Evaluation Part Two

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

We created a range of ancillary texts alongside our main product in order to create a whole artist image which the audience could recognise and relate to. We did this so we could create a whole promo package which would advertise our artist and promote her not only amongst her original fans but to gain wider public knowledge and increase the Belle Rose fan base through public awareness. We chose to create a digipack on release of the Belle Rose album ‘Flying High’ in order to publicise our artist in a positive light by using a variety of images that continue the theme of natural beauty and the photo on the front cover of the digipack re-enforces our star image motif as being sexy and fun whilst also being inspirational to our target audience. We chose to use a simple mise-en-scene when taking the pictures for our digipack to ensure a level of verisimilitude was kept in order for the audience and fan base to feel more in relation with Belle Rose and therefore more engaged with her music. We also chose to create a magazine advertisement in order to publicise the release of Belle Rose’s album and possible tour dates in Britain. This again was to promote our artist and increase public awareness. We ensured the magazine ad was published on certain websites and magazines such as social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook and magazines such as Glamour and Cosmopolitan. We thought social networking sites would be a great place to advertise Belle Rose as our target audience is 15-25 year old females and males and this is the age range which tend to use these types of social networking sites. In addition we aimed for our advertisement to be published in magazines such as Glamour and Cosmopolitan due to the fact that the target market for these magazines is females between the ages of 18 and 30 which covers the majority of our intended audience. This again increases public awareness of Belle Rose as well as increasing the fan base and making tour dates noted by a large audience.

Through previous preliminary tasks which were carried out before any initial planning of our final project, ‘She and Him’ class project and ‘Fast, Slow Sequences’ we learnt several skills which we were able to use and apply to our production work. Through our first preliminary task, which was to re-make the music video to ‘In the Sun’ by She and Him. This was a group task which involved our whole class. During this task I was involved in sorting out the costumes and also played the part of a dancer in several scenes. Although this task was very challenging, overall we learnt how to work together as a team as well as meeting time limits and deadlines as we only had one day to film the whole thing. In addition to this we learnt about Andrew Goodwins music video theory and were able to apply this to our music video. The main protagonist in the ‘She and Him’ video is also a female who subverts the stereotypical conventions of a female artist in her music video therefore we used this to help inspire us when trying to challenge conventions of typical music videos in the industry today.

For our second preliminary task, we were working in our music video production groups and were asked to create two short sequences; one fast, one slow, devised to two separate pieces of music. The main skills I personally learnt from producing these two sequences was how effective editing can be and how we were able to create two completely different sequences with the same footage, just by editing them in slightly different ways. Through this task, each member of the group was able to try different things out with the camera and editing as we were able to push the boundaries with this task therefore this was the time we could all try different things and take a risk. For example, before this task I did not particularly enjoy editing, however once realising what I could do, I then went on to really enjoy editing our final piece.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

We initially carried out a questionnaire on our audience to find out what they feel is most important in a music video and also what they would like to see in a pop video. The main surprise we found when analysing the results of our first audience questionnaire is that although pop and indie were the most popular genres of music, pop and alternative music videos were most popular. This showed us that if a music video is engaging enough, it can attract not only fans of the music but also other genre music fans who like the style of the video. This therefore allowed us to feel we could challenge typical forms of the pop genre music video and incorporate other ideas from different genres into our production in order to engage a wider audience and therefore increase the public awareness of Bell Rose.We also found that most people preferred lots of close-ups of the artist and through our artist research we found this was popular amongst female pop artists as well. However the usual close-ups in a music video are shown in a voyeuristic way and we wanted to subvert these stereotypes therefore we chose to use the close-up in a non-invasive way. When we had finished our music video and promo package we carried out another questionnaire on our audience so we could evaluate our whole promo package and analyse what worked well and what we could have improved upon. In this questionnaire we asked the audience about the magazine advertisement, the digipack and the overall music video. We also carried out a peer assessment sheet in order to gain feedback from other members of our class who had also produced their own projects. This enabled us to receive an accurate critical analysis of our project from a variety of different people that were interested in different genres of music but understood how the production of a music video happens. We asked them to rate each statement in a table out of 30 and give a level out of 4 with 4 being the highest. We then asked them a variety of open questions such as ‘Who do you consider to be the target audience of this video?’ and several others.

