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

To see how I used technologies to create my ancillary products please look at my "Making Of" Page, where I explain how I made my ancillary products and some information for parts of the Music Video itself. 

The Four Questions for the Media Evaluation

For my A2 Media I decided to choose the first brief; "A promotional package for the release of an album, a music video and two other products, that of a digipak design (I chose to do a 6-panel digipak) and a magazine/newspaper advertisement for this digipak.

For the Evaluation I will be addressing 4 questions:

• In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
• How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
• What have you learned from your audience feedback?
• How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Equipment

How Effective Is The Combination Of Your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?

Please watch in full screen to be able to read the text appropriately 

In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products?

What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?

Do I Wanna Know - Behind the Scenes (Part 2)

Do I Wanna Know - Behind The Scenes (Part 1)

Despite all of the stress and hard work of filming, we also had a lot of fun, and ended up with too many out-takes that couldn't go wasted. So I put together these two videos to show the best parts of the filming process that we couldn't include in the final product.

Audience Feedback

Positive Feedback

Negative Feedback

·         The reverse effect was impressive and carried out well ·         The video complimented the song ·         Wide range of shots ·         The steps in the establishing shots were good, they went in time with the music ·         They liked the ghosting effect ·         “Very good, editing was top quality” ·         “I liked the shots in reverse” ·         “The use of camera shots and transitions were good” ·         “The quick editing was really good” ·         “I liked that it was in black and white” ·         “Well edited” ·         The transitions fit well with the video ·         The effects suit the feel of the song ·         Party scenes looks good ·         Good variation of shots and camera angles ·         Interesting  angle ·         Good use of black and white ·         “I like the movement of the bottles and cans” ·         “It made the audience feel drunk, like they’re at the party” ·         “I like the shots of the boys walking as it’s in time with the music” ·         “The drinking shots where more appear looks really good”

·         Possibly too much use of the ghosting effect ·         Bit too dark ·         “Some clips are a little long” ·         Confusing at times with the ghosting ·         Possibly more focus on the boy and girl ·         Quite a confusing storyline

Mise-En-Scene of "Do I Wanna Know"

Mise-En-Scene consists of 5 main aspects, these are:

• Costume, Hair and Make-Up
• Lighting and Colour
• Body Language and Facial Expression
• Settings and Props
• Positioning in the Frame

 

Costume, Hair and Make-Up

 

The costume in our video is very simple, we chose to dress our characters in casual clothes as if they looked too dressed up they would not compliment the alternative genre. It is common in alternative music videos for the characters to be dressed either very casual, like we chose to do, or to be very quirky or imaginative. Because this is quite a slow song we thought it were best to tone down the outfits and relate to a typical British teenager house party.

Hair is a common aspect in "indie" bands to be wild and different, like their music, this is seen on artists like Alex Turner (Arctic Monkeys), Harrison Koisor (Peace) and Sebastian Pringle (Crystal Fighters). Because of this we needed our main character, played by Matthew Brown, to have an interesting hairstyle that makes him stand out from the rest of the crowd, we chose to style his hair in a 1950's, John Travolta, Grease look to try and give him a unique style. Although we filmed in black and white the character is actually still dressed in blacks, greys and whites, this was because it represented his feelings at the time, which we tried to portray as upset and lonely.

As for the female character presented she is wearing a very simple red dress. We originally chose to highlight the dress in red whilst the rest of the video remained black and white, after practicing we realised that this looked unprofessional and did not work with the rest of the footage. Her hair is straight and dark, giving her a look of seriousness and mystery, we thought that this would make the audience want to know more about her.

The rest of the extras and band members are much more casually dressed, mainly fashioning jumpers, jeans and dresses (for the women). We did not want them to be wearing anything too outrageous or it would draw attention away from the main characters. Although the band are seen in the video and are vital for the music video we wanted them to almost appear as "background music" to the narrative as otherwise it would draw the viewers away from the storyline.

 

Body Language and Facial Expression

 

The body language of our music video is one of the most important aspects of the mise-en-scene as it is the actor's performance of these paralinguistics that transfers onto the viewer what the characters are really feeling. These expressions tell the story as much as the script, camera and editing does.

For Matthew Brown's character, our protagonist, he is seen to be miserable, lost and lonely, we made sure that he did not smile once in filming to ensure that this image comes across to the audience. We wanted him to appear isolated, even in a room full of people. There are a couple of shots where he is sat alone, away from everybody else, whereas the other characters are celebrating and enjoying themselves.

It is only in the flashbacks that our victim appears to show any other emotion that's not upset, and this is when he is arguing with his newly ex-girlfriend, where he looks angry and appears to be the antagonist of these shots.

