A2 media studies

The brief I chose for my Advanced Portfolio was 'to produce a promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video. 'Together with a cover for it's release on CD/DVD and a magazine advertisement for CD/DVD. For this portfolio we had a choice whether we wanted to work individually or as part of a group. I thought it was a good idea to work individually, as the I do not have to rely on other people to complete work. Also by working on my own, the finished product would be just my own interpretations and I can take credit for all the decisions made.When starting out with making my Video I had a few key choices to make, I had to decide what my video was going to be about and who I was going to use in my video, looking over the whole of my production I feel that this was one of the main decisions that I had to decide. I did begin my production work by filming a video to the song, Shania Twain - Man I Feel Like A Woman, however from looking at the footage I released that the location I had used did not have very good lighting and the footage came out with very poor quality. I should have saved the footage and put it on my blogger to show what reconsideration's I had to make, however I erased the footage believing that I wouldn't need it. So I had to reconsider my ideas of what I wanted to do.

To make sure that I knew what typical conventions were used I researched existing media products in each area, Music videos, magazine advertisements and CD album covers. This helped me to know what to include. Such as most typical conventions which are used in music videos are Range of different locations, and range of camera angles using a lot of close-ups. Interpretation of the lyrics play a key part in the creativity of a video. From analysing the video I could make links, and see what it most video used from the three I analysed which were Evanescence - My Immortal released in 2006 by windup records, My second video was Maroon 5 - She Will Be Loved, release in 2004 on the label A&M Octone. My third video was Paramore Brick by Boring Brick Release in 2009, directed by Meiert Avis. From researching this director I made links from the video I analysed to representations from my work as He had also directed videos for Flyleaf and this is the artist in which I choose to use for my video. Meiert directed the video for "Again" which is on the same album for "breathe today" which is the song I used for my video. , So from using the director the ideology is reflective of the band in a quite dark and sinister way, having very dark images and glowing lights also quite mythical, and surreal ideas. Each of these videos all used a structured narrative telling a story, either it could have been about losing somebody or it could have been showing a little girl living in a fairytale land and what challenges she faced. So for my video I decided to do a performance, as from looking at new bands first music videos they are all basic, this is to introduce the band and show the audience what type of music and performer they are, and seen as it is a new band album I had to create I decided that this would be the best option. So that my video appeared to be a performance, there was no narrative, the video had very little meaning. My video was used just to show who the artist was and what type of artist she was. To use some of the ideologies that the videos I had analysed used I also decided to use the surreal idea, that this world in which it was located wasn't real, the artist was on her own. I did this by using a rural area, in which I knew there would be no other public or traffic, to interfere with the filming. I also added effects to the video to add to this idea. When decided how to design my ancillary texts I chose to do a CD album cover, and a magazine advertisements. So when researching these I looked at magazines such as Mojo to find the conventions used. When looking at these I realised that all were very basic only showing the artist and release date. So this is what I did for mine, using a very simplistic idea of using one of the original photographs that I took of the artist I then used Adobe photo shop to crop the image to just show the mouth, from this I then used a cartoon effect this was so it conformed with my CD album cover which also used a cartoon effect. I feel that of the two ancillary texts the one that was most successful was my CD album cover, the reason for this is because I spent a lot of time researching existing products and analysing what worked well and what wouldn't. I feel that by using partial image of the face it added to the mystery of the artist it also ties in with the conventions of a typical album cover by showing a close-up image of the artist as this is what is trying to be sold.

I feel that my ancillary texts do link in with my main product as both show the artists, and both have a particular dark mood about them. In my video I have used an "old movie effect" over the top this gives a grain effect, so when it came to designing my CD album I used an "poster edges" effect in Adobe Photo shop which also gave a grain effect in the face of the artist which shows conformity between the products. However from looking over all three texts together there is a few things that I would have liked to do differently, such as I would make sure that my magazine advertisement had some link with the other two texts, because currently the magazine advertisement has no similarities with the video and CD album. The magazine advertisement uses block colours of black and I have not used this anywhere else in my products. so to change this I would have used the same grey scale background that I used for my CD cover. I feel that by doing this the audience could recognise easily which artist the magazine advertisement was for. However by using the block colours it gives a good effect of contrast, from using grain effects to using block colours. Another problem that I may have changed would be for my advertisement and CD cover I wish that I had included some screen shots from my video, this way It would have easily shown links throughout the product instead of looking for hidden meanings which may not be as easily to see to an audience point of view.

