Final Message To the Examiner

Hello,
Throughout the course there has been moments of highs and lows, but what we can all agree on is that we feel we have achieved much more than we first thought.Overall we have all enjoyed the course and have learnt many different skills. We are all particularly proud of the way our music video turned out and hopefull you will see the reasons why.
We hope you enjoy reading through our blog and through all our individual posts.
Thanks,
Tom, Jake and Jack

Our Final Music Video

Untitled from Jake Boswell on Vimeo.

Evaluation Question 4- How Did You Use Media Technologies In The Construction And Research, Planning And Evaluation Stages?

Evaluation Question 4- How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Evaluation Question 3- What Have You learned From Your Audience Feedback?

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

Evaluation Question 1 on Prezi

Question 2. How Effective is the Combination of Your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?

Evaluation Question 3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I also gathered feedback from my teachers from blogger. I also had feedback from my friends on Facebook and Twitter.

Evaluation question 2- How effective is the combination of your main product and Ancillary texts?

Evaluation Question 1

Question 1- In what ways does your Media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products. on Prezi

Evaluation Question 4 - How Did You Use Media Technologies In The Construction And Research, Planning And Evaluation Stages?

Evaluation Question 3 - What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?

Evaluation Question 2 - How Effective Is The Combination Of Your Main Product And Ancillary Texts?

Evaluation Question 1 - In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? on Prezi


Directors commentary for music video

Question 2. How Effective is the Combination of Your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?

For the music video we wanted to follow a simple performance video theme. We looked closely at the video "Hey Scenesters" by The Cribs. We liked this video as it was very simple and bland but not boring. I also took ideas from the music video for the post-hardcore band Asking Alexandria and their song "The Final Episode". I liked this as it was in a very simple setting in a warehouse.

However, for my Digipak and Poster I wanted to create a more bright and colourful feel. This was because I did a lot of research into Andy Warhol's "Campbell's Soup" and the album cover he made for The Velvet Underground.

 I also wanted to create some irony with the song Banquet. By featuring a tin of Spam on the front cover and back because it is a small amount of low cost, un-classy food.

I linked the music video and Digipak together by using some stills which I took at the recording of the video as a background to the Digipak.

Question 4 How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

We used many different technological devices in the production of both the draft and final music video, and for the digipak and poster combination. When filming the music video we used the Internet socialising site of Facebook to communicate with each other and decide on a time and location we would film. This helped us to be organised so we could arrange lifts to enable us to all arrive together to gives us the best chance of filming in an easy and efficient way. To communicate we also used the technology of Mobile phones, with the three of us being on a contract phone meant we could text to organise where to meet and what times.
During the research part of the course when we were deciding what song choice and genre to use, we used http://www.blogspot.com/ to keep each other updated about what we had found and to show our individual ideas. We got images and information off http://www.google.com/ to show exactly what we wanted the bands style to be. Uploading this onto blogger allowed the teacher to see our initial ideas of what we wanted to do for our video, and using this site to record our research enabled the teacher to leave feedback on what we had posted. We also set up a Twitter account for a fake band to post details on what the band were doing music wise and what our plans for the near future were. We did gain a few followers from this account which did boost the recognition of our band. To gain followers who thought we were a real band suggests to us that we looked convincing enough to be a real band. I also used a site called Tube chop when analysing music videos that were of the same rock/indie genre i was looking at. I found this easy as it allowed me to take certain sections out of the video to analyse separately.
For the production of the digipak and poster for the media side of the band, i used Photo shop for the full design and making of both. I took the photographs using a Nikon camera that i already owned. This high-tech digital camera enabled me to get the images i wanted and then i used a memory stick to transfer the image from my computer at home to the computer at school. For the fonts i used on the digipak and poster i got them off http://www.dafont.com/ as we could chose from a variety of fonts and find one that fitted the genre of music i was representing.
When making the music video, we filmed it using a HD video camera. We found this easy to use as we uploaded all the shots we had filmed onto a macbook pro and edited the shots into the video from there. We found this an efficiant way to edit as we could all edit our scetion of the video seperatly and then put it together using the Macbook.

Evaluation Question 3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I used used various ways to gather audience feedback.

I got comments from my teacher, classmates and friends. I got these from comments on my blog and facebook. We also did a video premier in my form during mentor time.

