Evaluation 4

How well does your main product combine with ancillary texts?

Evaluation 3

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

Whilst researching music videos and the music marketing industry, I used the school's Apple Macs, as well as my own personal laptop (running Windows Vista.) The majority of research was conducted using the internet, such as viewing past examples of music videos through YouTube, or other video streaming sites, since YouTube is blocked on school computers. Had this been a professional video, YouTube would have definetely been used to upload the video to a much Wider audience. My animatic was shot using a Canon Legria FS200, and edited using Apple's iMovie software. Discovering my band first took place through social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, but I could not find an apporopriate song. This led me to NME Breakthrough, a website set up by the music magazine NME to create a platform for unsigned bands to find an audience. This lead me to An Army Of Lights, who i contacted through Facebook for permittion to use their song and band name. Whilst they had agreed and offered to send me their song for free, I had already bought their EP from iTunes for personal listening.

When it comes to the actual filming of the video, I used the same Canon Legria FS200 Camcorder I used for taking the images of the animatic, and was used to shoot the final evaluation videos. This camera is Standard definition, which provides a low-fi feel of the overall video, adding realism to the possibility of a debut music video for a band, as well as the convention of indie-rock bands prefering the low-fi approach in production aspects of their videos and music. Throughout filming I used a tripod supplied by the school An issue with this type of mount, compared to a Steadycam for example, is that shots in which the camera is needed to track or follow is very difficult to film without the shot becoming shakey. Shots that were particularly bad for this needed to be edited through iMovie to make the image stable again. Other than the actual instruments used to mime the playing, there were no other media technologies used in the filming process.

Editing took place on the schools Apple Mac computers, again taking advantage of the iMovie software. I used the Black and White and the Heat Wave effects to differ between band clips and the teenagers, with no effects placed on the singing, connoting the lyrics are relevent for both groups, and that they apply to both. iMovie was particularly helpful, especially in the futher editing of clips that were ether too bright or two dark, so that the details were as clear as possible, without losing the effect.

My cover images were shot using a DSLR camera, experimenting with various effects. The band logo was created through experiments with the fonts given on the the version of Microsoft Powerpoint loaded onto the school's Macs. Unfortunatly nether I, nor the school, own a copy of photoshop, or any similar software, so I used Paint on my Windows laptop to insert the logo into my back cover image. This continued to the low-buget feel I continued throughout the video, as this is the debut album and single of an indie band. I did have difficulty fitting the logo in, as the logo seemed fake, but I tried blurring this with some of the program's effects at an attempt at easing this. Similarly, i used paint to create my poster, but this was far simpler, as inserting white writing onto a plain black background was much easier, as opposed to inserting a logo against the orange fade in the cover image. Again, there were issues in this also, as changing the size of the album image to fit into my poster forced the font of the logo to alter, making it jagged (as seen below). I believe that if I used a program more suited to changing the size of images, such as Photoshop, this would not have occured. But, as i have no access to this, this was not possible.

Evaluation 2

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Evaluation 1

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

Brand Identity

Throughout the 3 products i have created, I wished to keep the band image very simple, and have attempted to create a uniformity between them. For example, similar fonts are used in the logo to that of the information booklet and album poster. This is continued with the contrast of light and dark, seen in the white font against black background, streetlights in the dark and the black and white effect placed on the music video. Another way to keep a simple image was to create an anonymous band, not including an image of them in the booklet or promotional material, and not filming their faces in the video. This is to make the band almost seem humble, and not interested about fame or success, and only create music for the sake of good music. Bands that hold these views tend to be aimed at those who aim to be rebellious and reject pop sensibilities, such as the traditional Stars that Dyer notes in his theory. These individuals are usually aged in their late-teens/early-twenties, the central demographic for my target audience.

AAOL poster

This is the poster I have created for my AAOL EP. This has take heavy influence from the Weekend in the City poster, in placing my writers, and setting the original album cover on a black cover. Although this is designed for a magazine advert, I would design posters and billboard adverts in a similar fashion, to make the overall advertising campain more memorable, as the image would be seen in various places.

Poster Planning

From what I have seen in other posters, what seems to come across most frequently is that the cover art of the album, or at least a very similar image (usually found ether in the inside cover or book, or indeed on other promotional material such as the music video or band website.) For this I will also include the album cover as the central image, on a simple black background, so as to fit the night setting of the image. It will also include the band logo I have created, as well as the product information written underneath in the same, or similar font. Information generally included in album posters include :

• Name of band
• Name of album
• "Brand new album from..."/"Debut album from..."
• Any past or upcoming singles (release details?)
• Release date/"Out now"
• Release details - Format (Download, CD, 7"),
• Band website/Myspace/Facebook/Twitter
• Any additional information.