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

Task 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We asked a groups of media pupils of 16-18 (our target audience) to fill out a questionnaire the answers below are a summary of what the students thought and said. I find it difficult to create opinions on my own pieces, because of course I am slightly biased; but it allowed me to hear the opinion of others within my age group. Also; to be able to stand back and become critical of what worked, and what could have been improved on.

Q: What genre would you pigeonhole this type of music to?
A: "Alternate Folk", "Acoustic Singer/ Songwriter" "Urban"

Q: Did the use of camera and editing compliment the song, and if so how?
A: The best bits of the video where when the camera tracked slowly around the singer like at the beginning, perhaps more of these shotscould have been used. Less static shots, and more tracking/panning. The blurry after effects work very well to create an atmosphere of surreal reminiscence and nostalgia.

Q: What was the purpose of using two locations?
A: There was a constant oscillation between reality and fantasy, and they moved to smoothly between them that the reader felt melancholy and relaxed. Sometimes the song felt depressing. The two locations made a connection between the lead singer and the character in the wood. Was he reflecting on a memory/fantasy? A broken relationship? Teenage fantasies?

Q: Who do you think the target audience are?
A: Young people our age, especially girls who would like to emotionally invest in the narrative. Girls love love stories. Bon Iver appeals to university students, festival-goers.

Q: Any other comments about synergy, film language, representation?
A: We think that the video both conforms and challenges the conventions of pop videos. It conforms because it uses romance as a narrative and the beautiful red haired girl to make a statement about beauty and idealism. However it challenges stereotypical conventions because it has an unhappy ending where we want the boy and girl to fall in love but instead she disappears and this leaves us with a negative take on love.

Task 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

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Task 1 - In what ways do your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media productions?

The first stage of the production of my music video was the research and development stage. One element that is key within these stages is the major conventions of a music video. Keith Negus, a music theorist identified major conventions, such as:

• featuring the artist/ performance element
• a wide and extensive use of shot types
• camera angles and movement
• narrative
• the flexibility to disregard realism
• shots cut tightly to the beat of the track
• use of special effects
• mise-en-scene appropriate to the content

When listening to the track, we thought hard about the song and artist's genre. We came to the conclusion that it didn't fit any stereotypical/obvious styles of music and therefore we thought it a good idea to follow through with this 'unusual' style for the narrative. Therefore we decided to feature the narrative and the performance element interlinked throughout our product.  

With the original artist (Bon Iver) not putting music videos to his tracks, it shows his fans that he is all about the music rather than his image, this also gave us inspiration to make the video more about the narrative than the artists performance. Our narrative generally subverts Negus's conventions in terms of the fact that we didn't use tightly cut shots and special effects. In fact we chose to follow the organic style of a similar artist Newton Faulkner, who style generally conforms to the the organic ideology also from Negus. The record company allows artists such as these to have a naturalistic approach, and allow them to grow and evolve to their full potential rather than force them. 

This image is an example of the naturesque feel to our video. We tried to fit the feel of the music; we all agreed that the visuals that came to mind when listening to the track were nature shots. You can also see that we chose to enhance the colour scheme. We felt this gives it an antique look, which further appeals to the style of the music. 

This next image is another good demonstration of the style of our product. It does not conform to the stereotypical 'hip hop/R&B' music video, with dancers everywhere (right); it is quite the opposite in a way that it has a 'vintage' and intellectual feel to the room (left).   

Final Product

Poster

We talked over ideas and plans for the poster as group, just as we did for the digipak. Again we talked about not featuring Leo our singers face on the poster. If we chose not to put his face on the front of the digipak, we should also not place his face on the poster, if we wish to conform to the style of this genre of music. By not placing his face on the poster, hopefully it will also draw people in who have an interest in similar music to our band, just as we hope the digipak will do. 

After an experiment (left), of trying to make a poster with Leo on it we decided that this was definitely not right for the style and genre of the music. 

We decided to stick with the idea of using nature to bring in a certain target audience rather than trying to bring in anyone to listen to our band. We looked through our stills taken on our shoot day and found a simple nature style photo which fitted perfectly (right).

We decided that whatever font we decide to use for the digi pack, we should also use on the poster as a synergistic use of the font. Due to this genre of music we thought it appropriate to choose small gig venues and pubs in places that appealed to certain types of people who might listen to this style music; over London, Nottingham and Oxford.

Digipak continued...

This is the first digipack I put together. Using some stills that we took on shoot day (studio and location), and of course the use of photo shop, the package works reasonably well. However only four panels are of professional standard. We wanted to include water or leaves, the artist, the characters so that the music video and the digipak cross promote each other. Also some additional thanks and credits inside.

There is more to the digipack than just four pictures on the product. I have thought about which picture would be best for the front cover,and whether there is a synergistic through line between the digipack and poster font in response to the music video, and the use of representation. Firstly, Leo Faulks' face is not on the front of the pack, this is because we make a conscious choice not to sell the artist on his surface image, however if the individual decides to buy the CD, then on the inside they would be privaleged enough to see for themself the artist of the music. On the back of the CD are the stepping stones which fans would recognise from the music video and the edwardian script which I have used throughout. It is supposed to look like fountain pen writing, again conforming to this non-image, anti technology sort of genre. Against each stepping stone is printed the name of each song. We chose to alter the size of lettering as it gets closer to the eye, just like the stepping stones, and where the water shines at its lightest, we have "Flume" printed, becasuse this is supposed to catch the eye of the potential buyer as the most recognisable song on the CD.