Question 4 Evaluation

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

Throughout the A2 project of making a music video I had to learn how to use new technology and develop some of my original skills with the use of technologies. A lot of these technology's have been useful within the construction, research and planning stage. This is something that I'm going to be evaluating in this essay. 

YouTube
When researching and planning the music video I found YouTube a great source to use. This is because it allows you to search artist, songs, or the lyrics into the search bar.

When finding a song for the research and planning stage YouTube was a very big help because it allowed myself and Erica to watch or listen to original songs from actual You Tuber's. This is where are actual song "silver lights" by Drew Tabor for our construction actually come from. A lot of the YouTube clips that myself and Erica used where for research and planning stages towards our music video. E.g. the different artist that we found online were YouTube artists which mostly influenced our coursework. We mainly used YouTube as our main source for research and planning. The good thing about using YouTube is it allowed us to research into similar artists. Ways we found this would be by typing one of our main artists "Eliza Doolittle" clicking on one of her videos and then scrolling down to the side bar where it comes up with "similar artist" or " related searches". What this does is, brings up similar style artist. This helped a lot throughout my research and planning because it took me to artist I would of never thought of in that category genre. 

When I actually went onto Drew Tabor's official YouTube Page - It had a side bar straight away suggesting other related searches... Which came up with another band Cimorelli, This is one way how we got our other research for instance the costume choices or mis en scene places. 

We used YouTube a lot  through out the use of research and planning stages for our coursework such as viewing videos for different interpretations and influences. YouTube is a massive inspiration source for Erica Hall and myself. Most of the bands that we looked at and researched into were some YouTube artists. Overalls YouTube is a website where anybody around the world could watch your videos you upload - you could instantly by 1 video become a massive YouTube inspiration. Aka "famous - in the land of YouTube". This is also why we decided to upload our final outcome to the music video on this website. Uploading to YouTube was a big help within the evaluating process because it allowed myself to quickly type into the search bar the title and our video would come up straight away. Making it easy and beneficial to use.

Blogger
Throughout this year and last year of our media course we had to make a Blogger account to blog our work that we have been doing throughout the process of research, planning and filming. I actually enjoy using Blogger because its very easy to navigate around and quick and simple if I need to look back at when commenting on my work. Blogger is basically an online internet diary where you update weekly about the process of your filming or any new ideas you've had. I started using Blogger when I started the course of Media in 6th form. Ever since then I have been using it and developing my skills. Blogger overall has been a main source throughout the project.

The times I used blogger would be when I was typing out evaluations or wanting to save work onto my blog so I could look back at for the planning stage. I used blogger frequently throughout the researching and planning process. I've become comfortably confident with navigating around Blogger now because of developing my technique throughout these 2 years.

When i would gather research I would always post it on Blogger add notes... Then when I needed too I would look back to it and see What I suggested. This influenced mine and Erica Hall's way of working alot. 

MagazinesWhen thinking about different magazine articles. I actually looked at alot of the magazines websites because they came up with different sections.. Its better because its more digital and technical which links in with seeing how they make a magazine come to life on the internet. Magazine articles that influenced the final outcome would be "NME" -  NME WEBSITE  (Click here for the website) When working on the digipak (ancillary texts) such as the advert and digipak the magazines were a very big influences on inspiration. Such as how to capture the right photo in the right place using lines of 3. Where to place text.. How to make it eye catching for an audience. Another Magazine website I looked at would be  Q Magazine (Click here for the website) - Looking at both of these magazines really helped alot during the ancillary text part of the course. Furthermore developing technology skills such as using YouTube again for developing techniques with Photoshop.

PhotoShop and Premier Pro

Without Premier Pro or Photoshop myself and Erica wouldn't have a final outcome to a music video of any of our ancillary texts. Being an Art student I already have a basic Knowledge of Photoshop and using Premier Pro last year helped alot more this year because their was alot more cutting to be made.
Photoshop helped during the whole process of making the advert and digi pak. Which looks something like this: 

Photoshop helped create the professional look towards our ancillary texts.texts. They're were constant flows of the same color quality throughout our work due to the color balance we choose such as changing the contrast and brightness then sharpening some pictures to make them look a little better quality. All of these different techniques on that software helped create the final professional slick outcome for our Digi pak and Advert. The advert I think overall would be my favorite part of of the ancillary text it looks pretty professional and something you would most likely see advertised on say "Spotify" - the new music browsing app for technology on the go.  

For Premier Pro Erica and I took it in turn to have an equal share of editing time. For instance we both had input and did different clips. When using Premier Pro Erica Hall and Myself only had a basic understanding. We didn't really know much about the editing techniques or the different transitions we could use. However after experimenting this year with the use of the different color balances, slow mo and transitions we were able to adapt our skills and knowledge alot more This is partly due to the AS course last year, we never really experiment with the use of transitions as well as we could, However this year we decided to change the speeds of some making it more of an emphasis and then we also got to use different transitions and effects. Premier Pro is always hard to get around I think but once you have about 20 minutes on it you can just work it really quickly. That's also a good thing because we had to re-shoot alot of our footage however when we came to editing it didn't take us that long at all because we knew what we were doing. This was an advantage because it meant we had more time on digi-pak and advert stuff with photo shop. 

