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

My group member Beth answered this question, as we chose to share the evaluation between the group. She's answered the question as a blog post and has pinpointed what conventions from the pop music genre we have conformed to in our video. She's also included stills from our video to denote where conventions are followed.

• The first typical pop music convention that we have used is product placement. During research, we noticed that many leading pop stars make use of product placement during their videos, for example we noticed artists such as Jessie J, Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj all use product placement in many of their music videos. I believe this is a convention of pop music because pop artists have the power to be highly influential in their videos and give their fans an insight as to what brands and logos they support.

• The next convention that that audience will see is a main one that appears during the whole video - performance. Pop music videos tend to be performance based, more so than a narrative, as the lyrics in our chosen song are quite repetitive, as a group we decided it would be more effective to base the video on performance, in order to give the audience something else to focus on and enjoy. The inspiration for this came from the original 'Domino' music video, the entire video is performance based, and is therefore a pre set success.
• Soon after, we see the character have an outfit change, as well as a change in the location. This is a pop music convention, as it can also be identified in other pop music songs including;Domino, Hot n' Cold, and Call Me Maybe. This convention is used so that the audience have something to keep them drawn into the video, also the settings are key in creating the illusion of the atmosphere of the music video.
• The next main convention that appears next is the use of an extreme close up of a facial feature, such as eyes or mouth. In our video we have included a close up of the character's lips, to connote phallic imagery, to conform with Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze theory. This is conventional because it can be seen in other pop music videos where the artist has been made to look seductive, for the pleasure of a male audience.

• Pop music videos are usually fast paced and upbeat, conforming to this convention,Domino is a fast paced song. Conventionally the cuts in the video must change with the beat. We have conformed to this in our music video, in order to please our target audience. Especially towards the end of the song, as the pace of the song increases, the cuts rapidly increase, so that the video works well with the song.
• Typically in a pop song, the bridge has a slightly different tone to the rest of the song, to compliment this, the video must have a different image to accomodate for the difference in the tone, even when it is for a couple of stanzas. In our video we have changed the setting of the video, to conform to this convention. The bridge can be seen as low lkey lighting, and a slightly more serious image than the rest of the song. The main image of the rest of the song soon resumes after the bridge.

Overall, our finished product conforms to pop music video conventions, as it would be expected to. We have done this in order for our target audience to be pleased with our video, and see the conventions they would expect to see when watching a pop music video.

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

My group member Amy answered this question, my group shared the evaluation questions answering one or two questions each. Amy has created a Prezi to answer this question. I've embedded the Prezi below.

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

To answer this question I've chosen to use the online timeline website called TimeToast. I've created a timeline that shows all the new and different forms of technology I have used through out this piece of coursework. Using a timeline was effective for this question as it makes it easy to see all the different forms of technology I have learnt to use over the time span of this project. I also chose to use TimeToast because is more creative and appealing to reader the information in an interactive unique format rather than a long written blog post.






<object width="550" height="400"><param name="movie" value="http://www.timetoast.com/flash/TimelineViewer.swf?passedTimelines=844769" /><param name="passedTimelines" value="844769" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.timetoast.com/flash/TimelineViewer.swf?passedTimelines=844769" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" passedTimelines="844769" width="550" height="400" allowScriptAccess="always" /></object>

Evaluation - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I chose to answer this question by using an online mind map, created on the website Bubbl, I have embedded the mindmap below. I chose to use a mindmap to answer this question because it is an easy to read and well organised as well as interesting to look at. Also I've never used Bubbl and I wanted to try presenting my work in a new and creative format.

Digipak Promotional Magazine Advert

Rough design:

Above is a draft drawing of the design for the digipak promotional magazine advert. I've drawn out the design and embedded it above. Going through this design process is key was it allowed me to visualise lots of different layouts for the digipak and then choose the most suitable design. Also planning how my group wanted the digipak to look before hand makes it easier to create the final product.

Final design:
Below is an image of the digipak promotional magazine advert I have created for my group. I've used Photoshop to help with this task. I aimed to create the promotional advert with the same motif as the digipak. Doing so makes the digipak easily related and associated with the advertisement. I've used the front panel image and the same text from the digipak in the magazine promotional advert.

Like most convetional pop digipak promotional adverts, I've made sure to include key text related to the digipak and singles on it. I've also listed where the album can be purchased and when it will be available to buy. Both these features are typical of pop digipak promotional adverts.

