Final Products

The following links are to my final 3 media products and 4 evaluation questions:

Music Video
Website
Digipak

Evaluation Question 1
Evaluation Question 2
Evaluation Question 3
Evaluation Question 4

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

Evaluation Q4 from jessieowen

Evaluation Question 3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Distinguishing The Heavy's Audience

I was able to distinguish the audience of the band The Heavy by using a range of research methods, using social media websites, online retail websites, online forums, and even by going to a concert of the band and observing the audience in real life.

When liking the band's Facebook page, a bar will pop up advertising other musician's pages similar to The Heavy. The musicians included here give a good idea as to what other music fans of The Heavy will listen to. All of these musicians here, including The Black Keys, Jack White and Gary Clark Jr are of the blues rock genre, just like The Heavy, and so they are all very likely to have a similar audience.

As for the size of their audience, judging from their number of fans on Facebook being close to 90,000 I would say that while they are not unknown, they are not incredibly famous. The Black Keys are considered rather well-known in mainstream media and they have over 1 million likes on Facebook. Most well-known bands will have well into the hundreds of thousands, showing that The Heavy are not quite mainstream. This means that their audience will probably be quite niche and people may have discovered the band in a range of ways.

The Heavy do not have as many fans on Twitter and YouTube as they do on Facebook, with only around 9,000 Twitter followers and 8,500 subscribers on YouTube. This tells me that most of their fanbase is present on Facebook than Twitter and YouTube. From this, I can theorise that most of their fanbase are of adults. Adults will tend to have a Facebook account and not a Twitter or YouTube accounts. Twitter is especially dominated by the youth of today and so it does not come across as very necessary to most adults.

I also decided that the band is most likely to attract a male audience as it is an all male band and their rock genre of music is very commonly appreciated by mainly male audiences.

I went to a concert of The Heavy in November and discovered that I was correct in my assumption of the audience being mainly male (there were however some females there, including myself, as the anomalies of my theory). However, I was surprised to see that there were people of all ages there. I expected it to be mainly adults, which there were, but there were also teenagers as well.

Collecting Audience Feedback

I used a range of methods to collect my audience feedback. I interviewed people and recorded it with either a video or an audio clip, I messaged people about it using social media sites, and finally I shared my music video online and received comments.

I got my classmates to give me feedback on m website design, digipak design and a rough cu of my final music video and recorded the results. I filmed a video of some feedback and recorded audio clips of others. Both methods effectively collected my feedback so that I could go back and listen to what was said and take it into account.

Before finishing the final cut of my music video, I collected feedback from my media teacher on my second rough cut to see if there were ways that I could improve it. She gave me some points on how to make it better and these included:

• remove the jump cut sections as they are not consistent enough to give a distinct style throughout the whole video
• remove or edit some of the focus pulls as they are too unfocused for too long
• continuity error: it cuts from when the hero is sat on the stairs and hears someone coming, straight to the girl walking in the house by the stairs the hero was sat on. Need to fill that gap with footage of the hero quickly leaving the house before the girl walks in

What I've Learnt From My Feedback

I received a comment from one of my voice recording that said "I liked the way you created enigma with the character and didn't reveal it until near the end. This tells me that I achieved the effect of mystery that I wanted to create within my main character during the first half of my music video. I purposely hid his face for half the video to intrigue my audience and encourage them to focus on the video.

From the voice recorded feedback on my website and digipak, they said that I managed to "create continuity between the digipak and website really well". I ensured I did this by using my hand-drawn illustrations on both products and by sticking to the same monochromatic colour scheme.

Evaluation Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation Q1 from jessieowen

Final Cut

Second Rough Cut

This is my second rough cut. I edited my video further from my initial rough cut and came out with this. I have since had it looked at by my media teacher who has given me some pointers to improve my music video. These included:

• remove the jump cut sections as they are not consistent enough to give a distinct style throughout the whole video
• remove or edit some of the focus pulls as they are too unfocused for too long
• continuity error: it cuts from when the hero is sat on the stairs and hears someone coming, straight to the girl walking in the house by the stairs the hero was sat on. Need to fill that gap with footage of the hero quickly leaving the house before the girl walks in

I will now fix my video according to these points and film the pick-up shots that I need to include.

Feedback

I got some feedback from classmates on my rough cut music video, my digipak design and my website.

Feedback session 1 - Sophie Moore










Feedback session 2 - Peter San Antonio

Feedback session 3 - Leeanne McNally

Rough Cut

This is my initial rough cut. For this, I cropped and placed all of my footage into the order I wanted it for my music video. It is a basic version of my final cut and I plan to edit it further and remove some of the blank spaces.

Filming Shots

I took some photographs while filming for my music video to provide me with an overview of still shots and to use as evidence of filming. Filming went very well as I was able to use all of my locations, my actor and my costume.

Filming Equipment

The camera I am going to be using for my filming is a Canon 550D. I will also be using a tripod to achieve professional still shots for my video. The benefits of using a camera like this are that it can achieve crisp and clear pictures and video, a realistic expectation of industry music videos. The videos are almost always expected to be of the highest quality production these days as good music videos are an excellent source of advertisement and publicity for an artist. HD music videos that are well framed and steadily shot will gain more respect and be treated more seriously within the industry.