Camera's
Filming our Music Video meant that we had to use the school video cameras and take other equipment such as - tripod for different shots. Erica Hall filmed the whole of the music video because I was being the star image throughout the video... Also Erica Hall took the photos. However we took loads of random ones to see how to take better quality for instance - using macro for close up shots like this... We realized that macro is for more zoomed in shots.. however it did work pretty well on this photo and captured the great HD Quality. Which is exactly what we wanted.

The video camera we used for filming our music video was a "Panasonic HC-V10 digital video recorder". I already had a basic understanding on how to use a video camera due to last year when making a music video, however this year allowed myself and Erica Hall to really develop our skills and gain more confidence. I think overall our footage this year was alot better than our opening to a horror film. You could clearly see that the quality was alot more better and in focus. The digital video recorder actually allowed us to zoom in on close ups and was very easy to use and navigate. It has an effective high definition quality which is great because we want our audience members watching the music video to feel happy watching instead of finding it difficult to see the footage. Overall the outcome of the footage was to a high quality standard that myself and Erica wanted.

The camera we used originally didn't take great photos so we used a different one called "Lumix Digitial Camera" It had the perfect quality for where we were setting and it focused quickly and clearly on different parts which made it alot more easier in the editing process. When taking the photos we were constantly thinking about the grid lines that the camera gave us.. This meant it was alot easier for us to use the rule of 3 when snapping the pictures. We always made sure that we used it in every picture so the total focus of each one was on different parts of the picture. I think the quality and the rule of 3 were strong points within our photos. I also think we had the benefit too of being art students which means we have a big more background knowledge when it comes to taking good photos because we did a little section about how to work the camera settings better. Which is great because it gave us that advantage when making the digipak/advert I also think this is why we feel like our digipak looked alot better than what we thought because we had more knowledge and skill about the software we were using.

When looking into social media networking sites the first place we decided to distribute our music video too was Facebook, Just because it reaches our target audience range and allow's people to share the video around. For example the new app called "Vine" has been a massive hit on Facebook and people seem to be sharing new videos everyday. This is an easy way to gain likes and fans towards the song and to help create alot more views on our music video. When we shared our music video we were expecting about 3 likes.. However we gained more and alot more people commented on our post that what we actually thought. This goes to show most people actually do look at the videos that you post and shows that they're willing to watch, Furthermore our audience that we wanted was mainly aimed at girls and half the people that viewed our video were actually girls which suggest that we hit the right age and gender when sharing this online.

Overall the question of this evaluation is basically asking, how did we use these technologies, I think overall from this evaluation it is clear that I know how a confident understanding. I usually mess around with the technical side of things when it comes to finding new websites to use... I'm constantly finding new websites that could help or influence. I picked up using certain software easy wand quick which kept up this speed of professionalism within mine and Erica's group. I think I now know I have a better understanding of whats what and how I would use blogger or a different website for a certain research and planning method. Since starting media. I've found other blogs and websites that could be used. I recently joined with blogging on Word Press and pick up how to navigate around this because of using blogger. It's very different but it was easy because I had that knowledge.  I think without any of this knowledge or any of these technical equipment that we used as sources I don't think our video would be as strong as it is watching it back. A lot of the inspiration and influences came from the internet through YouTube or other websites. All of these sources we have used have combined together to create our music video. 

Question 3 Evaluation

“What have you learned from your audience feedback?”

To create my music video myself and Erica Hall had to at least come up with a focus group or a questionnaire that people could full in and feedback to us with. Erica Hall and myself decided to go with the focus group session and a questionnaire. We decided that we wanted to do both this is because for our focus group we wanted to mainly sit down and discuss opinions with people we wanted to aim our music video at for instance girls in their teens. Furthermore that allowed us to go a little wider with the age range for the questionnaires.

We mainly focused on the focus group because it allowed us to explore and have fun. We were given the opportunity to sell the song off to the target audience and see their full reactions to the liking of the song. Erica Hall and myself immediately took a liking to the song when we heard it and being at the same age range we thought it was quite interesting. We had a sit down and discussion session about certain things these target audience members would like to see within our music video. Also what they thought of the song and how it made them feel.

All this information that we gathered was very important to us because it allowed us to narrow down to the right path for our music video. The feedback that was given within our focus group allowed us to actually find inspiration from other artists. in the focus group Kate said "It reminds me of summer or friendship" this helped because it allowed us to base our story line along this theme. We found out that our actual song had hints of "Eliza Doolittle" style within it because this is what the focus group also told us. This helped us find an inspiration source for our music video and to pick up different tips along the way to the planning stage of the music video.

