EVALUATION, QUESTION 4

Q4 needs more context about the role of new media in the music industry is general.. try and get across your own music use and how this may have influenced the different stages of the production. Also try to talk about how your creativity was shaped my technology.

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

RESEARCH AND PLANNING

In addition to our regular group meetings which we had every Tuesday evening in our school, we also used a number of platforms to share information with each other throughout the project. Initially we browsed on websites such as Hype M, YouTube, Spotify and our own iTunes playlists to decide on a song.

Since there were only two of us and didn’t have smart phones we often, just used text to communicate any issues or ideas about the projects and schedule meetings. We often used Skype to call each other to finalise ideas for costumes or props .

  ( SCREEN SHOT OF Skype calls)

We used YouTube, to collect data, for our target audience by looking at Estelle and Janelle ‘do my thing’ audio on YouTube and looking at the statistics to see what people listened to it.

(SHOT OF STATISTIC)

Web 2.0 was important inreasearch; we used Wikipedia to research record labels, and come up with our own.  In order to brainstorm ideas for costumes and styling we often just looked on Google images, of certain artist in the same genre or at their websites looking at their gallery pictures, as that is where many people would find and follow fashion trends. We used Adobe Photoshop CS5 to put all our research together with a moodboard to present our idea. We didn’t get the green light straight away, but after more planning. We put all our research and planning on our Website using a program called “Wix” a software to help build a website, we finally got the green light.

(MOODBOARD TREETMENT )
(WIX)
 

CONSTRUCTION

MUSIC VIDEO

Here is where I was able to use more new media technology and learn and develop my technical skills, from production to post production. I found that my creativity was shapped by the new technology of today by using new software and equipment to create our finished products at a professional level.

Production

We used the modelled camera D5MII to film and also take promo photos. We particularly wanted to use this model since it had higher quallity (4HD 1080p), shoot direct to card so easier to edit (didnt have to capture), advanced DSLR optics, variety of choice in lens, large sensor for improved video quality and light weight for motion shots. This was all important, in capturn gthe video how we wanted it to be. We took turns in filming, when I was performing Jeng would do all the filming but we would have discussed how we wanted it filmed and what shots we wanted. When Victoria was being filmed I would do the filming giving me the opportunity to be behind the camera.  

Lighting was very important as it created the setting as our colour scheme is vibrant and full of colour. We used the leap frog lighting desk in the steward studio, which helped us change colours instantly through DMX lighting software. We all had a go in controlling the lighting as it was a quick job.  We also had floor lights, to light the artist face making sure they were well lit and not overexposed.
 

Post- production
I used Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5, for editing the sequence. We had learnt a lot already from our AS project on such as the use of multi-track editing, the razor tool to make simple cuts, and changing the clip properties to reverse and speed up/slow down some shots.  I however learnt a lot more this year, with horizontal flip, cropping, adding colour box, and moving screens (timing frames) and adding lens flares, all the key conventions that would make the music video. We also cropped the song through this program; the original song was 3:28 in length so we decided to cut it down to 3:15. For the ending we used adobe photo shop for the last image with the logo.

(SHOW SPLIT SCREEN)

Because of the strong lighting we used in filming some of the footage was over exposed or not exposed at all with colour so we use the Three-Way Colour corrector tool on Premiere pro, to correct our skin colours but also enhance the colours in the background .

(SHOW DEMONSTRATION)

(JENG WRITING UP ALBUM AND WEBSITE)

EVALUATION

We were able to promote our video across multiple platforms; in particular I used Facebook in promoting the video by posting it on not only mine but also other peoples walls,  with the link to the online survey as well. I posted the links on my twitter and through Instragram by posting a picture with the link to the video and the survey.

(IMAGES OF PROMOTION)

I created the survey on creating a questionnaire on website SurveyMonkey which also provided us with visual presentations of answers to questions e.g bar charts. 

(IMAGES OF SURVEY)
 

We used the website WhatIsMyIPAddress.com to pin point exactly where the survey response had come from.

 Victoria embedded our video onto her Tumblr page, where it was reposted by several other bloggers, gaining wider exposure.

