Our finalised products.

(Here is the version with the Digipak template over the top)

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

How did you use new media technologies in from toriwheatley11

Evaluation: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

In order to establish what we have learned from our audience feedback, we must first analyse it:

Question 1 of our surveymonkey survey:

Did you like our music video?

Only 7 people replied to our survey monkey, however here are the results out of the 7 people:

• YES- 6
• No- 1

From these answers, it is evident that our music video was enjoyed. This is particularly good, for us, as we felt that our music video may not be liked as it was slow moving and emotional. However, this proves that emotional videos can still be enjoyed.

What did you enjoy about our music video?

When checking the results to this question, we realised that some people answered inappropriately, so we will not include their results into our analysis, however the answers that we can analyse are:

• I enjoyed the fact that you avoided fast paced editing. It added to the emotional value of your video.
• I enjoyed the effective editing and good lip synching.
• I enjoyed the actress.
• I enjoyed the song.
• The quick editing.
• The varied camera shots.

Although some answers are contrasting eachother, overall, the most mentioned answer is to do with our editing. This shows us that we have used our editing techniques effectively to portray the emotions and story that we wanted to portray.
The actress and her lip synching were also mentioned, meaning that we chose the right person to suit the video and to portray the emotions how we visioned her too.

What was your favourite part?

• I don't have a favourite part, it was all brilliant.
• The end.
• The montage sections.
• The beginning lip synching.
• The snow scenes.

We have a varied response from this question. One person enjoyed the video completely, which obviously means we have effectively created the video, however, the locations we used seem to play a big part in this question, as two people replied with 'the montage sections' and 'the snow scenes' which are the same thing.
Therefore this shows that we have effectively chosen suitable locations and that they fit the song and the narrative. At times we were unsure whether the montage section would work in relation to the rest of the video. However we have discovered that its inclusion helped to tie the narrative of the story together.

Would you change anything about our music video?

•  Perhaps the singer could of put more expression into the song?
• No nothing at all.
• No.
• No.
• No.
• No.

This feedback is extremely helpful when finding what we did wrong with our video. As the majority answered 'no', it shows us that we chose the correct shots, editing techniques, locations and mise en scene to suit the song to the best we could.

Do you think our music video suited the song?

• 6 people - Yes
• 0 people- No
• 1 person- Unsure

Most of the responses agreed that our music video matched the song, which shows that the interpretation we provided was valid and reflected the meaning of the song. Also, it suggests that the participants understood the narrative depicted in our video, which we are very relieved about.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/analyze/?survey_id=39625724&OPT=NEW


Earlier on in the year, i decided do some research and audience feedback into music videos overall.

Here is the link to the post that contains this research :
http://toriwheatleyrca2.blogspot.com/b/post-preview?token=_w1v8T0BAAA.S-ktLXbRgPss1IFCJOA1hw.jR8MZGrAkbF5omVu-z7B0A&postId=2537651057715851630&type=POST


In this research, i learned that the majority of the people that watch music videos are between the ages of 16-18. These results came back as we expected them too, so we tried to make our video suitable to this age group.
This meant that our video would have to be mature and respectable, but also relatable to a teenage audience. We made it relatable by including a teenage relationship into the video.

I also learned that the majority of people enjoyed the emotions that were created in many different types of videos, putting us slightly at ease. One person also mentioned that they liked the fact that a video 'shows a story', which is one of the reasons we put a narrative into our video.

This feedback tells us that our video should be one of the more popular videos in the music world, as it includes elements that the majority enjoy.



We understand that our audience research is limited, as only 7 people responded to our survey. However, as the people who DID respond to our survey were people who fit into the catagory of our target audience. Therefore, even if more and a wider range of people had of answered our surveys, their opinion would be redundant as we aren't trying to target them.

This is not to say that our current research was not helpful, as it did help us in understanding what we did right and wrong with our products etc.

Evaluation: How effective is the combination of your video and ancillary texts (DVD digipak and magazine avertisement0?

How effective is the combination of your main from toriwheatley11


As we stated in the powerpoint, we tried to make all three of our texts relatable in some way.
However, when making the magazine advert, we decided we wanted to make it directly relatable to the video, as the magazine advertisement is one of the ways the album is publicised.

