Final Poster

Ancillary Tasks - Digipak completed

A2 Music Video - The Lost Boy

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

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I created this questionnaire to distribute amongst my target audience. I made it an open questionnaire so that answers weren't confined to set values and people could also express opinions and explain them. As I was doing everything myself in the project, the response to all sections was important to me. From the results I gathered, from the 15 people I gave it to, 15 enjoyed it, 9 people enjoyed the performance more than the story, 6 enjoyed the story more.

Initially, the majority didn't quite understand the meaning of the video, but once they thought about it for a few seconds and paid attention to the lyrics and the title, 12 people fully understood the methods behind it.

10 people said the editing was great and at a comfortable pace, 2 people said it was a bit too shaky at times due to the handheld, and 3 people said they didn't pay much attention to it.

The parts with the biggest impact were said to be the closer shots of the singing and the final shot, with just the singer isolated on the stage. This was because the expressions and the placement, and distance fitted well with the theme of being lost.

Everyone said they would recommend the video to other music lovers, and the only thing people said they disliked were the shakier shots, as even though I reduced them significantly, some of the audience still felt slightly thrown off balance.

Unused Footage

There was plenty of footage taken, some really good shots but unfortunately some couldn't be used due to things such as people in the background ruining the shot or things being too shaky etc. I would have used this one for example but the man with his child in the background would have ruined the mood and tone of it.

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

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

A2 Evaluation - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

digipak inside right

I wanted to keep the inside left of my digipak plain and simple, like the little booklet that comes in a cd case. To do this, I used the same wood texture as the inside right, which is a photo of the back of my guitar, and I kept up the DIY tape theme, crafting the words from images of tape.

Becoming Prosumer

Initially, I started using Blogspot as a consumer, meaning I used it as an educational tool to learn more about media. However, as I started posting more and more of the things I learned onto my blog, with various presentations, and things to help me and others revise, my blog itself became an educational tool, therefore I became a prosumer, giving educational material for others to consume.

Ancillary - Digipak inside

This is the inside of my digipak, the side where the cd itself will sit. I've carried on the tape theme from the front cover yet also added the natural wood finish from the back of my guitar as a background, keeping with the acoustic guitar theme too.

Poster Update

I made some slight changes such as removing the drop shadow from around the text and removing the noise over the text too, I also lowered the opacity of the drop shadows around the album images.

Ancillary Task - Poster

I've finished the poster for my project. I gave it a static-noise background and applied the same effect to the main text except I gave those layers drop shadows, other than that everything else is practically un-edited. I'm very happy with this finished product

Some quotes to remember

"Genres are created through a process of repetition and recognition leading to anticipation and expectation"
- GRAHAM BURTON (2000)

"Genres are instances of repetition and difference"
"difference is absolutely essential to the economy of genre"
-STEVE NEALE

"Narrative is a way of organising spatial and temporal into a cause and effect chain of events with a beginning, middle and end that embodies a judgement about the nature of the events as well as demonstrates how it is possible to know, and hence narrate, the events"
-BRANNIGAN E. (Narrative Comprehension and Film)

How Genres Change Over Time

We've recently been discussing genres, and how they've developed over time to stay relevant to an ever developing and evolving audience. I'm going to look at Animation as a specific example.

Quick Update

I basically have the music video completed, all I need to do is tweak it slightly, add in some steady shots and I should be done!

Ancillary Progress

The spine, too, is now complete

Ancillary Progress

Finally I've added all the licensing terms and record companies etc, and the track listing and barcode.

Ancillary Progress

For the back cover, the one with the track listing, I've took photos of a guitar in a backstage area, and added similar effects as I did to the front cover.

Ancillary progress

I've now added the title, artist name and parental advisory logo to make my finished digipak front cover

Ancillary Progress

So far I've added a variety of effects to the original image such as a Gaussian Blur, adjusted Hue/Saturation, added Grain, Noise and played with the levels to create a vintage effect

UPDATE

Filming is well underway! Got all the test shots done, angles decided upon and some live footage sorted and almost edited, all is looking positive

Narrative Theory

There are various theorists to pay attention to when it comes to Media Studies and the narratives within, two of the most significant being Todorov and Propp.

Todorov- 

Todorov came up with the theory that the majority of films etc follow the same structure:

Equilibrium

Disequilibrium/Conflict

Recognition of the conflict

Attempt to repair the conflict

Reinstate a New Equilibrium.

Propp-

Propp developed the theory that most films follow a general list of character types:

Hero

Princess/Prince

Helper

Donor

Villain

Dispatcher

False Hero

These all may seem like random terms when they're laid out like that in front of you, but lets apply them to a film. In this case I'll use Disney classic Beauty and the Beast, as Disney structure tends to be almost written by the book with these theories in mind.