We analysed the data statistics on YouTube to see who our video was most popular with. Uploading the video onto YouTube meant it was easily shareable and accessible from web devices, as seen in the viewing data.

Ican certainly say that new technology has really helped grow and develop the music industry, as there are new ways of distributing not only the music but  selling the artist. Also getting more peole involved in promoting the music through socal networks. New ways of collecting data to help improve and follow up your work. Also quality of music and creativty has also developed.

EVALUATION, QUESTION 3

3)  What have you learned from your audience feedback?

For q3 the audience theory needs to cover three areas: the audience profile and their lifestyle choices and media interests; how the genre appeals to audiences and fans and therefore how your mv appeals; and how a debut act has presented themselves to a new fan base. Did you try to capture an existing audience or did you want to tap into a more niche audience? Talk also about audience pleasures and audience identity. Your track and MV idea have a strong message and taps into current ideas about positive role models for young women, so your answer must address these ideas in some way.
 

Our target audience is 16-24 females, who are also fans of upbeat, dance, RnB, hip hop, rap music. For example people who enjoy listening Beyoncé's, Little Mix's or Jessie J's music should enjoy E.G.O.'s too, we thought.

Our secondary target audience include males who enjoy the same genres, British music fans, dancers and older females.

We employed a multiplatform strategy in order to promote our video and gain feedback from our core target audience and a wider range of music fans and friends. Facebook (posts, shares and likes), Twitter (re-tweets), YouTube (views and data), Premiere Screening and online questionnaire all helped us collect information on audience’s opinions of our music video.

(I have written up 10 questions on survey monkey

Posted music video on my Facebook and Twitter)

(We want to if possible have a screening and video some people response)

(From that we will write in bullet points, The Summary: What works well?, What could be improved? )

(Collect all data from YouTube, the statistic, and analyse it

Use and gratification

·         Diversion, our aim was to make it fun, full of entertainment, so audience can escape everyday problems, we did by showing how much fun the artist having adding in colour and performance, so that audience may also dance to the music

·         Personal Relationships- we hoped that the would use the video to help them with friendship and how both can be different, but also woman power how we can also do male sports

·         Personal identity- the music has a strong message about ‘doing your thing’ reflecting on themselves and teaching them not to follow.

·         Surveillance- here the audience will keep and to the modern fashion, learn about the artist identity.

EVALUATION QUESTION 2

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

I researched new artist in the industry ones that would be similar to our artist, one of them was "Little Mix". I looked at their combination of their music video, website and album, and saw how effective they were. Little Mix music video has bright colours as well as their website and their album, there is a clear synergy. They are mainstream, signed to the well known record label who signs on new British artist "Syco Music". The fact they are on this label, gets audience interested in them because they like the other artist on the label and interested in what is new. They have been able to reach out to many audience becoming very popular and known. This is mainly through their promotion of the artist through the music video which I have seen on music channels a few times. The video has a distinctive look, giving each artist their own personality and look by having different background with their personalised logo. I then saw their albums in stores, and the album has a similar look, continuing the synergy and personality of each artist.  The website is a combination of everything with the logos from the music video and the colour scheme from the album.

 Leigh- anne is gangster logo cap, background graphetti, perri sweet, logo flower and background, Jesy muscial logo boom box and background, Jade geeky, logo bow ties, background.

We wanted the music video to promote both the website and album cover making sure theaudience will buy and visit both ancillary texts. For this reason we thought it was important knowing if our band is niche or mainstream. Therefore knowing what type of record label they are signed to knowing their budget and their target audience. We decided that our artists would be able to make it mainstream, singed to a record label, “snapback records” which is owned by“Time Warner” world's second largest media and entertainment conglomerate. This meant our music video would have a reasonably high budget, and therefore have many benefits in reaching to the audience.