 Having this kind of feedback helped us learn that our style of song had to have an upbeat happy atmosphere furthermore a lot of the people that listened to the song actually ended up saying the exact same thing as myself and Erica did which is great because we pictured the video being fun and quirky. Our main aim when we heard the song was to really make it a summer time vibe and give it the perks of friendship. This is great because a lot of the feedback that was given matched our ideas and themes throughout the music video. Furthermore the questions we asked our focus group would be what kind of artist were similar. This is good because when the feedback we got was Eliza Doolittle this helped a lot when researching into songs. When watching Eliza Doolittle music videos and looking at the different codes and conventions within her music videos we realised that this is the kind of theme we wanted to go for and also target our audience at to.

We decided on a questionnaire too; however we linked this in with our focus group when we did an audience reacting to the song we picked. It felt very professional to do both also reading our questions on camera meant that they had to give out proper answers which was great because we didn’t get any silly comments or fake answers it was just their thoughts and general opinions on the songs and some ideas we had already selected. They're many advantages and disadvantages when it comes to questionnaires. This is because people sometimes don't give the honest answers, they'll just full it in with alot of false answers that aren't what the question says. Sometimes people cannot be bothered to fill them in which means its left to marking whatever they feel randomly. Sometimes people can lie the whole time. This could actually effect our final outcome to a music video by aiming it at the wrong target audience or by selecting certain aspects which didn't suit the codes and conventions. Furthermore the advantages to this would be we could have a wider range audience, including boys and girls, maybe older people. People can be blunt and straight to the point whereas having a focus group people could become camera shy and clam up not knowing what to say. However doing a focus group would be perfect because you get expressions/ facial reactions to the song, honest answers because its like hot seating. 

When filming, we took on everything that was given to us from the feedback. To make sure it suited our target audience’s needs. This is good because when planning the storyline we wanted to make it match what the audience wanted this is because we wanted to have the audience participation which would make them want to watch the music video in the final product. The feedback given from this wide selection of the audience helped us narrow down our findings and helped move and direct us into making the music video.

In addition to this it wasn’t just feedback from random people that helped us with the overall outcome to our music video. Fellow members within our class helped us too because when we first did the edit of the music video we had a lot of negative feedback's of room for improvements. A lot of the feedback that was given was great because it meant that there was room for improvement and it would allow us to move up higher within the marking band too. When asking our actually media class they were very critical but in a positive way. We played the music video to then when we finished playing the video to the audience the feedback that we got was:

• The glare of the sun was distracting and this meant we lose concentration on what’s actually happening in the video”
• “Some of the footage was the same, this isn’t bad but I think it would be better if everything was different”
• “two people lip-syncing and only one voice “
• It’s enjoyable and funny to watch
• The mood/vibe in your video comes across very good

After the feedback that was given Erica Hall and I discussed the negatives and positives and decided that the best thing to do would be to re-film the music video again making the improvements that the rest of the class gave for our feedback. The good thing is that we didn’t have to change the theme, narrative or story line in our music video. This is because the class watching the music video actually found it enjoyable too watch. They laughed and caught onto the song which meant the music video and the lyrics were catchy to sing along too. It made an impact on them because watching their facial reactions they were all smiling along and laughing at how funny it was or how enjoyable it is.

We decided to re-film for the benefit of our footage. The footage that we had taken was actually okay however it could be a lot better facing a different way so they’re aren’t the constant sun glares reflecting across the screen. This made it uncomfortable for the viewers which meant it was harder to see the footage that we had taken. This is negative towards our overall first out come to the music video because it means people watching wouldn’t have bothered to want to watch the rest of the music video if they know it already looks like this way It could become a bit annoying and upsetting for the audience to watch because it’s constantly in the middle of the screen making it harder to see.

When re filming the footage we made sure that we checked the angle of the camera making sure we wouldn’t get any reflections/sun glares. We also made the improvements of not letting Erica sing in the end clips… She found this hard to do so we had to actually block movement so she would forget about lip syncing. This is because only one voice is heard throughout the whole song. It actually did make a lot more sense if only one person sang it.

We also tried to come up with a lot more footage then we already had because before the footage was kind off the same which makes it more boring for the viewers to watch because it becomes very repetitive. Which isn’t fair because the mood of our video needs to be upbeat, cheesy, smiley.

The feedback that was given after we edited the footage we took was this:

• Was funny and enjoyable to watch due to the mood being positive made us feel the same way”
• “ the fact that it is sunny and the glare has gone adds to the warm mood”
• “The lip-syncing is spot on”
• “one part was a little jumpy but this could be because it’s not exported yet”
• Made me feel happy and wanted to smile throughout the whole thing
• facial expressions were big cheesy grins
• it makes you want to get up and sing or dance around with them.

This is exactly the kind of feedback we wanted. I think when we re-filmed the music video it made a lot more of a difference. This was due to the fact that everything the audience had said from the feedback given we applied to our actual final outcome. We wanted it to match up with what they wanted. This is because it would make them enjoy the music video a lot more, due to the fact they had their own opinions and feedback which they wanted to see in the video.