Therefore, it is more important that the magazine advert is similar top the video. 

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

For this question, I have creted a Prezi presentation, which allows me to display my answer in a new and unique way.

Audience Feedback: Filming and Editing.

A large part of audience feedback involves the use of surveys, so today i decided to make a survey to ask the public what they think of our video.

Doing this will mean that we are able to complete the evaluation section of our project, as well as being able to understand how the audience reacted to our video.

Aside from making a survey we also decided to film ourselves asking several questions about our music video.We will then analyse the results.

The five questions that we believe are most relevant to ask on the survey are:

• Did you like our music video?
• What did you like best about our music video?
• Would you change anything about our music video?
• Do you think the video suited the song?
• What was your favourite part about our video?

Audience Theory- The Uses and Gratifications Model - How does this apply to our video?

As the Uses and Gratifications model states, the audience are active when consuming a text and we expect the effect of each text to differ between each individual.

As afore mentioned, The Uses and Gratifications model believes that people consume texts to gratify a 'need'. Here are the 'needs' that we believe can be fulfilled by watching our video:  

• Relatability - Many people who are grieving, alone or isolated may be able to share a connection with our text and its narrative.
• For pleasure - Many people watch/read tragic love stories or dramatic and emotional texts sheerly for their own pleasure.
• To inform and compare - We feel that our text enlightens the audience to the difficulties many people experience and audience may therefore benefit from digesting our text and comparing it with their own lifestyles.
• To escape- By watching our text, some people may feel they have left reality and have entered the world of the text.

The main purpose of our music video was to highlight the emotions of Gabrielle Aplin, portrayed through her song and create a visual text that supports and empathizes with these emotions. We feel that relatability and escapism are the most prominent sections of the Uses and Gratifications model that are the most related to our text. However, it can also be argued that pleasure is also entirely relatable, as romantic and tragic love texts are among the most succesfull of all media texts, making our text relevant to that catagory.

Audience Theory - Analysis of finished video - The Effects Model.

We have recently learned about the Effects Model theory and have studied the points that it makes.

How does this theory relate to our video?
-This model suggests that media texts must have a negative effect on the audience. However, although the message we portray through the video IS sad, we feel that our music video does not necessarily have the ability to cause a negative effect on the audience, e.g violence or crime. The video does contain aspects of sadness, and missing sombody, however there are no scenes of crime, violence or 'wrongdoings' that would provoke an audience.
-We do not feel that any of the behaviour in our video will be copied.
-We do not see any reason for our text to be banned, like many of the texts that fit the theory have been.
-Our video does not provoke a moral panic.
-We do not feel that the audience will be intoxicated by our video, which consequently means that this model is not applicable.

Digipak- 2nd and final draft.

We decided not to use the images that we were planning on using and decided to take some more pictures of our own that were more relatable to the song.

As the song is called 'Home', and we haven't actually included a 'Home' in the video, we decided to incorporate it into the digipak.

Here are the images we are planning on using:

The shots of just grass will be used along side the main front cover image, making a landscape like image overall. 

We also decided to take pictures of a guitar and incorporate those into our digipak, as our video
 and the song contains guitar.

Here is the digipak we created using the images of the guitar and the images above:

We decided to go for a simple look, as our products overall, are relatively simple.

Once the images were added onto the digipak, we decided to use a font that looked like a girls handwriting, to make the title of the front cover.

This handwriting gives the audience something to relate too, so we decided to use this for the track list and back cover too.

We decided to make this a single, not an album, so on the track list, we put the single, (with video included), a behind the scenes video, and an interview with Gabrielle Aplin, once again, to help the audience relate and connect with her as much as possible.

On the back cover, we put a personal message from Gabrielle Aplin and her signature, which (especially if people were big fans), would encourage audiences to buy the digipak and single.

Finally, we added a barcode, as anything that must be sold or bought must have one.

Audience Theory- Feminist Film Theory and Audiences

The Feminist Film Theory and Audiences was created by Laura Mulvey in her 1975 essay, 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema', which looked at how women were photographed in cinema.
Mulvey states that cinema reflects society and therefore cinema reflects the patriarchal nature of society.
Mulvey's work is catagorised into three sections:

• The 'Gaze'
• Agency
• Erotic desire

The 'Gaze'
This is where the 'gaze' of the camera is that of the male 'gaze'. The male 'gaze' is active whilst the female 'gaze' is passive. Throughout a narrative, Mulvey believes that the male 'gaze' is directed towards the female characters. The audience is made to identify with the male 'gaze' as the camera films from the optical as well as the lbidinal point of view of the male character.