We handed out a questionnaire for the class to fill in. I consisted of several questions, first asking their age and gender. Then their personal music genre preferences and then questions about our music video. Unfortunately the age range was only between 14-16, this means that only the 16 year olds were in our target audience. Also, most of the participants in the questionnaire were female.

Here are several replies to questions we asked:

What did you think of the setting of our music video?

"it suits the music" 14, female
"looks good, quite professional" 15, female
"great. Good on a studio looking setting" 15, male

Do you think the setting and the arrangement of the equipment looks realistic?
"Yes, it looks like a real performance" 15, male
"It does look realistic as it looks like a real band practice" 16, female

What bands does this music video remind you of?
"Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian" 14, male
"Kasabian, Arctic Monkeys" 15, male
"Kaiser Chiefs, Kasabian" 15, male

Would you choose to watch our music video? Why?
"I would, however it does get a bit repetitive, could change something about it" 16, female
"yes, looks good and sounds good" 15, female
"yes, it is the type of music video that I watch sometimes" 14, female

How could we improve our video?
"the camera skill so that it would flow better and more consistently" 14, female
"camera is a bit wobbly at times-it could be a bit more professional. It could be a bit more exciting" 14, female

Could you expect to see our video on a music channel? If so, what channel?
"Yes, 4music" 14, male
"Yes, Viva" 15, male
"Yes, Scuzz" 14, female

Does our video look professional?
"sort of, the cameras could have been a bit steadier" 14, female
"Yes" 14, male

What features of our video did you like best?
"The changing camera angles" 15, male
"the filming" 16, female
"all of it, looked good" 15, female

What would you give our video out of 10?
"8" 15, female
"8 1/2" 14, female
"8" 14, male

Question 3 What have you learned from your audience feedback? Draft

After the production of our music video we have received feedback from teachers and fellow students saying what they like or dislike about the video, which left mixes reaction either way depending on the audience we asked. We used different methods to show our final video to a range of different people when asking for feedback.
 We showed the video to my form group with students viewing between he ages of 14-18, and we gave each student a questionnaire to fill out after they had watched the video. We asked questions such as 'What genre of music do you listen to?' to gain an insight to weather or not they listened to the same genre we had targeted. From looking through the completed questionnaires we found that the majority of the 14-16 year old were listening to 'R and B', 'Chart' and 'Pop', so we were asking students that were not into the genre that this particular song fell into, which is rock/indie. We asked 'What did you think of the setting of our music video?' to find out if they thought stereotypes had been followed with our specific genre of music. We had comments back that said the location 'suited the song' and 'made it look professional' which are encouraging signs. We asked 'What bands does this music video remind you of?' and a lot responded with 'Arctic Monkeys', 'Kaiser Cheifs' and 'Kasabian' which was again encouraging feedback as these bands fitted into the music genre we were trying to represent. We also received feedback from the students telling us we reminded them of 'Paramore' and 'Mcfly', which were not our music genre but we took into consideration the reason for this being because the age group asked were listening to this and because the band members were young, it immediately reminded them of this style of music.
We did receive some constructive criticism in the response to the question 'How could we improve our video?' One comment left was 'If the singer got the syncing right'. This comment did make us consider if the syncing was exact to how it should be but we are still pleased with the final product. Another comment said 'Make the camera less wobley', this left us unsure on what was meant by this as we had a constant still camera but believe it might have been the fast changing of shots that they didn't enjoy. The feedback we received for the camera work was mainly positive so we were still pleased with what we had achieved.
We asked 'What would you give our music video out of 10?' and found we had an average rating of 8/10, so again this was encouraging to hear. Overall the feedback we received from the questionnaire was very encouraging and we were pleased with the comments left. Although the majority that took part were not the targeted age group or targeted genre of music, we were still left with enough positive comments to be told we had succeeded.
We had recieved feedback from our teacher who had commented in a blog post on our final video. We were told we had done 'a good job' which was again very encouraging. In lessons we have had posotove feedback from both our teachers.
I recieved constructive feedback from the draft of my digipak and poster. I was told by my teacher to make it as simple as possible to suit the genre of music. An example i was advised to look at was 'Suck it and see' by Arctic Monkeys and to create something similar to their simple but yet still effective design. I also went as far as using a similar font style abd colour. I was told this would work as it has been successful with past album covers.

