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This blog is now closed, I hope you enjoyed reading about our project as much as we enjoyed making it!

Evaluation Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My media products use and challenge conventions of real media products. During our planning process we analysed real already existing media products to influence our decisions. We used elements from various existing media products in order to create a unique but conventional website, album cover and music video of the RnB/Neo-soul genre.

Music Video

In order to make our videos we referenced many different theorists and theories relating to music videos. A theorist that we used to influence our decisions was Andrew Goodwin, an outline of his theory can be seen below.

Andrew Goodwin-Music video theory

Genre Characteristics 

Below is a prezi higlighting the first aspect of Andrew Goodwins music video theory- genre characteristics. Here I have explained how we conformed and challenged the music video characteristics of the RnB/Neo-Soul genre.

Lyrics, music and visuals

The second and third aspect of the Goodwins theory is that there is a clear relationship between the lyrics/music and the visuals. The visuals could either be illustrative, amplifying or contradicting towards the lyrics/music.

In our music video there is a clear illustrative relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, examples of these can be seen in the below GIFs.

Hand gestures to represent the lyrics"Gun crime into your right ear, drugs and violence into your left, before our headphones flooding"

our lighting turns blue during the lyric "I wanna turn those blue lights". 

strobe lights were used during the lyric "into strobe lights"

A fairy light set up was used during the lyric "maybe even fairy lights"

hand gestures connoting a wave during the lyric "the order into a subconscious waves you accept"

running segment of the narrative during the lyrics "Theres no need to run" 

literal blood is seen on the artists hands and the male character looks at his hands in a similar fashion during the lyrics "Blood on my hands but I dont know where its from, oh,"

It is clear that we used this aspect of Andrew Goodwins theory to inform the decisions made in our music video. We have a clear relationship between the lyrics/music and the visuals of our music video as stated in his theory.


Record Label demands

Although our artist is fictional and thus we did not get any demands from our record label, we looked at into usual industry standards. An example of a typical industry standard for music videos are beauty shots/close ups of our artist. In order to comply to this we used a variety of close-ups in order to display the attractive qualities of our artist. Examples of this can be seen below.

Another typical industry demand is to showcase the talent of our artist in order to sell her to the audience. In order to do this we included multiple shots of our artist singing and dancing as seen below.

we used stylistic hand gestures with the music in order to reinforce this 

Voyeurism

Another aspect of Goodwins theory was the use of voyeurism within the music video. This is the frequent reference of looking and sexualising the female body. With our artist we conveyed the  convention of voyeurism  by using voyeuristic imagery such as using close-ups of our artists lips and eyes. However there was on overt sensationalist of our female artist This can be seen below

However we also represented our artist as strong independent and serious, we did this by using scopophilic camera work in order to deliberately address the intelligent thinking female audience.

Inter-textual reference

The final aspect of Andrew Goodwins theory was the use of inter-textual references, intertexuality is when one media text pays homage to another media text.

 We decided to add an inter textual reference into our music video through the use of projections. We decided the lyrics "Not long ago you were miming to the shook ones, now this really is part two cause you're the shook one." This lyric is referencing the song "Shook ones pt. II" by Mobb Deep whilst using a play on words. In order to show this inter textual reference visually we used a projection of Mob Deep. This can be seen below.

Mobb Deep projection when the inter textual reference comes up in the song. 

Website

Below is a slide highlighting the conventions of a website and how we conformed/challenged them.

Album cover

Carol Vernallis

Editing

harsh cuts to draw attention to our editing

Cross cutting our narrative with our studio shots

Camera movement/framing

                                   Using a camera movement to reflect the beat of the music



In conclusion I think our media products use convention quite effectively in order to conform to the audiences expectations as well as to be serve the purpose/ be recognisable for what they are. However we did challenge conventions, for example with our album cover, as we felt our creative idea would work well. Im glad we challenged this convention as the end product works well together.