There are three levels of the cinematic 'gaze'; the camera, character and spectator and these objectify the female character. This is known as the Triple Gaze.
The Triple Gaze :

Audience -> Camera -> Male -> Female
A consequence of the triple gaze is that audiences are forced into viewing the female as a sexual object. An example of this is found in James Bond: Doctor No, where Ursula Andress is viewed with the male 'gaze'.

In this clip, Andress is viewed through the male 'gaze' and is viewed as an object of desire. The majority or James Bond films follow this, which is why they were generally popular with males. However, James Bond: Quantom of Solace was favoured by women, and was viewed through a female 'gaze'.
The audience is constructed as though everyone was male. Women are forced to look at the text as though they were a male member of the audience.
This occurs through the process of Suture.

Agency

In classical Hollywood cinema, the male protaganist has agency- he is active and powerful. He is the agent, and the dramatic action unfolds around him. The female character is passive and powerless- she is the object of desire for the protagonist and audience.

Erotic Desire

Mulvey argues that women have two roles in a film:

• To be an object of erotic desire for the characters
• To be an object of erotic desire for the audience.

This is supported by a large number of media texts, such as Glee, which is primarliy a comedy. In this instance, a student is dressed in a nurse's outfit and is viewed using the male 'gaze. It is obvious that this character is the object of erotic desire.


However, men are also objectified in certain texts and viewed as the object of sexual desire. An example of this would be the Twilight Saga. A saga known for its excessive use of topless-ness and attractive male characters.

 

Audience Theory - Suture

Suture is the way in which, in particular Hollywood, films are created, in terms of narrative, sound, editing and mise-en-scebe.
This positions the audience in certain ways, making only the preffered reading possible, however unconscious the audience is of that position.
An example of Suture is shown in the film 'Crash'. In this film, the father gives his daughter a 'bullet-proof cloak'. From this scene, the emphasis is placed on the cloak and how the girl believes that it actually exists.
Therefore, the audience are prepared for the girl to come into danger when the father is confronted by an angry man with a gun.
From the emphasis of the cloack, to the slow motion shots of the girl running towards her father, it is clear what is going to happen.
The audience are 'stitched' into the film and cannot escape the sympathy they feel for the family, exactly the way the producer wnts them too.

Audience Theory- The Reception Theory.

The Reception Theory is a theory created by academic, Stuart Hall in the 1970s.

This theory considered how texts were encoded with meaning by producers and then decoded by audiences. The theory suggests that: 

• When a producer creates a text, it is encoded with a meaning or message that they want to convey to the audience.  
• In some cases, the audience will correctly decode the message and understand what the producer is conveying. 
• In other cases, the audience reject or fail to understand the message that the producer is attempting to convey.
  

Hall identified these three readings as:

• Dominant or preferred.
• Negotiated.
• Oppositional.

Dominant readings.

This is when the audience decodes the message as the producer wants them too, and largely agrees with it. An example of this would be watching a political speech and agreeing with it,

Negotiated readings.

This is when the audience accept, reject or refine the message in light of previous views or texts that they have seen. An example of this would be, watching a policital speech and neither agreeing nor disagreeing to it.

Oppositional reading.

This is when the audience either decode the message wrong, or reject the message portrayed by the producer. An example of this would be watching a political speech and disagreeing with it completely.

Audience Theory- The Uses and Gratifications Model

A futher theory regarding the way audiences digest texts is the Uses and Gratifications Model. This model is opposite to the Effects Model and its main points are:

• The audience are ACTIVE instead of PASSIVE.
• The audience uses the text and is not used by it.
• The audience uses the text for their own pleasure (gratification).

