2. How effective is the combination of your main and ancillary products?

As the video does not contain any performance, we made sure that the costumes and props fitted in with the genre of music and image of the band. This will attract the stereotypical audience that are usually into the indie genre of music. Our video would be comsumed as primary media by the audience, as they chose to watch it and consume it in a way which could relate to themselves. The digipak and tour poster is also primary/secondary media, as the audience choose to buy and listen to, or look at the tour poster in order to give information on the gigs and band. Our ancillary products are all linked by the photographs and fonts chosen, also the colouring of the products have been kept simple, this is to make sure all of the products are obviously linked using the same ideolgy. We want the audience to see our products and know who the band are straight away.

Final Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IaUVar7G4c

Album - Front & Back covers

Album - Inside Digipak

The following images were taken in and around the recording studio and house of the band, the photographs show the personality of the band in true light. That being the reason that I chose to shoot these images in this location, rather than doing a shoot in a studio.

The mise-en-scene reflects the genre of music that the band produce.

Adverisement (Tour Poster)

Our origional tour poster

Feedback

We asked.....

They answered.....

Taking all of the feedback on board, we made afew changes.....

We choose to stay with a black and white theme as we thought by having the black background helps the writing on white stand out as the information on the poster. We tried

having the dates first then the city, but decided it would be better to put the city then the date because the first thing fans are going to look at is to see where the band is playing in relation to where they live. We put an image of the album and the release date on the poster, as on many tour posters, certain albums are shown, because many bands do tours to promote or in aid of their new releases, so fans will know what songs they will be playing. We had a guitar as the background image, as it shows the genre of music and type of band the Tantrums are. We put the logos for myspace, facebook and twitter so fans know they can find out more information about the tour and band or just get to know and listen to the band on these social networking sites.

Drafts.....

 

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge form and conventions of real media products?

Codes and conventions - Most music videos have elements of performance and narrative, but we decided to challenge real media products as many videos include performance showing the band members/artist. Our video is narrative only, we chose to use a non-linear narrative as we wanted to tell the story backwards, we thought this would be interesting and different for the audience to watch and we also figured it fitted surprisingly well with the song.

Narrative and narrative theory - Torodovs theory is that there is an equilibruim where everyone is calm there is disruption. Someone realises the disruption and repairs it, then there is a new equlibrium. In the video we used a non linear narrative, which tells our story backwards. However Torodovs theory is still shown, through the beginning, middle and end - showing a couple getting along then the disruption of the finding out about cheating, we also have  a new equilibrium when its calmers and things have changed, the boy in the video remeniscing by looking at a photo of the couple even though they are not together.#
We also have Strauss theory (Binary opposites) in our video as boy and girl - known as opposites, our video challenges this as it is stereotypically the boy who is known to cheat in most music videos, our audience most probably would not expect the girl to be the one who cheats.

The codes and conventions of music videos include voyeurism, in our video we have shown voyeurism by watching the story of the actors. Videos are edited to the timing of the music, we edited the video to ensure that certain clips work with the lyrics, for example when it says 'im not saying it was your fault' we have them arguing, this could be the actual line coming from the actor at this point. Some videos have close ups of the artist, we challenged this because we did not show performance in our video, but managed to show a range of different shots, but had close ups of he actors in the video to show emotion of their facial expressions, to show the audience how their feeling which helps them understand the storyline better and have tracking shots to follow the action, for example in the origional Kooks - naive video, they track the girl through the night club to show where she is going, in our video we followed/tracked her walking up the road and into the other boys house to show the audience that she was going to another boys house, we also had close ups of her face and her turning her head to show how daring this act was, as if she could not get caught. This is shown in the expressions and the cliche turn of the head to see if anybody is actually about.


Digipak & Advert-
Cds use conventions such as

• Artists name
• Artists image
• Album name
• Barcode
• Songs
• Distribution and production logos

We used an image of a guitar on the glass, and turned it into a black and white image, and this can challenge the conventions of a album as many indie cds use colour images. The album representing the whole genre and band as is the poster, our poster does not have an image of the band on it, allowing the gerne to be presented through a very simple image, the more indie audiences do not seem as obessed with the band as pop fans do, so this idea seemed more logical. Indie auidences may just want to know the music and go to the gigs, and if they wanted to know more about the band the CD does tell them that, it also has photographs inside the digipak which can inform and update them on the band. We used forms of real media products such as keeping to a colour scheme throughout the digipack and tour poster as many real products use the same colour scheme and images from the cd to the tour poster to show the tour is for that certain album. We used the same font on the CD cover and poster, its big and bold so it would stand out and its easy for people to read, its quite edgy so makes it interesting.

