Evaluation

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

Music Video

Our Music video both conforms and contrast the conventions of Music videos in the same genre. If we look at other videos we can clearly see what is the same and what is different.

We have tried to keep it similar to the origninal (shown above) as we need to keep a similar fun feel to the video. Videos in this genre, and by Fountains of Wayne tend to put in jokes in their music video, and make the audience smile.

But we didn't want to just copy these videos, we wanted to add our own twist to the video. One of the main examples we did was to use an air band, an idea we got off the comedy Scrubs which is different to every music video we have seen, this is shown below:

Digipak and Magazine Advert

In terms of the digipak and the advert, we didn't really go against any of usual conventions of existing products similar. As you can see in the pictures, we designed and created the cover and advert according to what our product research told us.

I feel the digipak cover is a mixture of the Hairspray and 17 Again:

The advert uses a lot of conventions that Razorlight does:

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

From the questionnaire we saw that we would need to include as much of the song story as we can, and not have the song focused all on the band.

Our target audience also all seem to agree that the video is fast paced and never gets boring, which we can make happen quite simpley with bright colours, varied locations, comedy, and also a confident performance in both band and storyline, shown below:

I think we did this very well, putting in the things the audience want will always make an effective product.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

This is one of the most important things, whether or not the audience like the video. After posting it on youtube.com and putting links on facebook.com, we got some very positive feedback as well as some constructive criticism.

Our video managed to get a very pleasing 847 views and an overall rating of 5.0 stars.

Some positive comments:

1. this is awesome! :) whole video is really good especially like the band bits with the green screen :D
2. cool stuff! music corresponds to the video well
3. genius. the air instrument is a real good idea

But we also learned how we could have made it better with some help constructive criticism:

"oh wow!! this is mint!! feedback...critically...the foot tappin at the beginning was not in beat with the music, nor was the initial drumming. also, i was a little confused as to whether the girl in the video was meant to be "stacey" or "stacey's mum" - i think u need a person with distinguishable age differences to play each. i dont want all that to sound harsh by the way coz i think the way you've put all the scenes together with different parts of the song is amazing."

Overall i think our music video has been effective as everyone seems to really like it, and also we have found out how we could have made it better as well.

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

I used many technologies during the process of this promotional package.

During the actual construction of the music video, digipak, and magazine advert, we used a lot of technologies. These included:

Cameras - we used both a video camera for the video itself, repeating many shots (safety shots), and using many angles and shots, while we also used a digital camera to take pictures for the advert and the digipak.

Premiere Pro - We used Adobe Premiere Pro to edit the video. This was a new technology to me, and it took a couple of lessons to get used to it, but then it worked quite well, adding some fades and slow-motion.

Photoshop - We used Adobe Photoshop to create the magzine advert and digipak. This is not a new technology but I have developed my skills from last year.

Blog - I used this blogging website blogger.com for the first time to present my research, my planning, my product and then my evaluation. Although sometimes the blog wouldn't show my work, pictures or my links.

Social Networking Sites - I used some social networking sites such as facebook and youtube.com to post my music video so I could get some effective feedback from my target audience which i could then have put in my evaluation.

Internet - This is not a new technology but I used the internet for the main source of my research, looking at genres, other videos etc, so we could create an effective promotional package for the song "Stacy's Mom".

Digipal and Magazine Advert: Completed Advert

After reviewing the research we decided to design the magazine advert like this:



As you can see, we took a similar approach to the Razorlight advert as it was simple and gives relevant information. Also it is simlar to the digipak cover with the 4 pictures, so the audience can relate it backto the album.

Digipak and Magazine Advert: Magazine Advert Research

To get full effectiveness into the Magazine advert, I need to research current adverts of other albums, and pick out the good points that we could use, just like with the digipak.

What is good about this magazine advert?

• Very simple but straight to the point and effective
• Background fades away to the top of advert
• Basic Title
• Main People (i.e. band members)
• Release Date (very important)
  

What is good about this magazine advert?

• Simple - black and white, but matches the bands persona
• A lot of info (good for this type of band, but not necessarily for our type of band)
• Shows the release date
• Main people again
  
  

What is good about this magazine advert?

• Simple
• 4 square pictures of main people like on our album cover
• Simple info - release date and "includes single...."
• again matches demeanour of the band

Digipak and Magazine Advert: Digipak Draft and Final

Here are our first, rough general ideas. The draft versions:

Then after reviewing and looking over the research we did, we created the final draft:

Digipak and Magazine Advert: Digipack Research

To get full effectiveness into the Digipack, I need to research current covers of other film soundtracks, and pick out the good points that we could use.

17 Again

What is good about this album cover?

• A really good thing about this cover is that its very simplistic but still effective.
• It is very bright with the white background and the red writing. Making it catch the eye of the target audience.
• Another good thing about this cover is that it shows the main character smiling, having fun, which is what the audience of this movie will want to see.
• Finally, the title is very big, catching the eye of the audience. Also, I like the idea of the writing at the top saying it is from the motion picture.

Camp Rock

What is good about this album cover?

• One of the biggest things I like about this cover is that it looks really fun and energetic, making in it more appealing to the young audience of the film.
• Again it is very bright, but with more colour than the previous one, with a colourful big title right in the middle, cathing the eye of the viewer.
• Again it is showing the main characters in the movie, which is something we can do as well.

Mamma Mia

What is good about this album cover?

• This cover is very, very bright and light, really jumping out at the target audience.
• Again like the others it has a very big eye catching title.
• It also shows the main characters from the film having a fun time.
• One thing I really like about this cover is the way the sea merges with the white at the top. This is something I think would look really cool on our cover.

Hairspray


What is good about this album cover?

• This is one of my favourite soundtrack covers and I think that is because it is very colourful and bright. It really stands out.
• It has a big title. Whilst also saying it is the soundtrack, which is obviously important.
• But one of the biggest things I like about this is the pictures. Again like all the others it is showing the main characters. But here I like how they have put them in their own seperate box with a bright colour behind them. As well as them looking really happy doing a fun pose.

What to take away?

There are a lot of things that we can use in our digipack cover, but we cannot use them all, as I think it will look too untidy and a bit strange. So I have had to select a few things that most of them do, as well as adding a few things that only some or an individual cover does.

What they all do?

• They are all very bright
• They are all have a big title
• They are all bright/colourful
• They all show the main characters having a fun time

What some/individual covers do?

• Hairspray uses the picture boxes of the main characters very well, with the fun posing and bright background
• Mamma Mia has a very effective background, the way it merges together.
• 17 Again, Hairspray, and Mamma Mia all state that it is a motion picture soundtrack which I think is vital to the cover.

I think all these points just mentioned are very effective, and we should look to incorporate these into our digipack cover.

Digipak and Magazine Advert: Introduction

As well as creating the music video, we also need to finish the promotional package by creating a Digipak and a magazine advert.

For our project, mentioned a couple of time previously, we are using the film "Stacy's Mom" for the backbone in the promotional package.
What this means is that instead of creating an album cover for the band Fountains of Wayne, we will be creating the digipack for the Motion Picture Soundtrack for the film "Stacy's Mom", and then the magazine advert will be based on this Soundtrack.

But before we start making the digipack and the advert, we must research current soundtrack covers and magazine adverts for albums, just as we needed research for the music video.

Music Video: Completed Video

This is our finished version of our Music video.