Evaluation Question 4:

Evaluation Question 4: 

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

Evaluation Question 3:

Evaluation Question 3:

'What have you learned from your audience feedback?'  

Throughout the pre-production, production and post-production phases audience feedback has been vital in allowing me to improve my Music Video and Music Promo in order to produce products with a high production value, which cater to the desires of our target audience; therefore, making our product commercially viable.

Survey Monkey:

Before commencing the project, we asked our four focus group members, along with a sample of 45 other people aged 15-15, to provide us with their preferences on stylistic music video elements such as whether they would prefer a narrative, concept or performance-based music video through the creation of an online ‘Survey Monkey’. Our target audience ranged from 15-25, therefore, we tried to find a varied sample size which consisted of both genders in order to gain feedback that corresponded with a large proportion of our audience. This was particularly useful as the feedback allowed us to decipher that our target audience had a preference for a video with a storyline, therefore justifying our choice to create a predominantly narrative video, and they considered the purpose of a music video to be a ‘visual representation of the song’, which gave us more direction when considering ideas.

Utilisation of Social Media for feedback:

Throughout our project we constantly kept our focus group informed on the development of our products through the creation of a 'WhatsApp' group chat, whereby we shared our work and received feedback in a communal environment. This was particularly lucrative, as if one member had a certain viewpoint on our work, another could build on their point which inferred to us as creators that our target audience all have similar viewpoints and therefore, something that is liked by the sample focus group of our target audience is likely to be of high appeal to our overall target audience. The proliferation of hardware and the internet within our modern age combined with the ubiquity of mobile phones meant that contacting our actors, focus group and the wider audience was a quick and easy task, therefore, providing us with an abundance of vital feedback. Particular social media we used to contact our focus group include:

• WhatsApp Group Chat
• Snapchat Messaging Service 
• Facebook

In the initial development stages of pre-production, in which we created several ideas for our potential music video we asked our focus group for their favourite concept out of our five ideas and received the following feedback:

Final Music Video Feedback:

What could be improved? - Feedback: 

What did we learn from this final feedback?:

The purpose of our music video is to entice and engage our audience through the creation of a music video which adheres to genre conventions. It is evident from the reaction we received from our focus group that we were successful in this endeavor. It is notable that Charlotte asked us ‘Whether Ben was actually signing’, accentuating our success as she assumed the lip-syncing was real, which means it was executed to a professional standard. 

We also learnt that the balance between narrative and performance was successful, as it kept an upbeat pace which linked to the happy and energetic nature of the song. It is clear that the universal themes (that would particularly resonate with our target audience, such as young love and rebellion) we tried to interweave into our video were recognised by our focus group. Izzy guessed our target audience was 15-25, due to the exploration of the “universal theme of young love and relationships.” The variety of shots used made our video successful as it evidenced our incorporation of conventional indie shots that we had researched in our initial stages.

Adversely, we also learned about the potential methods of improvement if we were to re-produce our music video. Abdullah, in particular, stated that ‘in the couple montage scene at the very beginning’ we could film ‘more shots during the nighttime, to exemplify the passing of time before they go back to his house’. This would ensure complete clarity of the budding relationship between the two protagonist’s and would allow us to take a more literal interpretation of the lyrics as we could have shown them walking to the male protagonist’s house and ‘dancing in the kitchen’. This lyric is repeated several times, therefore we could repeat these shots multiple times during the video as he has flashbacks of her. 

An infographic stating that nearly the enitrety of an extended focus group we asked enjoyed the music video and would choose to watch it again. The one 'indifferent' result was from a member of our focus group who really enjoyed the music video, however, he found the song itself too repetitive. This depicted to us that our target audeince felt the music video was "very indie" and "really enjoyed it".

Evaluation Question 2:

Evaluation Question 2:

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

Transcript:

• In order to ensure the effective combination of my main and ancillary products it was of vital importance that they shared similarities in order for our target audience to associate them with one another.