From our peer assessment we were able to analyse our music video In detail as the statements that were marked were very detailed and specific. An example is shown to the right. We were given full marks for most of our camera work, including; holding a shot steady when appropriate and using a variety of shot distances as appropriate. Overall as a group we are very happy with this feedback as we all took part in filming and framing the shots including the drawing of our storyboards therefore we planned our camera work thoroughly which is shown through the camera work in or music video. We also received high levels in shooting material appropriate to the task which again shows that we managed to create the effect that we intended to by creating and emphasizing the theme of natural beauty rather than voyeuristic approach most music videos in the pop genre take today. This was mainly due to our natural mise-en-scene in the park by the river as well as our costume and make-up ideas for Belle Rose being kept subtle and simple whilst still being sexy and attractive which our audience feedback showed us we managed to achieve. However although we received very positive comments for a lot of our camera work, we lost marks in selecting mise-en-scene including colour, figure, lighting, objects and setting as our peers felt that we could have used a variety of locations rather than just the ones we chose to use. We agree that if our video was to be improved, this is one of the main things we would change in order to keep our target audience engaged in the music video for longer and to make them want to watch it several times rather than just the once.

In the open questions we received positive comments relating to who they thought the target audience was as they described our target audience of young adults between the ages of 15 and 25 which is our intended audience therefore this shows they were able to figure this out from watching our video. We also found that people found the artist very believable and thought Belle Rose fitted the star image very accurately due to the costume and the mise-en-scene. They also said that the visuals and sound matched very well which again made the representation of the artist successful. Overall from our audience feedback we have been able to see that we were especially successful in our camera work however we could have improved our music video by using a variety of locations for filming and maybe having a narrative to the video in order to keep the audience engaged for a variety of viewings.

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

Throughout the research, production and distribution of our music video project we used a variety of different media technologies in order to make the separate parts of our project accessible on a variety of different media platforms and media technologies enabled us to do this. Due to the fact that we are a group of digital natives, we had access to a large amount of different technologies which we used to produce and promote our project, which were accessible to us at home, in the classroom and on the move. During our research and planning stages we used HD Sony cameras to film our preliminary tasks and then uploaded our footage onto Mac computers to edit this footage in iMovie HD. We also used Livetype to add text and effects to our fast/slow sequences which added a level of technology to our work. Throughout our research and planning stages we published what we were doing onto our blog in order to show a timeline of our work and how we eventually got to our final music video with the digipack and magazine article. Every piece of work that we carried out was able to be shown by us publishing it onto the blog in order to really get a feel for our artist and the work we have produced. We used LiveType during our planning process to create animatics of our digipacks to show exactly what we were going to film and how we intended the shots to be. This enabled us to film quickly and efficiently in the chosen locations as we had a clear idea of how we intended most of the shots to look like.During the filming of our music video, I took along my Cannon digital camera in order to take pictures of us filming to show the location, lighting, filming and group work which I then uploaded onto our blog.We continued to use media technologies when creating the magazine article and digipack to promote and distribute our artist. We used the internet to research several digipacks from artists from different genres, mainly pop, in order to give us inspiration when designing ours. We chose to use Livetype to create our digipack as we thought this was the most appropriate programme to use as we all knew how to use it and were able to create a high quality digipack for our album. We decided that the most appropriate place to place our digipack and tour dates advertisement was online on social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook as this is where the majority of our audience tend to log on to therefore this direct marketing strategy allows for our audience to be targeted directly and broadens public awareness of our artist..

When producing our final music video we used HD Sony cameras again as well as lighting kits. We then uploaded our footage onto the Macs in order to edit them and create a full music video in iMovie HD. Again we used LiveType to add effects to help our video run smoothly and hold some of the forms and conventions of typical pop videos in order for our audience to gain satisfaction when having an idea what to expect in their chosen genre of pop music video. We then converted the ‘Butterflies’ video into a QuickTime file so we were able to upload it onto YouTube which again increases public awareness and increases Belle Rose’s fan base.This use of digital convergence is also very important when appealing to current fans and when trying to increase public awareness to gain a larger fan base. It allows the audience to interact with the artist whenever they want to as they have access to the internet through their phones which they can use to view the video and interact with Belle Rose through this use of digital technology and convergence.Overall the access to and the use of a large variety of media technologies enabled us to produce and promote Belle Rose whilst interacting with the fans using a number of different media platforms in order to fully engage them and make them feel part of the promotion process.