The promotional advert has drawn inspiration from Jessie J's promotional advert for one of her albums. I've included an image of her advert alongside our advert to denote the conventions our advertisement follows.

• On the left is Jessie J's promotional advert which features a simple bold font differing from the album font, which is something included in my groups advert too.
• Also the album cover image is the main focus of the advert. 
• The advert includes images of her record label and has a link to where her digipak can be bought
• The text on her advert follows the same colour scheme as the text from the front panel of her digipak    

Below is an image of my groups final promotional magazine advert.

Final Music Video

Below I've embedded my groups final music video for 'Domino'. My group members Amy and Beth focused on filming and editing the video, whilst I created the digipak and digipak promotional advert. We decided to share the two final tasks this way to get them both done by our deadlines. Also my group members Amy and Beth have had past experience creating a music video and I have previously used Photoshop to create products similar to a digipak. So, we felt that sharing the workload this way allowed us to take advantage of our strengths and create the best products possible. Beth had the role of being the main star in the video, Amy was filming, and both of my group members focused on editing and creating the final product.

My group members aimed to create a conventional pop video including as many conventions of the genre as possible. For example they made sure the video had numerous outfit changes, product placement, extreme close ups such as Beth's mouth and eyes and the male gaze.

Final Digipak

From looking at the front panel, and asking for peer feedback my group decided to change the image on the front panel. The initial image on the front cover looked too happy and lighthearted not reflecting the album name 'Uneducated' well. It's conventional of pop digipaks to have an album name and an image related to the albums name and it's theme. So my group chose another picture to use on our cover, which connoted our artist looking more rebellious and playful, reflecting our digipak name better.

Below is a screenshot of the edited final digipak, with the new cover image. I've also embedded a video I created with QuickTime on the computer of me editing and changing the album cover image on the digipak.

 

                                          

Rejected footage

When initially filming my group wanted to use the green screen as it's conventional in pop videos and Jessie J videos for green screen to be used in small parts of the video.

For example in Jessie J's Price Tag she uses pastel coloured green screens,  and we drew inspiration from these when choosing green screen backgrounds.

We chose to use these two background for our green screen that were found from Google images.

Below, I've uploaded a video of the footage where my group has experimented editing with a green screen in Final Cut. 

                                       

From looking at the footage my group noticed that the green screen didn't necessarily look realistic and theres a faint outline around Beth, we didn't want to use this green screen footage because we felt it would bring down the quality of our final video. Also the green screen glitches and goes faint in certain parts of Beth's figure which also looks bad quality. Even after altering and editing the green screen using the tools in Final Cut (screen shots of tools below).....
The footage had issues and didn't blend in with the background. For example Beths hands looked webbed against the background. So,  all thought it is conventional for pop music videos to feature green screens, as a group we decided it wasn't worth the risk of including bad quality footage that could bring down the equality of the overall video. Instead of using green screen we have decided to use a white screen in our video to replicate a  studio space as well as including a purple lit section for the bridge.

Creating the digipak

Here is the initial design sketch for my groups digipak I've drawn them onto templates for a four panel digipak. It's important to create a rough outline of  the digipak before going into Photoshop and working on it because it allowed me to come up with various ideas. Also the rough sketches could be shown to my group members and I could work on some feedback for the final product. The rough design drawing also gave me a template to follow for my final digipak.

Above is my groups draft digipak that I have created on Photoshop,with the front and back cover as well as the inner panel. My group chose to keep our digipak uniform as it's a conventional feature of the pop genre, and so we have chosen a pink and white colour scheme with black as an accenting colour. I downloaded the font 'Davy Francis' for the digipak from a free online font website, as my group felt it was is more effective than the fonts available on Photoshop.

Digipak promotional adverts research

Below I've embedded a FlipSnack online flip book ,that I have created, in the style of a magazine to present the three digipak promotional adverts that will be analysed to help me get ideas for my groups digipak. Presenting the images in a flip book allows you to see the advertisements how they would be denoted on a magazine page. I've chosen to look at the similarities and differences between Rihanna, Jessie J and Ellie Goulding's promotional adverts as all three women are leading pop artists who follow the conventions of the genre.