Question 2 How Effective is the Combination of Your Main Product and Ancillary Texts? Draft

I think i kept our music video and my Ancillary products similar to eachother in the fact they both followed a simplicity theme. This continued idea of simpllicity works with the rock/indie genre especially in the video as it allow the audience to focus mainly on the song that is being played, and the idea of a performance video also enhances the song that is being played as it again gives the audience the chance to see it being played live. The live performance video shows off the bands style and the audience knows the genre of the band just from watching the video.
When deciding on an idea for my digipak, it only seemed right to follow a similar theme to the video so the audience know what style and genre of music they can expect. I wanted to leave it plain with a simple colour background and font to make the audience feel the choice is up to them what they think of it and the fact it is so simple gives the cover an edge of suspision about what the music is, which will create attention for itself by people being interested by it's simple design and wanting to listen to it. My draft digipak was a similar style but with more detail on the cover. After looking at previous album covers that have been plain and been successful such as The Beatles 'White Album' and Arctic Monkeys 'Suck it and see' and with the band image i was creating being fitting into the same genre it only seemed right to leave it plain. This idea of plain is represented in the music video in the fact it is all filmed at the same place.
The performance video also helps advertise thae band as it gives the impression that the song played is live. This shows how the band act on stage and energetic performance from the front man gives away the genre of band just by how he acts on stage. His passionate singing makes him stand out as the main fontal point of the band the audience are consantrating on him to lead the rest of the band. This is the affect we wanted and we are pleased with his performance. It shows a big improvement from our draft as the performance he gave works really well with the idea of a live performance video, as the dress sense and the way he looked like he was enjoying himself makes a good front man.
I used the same font throughout my digipak and poster to create a sense of similarity. I have used it on the poster so the people that have seen the digipak will recognise the font and associate it will the band. I have done this with the colour scheme throught the digipak as well to create a continous theme that runs through both the digipak and poster.

Evaluation 4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

I used lots of different types of technology in various different catagories of use. Here is a list of all the things I used:
-Macbook Pro
-Motorola Defy Android mobile phone
-iPod Touch
-Apple iMac
-iMovie
-Adobe Photoshop
-FinalCut Pro
-iDVD
-Facebook
-Twitter
-Tubechop
-Youtube
-Vimeo
-Soundcloud
-Animoto
-JVC Evario Camcorder
-Sony Cybershot Camera
-Nikon DSLR Camera

Here is how I used them:

Macbook Pro- The Macbook was my main piece of technology that I used throughout our project. I used it mainly for the editing of the animoto, draft and final video. I also installed photoshop onto it and used this for designing and creating my digipak and poster. It was also useful as I could carry it round everywhere with me so I could always access the blog and the music video.

Motorola Defy- I linked up my email accounts and Twitter and Facebook feeds to my phone so I was always in touch with the rest of my group and could always check blog posts on the go.

iPod Touch- I also had my email accounts linked up to my iPod so I could check things on the move.

Apple iMac- I used an Apple iMac for editing the music video.

iMovie- I used this for all the editing for the video and animatic. I like iMovie as it is relatively easy to use and can produce good quality edits.

Adobe Photoshop- I used this for creating my digipak and poster. I did encounter some problems with it, as I wanted to add a painted effect to my digipak but Photoshop closed everytime I tried to add this.

Final Cut- I used this to publish my video.

iDVD- I used this to burn the movie to DVD and create a DVD menu.

Facebook- I used Facebook to keep in touch with the rest of my group and get audience feedback.

Twitter- We used Twitter to promote our band and we gathered a small amount of followers.

Tubechop- I used Tubechop in the research and planning stage to analyse music videos.

Youtube- We used Youtube to watch current videos and we tried to upload our video to it, however it had the audio track removed because of copywright.

Vimeo- We used Vimeo to upload our music videos and animoto.

Soundcloud- I used Soundcloud to explore other artists in our genre.

Animoto- we used Animoto to produce our pitch.

JVC Evario Camcorder- We used this to film our music video.

Sony Cybershot Camcorder- I used this to take photographs for my digipak.

Nikon DSLR Camera- We used this to take band photos and I also used it to take photos for my digipak.