Evaluation Q2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I think our main product and ancillary texts work well together through this use of visual motifs and synergistic elements. We aimed for the three products to work together in order to form a recognisable brand as well as to market our artist to our audiences of "fans of the RnB/Neo-soul genre"

Below is a slide detailing already existing promotional packages from real artist "Izzy Bizu" and what I learnt from the campaign.

From studying Izzy Bizus marketing campaign it was clear to me that synergy is key in a marketing campaign. Izzy made a consistent brand which she then applied across all her platforms, it was clear we would have to do the same for our artist and our media products. Using this knowledge from Izzy Bizu we also looked into Richard Dyers Star theory in order to create a consistent artist image and brand. Once we had created this we could use synergistic elements to portray this image/brand across our media products. 

The below prezi highlights how we used Richard Dyers Star Theory in order to create our artists brand/image.

Our media products

We created three media products, a music video, a website and a album cover. Each product had an individual role in our overall marketing campaign, these were 

• The music videos aim was to promote the single as well as our artist to the audience
• The single then works to promote the overall album as a whole
• The album then works to promote the the tour where most of the artists revenue is made from tickets
• Then the website acts as a hub for everything. 

The website

The website is said to be the hub of the campaign, this is because it is connected to all our media products.I think this is true for our website as we managed to link all our media to the website as seen below. I think it is clear that our video serves its purpose well of acting as "the hub" of our marketing campaign

"Get the Album" option available on landing page instantly promoting the album

"Music" page links the album cover and the music video

"Ticket" page instantly promotes upcoming concerts thus also serving as a revenue option for the artist

Social media links directly on the website

Tim O'Reilly suggested that Web 2.0 allows the user to "interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creates of user generated content in a virtual community. I think we took advantage of Web 2.0 as we included multiple opportunities for our audience to interact such as links to social media, sign up and Q&A section.

Sign up option to promote interactivity with our artist

Q&A section to further promote interactivity

Below is a slide highlighting how we used the brand we made for our artist synergistically throughout all our media products.

To conclude I think my media product and ancillary text work together extremely well together due to the use of various synergistic elements such as our visual motif, graffiti and logo. Due to this and Richard Dyers Star theory we were able to create a consistent brand across our music video, album cover and website. 

Evaluation Q3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback is a huge aspect of the decision making process, we received regular audience feedback during the production process as it greatly improved how our media products appealed to the our target audience.

Our audiences

Primary- Our primary target audience were fans of the RnB/neo-soul genre, these are predominantly young people aged 16-25 of both genders

Our primary target audience of fans of the RnB genre aged 16-25

Secondary- Our secondary audience were young trendy teens that could relate/aspire towards our artist

An example of a typical member of our secondary audience

Tertiary- Our tertiary audience were friends/family of the primary audience, which were fans of the RnB genre

Our tertiary audience is quite wide being friends and family of our primary target audience

Audience Theory: Uses & Gratifications

The researchers Blumler and katz expanded the uses and gratifications theory, they stated that "individuals might choose and use a text for the following purposes

• Diversion- An means of escape from everyday problems and routine
• Personal relationships- using media texts as a substitution for social/emotional relationships
• Personal identity- seeing yourself reflected in texts as well as learning behaviour/values from texts
• Surveillance- learning information

However it is stated that the list of uses and gratifications has been expanded due to advancements in technology such as the internet and interactivity. 

Below is a slide on how we applied the uses and gratifications theory to our audiences to our media texts

Feedback during construction

After our rough cut had been made we received feedback. This was extremely useful as we could directly communicate to the TA and alter our product according to the feedback to better appeal to them. As stated in construction post 1 we received the following feedback from our TA

• On-location shot needed a better location- It was pointed out to us that our narrative seemed to suburban. For example one of our shots involved our character walking into a train station in Southgate. Two different teachers said this location was ineffective and boring.We wanted to have an urban look to our narrative thus we have decided to film all our location shots in Shoreditch in order to combat this problem. 