I have learnt from my audience feedback that it’s always important to ask suggestions such as gathering a focus group before you start to film.. Asking them questions. With a focus group there’s more chance that these target audiences would give a honest answer because they have to speak. Whereas having a questionnaire there’s always the problem of them answering with silly comments. We focused a lot more on the focus group then the questionnaire, because you can actually gather the target age and gender you’re thinking more off and see their facial reactions and hear their views.

 Without the feedback we had been given I think we would still be stuck with the first footage of our music video. Whereas we wouldn’t have these improvements or better comments if we would still be using our original take of the music video.

Furthermore when we were asking for feedback on the ancillary text’s it seemed that everybody mainly did like the digi-pak and advert. Comments made on the poster and advert were:

·         It looks very slick and professional

·         Synergy used throughout all 3 – music video, Digipak and advert

·         The colours are bold and it stands out

·         You can see what target audience it targets at

·         The codes and conventions of your theme come across strong

·         The photos are good quality and good focal point

·         Maybe think about the text bubbles.

This is great feedback for the ancillary part of the course because it means were editing in the right ways the only things we need to think about improving would be the text and speech bubbles we had used.  People in the class said it looked okay however maybe it was a bit to much because it was effecting the pictures we had used.

This meant re editing the Digipak/advert because we used both on each… We decided that we would change the opaque/opacity using the Photoshop tools. This makes it fade into a see-through object instead of a massive glow. This is good because when we changed it and asked for more feedback one person said that “It looked like clouds” – This is great because it matches the summer feeling that we wanted.

After we had completed everything. We uploaded the video to YouTube, Shared it on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. This is great because a lot of the target audience that we aimed our music video at were teenagers. Teenagers are the main people that these sites target at. Its good because we got a lot of feedback likes, retweets, favourites from all the posts that we put out. This is good because it meant that we were advertising it right and sending it to people to get more views. Advertising it this way allows us to have that interacting with the active participants commenting back and forth. Its good because it allows us to see how many people actually enjoyed our overall outcome. It allowed us to actually speak with people from the internet to get their honest views and opinions which it seems like most of the people that watched generally enjoyed our video by the feedback that has been given over social network sites.

Twitter Interaction 

Facebook Interaction

Overall I feel without this kind of feedback we wouldn’t have this kind of improvements that has been made for our work. It helped improved I feel and make it better. I feel like our re film looked a lot better. Without the feedback at the start with the focus group/Questionnaire we would never know what stuff to plan or what to add into our music video. I’ve learnt that audience feedback is very important when you are making films or music videos. This is because if you don’t listen to what Theyre saying then you could eventually get the wrong outcome to what the audiences wanted to see.

Question 2 Evaluation

“How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary text?”

In the brief that has been given for our A2 Media studies we had to come up with a product and an ancillary text that fitted in with the codes and conventions of our chosen genre. Furthermore we also had to try and challenge these but with purpose and meaning. Throughout the Digi-pak, advert and music video we had to make sure they all linked and you could tell that all product and ancillary text belonged together.

The genre for our chosen song is “Folk/Acoustic”. The song that Erica Hall and myself picked together was “Drew Tabor – Silver Lights”. It’s a very happy, bubbly song which makes you smile and laugh. This is something that we thought was a good emotion to bring across into our product and ancillary texts. What Erica Hall and myself wanted to combine within our media texts would be the whole codes and conventions and making it as effective as it can be by using synergy throughout the main product and the ancillary texts. We felt in order to make our Digi-Pak, Advert and Music Video link well would be by having similarities between the whole lot of them. This is because we believe that it keeps a constant flow throughout our work and is effective for audiences buying them.

Taking a look at our ancillary texts. This is our Digi-pak and our advert.  As you can see there is synergy from both of the ancillary texts. For instance the location, the costume and the natural nature aspects. Furthermore you can see that there is synergy used throughout due to the use of the same font. We decided to keep the font the same because it’s almost like the style we would see the artist use whenever they have posters or an album out. There’s a certain colour theme between each of these ancillary text which links well together. This is effective because it’s keeping that synergy flowing throughout our work. The colour's being very natural and earthy tones for instance – golden, browns, greens and then of course the outfit colour's. The earthy tones from each ancillary texts help connect with the genre of folk. And then when you get to the costume colour's it helps relate back with the happy upbeat atmosphere. I believe that this is very effective for our target audiences because the outfit choice I have chosen to wear is very bold and eye catching. It’s bright which relates to that upbeat atmosphere of summer, because this is a very eye catching, bright costume choice and its bold. It stands out well in the music video. For instance if a fan were to buy this digi-pak or saw this advert they would immediately catch on because the dress and the guitar are so iconic.