Media Evaluation Draft Question 1

When deciding the idea for our Music video we had a clear intention to make a live performance video. We looked at the existing video for Banquet which was our song choice and their video was a live performance, we realised that would work well for us to create a video in a similar style. We looked at other live performance music videos such as The Cribs 'Hey Scenesters' and The Raconteurs 'Steady As She Goes'. From watching and analysing both these videos we found ideas for shots and camera angles that we knew would work as they had been demonstrated in these videos. We also got ideas for what the band should wear during the video and we took inspiration from bands such as Arctic Monkeys, The Vaccines and Oasis. The changing of our frontman helped with the styling of the band, as the main focus of the video was on him, his style set the style of the band. We tried to have the other three members of the band dressed in a similar fashion to send a contiuous theme and so that the band look as realistic as possible.

The video we looked at to resembe the most was 'Hey Scenesters' by The Cribs. We liked the rawness of the video and how it looks like it was filmed in a band members garage. This gives it a simplistic effect and we wanted to re create something similar.

This clip of the video is similar to what we wanted to re create with the fast changing close up camera angles. After watching and analysing many videos in this genre of music we learned that close ups are interesting to watch and engage the audience closer to the band. We have also used similar camera angles when filming the drum shots again because we knew it would work. The CCTV effect of the opening shot of the band also appealed to us and was something we wanted to add to ours. There is evidence of this in our video at the ending when we walk out of the room. We set the camera up high in the corner to give a CCTV effect of the room we were filming in.

We learned from our draft that the first person we had as our singer, did not match the criteria we were looking for in a front man. We needed to find someone that dressed in the appropriate style that suited our bands style. We also needed someone who was willing to put a bit more passion into the miming of the song. We were pleased with the person we did get as our frontman (Max) as was willing and very confident when performing during the filming. This made our video look more realistic as he gave the impression he was acctually singing it. We wanted our frontman to resemble an energetic frontman, similar to what we had seen in videos of the same genre. Frontmen such as Tom Meighan from Kasabian or a young Jarvis Cocker. We wanted to dress our fronman in similar style clothing as Ryan Jarman fron The Cribs and Justin Young from The Vaccines. We knew this would be acheivable as he dresses in this style.

When thinking of an idea for my Digipak i realised from research that music in the genre i was looking at kept things simple in the media. So that i what i decided to do, by taking the cover of Arctic Monkey's latest album 'Suck it and see' and making a design similar to it. In doing this i was hoping to acheive recognition for the same genre of music. There is a trend in plain album covers that only show the title of the band or the name of the album, this was first done by The Beatles with 'The white album' and from then on was assosiated with this genre of music. I kept the whole digipack simple to create a recuring theme of simplicity, from researching other bands albums such as The Vaccines, Arctic Monkeys and Oasis i realised it works effectivley. I did the same with my poster in keping it similar to the album cover and using the simplicity of it for effect. Music posters from bands such as Manic Street Preachers, Bloc Party and Oasis all showed that a successful music poster shows the album cover so the audience recognise the cover so they know immidialey what band is being advertised on the poster. This is what i wanted to creeate as it was proved by bands i have mentioned previously that it works.

Evaluation Question 1- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

For our music video we wanted to follow current media conventions for music videos. We decided on doing Banquet by the band Bloc Party which are an alternative rock band. We therefore decided to do a performance video as this is typical for rock genres.

To make it follow traditional rock music video conventions we used close ups, extreme close ups,  full band shots, panning and fast cuts between shots. We also used lipsyncing which is a very important part of performance videos.

Originally, when beginning the research and planning section of our coursework, we weren't sure of what music genre and video catagory we were going to use. After researching different genres as a group, we dicided to go for alternative rock. We researched the video styles, album styles and clothing styles that alternative rock bands would use/wear. We looked at bands such as: Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian, Bloc Party, Oasis, Kaiser Chiefs, The Raconteurs, Little Comets and The Killers. After a long time of choosing artists we eventually decided that we were going to do the song Banquet by Bloc Party. We also decided that we were going to do a performance video.

We also looked into the way that Bloc Party and other similar bands dress and styled our performers into the way they dress. We also marked stage positions for the performers to stand so we could make Lo! look like a real band.

We then looked into music videos by Bloc Party, mainly the 'Banquet' video as this included some performance and lipsyncing. I looked closely at the Bloc Party album, 'A Weekend in the City' as I wanted to use a similar effect in my digipak. I used this for inspiration as I used a blurred image of the drummer behind where the CD would go.