4. How have you used new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

 We used a website called blogspot.com to document all of our coursework and research.

Youtube has been a key source for researching music videos, digipaks and theories.

I used google as my main search engine, everything I do online usually goes through google.

We used facebook to get audience feedback, we thought this would be the most effective way to recieve feedback as it is the most popular social networking site at the moment.






SDR- S26 - The SDR-S26 is the camera we used to film most of the clips for our videa, we also used equipment such as tripods to help us get the right shots and angles.

HD SD card- We used a HD SD card to save the clips we filmed, by saving them to HD SD card instead of just the camera, it was easier to transfer them into the laptops to edit them as all we had to do was insert the card into the laptop.

Windows movie maker - We used windows movie maker to do our animatics which is images of our storyboard to the music, this would help us with the order and know how our video is going to look like, we came across afew problems whilst doing this such as, getting all the timings right so it fits in with the music also trying to save it so we can put it on our blogs which unfortunatly didnt work.
Memory stick- we used a memory stick to keep all of our work and research together so if one person needed to upload it we'd all be able to access it easily.

iPods- we used iPods when we first started planning, we used it to listen to the song and sort out the timings for each line so we could see how long we would need certain shots to be.

*Final Edit

UPLOAD COMPLETED MUSIC VIDEO

Song Choice & Information on artist

UPLOAD POWERPOINT

3. What have you learned from audience feedback?

From our audience feedback we learnt that our initial idea for the tourposter would not work because the image on the background was very dark, people would not know what the image was, or what type of genre the music is.

We got told there was lots of detail provided on how to buy tickets and dates which is good for the audience, We also kept a colour scheme and the black and white contrast worked really well.

The only negative points we got were the image on the poster being too dark and hard to get a feel for the image and genre by first glace, so we made it brighter and easier to see. We then got told they liked the image of the guitar as this shows them the genre but they wouldnt of over lapped the writing on the guitar. So if we did it again we'd think more about where to put the website, phone number and social network site or just make the writing smaller.

It was very clear to see that it was a poster of tour dates or poster for a music concert. Everyone knew it was a tour poster by looking at it, which is what we wanted

The majority of people said it was a tour poster for indie/pop music, which is correct. Now we know that we will be attracting the right audience with our poster. 

We were told that our poster was informative and has all the neccassary phone number, dates, websites, which shows us that we have put enough information on the poster for the reader, so they know who is performing, where and how to get tickets.

All of our feedback from the audience said our tour poster was credible, which suggests we used the codes and conventions of a real tour poster which would have been influence from our research.

This is what our audience have said, and from our audience theories we think our video fits in to the theorys of,Uses and Gratifications- Blumers and Kats, as audiences may may watch it for entertainment to enjoy the music video and to fill time and also they may watch it for personal identity as they may relate to the actors in it, as they may have experiences being in a relationship being cheated on.

Also the two step flow theory, as if people see our music video and talk about it to their friends it may change there opinion on it and see it in a different way.

Tour Poster 2 - Analysis

This again is a simple tour poster, with the main focus is purely the band themselves, Muse and their European tour. The main part of the poster is taken up by recognisable images for the band - their brand logo across the top of the poster, them a photograph of the band performing on the stage. I think the reason for this is simply that by the time of this tour, 2003 muse were a huge band with in Europe with three UK top 10 albums, 2 of which were both number 1's and several top 10 singles which had recieved widespread radio airplay. They were even at this stage a confirmed headline act for Glastonbury. All this meant that their name and image power was enough to sell tickets across all venues easily and quickly without having to have much in the way of aiding advertising to help push their tour announcments of support bandds to aid ticket sales. The lower section of this poster is taken up by a full list of all European venues they woild be playing and the corresponding dates, so that this poster could be mass produced and replicated right acrss the continent, saving on advertising and production costs.

Tour Poster 1 - Analysis

Arctic Monkeys 2011 Tour + Vaccines

This is the tour poster of Arctic Monkeys 2011 UK Tour 'Suck it and See' Supported by the Vaccines.
The simple items on the poster have no obvious connections to the songs on any of their 3 most recent albums, which are all written on the tour poster itself. The albums being "Whatever people say I am, that's what I'm not", "Favourite Worst Nightmare" and "Suck it and see" In the right hand corner the tour dates and places are written, using a different back ground creating a 'nights sky' effect. This lets the writing be clearer and stand out from the rest of the poster. The simplicity of the poster is very effective and works very well. However I do think that the important tour date information should be in a bigger font allowing it to be more readable and obvious. The 3d glasses, playing cards and other props make the band seem fun and does correlate with the sound of the music in general.