The shot in our test shoot that will be re-shot

•   Projection video was too dark- For our projection shots the footage that was being projected was far too dark. This resulted in grainy footage and our artists face being completely blocked out. In order to combat that issue we made an entire new video for the projection during this week. This new video contained light footage that didn't darken the footage and lit our artist well. 
•  Time line was boring- After showing our test shoot footage to our target audience and teachers we were told that our initial introduction to the male narrative was boring and too longed out.  It was also highlighted to us that the initial introduction of our male character was a long-shot and thus our focus group didn't realise who he was. In order to fix this I redrew some aspects of the storyboard to include a greater variety of shot types/ movement instead of static mid-shots which is what we had before. This resulted in a faster paced sequence, the revised storyboard can be seen below. 
• Upon revising the time-line we realised that some of the more experimental shots we planned did not work when it came to editing. For example we wanted to have a smooth transition between two shots by moving the camera into darkness. However when it came to shooting the shot did not work as the camera did not adjust in time. 

After receiving the feedback we made the following improvements to our video 

Our introduction to the narrative was shot in a more urban setting and used a camera arc to make the narrative generally more interesting to the audience 

Lighter projections were used for this set up resulting in clearer footage. 

The male narrative was generally described as "longed out" and "boring" so we decided to use more experimental shots and pacey editing for the final cut This can be seen in the GIF below

Experimental shots and pacey editing made the male narrative much more interesting to the audience

Receiving audience feedback was essential to the construction of the music video as it helped us make important decisions such as using different lighting or editing a sequence differently. These decisions would then appeal directly to the TA as they essentially came from the TA., The final cut was generally more immersive and thus could fulfill the audiences need to "escape from everyday problems"


Final feedback

After our media texts were completed we decided to collect primary data. This was done through a survey I made from Survey monkey as well as focus groups involving member of our TA.

I included the following questions in the survey

1. What is your age?
2. What is your gender?
3. What type of music do you listen to? 
4. What genre do you think this music video is from? What made you think this? 
5. Who do you think its suitable for/targeted at? (age, gender, music likes)
6. Can you identify the artist in the music video and explain the kind of artist you think they might be?
7. Please describe what happens in the video
8. Do you think the music works well to promote the artist and the song?
9. Would you want to find out more about the artist, having watched the video
10. What do you think is the theme or message of this music? 

From the first two questions it is clear that our video reached our primary target audience of young RnB/neo soul fans as 90.91% of people who watched our video and filled out the survey we're aged 16-25, the other 9% were put as other and did not specify their age.

 Although our reach was slightly skewed towards girls as 60% of viewers were female, looking back this is to be expected as our artist is female and thus the female audience would find her more relatable/inspirational and she could even be seen as a role model. This could be seen as gratifying the audiences need for "personal identity" However 40% were male thus giving us enough of a sample size to get viewpoints from both genders. 

Question 3 was informative in the sense that it did confirm that we were able to reach our target audience as 72.73% of people who filled out the survey were fans of RnB thus fulfilling our primary target audience. However it didn't occur to me the vast range of genres one person can be a fan of as the second and third most popular types of music were pop and rap.  We didn't take into account that our target audience of fans of RnB/soul would also be fans of other genres of music.

 From question 4 it is apparent clear that we were successful in connoting the genre of RnB/soul in our music video to the target audience. This is evidence that we connoted the genre well through our music video and thus appealed to our primary target audience of fans of RnB and neo-soul.







 9 out of the 11 people who did the survey stated they could identify the artist as Layla Obi as well as identify she is a debut/RnB artist.

This shows that the music video was extremely successful in promoting the artist accurately as the audience can identify her and what type of music genre she specialises in, thus serving its purpose in the marketing campaign well.

From question 7 it shows that the changes we made during the construction part of the project paid off as many of the audience were able to prove a basic summary of the narrative within our music video.

 Its reassuring tat the majority of people were able to understand the narrative as during our rough cut it was un-clear, although some summaries of the narrative aren't completely true such as "someone got shot" this shows that a small portion of the audience didn't realise it was the main character being shot. Despite the majority of viewers completely understanding the narrative we may have had to make the plot even more clear so that 100% of the viewers understood. 