What we did to reach our audience, was create a synergy through our music video and both ancillary text.  We did this by presenting a consistent brand image across all products like Little Mix. We created the logo E.G.O with strong colours (purple and blue) to represent the artists who are seen as powerful, talented and outrageous. We placed this logo on as many platforms as we could, from music video, to website to album to merchandise such as clothes and bags, radio advertisements and fans with “I love (ego logo)”. This way audience will recognise them more since they are new in the industry. We also used the colour scheme of purple and blue on our website and album cover.

We kept the strong image of the artist in the music video, by representing them as powerful modern young women, and not sexualising them only in their confidence and persona. This meant our target female audience would look up to them and there for want to follow them as role models by going on our website and buying their album.

We reached the audience through other means, we knew our target audience is 16-24 meaning their way of receiving information and interacting, is through web 2.0 and social media platforms. We exploited our website with as many thing to reach and appeal to the audience: a link to all social networks such as Facebook, twitter and YouTube, this way they could follow E.G.O and keep up to date with news, trends and the artist own social life. Its important that audience can interact, so they feel more engaged with the artist. 

On the website we had events, so that fans would be able to buy tickets easily and follow the artits. gallery to see what new clothes they are wearing and keep them upto date with images from shows. Music, where they can read the lyrics  and sing along to the songs, story so they know more about the artist background feel as if they are friends and know the artist well. store so they can buy merchendises. All of this is important in reaching to the audience and keeping fans happy.

We also added in symbiotic arrangements such as radio show with Choice fm known for our genre, R&B and Hip- Hop.  We also have  a competition with the price of M.A.C cosmetics, as women would want to feel beautiful and strong we thought this was perfect, as vicki and I used M.A.C products when shooting the music video and taking promo photos.

I feel the combination of the music video and the ancillary text, works very effectively in reaching and pleasing our target audience.

EVALUATION QUESTION 1

( WE ARE MAKING A SCRIPT FOR A VIDEO BLOG ON QUESTION ONE HERE ARE JUST POINTERS I HAVE MADE )

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

Music video demonstrate genre characteristics, through the sound of the music but also through the choice of performance (dance moves), gestures, costume, hairstyle, jewellery, concept and lighting which all present the music video. 

The genre of our chosen song is Pop, R&B and Hip-Hop, so when deciding all elements of our music we took this in consideration.  Oh oh booty shake reference to beyonce move a R&B move. The chorus dance is very hip hop, styled with strong sharp moves and grooves. Artist gestures similar to the way other hip hop artist dance like Jessie j and beyonce.  The clothes chosen, giving that vibrant gangster look but also, beauty look, showing of artist aspects . jewellery gold a lot, which is associated with gangsters, whatever necklace. Hair was long, flowy, flicked around, girly like pop music, but with edge.

However we challenge our genre through the narrative, most concepts are about love, partying, or break up. Our music video was about friendship and competition.

Also the way females are normally represented, is sexually, by adding props that are associated with boys, boxing cars balls, we dismiss this. But also by movement which are strong for instance the dance routine, is fun not sexual, neither do use close up to the female aspects. 

The relationship between lyrics and visuals as well as music and visuals are either illustrated, amplified or contradicted. In this case we made it so that it was illustrated through gestures and movement.

When she says hold her breath she holds her neck as if she is chocking. Also through the beat of the music, you see, the artist moving to the beat, enjoying the music. As it has an upbeat tempo.

As this is going to be the debut single, there would need to be a lot of close ups of the artist to create visual hooks for the audience to almost fall in love with their beauty.  Their faces is the main iconography of the band creating the visual trademark. They are repeated several times, so the audience recognises the artist.

We have challenged the normal notion of looking into females body by, having full shots, and looking more into the beauty of cu of their face. We have included a lot of split screens, which give a lot to look at.

There is intertextual reference to beyonce the oh oh booty shake, showing she can’t be like beyonce. They show what is in, such as clothes, hair. Also how females are seen as today, competitive doing things males would usually be seen doing.

This music video is mainly performance, with loose narrative and loose concept. The song drives the concept of doing you yourself, don’t follow others. Narrative is about enemies, competeing many differences, but they bring them together at the end, however to audience it is an open interpretation. Performance is mainly of the artist, and how they perform, dancing and singing, entertaining the audience, get a sense of the artist themselves how their relationship is between the two artists.