Character Profile

I decided the theme my actor's costume around the western theme of the song. My character is described as the "hero" in my plans so I wanted a cowboy inspired outfit. I borrowed a genuine stetson from a friend and then used jeans, a plaid shirt and a leather-look coat that I already. I chose black Converse high-tops for the shoes to give the cowboy image a quirky, childish twist as my actor is a child. The cowboy outfit mixed with Converse shoes make for an entertaining juxtaposition. 

Final Digipak Design

The first step I took to designing my digipak was to get a final design idea down in Photoshop using my hand-drawn draft for inspiration. I got my text down and chose a font that I found on DaFont.com and used my scanned in drawings to edit and place on my digipak.

My final design idea in Photoshop

I then looked for a template to put my design on to ensure that it would be functional when printed. I found a template on the internet on a website called UltraDisc.com  and placed my template with the panels all in the correct place, ready for printing.

My final design on a digipak template



My digipak as a mock-up print

Final Website Design

I designed a website using the online program Wix for my chosen band, theming it around the design of my digipak and filling the website with relevant content to the band. I wrote text using my reseach on band website conventions for inspiration and took my own photographs for the gallery page. Some of my photographs were from my sessions filming for my music video and some photos are from a concert of The Heavy that I went to recently.

My website: http://jessicatheaowen.wix.com/theheavy

Home page

Info page

Contact page

Gallery page

Music page

Tour page

Call Sheet

I have made a call sheet, a filming schedule document, for my music video's filming shoot. In industry, these documents would be used to hand out to cast and crew to tell them when and where they are needed on set. The call sheet template I used is similar to a call sheet of industry standard as it includes lots of details about exactly who is required to be on set and contact information in case of emergency. Call sheets improve the organisation of a film shoot and are very vital to ensure that everything that is needed to be done is done.

Risk Assessment

I filled in a risk assessment form for my music video production. This is legally required to be completed by production companies to ensure the safety of the cast and crew on set.

Also, because I have a child on set I must fill in a Child on Set form by acquiring the parent's permission to use the child as an actor in my music video. I wrote a letter to the parents asking for their permission.

Location Shots

I plan on using multiple locations for my music video. The first of which is a forest and lake in my local area. I have taken some location shots of this below. I want to film in this location during the autumn and winter seasons. 

I also plan on filming in another location in my local area. It is a country lane and a housing estate. I want to use the long roads in my shots and experiment with the lighting from the lamp posts if I get the chance to film in the dark.

Band Website Conventions

I have looked at the websites of other bands of the same genre as The Heavy to gain some inspiration for the making of my own website. All band websites will tend to have been designed cohesively with their latest album. This aids customers in associating all products to one band, such as the album cover, single covers, merchandise and the website all together under one theme. I have also noticed that a lot of indie and rock bands do not have images of the band on the front page of their websites or on the covers of their albums. These features are most noticeable in these examples that I have looked at:

The Vaccines website homepage

The Vaccines latest album

The Black Keys website homepage

The Black Keys latest album

Kings of Leon website homepage

Kings of Leon latest album

Band websites will follow specific conventions to make them easily usable and look professional despite all looking entirely different. Bands can be very creative with their branding but will always include some important features. The features that all three of these websites have in common are:

• name of the band - at the top of the page in large lettering matching the exact style of the bands name on the album cover
• decorative images - used to decorate the homepage and go with the theme or image is straight off the album cover
• news tab - page of news from the band similar to a blog of what they're up to, what's new and what's next
• shows/tour tab - page of tour dates and venues and links to booking tickets for the shows
• photos/images/media/video tab - page of photos and videos of the band from shows or behind the scenes
• merch/store/musicstore tab - page that links to merchandise and how to purchase it online
• social networking links - buttons to the band's twitter, facebook, myspace, youtube pages

Initial Draft Idea For Digipak

This is an idea for my digipak that I have drafted onto a digipak template. This digipak would have just two panels and a disk inside held in by a disc tray. My design consists of skyscraper illustrations and a paint dripping effect to add an indie/rock feel and a creative twist.

Digipak Forms and Conventions

Digipaks do not stick to one certain structure and so they come in a range of different forms. They will always have a gatefold, a fold style similar to a book and will be made out of paperboard or card. They can range in how many panels they have; most will have two or three. Inside, they can contain a plastic tray, a sleeve or corner pockets to hold a CD. Digipaks can contain more than one CD and can also contain a leaflet of lyrics or even a poster.

Front: title of album, name of band, image of band, cover design
Back: track list, barcode, copyright info, website, production company logo, band photo, legal info
Inside: sleeve for disc, band images, pocket for leaflet, leaflet of lyrics, photos and history of

Front: title of album, name of artist, image of artist, cover design
Back: track list, cover design, barcode, website, legal info, production company log
Inside: plastic tray for disc, pocket for leaflet, leaflet of lyrics and photos

Front: title of album, name of band, image of band, cover design
Back: track list, barcode, legal info, website, production company logo, cover design
Inside: artist photos, trays for two discs, sleeve for leaflet, leaflet of lyrics and photos, poster

Front: title of album, name of band, image of band, cover design
Back: track list, barcode, legal info, website, production company logos, photo, cover design
Inside: band logo, photos, sleeve for leaflet, leaflet of lyrics and photos, sleeve for disc