The feedback for question 8 was extremely positive with 100% of viewers agreeing that the music video works well to promote the artist and the song. This is reassuring as it proves that the music video served its purpose extremely well and fulfilled its role in the overall marketing campaign,   

The results back from question 9 were largely positive as 10/11 viewers said they would want to find out more about the artist. i am pleased with this result as the one response of "Not really" may have been due to music taste. I am confident that the music video served its purpose successfully in promoting the artist and making viewers want to find out more. 

I think we were quite successful in promoting the the political theme from our music video as 9 out of 11 responses did mention police relations which is what we set out to do. This is important as a key part of our artists construction relies on her views, these views will then help her relatablity with the audience and thus help push her as an up and coming artist. The reliability factor also fills in the audiences use of media texts in order to find personal identity, 

As well as feedback from a survey I also asked a focus groups of our primary TA what they thought of our media texts, a recording of what each one had to say can be seen below.

Emilios views on video:

• "Really good, really professional" 
•  Reconsidered the RnB, soul genre 
• Recognised the target audience of young people
• Identified Layla obi "the girl with the afro"
• Identified the issue of Police brutality
• "Really informative" "The video reflects the music mood" 
• Liked the three-shot run
• Didn't like the train zoom 

 Emilios view on website:

• Graffiti was used to target young people 
• recognised the graffiti was from where the music video was shot
• Instantly saw the album on the website
• Impressed by the video background 
• Didnt like the quote "Quotes a bit cheesy and boring" 
• Instantly saw tour dates
• Using the website was really clear
• "very very professional" "basically the same as any other big artist" "really informative as well" 
• "videos are really arty colours are really vibrant"
• "[targets audience] through the clothes, through the items, black and white so its in your face, and graffiti" 
• Surprised by the social media links
• "Really good brand image" 
• "Basically I would see this" 

Emilios view on album cover:

• targets teenage audience it is trying to reach out to well 
• "colours are really retro, kind of vintage feel" 
• People who listen are trendy teens
• Thought the floating image was eye catching
• "It all relates"
• "to be honest I dont like this one [inside album panel] as much" "its a bit younger than what its audience is" "13-14 year old type of cover" 

Tillys view on music video:

• "all the colours are really cool"
• Really loved the running sequence
• Recognised it was from the RnB genre
• Recognised it was targeted at young people
• Recognised our artist as young and up and coming
• "fitted really well to the music"
• Recognised theme of police brutality
• The artist is always the centre of attention
• Liked blood on the hands cross-cut shot
• Visually shows what the lyrics are saying
• the music and the video compliment each other very well
• would want to find out more about the artist as they are a similar age

Tillys view on the website:

• Really liked landing page shot
• Graffiti on the website reminds her of the music video
• instantly recognised similarities
• like how the music video is straight there
• thinks it works well as a hub for infomation
• Liked the shallow focus video background
• Thought the Q&A was really nice way to find out about the artist

Tillys view on the album cover

• Liked the photography
• Liked the colours of the graffiti thinks it directly links with the music video
• immediatly saw the connection of the graffiti from the narrative
• Shots are quite nice of plain white
• Got a "Edgy" theme going on 
• Lot nof similar shots further creating the theme

Overall I am very pleased with my audience feedback. i feel like all the elements in our campaign worked quite well in their purpose. Our survey highlighted that out music video reached our target audience of 16-25 fans of RnB/soul quite well. Our audience feedback also showed the effectiveness of each element in their role. For example it is clear that the website works well as a hub for connectivity and information involving our artist, it is clear that our music worked well to promote the single, artist and album. I am also really pleased that most of our audience recognise the synergistic elements across our products highlighting the brand between our media texts.

However some audiences felt as if the narrative was still unclear and a small minority of viewers did not receive the political theme behind our music video. If I could go back I would attempt to tweak the narrative so it is clearer to the audience. I would also redo the unsteady zooms as it was pointed out by our audience. If the zoom issue was fixed it would help our audience suspend their disbelief better and thus make our music video much more immersive.