With this model, it is evident that the power lies in the audience's hands, and not with the producers. The audience is far from being duped by the media, and is free to reject, use or play with meanings of a media text.
This model claims that audiences use media texts to gratify needs for:

• Escapism
• Information
• Pleasure
• Sexual stimulation
• Relatability and comparisons with own lifestyle
• Diversion

This means that media texts overall help people with issues like:

• Learning
• Relaxation
• Emotional stimulation
• Help with issues of social identity
• Help with issues of personal identity
• Help with issues of aggression and violence.

This model controversially states that the consumption of violent images can be helpful rather than dangerous to an individuals mental state. Additionally, it also suggests that audiences act out their violent impulses through the comsumption of media violence. The audiences need for violence is therefor subliminated, meaning less/no need to act upon it.

Audience Theory -The Effects Model.

Previously, in class, we learned about The Effects Model, which is an audience theory. In order to analyse our final product in the most useful way possible, we must look at it from several points of view.

The Effects Model is a theory relating to how audiences interpret and are affected by media texts, and in turn, our music video.

What is The Effects Model?

• The Effects Model believes that the consumption of media texts have an influence upon the audience.
• It is generally considered that the effect of this text is negative.
• Audiences are viewed as 'passive' and 'powerless' to prevent the influence that the text has on them.
• The model is also reffered to as the Hypodermic Model.
• Here, the messages in media text are hypothetically 'injected' into the minds of the audience by the 'syringe-like' media.
• As the audiences are powerless, the media works like a drug, intoxicating the audience who are now addicted and affected.

Is there evidence of this model being true?

• In the 1920s and 30s, the Frankfurt School theorised that the mass media acted to restrict and control audiences to the benefit of corporate capitalism and governments.
• The Bobo Doll experiment, created by Albert Bandura in 1961 shoes that 88% of children tested, imitated the violent behaviour shown to them and 40% reproduced the same behavious 8 months after the initial experiment.

• The film, Child's Play 3 was held responsible for provoking two children into the murdering of James Bulger in 1993.
• The game Manhunt is also blamed for the Warren LeBlanc murder of Stefan Pakeerah in 2004.
• The film A Clockwork Orange was viewed as provoking rape and violent attacks in 1971.
• The film Severance was percieved as the inspiration of Simon Everitt's murder in 2006.

All of these cases are prime examples of what The Effects Model is stating... however not all cases have been proven to be related to the media texts involved. For example, the James Bulger case in 1993 was, according to politicians, caused by the film Child's Play 3, however, it has never been proven that the boy's watched this film.
This in turn, causes faults in the James Bulger case.

Filming - Capturing different angles.

To make our music video a professional standard, we must try to avoid using 'boring' shots as much as possible. After looking at hundreds of music videos through my lifetime and throughout this project, it is evident that the best videos are the ones that use the most interesting and creative shots.

As part of the flackback sections of the filming that we have done, we toko inspiration from Justin Bieber's video, 'Beauty and a Beat'.



In this video, Justin uses a handheld camera to film the majority of the video, and not only has this rarely been done before, but it also adds an element of excitement and fun to the piece. Not to say that this video looks amateur, but using the handheld camera gives the effect of an amateur filming and we would like to use this effect in our video, for the flashback sections in which Katy's boyfriend, (Matt) is holding the camera.

Editing- Emphasizing the lip synching during the video.

Part of our coursework's requirements are to make sure that good quality lip-synching is included in our video. To make our lip synching obvious to the examiner, we have decided to feature lip synching for solid chunks of time in places such as the chorus and first verse.

In these sections, our singer (Katy) performs at mid shots and close up's so that the footage of her lips, is really clear.

Images for our digipak- First draft.

Instead of taking photos for all of the images on our digipak, we have attempted to take stills from our video, as they will then directly relate to the video and song.
Here are some images that we believe could be suitable for the inner/less relevant images on the digipak.

Digipak - Creating our digipak.

In order to create our digipak, we need to find a template that is to scale and contains all aspects of a digipak.

Using Google.com, we found a template that we thought would be suitable for our digipak.
The measurements are exactly what we need and the overall template of it, is what we need.

Now that this is done, we can begin editing and adding the images that we have so far to the template.

Our finalized magazine advert.

Here is our finalised magazine advert. Although the picture looks relatively simple, we used subtle techniques that took us a lot of time to create this effect.

Most magazine adverts are put into a magazine at a portrait style, like this: *insert example advert*


However we decided that we did not like this original idea and wanted to do something different. So we decided to make our advert landscape and portray it as a double page spread in a magazine.