There are 4 key concepts that are related to the way the music video is constructed, the narrative, the editing, the camera movement and framing and lastly the diegesis.

Our video had to be a visual response to the music. When we listened to it we thought about how children are put down a lot because they do their own thing, where their own fashion and where a different hairstyle, and this excludes them from getting friends. We thought our artist should show how people can have many differences, but can still be friends like our own artist. That’s just the loose narrative and since the song is upbeat and fun, we made it more performance for it to be pleasing to the audience eyes. The structure is disjointed, like many other music videos, such as my case countdown. There is a development, as at the start we have them bullying each other, it’s not a structured story but you see clips of them showing of in one way or another. Then when the rap comes in we see them united being the best of friends. We use the change in the music, and built up performance establishes the changes and development also.  The video has a simple meaning leaving no pondering on questions, as we want the audience to simply enjoy the visuals, feeling complete at the end with a happy ending of them together.

When editing it we most definitely followed the rule of editing to the musical phrases and beats, by using special effects such as moving screens to the lyrics or beat of the music. We had no rules of continuity editing following the music video editing convention, we had a lot of extreme close up to long shots. By using special effect we made the editing more clearly, for instant rapping part, we speeded up the editing to go with the music and beats. No smooth transitions, match on action, an even pace throughout.

Camera movement framing  

Website vision

For our website we want:

• All the social networks, e.g. Facebook, twitter, Icloud, YouTube, MySpace, Pininterest, Instragram  
• Working in synergy with a make up company, promoting their products, and retail companies to sell our CD and merchandise. See tickets will sell our touring tickets as it sells British performances. ITune will sell the music.
• Competitions winning shopping vouchers to get your own look.
• Lyrics to our latest songs 
• Music video
• Images of artist
• merchandise such as: shirts, posters, key rings, mugs, calender, bags and hoodies 
• A game, e.g. like stooshe have a car game and little mix have a dj booth where you can make your own music. 
• Fans log in and news letter
• Artist biography and separate profile page  

music video

Music Video vision

For our music vision we are planning to have:

• A lot of attitude
• Dance battles
• Artist dancing, and performing, acting like divas
• A lot of contrast shots between the artist
• Shots of artist making about and teasing each other like friends
• The rapping section we will have them more united
• Social network reference, e.g. Facebook

We want the video to interpret the two artist characteristics as it is their first song. We will portray
their friendship which is full of fun. They constantly have petty hilarious arguments because of how
different they are, but they get on so well and work incredibly well together. Showing their fans its
okay to be different and people will appreciate you and be your friends

When one artist is singing there will be more shot of her, than the other but the other will pop in
every once in a while doing adlip or giving facial expression reacting to what the other artist says, we
will use split screen to accomplish this.

When they are rapping we will have them both in the same shots, and more inventive special
effects, to reach a climax making the video even more interesting to watch.

Contrast between artists :

• Pets : tortious / dog
• Favourite meal: humburger / pizza
• Desert: ice cream / chocolate cake
• Favourite colour: pink / blue
• Fashion: boyish ghetto look/ girly glamorous look
• Hair: freezy and curly / long and straight
• Different fan groups on FB, Twitter.

Analysis of count down

Countdown, Beyoncé, 2011

​

This is Beyoncé's Music video countdown. In the theory of Godwin, it is a conceptual and performance video as her song is about a relationship, however we just have no sense of a relationship in the video, just Beyoncé performing and a dance session or class. You could interpret it as the countdown to a show, so the dancers are practicing. We particularly like the editing style of this video, which interprets the song, having 10 shots of Beyoncé when she says 10, then 9 etc, interpreting it literal.

We are thinking of using all these multiple screen shots for our music video, as we want an artist performance driven video and this enhances and makes the video more lively. We also love the colour scheme, of bright backgrounds.

Gender representation
She is not highly sexualised , or objectified but shown to be having fun and flirtatious with her dance moves. Not many shots of her body, more of her movements and beauty shots, to appreciate her more of and artist and performer. We would want our artist to be also portrayed like that.