From looking at all three adverts there are some key features:

• they include an image of the album cover or digipak, that takes up most of the magazine page - making it clear to readers who's music is being advertised and which album they need to buy to listen to it all
• most of the time close ups of the artist are used - again reinforcing who's music is being sold
• artists names and album names are written on a magazine promotional advert - making it easy for target audiences to easily find and buy music 
• tag lines related to singles from the album are commonly used and mentioned - target audience may be attracted to the advert due to the singles listed and readers in general may consider buying the album because they like one of the singles
• website links or links to where you can buy or pre-order the album are also sometimes included - letting customers know where they can buy the album
• a release date is included most of the time - telling buyers when they can buy the digipak
• ratings of the album from newspapers and critics are also included - letting possible buyers know how the album is perceived by the public 

Looking at all these example digipak magazine promotions are important because they are examples of what my group should be aiming to create in our final digipak and magazine advert. More so, researching digipak promotional adverts allows my group to become inspired when creating out promotional advert, helping us come up with ideas for our own designs. It also shows us what conventional digipak promotional adverts look like, somewhat providing us with guidelines on how to create our own.
So,all in all a variety of the features listed above should be used in my groups final digipak promotional advert. My group should aim to use the majority of the features to make sure that our design looks realistic and conventional to the genre, making our advertisement look realistic and effectively promoting our digipak and music video.

Analysis of digipaks created by other pop artists

During lesson time today my class focused on digipaks within the music industry; why they are used, what their purpose is and how they are presented. I learnt that a digipak is the packaging included with an album, consisting of usually 4 or 6 panels. Digipaks feature an album cover, a track list, close ups of artists and usually have one overall theme, relating to the musician's album and body of work on their CD.

 Below I've chosen to analyse specific digipaks of pop artists relevant to my groups chosen pop song 'Domino' by Jessie J. Looking at different pop digipaks can help my group gain ideas for our digipak design and also help us understand what is conventional of pop digipaks. So, this research plays an important role in creating our final digipak.

Below I've embedded a Photoshop image I've created, where I've analysed the pop-indie artist Marina and The Diamonds digipak. I chose to look at her digipak because she is a young pop-indie artist whose target audience is ,the same as my groups, teenagers.

I also chose to analyse one of Britney Spears digipaks, as she is another successful pop artist. Additionally, I chose to look at one of her digipaks because she is a young woman, and so her digipak could be conventional of women in the pop genre. Below, I've embedded a Photoshop document where I've analysed and compared her digipak to the digipak above.

I also came across Rihanna's digipak for her album 'Loud'. What I liked about this digipak is how the three inner panels have been used to create one overall image. From looking at the embedded image below Rihanna is denoted lying in a bed of roses with her fiery red hair. I think using the three inner panels to create one composition is interesting and something different. My group could try to experiment with using photography in the inner panels of the digipak to create a composition.

Pop genre research

The final piece of additional research was looking into the pop genre and it's history, my group member Beth looked into this topic. Below is her findings on the genre of music and she's chosen to present her findings in a time line created on Dipity.

For the last part of additional research, I carried out some investigation into the coming of pop music through the decades. All the way form the 1950's to modern day pop music, I decided to use Dipity to make a timeline that portrays the highs and memorable moments in the rise of pop music.

The coming of Pop Music on Dipity.

This activity was particularly useful, because it has given my group and I a greater understanding of why conventions are important to use, what kind of fans we are aiming our music video at, and how to create a music video relevant to the time period in which the song was made. This will impact our final music video, as it has allowed us to understand the importance of creating a music video that has all aspects of a pop music video that will please our target audience.

References
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pop_music
en.wikipedia.org.wiki/1970s_in_music
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/billboard_hot_100
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990s_in_music
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000s_in_music
officialcharts.com/music_charts/

Jessie J Artist Biography

Jessie J Biography

Below is an artist biography on pop artist Jessie J created by my group member Amy.

Jessie J, real name Jessica Cornish, is originally from Seven Kings, Essex. Her first musical performance was at the age of 3 in a holiday camp where she forgot her words to 'Twinkle Twinkle'. She attended dance classes at the Wenn Stage school at the same age, where she started singing (the video below is of her playing Blousey Brown in Bugsy Malone) At age 11, she was cast in Andrew Lloyd Webber's West End musical of 'Whistle Down the Wind' where she played the part of Brat for two years.