We originally took the picture as a 'tester', to see what kind of image we would like to create... however when uploading the image we realised that we actually liked it quite a lot.

We used Photoshop to select Katy, and make her in focus, compared to the background that is out of focus and blurred. We created this technique by selecting the background and using the 'motion' effect. We used this effect as, not only does it look good, but it also is suits the video. This is because the video is set in natural, outdoor settings.

Once we had created this we used 'DaFont' to find a font that we thought was suitable to match the style of the video and song. We decided to go for a font called *insertfontnamehere*, as its girly, handwritten style matches the girly song and indie style.

Research and Planning - Digipak Analysis

To understand the construction of a digipak we decided to analyse the images we could get of Gabrielle Aplin's most recent album. This helped us figure out the type of fonts we should use, the colours and overall layout that we could use.

Digipak work - Collecting and Analysing Images.

As we're working on our digipak we have decided to take some pictures of the internet and analyse what makes them effective and whether we would like to use images similar to this for our digipak.


Here is one image taken from the internet that could be used for a digipak. This would not be suitable for our digipak as it is too bright, and summery and we are trying to give an autumn impression.

This image would be perfect for a digipak like ours as it embraces the colours and nature of the autumn season.

It is also set outside, like most of our video.

Although this image captures a couple at their wedding, the location of the image and the location of the couple inside the image would be perfect for one of the faces of our digipak. The lighting and settings suit our video and the couple together captures not only the meaning of the song but the overall look of the digipak we wanted to create.

Planning - Magazine advertisement photographs.

Here are the photographs that were taken to use for our magazine advertisement.

Although we did not manage to get the suitable footage that we wanted done, on Thursday, we did manage to take these photos, meaning our time was slightly less wasted than we thought at first.

After messing around with the photos after a little while, (editing the contrast, brightness and colours etc) on photoshop, we decided that this will be the photo that we use for our digipak.



(ADD NORMAL PHOTO OF KATY)



Once we decided on how we wanted the photograph to look, we started to test different fonts and colours of fonts that would work on the image.

We went with this font, after using DaFont.com :

This font is girly, and looks handwritten, which matches the indie style we are trying to create.





We also used filters and effects to create change the focus of the image.


ADD IMAGE OF FILTERS

Editing- Using Photoshop and LiveType.

As part of the music video, the title and artist must be placed at the beginning and at the end, much like the video's shown on music channels. To do this we decided to use Adobe Photoshop for the first part of the process.

After opening Photoshop, the first thing that we did was created a new file. We decided to make this transparent which meant that when eventually put onto Final Cut Express, only the writing would be visible.

Using the text tool, we seleected an area and typed out the information needed. We changed the font, colour and size as necessary.

To finish adding the song title and artist to our video we needed to use LiveType. After placing the file into LiveType, we then had to adjust the settings. The images below show the timeline, as well as the options available for changing the size and other attributes of the image.


After making sure the text is the right size, we exported the clip into a QuickTime movie which allowed us to place it into Final Cut Express.

Advertisement - Components of an advertisement.

To make sure that our magazine advertisement is of a professional standard, we must ensure that we include the correct information and follow the codes and conventions set by other adverts.

The things we must include are:

• Name of the artist
• The name of the album/tour.
• The dates of release
• An image associated with the artist.
• A logo of a branded company that would sell the product
• A URL of the artists website
• The artists record label logo
• A star rating with a suitable source

If we include these the likelihood of our advert looking more professional, is high.

Editing -The final parts of our video.

Here are some shots of our final editing. All we have left to do is add some shots of Katy playing the guitar and piano and our video will be done. Whilst we take these shots we can also take pictures for our final images of the digipak and then we will be finished.

Editing - Editing the video and planning ahead.

Here are more shots of our editing process. In this shot we are rendering the clips that we have done so far. As the weather is still pretty bad, we cannot film more of the clips that we want to film, meaning we have to spend our time editing the shots that we have got so far. Although without the shots that we need, we are finding this very difficult.

Here is a weather report of this week,  as we're trying to find the best day to film.

Unfortunately, the weather is still due to be bad till the end of the week, but hopefully on Friday and Sunday we can catch some sunlight and get the rest of our filming done.