• From the RMA research, I conducted in the research phase, it is notable that most indie music videos utilise a dark mise-en-scene/colour scheme throughout; a convention that is then continued and exhibited within several artist’s supporting advertising and on the digipaks. We decided to employ synergy, linking our advertising and our main product through the linked colour schemes, which consisted of black and white (monochromatic colours) with a slight low-opacity acid wash effect and scratch overlays. The scratch overlays and slight acid wash effect can be exhibited in our music promo through overlays on certain footage (particularly the location of the underpass within the opening of the music video which is the location of the photographs from/basis of the ancillary tasks), and I have utilised a HD still of an acid wash that is overlaid on each of our Photoshop ancillary tasks/ designed digipak and advertisement.

• We generated our chosen artists individual brand identity –USP through the creation of a logo. A logo makes our band easily identifiable, as it can be featured within music videos, promotional material, and on the line up for indie festivals. This features upon each of our individual products (music-promo, magazine advertisement and digipak), notifying the target audience of the band’s identity within the indie genre, and ensuring memorability. The contrast between the black background and the striking white scratch typeface featured in the band’s logo, makes the logo stand out. The polaroid originally was our concept motif featured on all of our branding, however, we received the feedback that our digipak needed to represent the band as an entity, and contained other songs, rather than being solely focused on the single New Religion, as the picture directly correlated with this single. This meant our digipak appeared to be more of a single.

Evaluation Question 1:

Evaluation Question 1:

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

In order to convey how our media product, uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products myself and my partner decided to create a directors commentary. A directors commentary consists of a number of narrative interjections that feature over our final music video, which can be evidenced below:

The Director's Commentary:

Andrew Goodwin's Music Video Theory:
Similarly, Andrew Goodwin's 'Music Video Theory' has been highly influential on our music video, throughout the phases of pre-production, production and post-production and we have chosen to subvert and adhere to a number of his theorems within our final product.

Our final music promo adheres to Andrew Goodwin’s Music Video Theory throughout. Goodwin states that there should be a strong relationship between the lyrics and the matching visuals, something that we have clearly explored through our interpretation of the constant references to light.

When deducing the lyrics in our research stage, we decided to utilise a metaphorical interpretation of lyrics mentioning the concept of ‘light’, making the female protagonist ‘the light of our male protagonist’s life’ as she becomes his ‘new religion’. Therefore, on every mention of light, the viewer is shown a shot of the female surrounding by high-key lighting and wearing a bright yellow t-shirt within her costume, thus connoting upbeat and joyful feelings reminiscent of what is felt by the lead protagonist, which creates a direct amplified link between the lyrics and the visuals, which is drummed into the vision of the viewer.

More literally, on the lyric “waking me up in the morning” the male protagonist is shown in a close-up shot, to be waking up. The high-key natural lighting reflecting through the blinds portrays that it is morning, therefore adhering to Goodwin’s theory of visuals being a literal interpretation of surface level lyric meaning.

Goodwin also believed that it was of paramount importance for an artist to be featured in their own music video through the utilisation of performance aspects, which is another convention we have adhered to. However, in slight subversion to the theorem we decided to employ a 60:40 split between the narrative and performance segments within our music video. We felt this was appropriate after we conducted research on current Real Media Artefacts of the indie genre as despite the prevalence of solely performance based indie music videos available within the genre, indie bands that utilised clever narrative videos, that were comprised of universal themes to their target audience did very well in terms of audience reception. The utilisation of a performance aspect is highly prevalent in the indie genre as it represents the sheer passion the artist has for their music, and similarly, represents the energy and sheer buzz surrounding the band which entices viewers to purchase concert tickets, in order to see them perform live.

However, in sheer juxtaposition, we decided to completely challenge the typical inclusion of a voyeuristic view of the female body within music videos. As a female, I feel the objectification of women evident in music video’s is solely unnecessary and degrading therefore, I wanted to turn this concept of a passive female on its head. This notion of female empowerment is becoming increasingly ingrained into young female adult culture (as well as male culture), and therefore would relate to our target audience. In order to exemplify this, there are no ‘male gaze’ shots and the final shot we see of the girl is from a long-angle shot, evidencing the metaphorical and literal distance between the couple. She waves satirically at him and then disappears from the frame. It is inherently clear that she is not a passive female, and in subversion to perceived gender roles, she has ‘played’ the male protagonist throughout the music video, allowing him to appear like the damsel in distress.