After going through high school, and keeping her talent quite secretive, she attended the BRIT school at age 16. She studied musical theatre, exceeding in music, dance and drama, as well as doing the subject Art. While at BRIT school she joined a girl group as a campaign 'Mothers against guns.' They released a single called 'Why' which is about mothers speaking out for their children that have been shot. The video below is of the group, Soul Deep, singing their campaign song. 

After being in the girl group for two years, and recovering from a stroke when she was 18, Jessie was back singing again, and managed to get signed by Gut records, an independent record label. While she was with them she did support tours with stars such as Cyndi Lauper, Chris Brown and Girls Aloud. She was ready to release her first single 'Sexy Silk' and had an album ready. Unfortunately, the  record label went bankrupt before she managed to release anything. During the time she was there, she put up youtube videos of her singing to build her fan base. 

After Gut went bankrupt, Jessie had to run around and try and get herself signed before she lost all her music. After not being able to get signed in the UK, she went to the US and managed to get signed to Sony ATV as a songwriter. After writing hits such as 'Party in USA' for Miley Cyrus and 'I need this' for Chris Brown, she got signed to Island Records. Following the release of her first single, 'Do it like a dude' in 2010, she topped the BBC Sound of 2011 list and won the BRIT Critics' Choice award.

Her first number 1 was 'Price Tag' which was released in February 2011. Her debut album 'Who you are' was released shortly after Price tag and sold 105,000 copies in the first week, reaching number 2 on the iTunes album charts. Below is the album 'Who You Are'. 

Jessie's career has blown up following the release of another 5 singles: "Nobody's perfect, Who's laughing now, Who you are, Domino and Laserlight, all of which reached the top 10. This made Jessie the first British female solo artist to get 6 or more singles from one album in the top ten on the charts. 

Jessie became an ambassador for Comic Relief and shaved her hair off for charity on Red Nose Day. She helped raised 100,331,808.

In 2013, Jessie released her second studio album, called 'Alive.' Her first single, 'WILD' debuted at number 5 on the iTunes single chart. Jessie is currently working on a new version of the album Alive, which is the American version.

References: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_You_Are_(Jessie_J_album)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessie_J

http://www.rednoseday.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alive_(Jessie_J_album)

http://youtube.com 

Links to viewing theory

The Male Gaze

Below I've embedded a prezi presentation that I've created on the male gaze and it's relevance to the pop genre. I decided to look at the male gaze viewing theory because it's quite conventional of music videos in the pop genre. Also my group is creating a pop video with a female lead and so the male gaze theory could be applied to our music video.



From completing this activity I've concluded that it could be a good idea to include the male gaze within my groups music video, as it's conventional to the pop genre.

Music Video Preperations - Costume list

Below are some outfits my group member Beth has chosen to wear in our music video. As a group we discussed that it's very conventional for music videos to have costume changes in them and stars are usually denoted wearing a few outfits in one video. My groups target audience feedback suggested that bright colours and patterns would be good to incorporate into our music video to make it fun and appealing to watch; and so the costumes chosen reflect this feedback.

 

 

Costume choice is key in creating my groups video because it will impact how our star in the video will appear onscreen. My group wanted the star in our video to appeal to our target audience and so we based our costume choice on some of our audience feedback. Planning what costumes will be worn in a video prior to filming is also important because it makes the filming process more organised, and avoids my group wasting filming time.

Music Video Preperations - Filming Schedule

In today's lesson my group decided to create a filming schedule, to make sure that all the group members would be available for filming. We decided that the best times to film would be on weekends and during our free periods during and after school. After discussing when the best time to film the video would be we decided as a group that we could split filming up into five parts. Five filming sessions guarantees that my group will have enough footage to create a full video with and allows us to have extra footage in case of any filmed mistakes. We decided it would be a good idea to film the star in our video wearing a different costume in each film session. The four outfits chosen will be used in the first four filming days. The fifth filming day will consist of my group trying to film the bridge of the son, as its conventional in the pop genre for the bridge of the song to have a different mood and setting. 
Below is the filming schedule with the days that we plan to film on

Monday 3rd March 2014 - 12.25 - 13.10

• Filming in costume one 

Thursday 6th March 2014 - 10.00 - 11.05

• Filming in costume 2

Sunday 9th March 2014 - 12.00 - 13.00

• Filming in costume 3

Wednesday 12th March 2014 - 14.25 - 15.00

• Filming in costume 4

Thursday 13th March 2014 - 09.00 - 10.00

• Filming the bridge part of the song

This activity has been very useful and has highlighted the importance of filming time and planning before we film our project. The schedule help stay organised and is a guideline to make sure we will have all the footage needed for the editing stage of the video. We don't want to have to keep on re-filming footage when in the middle of editing the video as that will put us behind our deadlines and can cause us to become very disorganized and confused of what footage we have to work from. Having a film schedule will have a large impact on the final music video as it will ensure my group has enough time to edit the video to allow us to create the best music video possible in the time frame we are given.