Going into the use of musical instruments we had to use the acoustic guitar. This was because it related well with the folk/acoustic genre. The guitar is one of our symbolic uses throughout the whole inter music video. However because the acoustic guitar has been used so often within our ancillary texts it helps relate that genre style of music back to folk/acoustic. This is a good thing because its straight away telling an audience that this genre will be of folk and acoustic music. Not only is that due to the use of guitar but it’s been shown through the use of setting to. It’s very natural and golden which creates that summer feeling and folkish style setting. Straight away from the bottom right panel you can see the stereotypical shot of the artist lying on a blanket in a field with the acoustic. Just by this shot you can see that Goodwin’s theory comes in, the star image and then of course the codes and conventions of folk/acoustic. This is consistent throughout our music video and throughout the ancillary texts.

 The combination of our ancillary text and our main product is very effective. We kept things similar throughout making sure that myself and Erica stuck to the same codes and conventions of our chosen genre. Something that works very well with our main product and ancillary text would be the way everything links to make a professional slick statement. For instance the colour's are similar. The outfits and location are the same. This is good because if one of our target audience members were to look at our ancillary texts they would be able to recognize who it is and what music video it’s from because we have used synergy to keep that professional flow throughout our work.

This field is symbolic for our location it has been used throughout each part of our coursework. For instance The music video, the advert and the digi-pak. This fits in with the codes and conventions of folk genre.

When you look back at our main product and ancillary texts you can see how each one actually fits the codes and conventions of your chosen genre. For instance the them of acoustic – there needs to be that symbolic use of the guitar throughout the music video, However to get the correct target audience to watch this is going to need to be shown through the advert and digi-pak too. This is exactly what myself and Erica decided on. We decided to make sure that the symbolic guitar was a main theme throughout our work so it related to the codes and conventions of folk/acoustic music. 

Something that’s important when making the main product and the ancillary text effective would be the use of “Goodwins Theory” – Making sure we applied the use of star image. This is used throughout all the ancillary texts, and music video. Almost every shot within our music video uses the star image. For instance if we take the first shot we are shown the acoustic guitar and myself playing it (shown above) – This is the use of star image. The audience are completely focused on the
singer playing the guitar. Also the position of this girl how she is central for the whole frame, its effective because it stands out for the audience because that is their immediate focal point. Furthermore throughout the use of our music video you can clearly see that the star image has been used in each verse, chorus and bridge. The star image is always the focal point. This is something which is repeated throughout our music video and came across very strongly. The fact the singer looks to the camera and sings it involves the audience because it make it seems like she is singing to the audience which could make fans of the song take a  more likeable character to the song chosen. In this image you can clearly see that Star image is used again – The blocking of our filming is something we focused on strongly and the different camera angles. For instance myself walking down the street centre camera on a long shot. Its effective because shes alone and the immediate focus is the girl.

Something which makes our music video effective would be the vibes that we give throughout the whole video. The themes and vibes are what I and Erica worked on a lot. We did this by the use of characterization In a lot of our shots that we have used Goodwin’s Theory has been applied to each part. This is something myself and Erica made sure of when we were filming our music video. In this frame you can see myself using the prop of “Silly String” this is great because it emphasizes on the crazy and fun atmosphere of our music video. It’s also symbolic because you can relate it to being summer and partying – Silly String is used at many party’s and used for celebrating or just having silly string fights with. This is symbolic because a lot of friends use this at parties and just go crazy and have fun with it. In the chorus scenes we wanted them to be as symbolic as possible. When rehearsing these we just tried to be as over the top as we could and have fun with it. Showing facial expressions and just crazy friendships. Silly stuff that your casual friends would do in those times. This is something that me and Erica focused on and we found it to be rather natural when doing it. Its effective because when you go to the Ancillary texts you can see a whole different side almost relaxing - Which fits in with the themes of summer again, Wanting to have fun and relax. I feel like our digi-pak and advert is rather calming and relaxing almost brings across this complete different message from the video itself which is good because it shows all the emotions that we wanted to bring across to the audience. 

I think overall our advert relates more to the style of the genre. We have made this, this way because the photos that were taken relate to that style of genre, and everything about this advert actually seems to link in with the chosen genre. Again star image is used because its synergy and used throughout all the other areas. If people were to look at this advert in a magazine or on a billboard people would immediately know that “This girl” is actually Drew Tabor.

We have tried to relate the colour's themes throughout the digi-pak and advert – The same fonts, text sizes, style. Even the colour of the golden stars. The way I have been placed by using the rule of 3 lines is great because in every image I have the focal point which screams out star image.

If we go back to the Digi-Pak you can see Goodwins theory has been applied again with the use of star image. Every panel has a picture of the singer except from 2 landscape shots of the place where we actually performed in. All costumes are the same, and the guitar is used throughout this too. The text is the same with the similar style of the bubbles around them.

On my blog I've posted about Digi-Pak analysis. This is something which also helped me and Erica plan our final outcome to a Digi-Pak. It was good because it taught us the kind of things we need to stay clear from or other things we needed to include to reach for the right target audience. 

