that I used for the whole of my work was obviously this, my blog. I have recorded all of my planning stages on here, and the progress that I have made and the decisions that I have made from the progress. I feel I am quite confident in using a blog to record my work now, as I used it for my work last year.
I also got the chance to use Adobe Photoshop in the creation of my ancillary texts, much like I did last year, when creating my music magazine. I felt quite confident using the programme to create my texts, as I retained the skills I had learnt last year while using it.
Obviously the most important piece of media technology I used in creating my work, was the editing suites where I put together my music video. I had never used the editing suites before, especially not in such an advanced way, so this was a big challenge for me. I think I adapted well to using the editing suites, and ended up finishing the editing process rather quickly considering I had never used them before. The main actions that I went through when putting my video together involved uploading all of my footage onto the editing suite, putting my footage in the right order based on the lyrics and beat of my song, and editing the final cut, so that the footage looked as professional as possible.

To gain an insight of the kind of video that I was to create, I used YouTube and Google to research music videos, so I was able to analyse them, and take stylistic features and conventions from them to incorporate into my own work.
I used a digital camcorder to record footage for my video, all of which was shot without a tripod. I felt this choice would make it easier to shoot my footage, and it proved so, however I had to be careful not to end up with wobbly shots.
Once I had shot all of my footage, I uploaded it onto a an editing suite via the programme Matrox, and once this was done, I was able to edit it with the help of Adobe Premier Elements which was the editing programme everyone was to use.
I felt I would try and play it relatively safe when editing my video, as I wasn't too sure what I was doing and I didn't want to mess with my footage too much. I changed the colour of my footage, and used a lot of cross dissolve fades in my edit, which I think worked well, and although simple, these details proved effective.

When creating my ancillary texts, I used Adobe Photoshop, which I found easier to use than the editing programme for my video, as I has used this before. To get precise and accurate designs, I edited the dimensions of each publication that I created, so that it matched the actual dimensions of the publication I were to create, such as my A4 size magazine advertisement.
I used my Samsung 10megapixel digital camera to take photographs of Levi to feature on my poster. I decided that the original images would look to harsh the way they were, so I edited them in Photoshop, and added the watercolour edit, to soften the colour and lines of the photograph, which I think worked well in the end.

The fonts that I used throughout, I got from dafont.com, where I simply typed in what text I wanted to display and copied this onto my Photoshop document and messed around with making the background transparent and such things like that. I think using this font website worked well in my favour, as I was able to completely tailor the fonts to my liking, and to ensure that my ancillary texts looked original and like no other.


I think in conclusion, that I have created a very successful and appropriate promtional package that is perhaps exactly the way that I wanted it to be. There are elements of my finished work that I would definitely spend more time on given the opportunity, however I think with the time given, I have put in all of my effort to produce something of a high standard, that looks professional and authentic.