To ensure helpful feedback I created a questionnaire, that had a few vital questions about my overall video. With these I handed them out to various people who were in the media room to fill in whilst viewing my music video. These people were around 17-18, I chose to ask these people as they were in the mainstream age group also because some with have media knowledge and can give an honest opinion of what they thought of the media effects and overall construction, giving a more valid feedback. The questions I handed out were quite basic, asking how they felt about my overall video and also what would need improving. For my audience feedback I decided to use open ended questions the reason for this being is because I wanted detailed answers as this gives a better reflection of what the audience thinks rather then using yes/no answers. When looking at the results of my audience feedback, I can see that majority of people asked, thought the best parts of my video were the speed alterations being used in the correct places, to show confusion or the idea of being lost. The parts that the audience believed need to be improved, was better representation of the meaning of the video, as they felt that I had not shown or explained this. So from doing audience feedback I learnt that when creating a product the best thing to do, is to do a lot of research on audience first, this way I could have enabled that my product would have met the needs of the audience more. I also learnt that having audience feedback is really helpful when evaluating a video, as if I were to give my own opinion it would biased. When asking audience for their feedback on my Ancillary texts, I asked them to use similar questions that had being used for the video, again asking what worked well and what needed to be improved. From this the feedback that I received was that the audience though the parts of my CD album that worked well was the effect that was put on top of the image, giving a grained/cartoon effect. Another also commented that only using half the face was effective. The parts that didn’t work so well with the CD album cover was, audience thought it was quite basic, and if it was on a shelf in a supermarket or store they probably wouldn’t notice it. When asking the audience what the thought of my magazine advertisements the parts they thought looked good, were the bold contrasting colours of the face and the black background, which made it very eye-catching. However the target audience believed what didn’t work as well was that it wasn’t very interesting to look at, and was missing some relevant information.

From starting the media course at As level, We were shown basic use of technology for example basic use of camera work and how to use computer software such as Adobe Photoshop. This was helpful when having to apply it in a more complex way for A2 production. We were asked to use blogger for our production work in As, this gave an advantage for beginning A2 work as this was also asked to be presented on blogger, I feel that because I had fair knowledge of the website, I could use this to my advantage. To start the research process, I used website such as www.youtube.com and www.musicjesus.com this was so that I could analyze existing music videos and note the conventions used. I did this early on in my production to help me understand what I needed to include. From looking at various videos it did take me a long time to decide which song I wanted to use as I had already filmed my video I had to find a song which would fit with the mood and genre of the film, this I found very difficult and if I were to restart the whole project again I would pick a song first , the reason it took such a long time to decide a song is because all the songs I had chosen created complications, such as the ideas that I had were a bit far fetched for the level of skill that I have so this made me have to reconsider, from the first video that I created I could see what I had to improve, such things like holding the camera steady or possibly using a tripod, as most of the footage in my first film was quite unsteady. By creating that first film it gave me chance to get to grips with how the camera worked and what worked effectively. Im glad that I made the mistakes with the first film as it helped me to not make the same mistakes again in the second video. By eliminating all the songs that I found would be too difficult I decided on my final track. After having picked a song I could then move on and upload all my footage and song onto an Editing suite, this enabled me to cut the footage down into usable clips and erase what I didn’t need. The editing of my video I found was quite a lengthy process as I had to fit the clips to match the beat of the music. This I found quite difficult because I also had to make sure that the clip had some reference to the song lyrics and this wasn’t always possible to do. Once I had my clips in sequence then I was able to add effects to enhance the video the effect I used was "old movie" this gave the clip an authentic feel, also the effect of a broken film, as throughout the film jumps and the grain of the film can be seen on screen as if an old style camera had been used to film it. Throughout the whole of this process I was using www.Blogger.com to keep on online update of the processes and research that I was doing in order for me to create good decisions. Alongside this I was using various website, such as search engines like www.google.com also using fan based website to get an inside of what my target audience thought about the music I had chosen.

For my Ancillary texts I researched sites like www.google.com to help start the research into existing Magazine advertisements and Cd Album covers, From this site I was redirected to various other relevent sites which helped me in the production of my texts. From researching I had a few ideas which I decide to play around with using Adobe Photoshop. This software enabled me to manipulate images, layer images on top of one another, blend images together and also add text. I feel very confident with using this software now wereas at the beginning of the A2 year I had never used it before as I had preferred to create my products using Microsoft Publisher, however this is not advanced enough to create some of the effects that I wanted.

For my magazine advertisement, I decided that I would use a simplistic design this way attention from the audience is not distracted from the main message of the advertisement. From analysing existing magazine advertisements, the main features that were included was:

the artists name

album name

release date

photography or iconic images of the artist

some also list shops in which the album can be bought

show a copy of the front cover of the album

So from this list I knew I had to include various features in my own magazine advertisement to try and make it look more authentic.

To create the font of the artists name I used a the website http://www.dafonts.com/ from this there are many various options to choose from. The reason this font is used is because it is what I used for the album cover. Creating continuity between products. I then had to decide how I was going to have the layout of my advert. To do this I researched various existing advertisements, which I then used ideas from various ones to create my advert.

My Initial idea was to have a simple advert consisting of just an image of the artist and the release date of the album. The reason I wanted to make a simplistic advertisement is because this way audience attention is not lost in a very busy and complicated design.
To make consistency between the album cover and this advert, I decided to use the cartoon effect to do this I took one of the original photographs that I took of Sophie (artists) I then placed this into adobe photoshop, using the filter gallery until I could decide which effect gave the best impact for the idea that I was looking for.