PROPP

Hero - Belle - She is the one who saves the Beast and returns him to being human.

Princess - Beast - He is the one in need of saving overall

Helper - Lumier and Cogsworth - They are the ones who give advice to both Belle and the Beast and provide comedy

Donor - The Enchantress - She gives the Beast the rose, which seems like a curse but is to teach him how to love, a blessing overall

Villain - Gaston - He is the one who disrupts the equilibrium and wishes to bring harm

Dispatcher - Phillippe the Horse - He comes and gets Belle to take her to the castle, and makes her save her father

False Hero - Gaston - He doesn't appear a hero to the audience, but to all of the town folk and everyone else in the film he is a man worthy of admiration.

TODOROV

Equilibrium - Belle dancing around the town at the start, living a peaceful life, everything seems fine

Disruption - Her father gets taken prisoner by Beast

Recognition - Phillippe comes to pick her up and takes her to save her father

Attempt to fix disruption - Belle gives herself as prisoner so her father can go free

THERE IS THEN A SECOND DISRUPTION - Gaston attacks the castle

2nd attempt to fix - Battle between Beast and Gaston

New Equilibrium - Belle and Beast and everyone involved live happily ever after, as humans.

This is the template I'm using for the digipak, showing me the dimensions of every side, including the spine.

So far I've added a blur to the background, a lens flare and an image of some tape covering the eyes with a brush-like font writing the name over it.

I've taken this photo to use as the front cover of my digipak, I'm going to start photoshopping it, taking some influence from the designs I've analysed so far, to make it looks like a professional cover.

The Good Kind of Bad News

I'm seriously struggling to find a time when everyone I need to be in my video (4 people including myself) is free at the same time, and then finding a location that is free when we are. Because of this, I have decided that I'm going to chance my song for one final time. It's going to take a lot of work but I will be able to do it much easier. I'm going to do a solo song, just me and my acoustic guitar, which I can film mostly myself, some trickier parts with the help of a fellow student.

Song: Greg Holden - The Lost Boy

Video: Mostly shots of me in a low-lit room, some lights around me, playing the guitar on a stool. I'm still going to use the location shots I took in town, but simply film either me or someone else walking down them. Music videos don't necessarily always have to make sense!

Yeezus Digipak Analysis

Since I've already analysed a digipak from the band I'm using, I've decided it would be beneficial to analyse one from someone on the complete other end of the spectrum. The following is the digipak for Kanye West's 2013 album Yeezus.

 

Immediately you notice the contrasting colour palette of black and red, and the religious imagery. The front cover, a statue of Jesus with tape over his eyes suggests that Kanye is more important than Jesus, complementing Kanye's infamous 'rap god' ego. The black and red of everything makes it seem quite sinister, and mysterious, which I believe is Kanye's attempt of feeding the 'Illuminati' conspirators in his fanbase, and the only image of himself is cast in heavy red lighting, a close up of his face filling the frame, showing that he is the most important person to do with the album. Also, notice the lack of a track listing, instead replaced by a photo of himself, possibly suggesting that the album is more about his image than his music.

Attracting an audience

There are several ways in which I believe my project will attract my target audience (teenagers roughly my age):

• Biffy Clyro are a current band, rapidly climbing the ladder to massive amounts of fame, and are becoming increasingly popular amongst people of all ages
• The people in the video are all the same age as me, therefore it will appeal more to people our age, and obviously we're all good looking people, attracting all the girls (JOKING)
• The video itself is rather generic, with a theme of romance, which also plays well with young adults
• Plently of other bands have the similar style of videos, grungy heavy live sides entwined with a softer, lovey dovey story, providing an appealing contrast to the audience.
• The image of the people in the video goes hand in hand with the music, we won't be dressed formally, instead we will be very informal, messed up hair and jumping around hopefully

Biffy Clyro - Opposites digipak analysis

As the song I'm using for my music video is by Biffy Clyro, I decided it would be a good idea for me to analyse the digipak for their latest album, the one featuring the song I'm using.

Shown above is the album cover, the main point of focus being the bent tree. This is supposed to be the oldest tree in the world, located in Chile, and I believe it symbolises the strength of the band, that they plan on being around for a long time. The bones hanging from the tree also suggest strength and age, and the barren location also suggests that their strength is their main focus, and nothing around them will distract them from that. 

The text in the top left corner is bright yellow, standing out clearly against the sky-blue background, and is in Biffy's usual font, making it easily distinguishable as their own.

We can see that the back of the CD jacket has another tree, again symbolising strength and growth of the band. The side that shows the track listing has a close up shot of the branches of the tree. Again, yellow font is used to make the titles and important information on the cover stand out to the audience. At the bottom of this side is the familiar barcode as well as the copyright and licensing information in smaller print. This is so it doesn't distract the audiences attention from the main parts - the track listing.