Music Video Preperations - Health and Safety Risk Assessment

Above, I've embedded a risk assessment, that my group has created before filming our music video. We know that our music video will be filmed in a filming studio setting so we've made a note of risks that could happen in a studio such as, tripping over equipment.
From completing this activity I learnt that it's important to be aware of the risks at filming locations before shooting to avoid injury. This is key because some locations can be very risky to film without you realising they are, and so creating a risk assessment helps you consider if a location is realistic to film in.

Completing this assessment is a key part of my groups planning before filming our final project. This assessment helps prevent injuries and hazards happening when we film our final project, hence keeping everyone safe whilst filming and making filming a smoother process.

Music Video Preparations - Shot list

Below is a shot list created by my group embedded below with SlideShare. This planning process was a key stage of creating the video as it allowed my group to carefully plan what we want the video to include and how we want viewers to see the video. Also, the shot list will make filming easier for my group as we can refer to the document throughout the filming process. Without the shot list my group would be unsure of how our video is going to look on  screen and therefore the filming process won't be as organised. Furthermore, the shot list highlighted the importance of having a variety of shots in our final video, doing so will make our video entertaining and appealing to viewers.

Music video shot list from simrantakhar

Music Video Storyboard

 Above is a slide show I've created on PhotoSnack showing sketches for my groups concept of the music video.

Final Treatment

From reading the feedback gained from my peers there are some key points made about my groups treatment which we will have to take into consideration. Some of the improvements suggested will be taken into consideration when making our video, and so our draft treatment will need some changes made to it.

After some consideration and looking at audience feedback on our treatment my group has decided that we want to alter our treatment slightly. We've decided to change the concept of our video to be more performance based as 'Domino' doesn't have a very strong narrative. Also there could be some issues with filming a party narrative such as bad lighting and staging making our video seem unrealistic, giving it an overall bad quality. Even though we will focus on performance more in the video we will still try to include numerous visual conventions like product placement and references to lyrics in our video.

Below I've embedded the final treatment that my group member Beth had created, using SlideShare, highlighting the changes made from the draft.

Draft treatment and Padlet feedback

Draft Treatment

Below is my draft treatment for my music video, in the form of a SlideShare document. Within the treatment my group members and I have wrote down our idea's for our music video and it's narrative. We've also planned out what equipment and resources we will need in to create the video. This process is key in creating a music video as I've found it's important to plan what you want to see in your final product before filming rather than improvising when filming.

Creating a treatment will help my group gain a better understand of how we want to make our music video. By creating a treatment my group had to carefully plan and organize what we wanted our video's narrative to consist of and how we are going to practically get our idea's onto film. So, writing the treatment also helped us reevaluate our initial ideas and concepts for our video.

Below I've embedded a Padlet document which is a program where people can leave virtual 'sticky notes' and comments about a topic. In this case my peers and members of my target audience have written their thoughts and opinions on my groups draft treatment and our idea's so far for our video. My peers have left suggestions on how to improve our treatment as well as wrote what they like about our ideas.

Created with Padlet

Focus Group

To help gain further research and ideas for our music video my group decided to ask a focus group which consisted of our music videos target audience. We asked our focus group various questions which related to creating our music video; for example we asked them what type of narrative they would like to see in our video linked to our song 'Domino'.

The focus group made a variety of interesting suggestions:

• the narrative of our video could relate to a party and a romance 
• they felt that the song was upbeat and fell into the dance/pop genre and so it would be a good idea to use dance routines in the video
• one of the key points made was to make a colorful, fun video to match the upbeat song
• another important point was to use various shots in the music video to keep it engaging
• most of our focus group want to see in our video is lyrics being referenced in our music video

Quite a few of these suggestions are very conventional to pop music videos such as lyrics being referenced, and dance routines. Furthermore, when creating our video it's important that we listen to and consider focus group feedback. The focus group is our target audience and if our target audience isn't happy with our music video it won't be very effective overall.