We know that weather reports aren't always reliable, however they give us a rough idea to base our planning on. As they aren't always correct we have to be ready with the camera to film at any point in this week when the sun comes out.

Research and planning- Further target audience research and the analysis of the results that we achieved.

Recently I realised that I am limited on the target audience research that I have taken, to help us with our video. I believe that when we have good feedback from many people, making our video will be slightly easier and we will know how a target audience would expect a video or magazine advert to look.

So when realising this, i decided to use as many websites and techniques as i possibly could, to get feedback from a wide audience that would give opinions on their tastes in music videos and what they would like to see come from a video by an artist such as Gabrielle Aplin.

I decided to make charts explaining the results of the surveys:

How Old Are You? The majority of people who responded to my surveys were 16+ meaning our video must be mature and satisfying for a slightly older audience. However, we cannot rule out appealing to a younger audience, as we wish to appeal to as many people as possible.

What is your favourite music video and why is this?



Would you go out of your way to watch a music video? This research shows us that although some people don't necessarily enjoy watching music videos... the majority do. This tells us that we need to make sure that our music video is extremely interesting, tells a good story and portrays the song in the way it is supposed to.

What is your favourite musical genre?


This research shows us that dance and pop music overall are the favoured genres of music. Although Gabrielle Aplin-Home, definately isn't dance music, it can be classified as pop. Meaning we would have a wide audience watching our video.

What is your favourite style of music video?

 Similarly to films, a comical music video is favoured over an animated or an emotional video. Unfortunatly, the song we are making the video too, IS emotional, referencing love, family and home, meaning we are going to have to put extra effort in, to make sure that the video appeals to the people who do not like emotional, serious videos with a story line.


Overall, what makes a good music video, in your opinion?

Filming- How our filming went.

Although we got most of the shots we needed when filming on Thursday, (as planned), and it WAS sunny, (as planned), when we got back to the media rooms and uploaded the footage we had, we realised that it still wasn't quite sunny enough to match the other shots we have for the video so far. This means that unfortunately, we will have to go out and re-film the shots that did not look good enough to be part of our video.

We all understand that we have left the filming and editing very late in the year and that we need to get it done as soon as possible, however, we are (unfortunately) waiting for slightly better weather to film in. We understand that, as its winter, turning to spring, the weather can be extremely unreliable. We realised this on days such as yesterday. When the sun was shining, it wasn't too windy, or cold, so we all organised to meet up and re-film as much as possible so that we can start to finish with our editing... however, by the time we actually got to meet up, (around an hour after we first decided to film), clouds come over and it started to rain. Rain being weather thats NOT suitable for our video, as the sunnier the weather, the better we think our video will look.

Research and Planning - New Mood Board.

As we changed our idea for the video, we have to recreate our mood board.

Here is the start of the new board that we are creating however, when trying to use pinterest, we decided that we did not like the layout of the boards, so we decided to carry on using glogster.com





Here is my new and improved glogster mood board, that suggests themes, or ideas that are in our newer video.

Planning- Weather reports planning for our final day of filming.

As we only have a few shots left to film, (landscape shots and more close ups), we have to make sure that the day we are filming is sunny enough to match the rest of the video and to make it easier for us to film.

We have decided that we will film the very last of our video and take shots for our digipak and magazine advert on thursday, as it will be one of the less windy, and sunnier days.

Treatment, shooting schedule and planning.

Here is the treatment for our our overall, finished video idea, explaining the roles in the group, the title of the song, artist, the synopsis and the key genre conventions of the video we created. 

Here is the shooting schedule of our video. It shows the dates we went out to film, the scenes we were filming, the locations, equipment, costumes and props that we had to use, along with the cast or crew.

Here is another risk assessment, assessing the precautions that we had to take during the filming process. 

Here is a list of the costumes and props used during our process of filming. As we did not make a specifically themed video, such as a dance theme, we did not need to choose or buy specific outfits for the actor to wear. 

Although we have not used any of the shots that contain the props, we still took many shots involving props. We decided not to use these shots as we did not like how unrealistic they look. Here is the plan explaining the problems we had, and how we had to overcome them. 

Here is the shot list explaining the shots that we had to take.