Taking our music video, Digi-Pak and Ancillary texts into consideration you can clearly see that all these 3 products link together. With the use of synergy and Goodwin’s theory. Linking all 3 products together is very effective for us and the audience because it makes it easier for the audience to understand what goes together. The same star image has been used, the same fonts, texts, colours, rule of 3 and location this makes our overall product bold and eye-catching for the audience. It’s bold colour choice which will make the audience want to play and listen to it. The genre straight away is easy to read due to the symbolic use of the guitar and the location we have decided to use throughout the 3 products. Overall our music video and ancillary texts are effective for our target audiences and our chosen genre of music. It looks professional and bold and has synergy used all the way through. This keeps the consistency and constant flow throughout.

Question 1 Evaluation

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

To make a music video you have to consider the basic codes and conventions of a music video. These codes and conventions would be along the lines of Goodwin’s theory for instance such as; thought beats, Narrative and performance, the star image, relation of visuals to a song and Technical Aspects. To create the right music video we had to do a lot of research. This meant figuring out what kind of style of genre for the song "Silver Lights" by Drew Tabor was. This meant we had to kind of analyse the style which was mainly folk/acoustic. After researching into the different genres and styles we then had to research into the main focus points of the genre and see what kind of codes and conventions are involved to create the folk/acoustic genre music video. The reasons for researching into these codes and conventions were so that we could create the right style/symbolic video for the genre that different target audiences would understand.

Looking at the advert that we designed. You can't straight away see the use of rule of 3 by the photograph. When Erica Hall took these photographs we were constantly making sure there was the use of rule of 3 and that the images were as clear as we could get them and with great quality. Personally I think the photographs for our ancillary texts have all be strong. We carefully researched and thought into how we were going to portray the same conventions from the music video into the ancillary text to keep the professional feel and flow throughout our work. Using the rule of 3 helped us a lot because it gave us more room to add text and play around with the image a lot more. Stereotypically using the rule of three and lining up the picture with the lines on the grid when taking the photograph tend to make it more focal and eye catching for an audience too look at, this is one of the many reasons why we wanted to use the rule of three because for our kind of style of genre we needed it to look as eye catching as possible.

When researching into the advertisement we had to think of certain things that would make the audience think straight away and know that it was a folk/acoustic style genre. For example within our advertisement you can see myself holding a guitar straight away from this you can tell that it’s going to be an instrument/acoustic based genre. The setting we are located in is very natural, with the natural lighting from outdoors, for instance the fields, sun, trees and hills in the distance combine together to create the genre of folk. For instance when looking into the girl band

“Cimorelli” – (YouTube Artist) –

We noticed the use of sun in their surroundings and how much that effected the attitude towards the whole song/ EP altogether. This is something that influenced us a lot when taking the pictures because we wanted this happy upbeat energy brought through with the music video then continued throughout our ancillary texts. We made sure our location fitted in well with the folk genre of the song because we knew straight away the acoustic would be shown as an acoustic genre. Furthermore the use of lighting within our advertisement shows the conventions to an folk style genre music video. However decided to challenge these conventions. Folk style genre codes and conventions involve a lot of lighting and shadow play. We didn’t want to make the ancillary or music video to dark so instead we went for more of the brighter lights/sunrays and a little bit of shadow in different sections of the images we took – There is a pacific part within our music video where the use of shadows and lights is shown, I shall be commenting on this later on in this essay.

Linking in with the mise en scene you can see the outfit in am wearing is a dress, leggings. Converse and a denim jacket. We wanted the style of the outfit to bring out the happiness or bright atmosphere of the song “Silver Lights”. In the music video I am wearing the exact same outfit as I am in the Digi Pak and the Advert. This is because it has a good use of flow and is consistent throughout making it look professional. We wanted the outfit to link in with the certain codes and themes too. For instance for an acoustic style we challenged it and decided to go for brighter coloured outfits which bring the whole “In your face” or “Eye catching” look. Its bold and it screams out summer because of the floral patterns. The converse I’m wearing can clearly relate to teenagers because that’s something they would find appealing being a worldwide known brand. It’s also recently becoming very big over in the UK to. The denim jacket I’m wearing can be related back to the artist I have researched into for instance Eliza Doolittle, and then if you’re thinking acoustic style based the band “The Script” or something like "Tom Odell" the star image focal point is always seen wearing denim jackets which comes across as being “Acoustic” style. Going into my facial expressions are very silly and kind of fun which could appeal and make audiences smile and laugh because it’s not something you would see often on a Digi pak. Touching of the hair also adds to the femininity of the ancillary texts/music video. The use of colours within my dress there’s a lot of pinks can also

relate that our target audiences is based around females. For example looking over to “The Script” album cover you can see that the lead singer is wearing a leather jacket – however in our costume choice we challenged this convention and went for a “Denim Jacket” to link well with the acoustic guitar and the whole surroundings and themes. Comparing "The Script" with "Tom Odell" - he also wears the denim jacket but has more of an urban surroundings. This is something we decided not take on however we liked how "The Script" were standing in fields to link in that "Boy Band" - "Folk/Acoustic" style music. What we wanted to do for our Digi-Pak would be to create the Folk/acoustic styles with touches of femininity on the way. Our overall Digi-Pak had the codes and conventions of Good-wins Theory, and then 