Our female lead is a lot more reserved than that of our male, she is calm and also appears to be enjoying herself at the party and appears oblivious that he even exists. This is to represent that she has moved on, even though she was the one who was originally going through the pain in the breakup (when she is crying into her hands in the flashbacks) but now she has emerged happy and it is the male character regretting his decision.

The last shot is of the boy looking on at his ex-girlfiend leaving with another man, this shows him looking upset and full of regret. relating to Todorov's theory of narrative structure as at the end of the music video we have a new equilibrium of the boy being alone and the girl finding somebody new.

Settings and Props

The mise-en-scene of our video at the beginning is the boys walking through a town, we did not want this to look modern but more of a backwards town that you might see on This Is England or Skins, both of which have very similar themes as to what we are trying to attempt.
The setting is a backwards English town, pubs and a teenage party. To set the scene we have the group of boys walking around the town and going into these pubs, appearing slightly drunk and disorderly.
There are not many specific props in the scene. The only ones feature are the band's instuments and the alcohol bottles/cans/glases. For the instruments we mainly displayed them being played by the band, we use close ups of the mic stand and along the guitar to establish a connection between the band and the party. We did a lot of work with the alcohol props as we wanted to make the audience think the characters were drinking a lot, so we used multiple shots of opening bottles and cans, filling glasses up and we used quick shots of the bottles appearring and disappearing off of the table as a montager for time passing throughout the night.
 

Finalised Digipak Design

For my digipak I decided to use 6 panels as I think this is becoming more common. I also think it give me an opportunity to display more information about the band and produce an image for the album.

Front Cover

My idea for my front cover was to have a very simple idea. I have noticed that a lot of albums, for example the Lumineers and other Arctic Monkeys digipak designs to not always contain either the band's name or title of the album, sometimes neither are shown. 

Because of this I have chosen to only contain the band's name, the title is shown on the back however so it can still be known when you first look at the album in a shop. 

Because of the band's vast popularity and worldwide fame I believe the name of the band is all you would need to contain for the front cover, but making sure I contained all the other information was still important.

Back of Digipak

The idea for the back of my digipak was again to appear simple. Because of this I chose a black and white theme, this relates to the music video and my digipak advertisement.

Here I have named the album "AM" in a large font to draw attention to the title of the album.

I have included the address of the recording studio and the record label for this. 

As well as this I have included lyrics from the track we used in our music video, I chose "There's this tune I've found that makes me think of you somehow, and I play it on repeat, until I fall asleep" because I believe it is common for people to listen to albums on repeat until they fall asleep and this will be the intention of the album. 

I centred the track listing also to draw attention to it and so the audience may identify their favourite songs or go away and have a listen. As well as this I displayed the band's website and the companies as I thought this was needed incase the viewer wants to research the band/album.

3rd Panel/Sleeve

This is one of the inside panels that will be on the inside of the digipak, covering the tray that contains the CD. I have planned this to be a sleeve where there would be a lyric booklet of the tracks. I thought this would be appealing to younger audiences.

Lyric Booklet

This would be the front cover of the lyric booklet, inside it would be plain with images of the band and random shots from the music videos. It would be slotted into the 3rd Panel's sleeve so it would be protected from ware.

The 3 Inside Panels for the Digipak

(have had to turn this portrait as it could not be appropriately displayed when in landscape)

This is my design for the inside of the Digipak. I tried to use continuity between the products, because of this I thought I would use the opening shot from our music video of walking, however I chose to have it from a side view and have it waking across the digipak, as well as this I have kept it with the black and white theme, however to relate to the advertisement I turned the trainers red to coincide with the girl's red dress. 

The inside of the digipak is very plain and simple, much like the rest of the digipak. There is production text at the bottom of the panels, however I chose to keep these small as that it how the business displays their credits, I did not want them to be eye catching so left them with a black font. 

I included a QR code which is fully working and effective, this leads the consumers to the band's website where they can research into touring dates and new releases of the band. The credits also offer a free download of the music video with every purchase, this would be activated by using the QR code on a smart phone 

Drafts of Print Products

This was my first attempt of the digipak front cover originally however I realised that it was not very exciting and although it was bold it was not as interesting as many of the covers out there.

I wanted to include an image, much like the one on my poster design however I could not find a suitable way to include it.
Instead of this I have decided to use it as my lyric booklet instead.








This was an image I took in Bridlington of the local Leisure Centre. Although it is very simple and plain I thought it would look good when edited to place in my digipak.
I originally wanted it to be an inside panel including the  QR code, record label and information about the band....











This is what happened when I tried to edit it differently.
I turned the front cover grayscale, then increased the contrast to make the colours stand out from one another.
I created a fully functioning QR code with the QR code generator : Click here for link to the website...
I also erased the Leisure Centre text to say "Arctic Monkeys" instead. I thought this worked well, as I swapped the direction of the arrow to fit the writing on better.