I also did a lot of research into Andy Warhol's 'Campell's Soup' and the album cover he made with The Velvet Underground. I liked the pop-art idea and wanted to try and re-create that. I also looked into the Oasis boxset album 'Definitely, Maybe' as this was a collection of Oasis tracks but they came in a boxset made like a cigarette case. This was typical of Oasis as this is the image that Oasis has put out through the years and people associate them with cigarettes and alcohol. I therefore used a tin of spam as the front and back of my digipak. This is because Spam is a worldwide known brand and is grooved into society and is a generic brand. Whereas Lo! are not well known and generic so I used the Spam to make the Digipak ironic.

Music Video Questionaire Premiere

Questionaire for Music Video This is the questionaire I will be using to gain feedback from my form group who I will be presenting my music video to. I have designed it so that the questions are easy to understand which will make it straight foward and quick to fill in. I can then incorporate their feedback into my response to question 3.

Q4 (draft) How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Blogger
A technology that was critical to our course was the online blog service Blogger. This enabled us to post our progress from a varity of different sources or locations such as at school during lessons, or from the computer at home.  It also allowed our teachers and peers to leave comments much easier than it would be to give paper feedback which could be lost or accidentally thrown away. All of the group members used this service as it is used to track our progress throughout the course.

Animoto
I used this service to create a pitch for our coursework, as we were limited to 25 words for our pitch this service enabled us to upload images that best described the band and music video that we wanted to create.


Scribd
This service allowed me upload documents that I had created on my computer and enabled me to embed them directly onto the blog as an online scribd document. It was fast and simple to upload various different documents.


Vimeo
Vimeo is the name of the video sharing site that we used to upload our music videos draft/final versions, it was our alternative to using youtube (see reasons in youtube section). I think in some aspects vimeo is a more suitable site for uploading the video as the interface is easy to grasp and it was fairly simple to embed the videos onto blogger.


Bubblus
It allows me to create a spider diagram that served as our moodboard, we thought of it as a short of brainstorming site where our ideas can be mapped and branched out. It accompanied out pitch to give a more in depth insight to our ideas.


Facebook
Throughout the planning and research stage Facebook has allow us communicate effectively with all of our band members and group in a group chat session. It enabled everyone to discuss and talk as a group rather than on a phone messaging everyone individually. In the evaluation stage it has allowed us to share our media products such as our music video with our friends so they can give us feedback.


Twitter
We set up a twitter account for our band which will serve as a way of communicating with our fans. Twitter is a rapidly growing technology that is being used by more people, so it could serve well for attracting a fan base for a real band. It allowed us to update the progress through internet 'text like' messages.


iMovie
For editing our music video we used imovie which made sense to use as one of our group members Jake was familar with the software. As he had used it before to edit his own project on. We also had mac which is what the software was made for so it was a no brainer. The software featured a simple interface but had some powerful effects and features that we could make use of.


Macbook Pro
We used Jakes macbook for editing the music video as it had the imovie software installed on it.


Photoshop
For creating my auxiliary products i.e digipak and poster, photo shop was used to edit the photos that we took and allowed us add various effect and layers to the products.


Tube chop
When writing posts about videos we have watch we all used tube chop to split the music video we were watching into the relevant clip we were talking about. This helped use illustrate more clearly the point we were trying to make.


Nikon SLR
I used this camera to take the images for my digipak/poster and capture some photos when we were filming the final music video. I also allow Jake to use my camera to take some photos for his digipak.


HD Video camera
The video camera we used was Jakes which featured a hard drive disk instead of the footage being recorded onto a tape. This meant that transferring the footage across the device was simple and easy to do. When filming used the schools tripod that we had borrowed to stabilize the camera when I was filming.


Phones
Phones are now an everyday necessity so it was more than likely that the group had a phone on them. This meant that it was easy to contact one another and helped us arrange the days when we were filming. And allowed us to contact each other if there was problem. I also used my iphone take some pictures when we were filming the draft and to take pictures of the showing of our final music video to my form group.


Search engines (google, ask, yahoo)
These service help us immensely when it came to researching existing media products and video as it search for relevant sites for us to visit which saved us time. We could also download these images and upload them to our blog to provide evidence that we have researched.

Personal Laptop
I used this at home to access the blog and complete the tasks that needed to be completed at various stages throughout the planning and research process all the way through to answering the evaluation questions.

Youtube
In our research and planning we searched and watch the various different music video that inspired us and helped us think of ideas for our own product. We also intended to upload our music video to the video sharing site however due to copyright litigation's our video kept getting taken down by the site.