Things that we challenged when making the digi paks would be the different styles. For instance I did a lot of research into Eliza Doolittle because her style music is very similar to our kind of theme and it makes you smile. It’s also very upbeat however looking at Eliza Doolittle’s album cover – It is very bright and it does look upbeat with a lot of energy. It’s a very busy composition. When you come back to our ancillary texts, We didn’t want it to be a buys composition. Also having that style of composition would not of fit in well with the whole Folk/Acoustic style genre. Eliza Doolittle's Work was something that inspired us a little however not so much with the ancillary texts, it inspired lots throughout the music video... However when we come to the ancillary text it was more of a way of "how are we going to make our target audience catch this?" "how will we know this suit our target audience" this is why we kind of left all of the details to be genre, colour themed and symbolic basic. That way teenagers picking up the Digi-pak would understand that its aimed at "folk/acoustic" lovers. Going back to Eliza Doolittle, her music videos and her characterization was something that influenced our work alot throughout the research and planning. I researched into videos of hers like "Big When I Was Little". Straight away from the first scene we are given an upbeat personality. This is something myself and Erica thought could work well, However we didn't want to film our video this way. 

What we noticed was that Eliza uses bold big colors which stand out and capture the eye. We noticed that she walks down the streets alot within her music videos which relates it back to this "Local, nature" aspects of our ancillary texts which links in with the actual music video. "Big When I Was Little" Really helped influence our work by the local settings, For instance once scene we see Eliza Doolittle as the star image using Goodwins Theory walking down a street, That's colorful and it almost feels summery. This influenced our work alot. We decided to take ideas like this and use them within our own music video. For instance you get a shot of me walking towards the camera - exactly like Eliza Doolittle does, in a natural setting of trees, roads and houses in the background. You can see from these two photos, and its surroundings how the codes and conventions of folk/acoustic/pop links in with Eliza's video... and also influences our video too. 

There were alot of these scenes within our music video which were similar, however we mainly used them for the verses. walking down the roads to create this nature, outdoors look which relates to that summer feeling. in our music video, Part of this which also influenced us would be the girl "Lenka" who sings "The Show". She influenced us to make the music video very quirky and cheesy. This is good because Lenka also had the same surroundings as us. Green areas and trees to create that natural nature aspect. In the first scene of Lenka's music video we see her seated on a park bench. Somewhere locally possibly. In our music video you see our first scene of myself sat against the sign that is posted. This is due to the fact that we liked how the camera angle would be from this part. Lenka's music video influenced us to start from sitting down. This is also due to the fact that the first verse isn't upbeat its rather cool and chilled which creates this smooth calm vibe. However the more you go into the song it gets up tempo. So we decided to start by sitting like Lenka did in her video. Also The fact that i'm sitting shows that its a more natural aspect towards the video which links in the codes and conventions of folk and acoustic. Also the lighting plays well with the genre of folk music because there are light beams throughout creating that summer sunshine feeling.

When we got to the chorus, we noticed alot of the time chorus numbers within music videos from research we had found out that they tend to be the most upbeat part of the music videos which makes it whole. The chorus in actual fact should be the part that is emphasized the most and creates the whole message overall. This is something that we wanted to do. We decided that we would keep the verses quirky and then build the chorus us to be fun and energetic which will create that happy upbeat atmosphere. To bring this across to the audience it would mean using the facial expressions and having the brightness of our costumes being big and bold. That's another influence. Eliza Doolittle uses alot of bright colours from alot of her music videos to create this happy atmosphere. We have done this by using the sun to create beams against the camera and glares and then we have decided to use the costumes as floral patterns which are bright and stand out against anything. Bright costumes link with the mis en scene of the teenage girl audience that we want to target our audience at. 

Going back to the advert that I and Erica Hall created you can clearly see that we researched a lot on how adverts should be presented. For instance we added in the twitter logo, YouTube logo. This is because from AS research last year we could clearly see that technology is something that teenagers use a lot of nowadays. This is why we decided to use the logos of YouTube and Twitter because of “Active Participants” or “Active Audiences” having that control of being able to speak freely with fans and letting them interact with the music video and the overall advert. It’s good because its advertising the user in a teenager style way which is why we choose this way of advertising overall because its simple, easy and fast. All teenagers have to do is search the twitter name and find them, follow them and then there’s a new fan. When you look at the normal adverts within magazines for perfume companies or film companies they usual add in their twitter names or Facebook pages this is why we decided to add in the YouTube artist – because the singer is an actual YouTube Artist that makes covers frequently.  Furthermore or target audience is aimed at teenagers this is great, because social networking sites normal aim for teenagers and up that’s exactly the kind of target audience we have gone for which means we are more likely to gather teenager audiences and create a bigger audience base because the use of distributing it onto these websites.