Digipak 2 - Analysis

This is the front cover to James Morrisons album 'undiscovered' It is a very simple layout, and seeing as it was James Morrisons first album it is a very establishing shot, which shows the audience who he is and what he looks like, which is showed by this close up. The plain background allows full focus on the artist and with the writing on the left side and in green, contrasts with the cream background. Having James Morrison looking down, is different to most other albums where the artist is looking up or to the sides, this gives the effect  that the atrist may be reflecting in his music or showing a more humble side to Morrison's personality.

This is the back of the album 'Undiscovered' it is very plain and simple again, displaying the song titles, copyright information and barcode. The font is in capitals and is the same as the one used on the front cover, the font and colour also suggests the artist is male. The image is very minimalistic and dull, it allows the text to stand out and the main focus to be on the artist and the front cover.

Shotlists and Storyboards

This is a photograph of our shot list, it has a brief description of every shot, its time length and the camera angle and movement.

This is a close up of our storyboards showing the descriptions more clearly.














This was a sheet with all of our lyrics on, we annotated them with our ideas and what we thought the origional meaning was. We also broke the song down and calculated all the timings of lines and verses, this gave us a much better idea of the shot legnths and camera movement.

Costumes and Props

Costumes

ALEX
As Alex has a similar style to what we chose for the costumes, we have chose the following outfits from ASOS.com based on the knowledge of Alex's style.

Skinny jeans.

Formal Shirt (Dressed down)

Plain polo shirt.

Stipey t-shirt.

EMMA

Our model Emma Yates has her own lookbook online (www.lookbook.nu/emmayates)

so we have taken the photographs of her outfits from that, it is exactly how we want her to look, classy and sophisticated but also sexy. She is perfect for our music video.

Props

Vase and flowers

These used in the opening of the music video, a still mid shot of the vase on the floor with the flowers damaged and falling out of the vase - the damaged effect shows there has being some sort of violence and the flower suggest it is something to do with a relationshipsor a loved ones.

Photo frame
This is used to show a picture of the couple also in the opening of the music video, which establishes the couple that are in the video and the relationship they once had. It is also used later on when the male in the video is lying on his bed looking at the photograph as if he is remembering what their relationship was like.
 

Digipak 1 - Analysis

This is the front cover of the Kooks' album 'Inside in Inside out' Their first album was a huge success in the UK and the beginning of a new British pop band. The cover is very simplistic, this is shown in the use of black and white and the framing of the shot. The bands motif can be seen in this shot with the use of acoustic guitars, amplifiers and drums showing their passion for music and being one of the few bands that write and play all of their own music. The mirror on the far wall adds interest and dimension to the shot revealing more than the eye would initially be able to see.
The text is in the centre of the album and is bold and very clear, the album name being in red creates a dramatic feel and shows its importance to the band and its importance to the album.

 This is the reverse side of the album cover 'Inside in Inside out' The back of the CD usually displays information about the playlist and song order, the record label, and the copy right legalities -usually in small print. This image is almost a mirrored image to the image on the front of the album, although the band have been rearranged and the photograph is more out of focus in order to make the information stand out more. The blurry effect merges the colours and gives a more realistic, imperfect approach to the photograph. The font is all in capitals, simple and bulky which adds emphasis and reflects that the band are all male, and simple with what they produce. The layout is easy to understand, with an image filling most of the area, the blank areas are filled with information. The primary optical area is the area in which the songs are listed so the buyer is immediately drawn to this area, however the legal information has been placed in the 'dead zone' because it is considered less important to the buyer.

This image is the insert of the CD, it has been created by a collage of photographs which reveal one full picture. The image includes close ups of the band in what is thought to be their personal time, this gives the buyer an insight into a day in the band members life and make it more real and personal. The images are a mixture of colour and black and white, other effects are used such as colour fade and white wash, so that the images blend and merge together. All of the way across the centre of the digipak there are lyrics to all of the songs, the font is very small and hard to read, but does not distract the eye from the image which I think was intended. The purpose of the fold out would be to further the entertainment of buyer, show the band in more detail, involving their own lifestyles and giving more value for money when the CD is purchased.