What have you learned from your audience feedback?

At the start of my planning, after deciding on the pop genre, i created a simple questionnaire for my audience, to gain some feedback on what they would like to see in the video. My target audience being numerous ages meant the feedback would be from a large range of people. There feedback was all very similar as shown in my questionnaire below. I have learned that in pop music videos it is common for the audience to want the video performance based with singing and dancing and not just of the artist singing, therefore i intergrated shots into my video of both aspects, with also the flashback narrative parts which was another audience suggestion. Gaining information from my audience was very interesting and to me it seemed crucial as it is them i am trying to please. Their feedback was mainly all the same showing there attitude towards the pop genre was very similar.

On the 11march half way through editing we presented a rough cut to our class. At this point i had mainly just uploaded the shots and placed them in time with the song. My feedback for the video was very succesful and i was given many ideas to improve the video. My audience really liked the shots of the narrative parts, where the girls were all moving and dancing in rhythm, they used numerous words to describe this such as, effective, fun and perfectly sequenced. They also catched on to the fact the dance moves related to the lyrics of the girls rising up from the ground and the lyrics being 'we rise' etc. My audience expressed that the shots of my artist up on the hill with the views were kind of rough and needed editing to make them more softer. I was then able to apply to this by using many transitions on the shots such as fades in and out and fading into white etc, Which brought the shots into the video not as fast and in your face, but slowly fading in.

I was also told that some of my clips wernt cut to the exact point needed and that you could almost tell the artist had finished her line and acted towards stopping the filming. I went through each shot in my video and cut them to the point where my artist stops and luckily this worked succesfully to fill into the song. This was the most difficult part i felt because i had to get the exact timing of the song correct to the artist singing in the video. Luckily this worked out succesful and i feel the timing of the clips and the cuts of the clips all look effective. This was another thing my audience commented on and that they thought the clear shots of jenny on the hill were used really well to the song because her miming of the lyrics were almost exact.

Final music video.

My final video cut can be viewed at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX-2URT8BQE

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

My main product being about a girl meant i wanted my ancillary tasks to be focused on her. The song i produced was called how does it feel, and in my video she is represented as quite a lonely girl just trying to find her way back to love and be free from all the arguing and problems in her life. I used many shots of just her, and placed her in the centre of the performance clips, to make her the audiences focus and representer her as the centre of attention. I therefore called the album freedom because i wanted to express this the most.

I decided for my magazine advert that i wanted her to be placed as if she was free for the audience to learn this perspective of her. I took a photograph of her using Goodwins ideas again of the voyeuristic treatment to the female body, i wanted to use her as a stereotype to her in the video. In the video she is fighting against her problems but in the magazine advert i have expressed her as how she could go if dealing with the problems and not fighting back at them. I dressed her in the opposite way of being glamourous in her videos but as dark and lost, dressed in dark clothes and messy hair with a bottle of alcohol. Her position on the ground was very important i needed this to be the main aspect of how the audience would learn what was going on. I placed her resting her head on her hand to show depression and distress and her facial expressions express this well. The way she is sprawled with her legs sat shows her not having much care and almost wants to break free. This then relates to the gates in my performance shots of my video because she is this side of the gates, where as in the magazine advert she is the other side.

My Cd cover really glamourises my artist, relating to her performance shots with the audiences focus being her legs, then again on my front cover the same concept is represented. I have placed her in the corner of the room looking away from the camera striking a confident pose. The white walls really make the audience focus on my artist and the fact she is stood in the corner of a room could mean many things but keeps the audience questionning.

The other pictures on my album relate to my music video glamourising the artist again and even using a shot from the video.

I think the combination works well and my artist is glamourised in all ancillary and main products, she is represented to the audience very similarly and always on her own to express her loneliness. Goodwins ideas are used in all the shots and I think they are all very succesful.

Magazine advert

CD cover

Front Cover

Inside Front Cover

Inside Back Cover

Back cover

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

Firstly for planning and researching i viewed several genres of music videos on youtube until finding the genre i felt would be best suited for a video i would like to create. I chose the pop genre and this enabled me to widen my research into social networking sites such as myspace and facebook to search for unsigned bands/artists in the genre.

I then started to search uncopyrighted music sites such as :

- http://freeplaymusic.com/

- http://www.creativecommons.com/

I found it hard searching these websites because many of the songs didnt have vocals. Altough after in depth research i finally found my song 'how does it feel'.

I used a imac computer to research my song and uploaded it to imovie where i would be editing my video.

imac imovie



- Digital video camera to record my video, the camera was easy to use and had a lot of battery life which helped as filming took several hours. 

- Photoshop to edit images for my Album and magazine advert, for example adding in titles and dates to my magazine advert, the software was also easy to use and had a lot of useful editing techniques. 

- Blogger to process my documents such as lyrics, evaluation, upload videos etc. It was a easy blog to use and displayed my documents nicely, being easy to access and understand for other people. 

- Wordle to process my lyrics into a visual. 

- Digital camera for pictures of my magazine advert and album cover. I took the pictures and uploaded them to my own home computer and placed them onto my blog and memory stick. 

- Paint application to cut screen shots for evaluation. Cutting the shots from quick time player and pasting them in paint and saving. 

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

5 shots explained.

The first opening shot is of 3 glamourised girls dressed all the same with the main focus on their legs. This relates to goodwins ideas of the voyeuristic treatment of the female body with the car lights shining mainly on their long, naked legs, immediately gaining the audiences focus. I placed the girls in a empty yard very much like a empty space in beyonces single ladies video (above right), The gates, costumes and darkness created a false dangerous effect on the girls, but establishing their freedom being this side of the gates.

I wanted my music video to be very performance based like beyonces single ladies. The 3 girls in my video move very rhythmically and together to express their closeness and connection, very alike to beyonces video. There is also an element of technical codes, with the lyrics in my video on this shot being 'I rise' with the girls raising their arms into the air.

After a few shots through my video of the performances we flick to a opposite long shot of the artist on her own in an open space, with a beautiful view, very much like in take thats video patience (above right). My artist stands out to all the dull colours around her, catching the audiences eye. I used these shots in the countryside to represent her being lost and on her own, relating to lyrics, i used a long shot for this to show her surroundings and that she looked small in world to represent her loneliness.

This is the first shot which gives us a clear understanding to the narrative of the video. I used the black and white effect on the camera to represent they were in the past, like flashbacks for the audience. The actions relate to the lyrics of the couple in loves, not happy and in this case arguing. The narractive i very simple in what is clearly their home, dressed casually and represented as normal as an argument can be.

In my music video i did not use many close up shots of the artist because i wanted her to be represented more on her own in empty spaces to represent life without her boyfriend that shes arguing with in the lyrics. This is a medium closeup shot, and the closest i have of the artist. It looks very effective how everything around her is so dull and she stands out so much, being the audiences clear focus. She expresses her vocals very loud anc clearly to match the part of the song, Lady gaga in her video bad romance uses a sequence of close up which she also uses very clear expressions and emotions for the audience.