Our Digi-Pak is something that we wanted to make look as professional as we can. Ways we did this would be by keeping up the codes and conventions throughout the advert and the music video and bringing them too our Digi-Pak. Our Digi-Pak has a strict color theme and we made sure that it looked professional enough. From the start of the year myself and Erica Hall remembered the rule of 3 when taking photos for media, this is to create focal points for the audience. When looking into Digi-Paks we realized that Ellie Golding might be the best influence for us. We saw Eliza Doolittle Digi-pak and decided that It wouldn't work as a busy composition for our song that we have chosen. It would be best to make it as close to genre base as possible for the target audience benefit. We liked how Ellie Goulding's album has that use of an acoustic guitar, plus the Goodwins theory of star image used throughout. Also showing the guitar the location in one picture basically shows that its "Folk,Acoustic" style genre based. Exactly the same as ours.

This is Ellie Goulding's Digi-Pak for "The Writer" - we decided that this kind of style would be best for our Digi Pak. It has a suited color theme, that could be easily applied to the Advert. To keep that consistent flow throughout. However our Digi-Pak really did go with the codes and conventions. We challenged the colours with the costume choice because they were bold choices, however this did link really well with our chosen target audience being mainly aimed at teenage girls. We liked the way Ellie Gouldings Digi-Pak mainly focus on her and there's a picture of her with the guitar which says that she is a songwriter and comes up with alot of her songs acoustically. Knowing that the YouTube Artist We have choosen "Drew Tabor" is a pretty well known on YouTube it's good because it means we can use the acoustic guitar and be influenced by Ellie Goulding's Digi-Pak because Drew Tabor Is an artist on YouTube that Covers songs and writes songs too.

Codes and conventions of folk and acoustic music is usually rather dull. Thinking into artist of Ed Sheeran with "A Team" - His hole video is acoustic but his effect on his video is black and white which makes this depressing feeling. We challenged this throughout our music video by having it in a normal colour and not always using the acoustic guitar. when You're thinking folk they tend to say they focus alot more on close ups of their instruments. We have done this within our music video because we expressed the way how the artist "Drew Tabor" is an acoustic singer songwriter with a add of folk. We have made sure the guitar is a symbolic theme throughout all of our work being the Ancillary texts and also the music video.

Another part of Goodwin’s theory that we used would be the lyrics and visuals. This is something that we wanted to make stand out a lot throughout our video. In our research and planning stage we

decided to use white card and write the lyrics of “Oh Oh Oh” on them this. Its good because it’s bold and a quirky choice. This is good because whenever the chorus start we used the teansition of sliding doors effect. So it slides open onto this “Oh” cards which makes it stand out. Also the audience will be able to sing along to the lyrics when watching this part. Overall the song is rather catchy and when playing it to the audience they all started to sing the lyrics back which is great because it means that the song we had chosen and the lyric’s and visuals are working.

In The music video however we stuck with the codes and conventions of folk style music having close up shots of the guitar in some of the little instrumental parts.

The transition we used for this is effective because it opens and suddenly there is the card with the lyrics. It stands out, it’s a creative choice not a lot of music video for the genre of folk/acoustic pick this kind of thing to do so in some way you could say we challenged the codes and the conventions at this point. By  making a bold choice and making it effective for the audience watching.

Not only are lyrics and visuals important throughout our music video but the music and visuals are also important. At the beginning of the song we get a guitar picked chord which is bold and loud. In our music video we have applied this to a lot of the intro parts of the song where you can hear the guitar being played. Showing the guitar picking the strings of that chord is symbolic and makes it stand out.

Going back to the vibes of summer. We tried to show this by the different angles/lighting choices within our music video. Sometimes when we caught the sun right it showed through the reflection of the camera creating sun rays or beams. This is exactly what we wanted because when we were researching into different songs a lot of the upbeat happy emotions and vibes created that summer feeling by just certain camera angles. – On one of the verse we get given the lyrics of “It shines between the spaces of the trees and finds its way right back to me” – This plays on all of the lyrics, visuals, and camera angle also themes. It’s literally one shot take. It circles around which creates the sun rays effect through the trees – this also links in with the lyrics and visuals and vibes of summer. When the camera spins around it lands on the star image being me… and it lands on the lyrics of “Finds its way right back to me” – almost like the camera is spinning and that camera has to find me. It plays on the whole of that lyric.

Drew Tabor Silver Lights Music Video - By Erica Hall and Chloe Watret

I think overall when you look back at our video you can see that we have challenged some of the conventions of our chosen genre, However we have also stuck by alot of the conventions too. We have been influenced by many artist that are based in the acoustic, folk also some pop genre. Most of the stuff that we have added within our music video had alot of playful, upbeat, quirky character, The facial reactions, the silly laughing slow motion clips. The editing that has been done on purpose to create the emphasis on certain parts. Goodwin's theory with lyrics and visuals and narrative story line. The props that we also used added into the characterization and mis-en scene of the performance. Overall if you compare our work to any of the artist above you could easily pick out different influences and codes and conventions that linked together to create this music video. I'm happy with the final outcome I feel like we have improved the work alot to meet the given criteria by making sure that each clip we have filmed or edited ticks all the codes and convention boxes.