Q3 (Draft) What have you learned from your audience feedback?

To gain feedback I posted various times on facebook our groups finished video and my accompanying products. I ask my friends to leave feedback via a comment on the statues, this didnt work very well as not many people commented on the link so I was left with not much feedback. I did however get some feedback for my digipak and  from a friend called alex who left a comment he also highlight possible improvements that could be made. Althought he commented on my final versions so this would not be possible. The comment he left was fairly positive though and highlighted that he thought the main image was effective for the bands genre. The feedback I recieved for my draft versions helped me establish what improvments needed to be made for the final versions. As I didn't not get much response from posting on facebook I decided to host a 'premier' for my music video for my form group. I designed an accompanying questionaire that I asked them to fill in after watching the video twice. This helped me establish more detailed feedback as they answered pre determined questions.
Those that filled in my questionnaire were between the ages of 14 and 18, as some were quite young they did not fit into our target audience which was 16-25 year olds although it showed us how different age groups reacted to our music video.
Some of the people that were asked listened to the indie rock genre which meant they were aware of the common conventions that a indie performance video followed. Overall most who were surveyed thought our video was professional which was good to hear as it meant that they thought it looked like a real music video that could appear on a music channel. A few stated that they would possibly see the video on an MTV music channel. The aspects that they enjoyed the most was the variety of different shots that were used and the close ups of the band members. However the least enjoyed aspects were that it was only set in one specific location if we were shooting again we would shoot in multiple locations to make it more interesting for the audience. Another also pointed out that it looked as though the band was performing live even though only two of the band members were playing live instruments which means the bands miming was convincing.
One other mentioned aspect was our lead singer who some felt was not featured enough. They were also asked the question what does our bands does our band remind them of for which there was a mixed response. The rapture, Mcfly, Busted, Kasabien, Little Comets, The Wombats were some of the bands that were mentioned the Mcfly and Busted response surprised me at first but It makes sense as I will explain. The likeness to Mcfly/Busted comes from these bands try to look as cool as other established bands and hope that some success will rub off on them. Which is what our band basically did in the music video so its more of a complement as it means they thought our band was like real life counter parts and believable as a real band. I was please when I saw the comment about being compared to Kasabien as that is one of the band we were trying to emulate their performance style The ending was also mentioned as a point for possible improvement as it lasted longer than it should of which I also agree with.
Overall I think that my form group enjoyed our video as their rating out of 10 was on average 7/10 I thought that I might have got some better written response but due to them not have studying music video in a much detail as I have done as it is my chosen subject this could have limited on what they could talk about.

Q2 (draft) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

When designing my digipak it was based on the concept that was inspired by the rolling stones Let it Bleed album. The focus was on the cake which had an abstract meaning that I want to incorporate into my version. However my draft design did not turn out as well as I thought it would so I scrapped the idea and started again. So I feel that my final products have developed substantially from the first draft.

For the final version I needed to think of a new approach and needed to rethink my ideas. I still wanted to create an abstract concept and incorporate some ideas from my first draft. So I thought out a concept that would show the bands party personality, it would also show how they are a different non generic indie band. This would be more appealing to the audience as the more different a band is from the rest makes them stand out more in the crowd. I positioned on my dining table various items you would expect at a house party. But as an added twist some items such as a cake stand which was inspired from the first draft was incorporated into the shots the table was also dressed as though it was a tea party. I tried various effects using the SLR cameras features and ended up with my final image. How I took the image was by increasing the lens exposure so that more light was taken in and moved the camera slightly which resulted in the blurred effect in the image.  As it is a different image you would not expect on a album cover I felt that this made the cover more appealing and gives it unique brand.

The party atmosphere is also partly shown in the music video in the way that the lead singer max acts as a showman displaying an energetic side. The font colour and style was partly inspired by Vampire weekends album contra this would mean that fans of vampire weekend would get a feeling of familiarity. How the band was dressed was typical for an indie genre band, the costumes for some of the band was changed from the draft as the feedback we received was that it just didn't quite fit so the costumes were adjust slightly. Alterations included the drummer Jake wearing a hoody instead of just a white t shirt, the lead guitarist guy wore a polo shirt rather than a coat. We also had the addition of our the lead singer max compared to guy who was the lead singer in the first draft. Max as we found out was the much better choice as he acted like the lead singers from other bands such as Kasabien inferring some similarity between other established bands.

