The animation we did created a narrative which linked to the lyrics which is one of Goodwin’s points. Goodwin’s points are numerous observations of conventions of a music video and many of these are seen throughout professional music videos. The genre of the song allowed us to make a video that did not even include an image of the band. The non representative aspect was established and works well with the genre of the song. If we had more time we would have included a greater variety of shots, edited at faster intervals to create better visuals for the pace of the song, however, with the time we had I think we did the best we could. We changed the scene of our video various times in order to keep the audience entertained but still keeping a similar style throughout.
The animations, bright colours and fun looking animals are also conventions of how to promote for a younger audience, almost childlike. To make sure our products still attracted the indie target audience we used some features that would normally be seen on their products, such as black font, ratings from popular music industries to their genre and the band are also seen in dark coloured clothes within the magazine advert. The dark clothes are usual of the indie music genre and this stands out against the brightly coloured background.
Our digi pack included conventions found in real DVD products such as, DVD video logo, certificate, ratings from well known music industries such as Kiss FM, a production logo and a bar code. We found these conventions from our own knowledge and while researching similar bands of the same genres digi packs. We included a running time on the back along with the names of the producers and production company. The bands website is clearly indicated so the consumer can find out more information. An image of the band is clearly shown on the front cover with the name of the band and album clearly surrounding it. The image of the band clearly resembles an oak tree which brings in visuals relating to the video reminding the audience of our other products. This also combines the two products together creating a clear link between them. This keeps the audience clear of the products they are buying and makes the minimum changes keep the focus on the product itself rather than the packaging it is contained in.
The magazine advert included an image of the band, like the digi pack, but without the cartoon editing. The rest of the magazine advert also includes conventions of real adverts such as music industry ratings, the name of the band and album and a website to find out more information. It includes similar imagery to the other media products such as the leaves in the background and the animals. Having consistency is one of the most important conventions to follow I believe as it keeps a professional feel as well as linking all the shots together in a smooth process. Without the consistency the piece may skip pieces out or make the piece not understandable. By continually checking our editing and by receiving feedback we were able to tackle this convention to keep our video looking professional.
The combination of our three media products contain evidence of continuity throughout to relate to one another. The cartoon presentation is included in all three products in numerous ways, such as the background of the digi pack and the animals in the magazine cover. The font is fairly similar in both the digi pack and magazine advert which is creates consistency making it stand out from other products and is bold to the audience. The styles of font, images and colours are all unique to the band and are all shown in a number of ideas that are really effective. The image of the band representing the title of the main song is rarely seen in other media products and is also unique, relating back to the conventions of the genre of music. The audience will recognise the images shown on the magazine advert with the music video and this may stand out to them, persuading them to purchase the product.
The music video and the ancillary texts work well together as they are clearly related to one another by the styles they consist of. The images of the dog, hedgehog and birds are all seen within the magazine advert and music video and this combines the two products well as the link is really clear. Other smaller details that link the products together can also be seen with such details as the font similarity within the digi pack and magazine advert. The leaves on the background of the magazine advert are to link the design with the song title as well as including the earthy colour scheme. It also gives the design a little bit of variety from the other pieces while still maintaining consistency. Keeping a link between all the products is important as it keeps the image simple for the audience and makes it clear to them that the product is the same that they have seen promoted. It also keeps to the conventions of the genre of the band and song to enable an understanding of what the consumer is really purchasing. It also means that the correct target audience are going to be interested in the product enabling the maximum potential for the product.
Our audience feedback helped us to realise we needed to add more detail on our blog and add more information about the decisions we made. One of the feedback points presented to us about our music video was that the digi pack and magazine advert should match the style of the video. Therefore we made sure we did this to keep a nice consistent theme. It also came from our audience so keeping them happy and introducing there ideas means that our overall product is going to be more specific to what they want creating better results. By using YouTube we were able to show our music video to other people and therefore receive more feedback. This meant we were able to see what people of other ages and locations thought, instead of just the people within our own media classroom. This left us with more suggestions to work with that we were able to incorporate into our final pieces.
To complete all our media products we had to become very good with Photoshop as it is included in all our pieces. I think we did very well with the knowledge we already knew and we have all improved greatly with the program to become confident with it. We were able to insert our images into Final Cut Express to produce our video and the outcome worked very well as the final feedback showed that the audience were impressed with our ideas and how we presented them. As the new media technology allows us to create more ideas and present them in a wider variety of ways we had greater opportunity to adapt our ideas and change them to suit our audience’s views. As the programs are designed to be democratic it did not take us long to become good enough at using Photoshop and Final Cut Express to create our finished products.
We used the internet to research for our products which is always easy to access. The internet is a new media technology and is being updated all the time. Anybody can add information to the internet and because of this there was a large number of resources available and there was always something we could use. Without the internet our resources would have been very much limited and the access to the information would have been harder as we would have had to have travelled to a music store or to someone with knowledge of the band to be able to gather ideas and find what we were looking for. We were also able to use the internet to research other media products that were similar to our ideas and the genre of our song. We were then able to extract ideas and conventions from our findings and use them to incorporate with our own pieces. The internet was also used to create a blog that we updated regularly to keep track of our ideas as well as planning and development stages. We were able to get feedback on the blog of our products and incorporate the results into our pieces which were very beneficial to us. We were also able to explain our ideas to our audience to create a better understanding.
Overall I think the hardest part of the whole project were using the new media technologies in a confident way and finalising our video. We had many problems with the time it took to render the video as when we left it for a long while before rendering; we had to wait well over an hour for it to be completed. During this time we kept our blog updated and carried on researching to create more ideas of what we could do to improve our video. We were also able to start research for our ancillary texts and gather ideas by following conventions. Editing our video was fairly easy and was just stressful when we had to wait to see what we had created because of the render waiting time. Having previous knowledge of Final Cut Express helped greatly as we were more confident and knew more about what the software was capable of. Without this knowledge our products would not have been as well developed and unique. However, I also think if we had more time we could have incorporated a few more images to create a more diverse visual display for our video and we could have added more animals and features to make the scene more realistic. The group I was with was good as we all shared similar ideas and we were all confident enough to express our individual ideas to create our final pieces. This was beneficial as we were able to use the best ideas and firstly see how well they worked, before finally deciding whether to keep them or not.
I feel that with the time we had, we were able to create products to our best ability and if we had more time we would have been able to produce more professional looking pieces. If I were to do this again I think I would try a different genre of music and a different media style. I think working in front of the camera would be easier than creating images from scratch like we did this time and this would allow us to have more time in the editing stages to create a more professional looking piece. I enjoyed the project and I believe I have learnt a lot from it, especially now that I can use Photoshop with more confidence.
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