Q1 (draft) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In the planning stages of designing our story board we watched a variety of different music video that gave us different ideas for our video. I looked at the video for banquet which inspired some of the shots that made it into our video. Artic monkeys, Klaxons, Oasis and Kasabien's music video also had an effect on what shots we included, this ensured that our video follow conventions that have been set by existing Indie rock bands. One key example of a music video that inspired some of our shots is Hey Scenesters by The Cribs we liked how the video was edited and some shots such as the close ups on the neck of the guitars that are used. We incorporated these shots into our video as we thought that these added to the variety different angled shot we could film. I also thought that the shots added some more depth to the performance side as it is focusing soly on the musican and their instrument.

The start of our video was inspired by online music videos that we watched that included a montage of different shots that are from a film, it added a didfferent approach for the way that we could start the video with this would establish the location to the audience in a quick and different fashion. When filming I also ensure that each shot was framed correctly. We used a variety of different panning shots to make sure that the shots flow smoothly, this also meant that the beat was kept to and in sync. Compliance would make sure that our video would appeal more with our target audience.
The main focus of our video is the lead singer, max was told to act as much as possible as the lead singer Kasabian and have a sense of showmanship. Which we all felt worked fairly well and made the video more entertaining and realistic. This would also follow the conventions set for the lead singer to drive the whole band as a whole. As he is the main person in the band a sense of familiarity can be drawn from the audience as he is featured prominently.

Our video comes under the narrative cultural code which means that some cultures would not understand the  meaning behind something media related. This would therefore restrict our worldwide audience as they would not understand the indie theme of our products. Although this would not be much of a problem in Britain due to the Indie genre becoming more mainstream in the last few years. It would also make them more recognisable from the place they originate from which is Leicester.

How we challenged conventions set out by our genre however was how my digpak and poster was completly abstract and had a hidden meaning. Although abstract artwork is becoming a much more common thing when it comes to album artwork. My colour scheme for the font on my digipak and poster was inspired by Vampire Weekends album Contra. I also found a font that was similar as it would create some familarity for the audience as they would most likely have heard of vampire weekend as they are in the same music genre. The first draft of the auxiliary products I attempted and didnt succeed at recreating a 70s rock inspired cover and poster. I felt that I had to think of a more orginal idea that would make the products stand out so this Idea was scrapped due to feedback I recieved from by peers and teacher. The digipak and posters hidden message was to try and show the bands personality outside performing, and to demonstrate they arent the normal genric indie band they are different. This also makes the album cover stand out from the normal cover which features the band members. Furthermore it shows character from the band and some creativity and thought has gone into creating a different abstract concept.

Media Evaluation planning question 2

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

To creatively answer this question  I will analyse in depth my final digipak and poster using Photoshop. The product will be in the center of the page with text boxes explaining the different aspects. For the draft version however I shall just explain the various stages and reasons for why I think my product went well.

Draft designs

For my first attempt of producing my digipak and poster I feel I did not recreate the concept I was trying to emulate from what inspire me. Which was the album cover for let it bleed by the Rolling Stones, the cake idea was focused on and I only had a basic cake that was accessible at the time. The idea just basically didn't work which is why I only received a 2/10 for my digpak and a 2/10 for the poster. It an abstract concept that I felt had potential which is why I still kept some ideas for the draft saved for the final version

Final designs

My final products drastically changed from the first idea mainly due to me taking a different approach and going for a abstract party the morning after. Which strangely enough I thought made a perfect album name so I called it 'The Morning After', the picture I took was achieved through using an SLR camera with an extended amount of exposure to the light by the lens which caused the bright effect. I set out various different objects on the table which also included a cake stand to show some progress from

the first draft. I felt that I achieved a much better concept but the original idea changed and develop quite substantially from the first draft. I like how it doesnt link in with the music video at all to continue the message that our band is different from others in the same genre.

The posters for both the draft and the final designs used the main image from digipak to show continuity between both products. This is common for posters as they are created to advertise the new album this would  create a sense of similarity between both products.  How this links from our music video is that we wanted to show the social side of the band, from their enegetic performance you could get a sense that the band like to party hard. The blurring effect of the images on the digipak and poster has the mise en scene of a persons druken vision after they have just woken up in the morning.