EvaluationEvaluation of my media products and

ancillaries from A2 Media Studies

Question 1In what ways

does your media product use, develop or

challenge forms and

conventions of real media products?

I used Serif MoviePlus to create my music video, and PagePlus to make my ancillary products (digiPak and magazine advert. As I used PagePlus last year to complete my music magazine as part of my AS Media Product, I believed it would be more effective to use it again as I am used to the format and how to use it. MoviePlus was new to me this year but it was fairly easy to use and I could easily manipulate the images and videos for my music video and alternating between the video and the soundtrack was easy too.

Nowadays in the music industry there are three main types of music video. There are *Ballad-inspired: slow fades and cuts. Less lip-syncing. *Carnivalesque: catchy tune, upbeat tempo, fast cuts, more lip-syncing, easy to follow narrative and bright, attractive colours. *Abstract: either balladic or up-tempo – special effects or very slow fades in order to convey a message of confusion, exaggeration, mental state or fun.

I was inspired by many other artists other than Sam Smith. I was originally inspired by Christina Aguilera and Beyoncé as their singles usually offer a balance between ballads and fun pop tunes.https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=christina+aguilera+music+video&safe=strict&espv=2&biw=1280&bih=923&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=Owg5VcnGLszhat_7gNAE&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg

Other inspirations: The Killers, Florence & the Machine, Amy Winehouse and Ellie Goulding. Many analyses of these can be found throughout my blog http://www.danieljacksona2.blogspot.co.uk/

Ellie Goulding’s ‘How Long Will I Love You’ is a narrative music video shot entirely on a mobile phone – added a great feel to the video. Shaky at times, in their personal space which gave a more personal tone. Conveyed the message of the song’s lyrics further. This idea is something I found inspiring and I wanted to experiment with some filming via phone but still making it fit my brief and look professional.

Music Video Influences I based my personality to conform to the conventions of pop music videos, within my music video on Sam

Smith himself, as I wanted to convey similar messages to the ones he puts across (as seen in these still

images) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=sam+smith+leave+your+lover+video&safe=strict&es_sm=93&biw=1280&bih=923&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=kQg5VfSMOYLwarGhgOgI&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAw

One main thing that influenced my music video is Ellie Goulding’s ‘How Long Will I Love You’ as she films it with her mobile

phone. I tried to film certain aspects of mine with my mobile phone to add a more

personal tone – as it adds a sense of rush, panic or raw emotion (a disequilibrium

(Todorov’s theory) to the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an4ySOlsUMY

Ancillary Product InfluencesI wanted to keep my magazine advertisement fairly simple and bold in order to lure the reader and stand out from a standard colourful magazine page.

I enjoyed the symbolic nature of these magazine adverts as the use of black and white stands out to an audience.

One thing I took influence from mainly was the split of the page. Top half photo, bottom half text. This is used to enhance the advert as the image stands out more and needs to be bold – like mine.

There were many influences for my

DigiPak but most of these seemed too

dissimilar to what I wanted to create so I

discarded some.Of my possible

influences, I looked into the album of

Sam Smith himself, but also more typical

pop albums as they seem to be the most

effective and most attention-grabbing.

Other influences included Dali’s ‘In Voluptas Mors’ for my penultimate album cover as the layout of the portrait links to the typography on my album cover but I soon changed my mind to an image of broken glass in front of an eye symbolising that people can still see through broken times in their lives. This also linked to my first idea of a broken heart-shaped piece of glass.

The influence for the clock face in the inner tray of my DigiPak was to pay homage to the original title ‘In The Lonely Hour.’

Other album cover influences includedhttp://danieljacksona2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/research-organisation-deadline-13th.html

Question 2How effective

is the combination of

your main product and

ancillary texts?

My music video has quite a dark colour scheme and depicts quite slow activities such as slow-paced driving, walking, looking around at standstill. This conveys the message of life being a long and lonely road we all have to travel on.

My digiPak cover depicts and grayscale eye with broken glass protruding from the corners. This was my final of at least 20 different designs, and I liked this one the best as it delivers the message of seeing through broken glass – how the things you see can hurt you, but still our minds continue to look. It stemmed from my original idea of a broken glass heart, how hearts are easy to break, but I felt this was a little too basic for an album cover of this calibre.

I wanted the back cover of my digiPak to be almost identical to the original CD as it is basic, bold, simplistic and eye-catching. The track titles are central with the record logo and copyright text at the bottom, with Sam Smith’s unique font illustrating his name and album title.

My original idea for the back of the album booklet on the inner left was a grayscale image of trees. A dark night in a forest, to depict the dark path life leads us on but this idea seemed too busy as the album design and layout was already particularly busy and I wanted the disc tray to be quite detailed so I decided to leave this fully black, as like the original Sam Smith booklet.

Finally, the CD tray (inner right) is under the disc and I wanted to pay homage to the original Sam Smith album ‘In The Lonely Hour’ by depicting a clock. This is one of the first ideas I had when creating my product as I wasn’t clear on the rules for changing the album title. So when I changed it I thought of ‘Empty Words’ which is why the album is called Empty Words, which is why the track list on the back cover is simplistic and un-numbered and also why the clock face has no hands.

My album advert is black and white, with an image of me (the artist) in the top half. The large unique font in the centre lures the reader and the dates and ratings are clearly visible below.

The black and white shows a contrast and it also has a strong symbiosis to my other products.

As you can see, my digiPak, magazine advert and video are all linked together by colour scheme, format, layout, style, conveyed message and themes (darkness, loneliness etc.) This is effective as each piece of my project has the power to stand alone but also fits perfectly amongst a group of products and ancillary texts.

My main product and ancillary texts are very well pieced together. I have changed my ideas for my digiPak design at least 20 times (no, that’s not an exaggeration) and this is because there are so many different messages that the symbiosis between video and digiPak can put across. I wanted the digiPak to have more of a bizarre design. The magazine advert’s design came to me after visualizing a scene from my video and the format of my digiPak, combined to make a classic bold statement on the page.

I opted for a classic minimalist design which would stand out on the page after researching and taking influence from similar magazine advert posters which can be seen at significant stages of research and analysis on my bloghttp://www.danieljacksona2.blogspot.com

VIDEODark lighting. Star is always

alone or distant from others. Black and white

imagery portrays contrast of emotions. Slow fades and

cuts show an arduous change between phases of

life. Bold statement through unrequited love and

loneliness within narrative.

DIGIPAKDark images. Abstract eye

conveys message of loneliness. The clock face on the inside shows how life is long and difficult. The dark,

bold fonts are at times overwhelming like the

emotions carried through in the lyrics.

ADVERTThe dark, bold fonts are

synonymous to Sam Smith and the 50/50 split between image and text intrigues the reader to glimpse at the text

after seeing the image of ‘Sam Smith’. The message of

loneliness is carried through.

There is a clear symbiosis between my main products and ancillary products- also theories such as Roland Barthes’ Enigma Code which is prevalent in most media texts. In my music video there is a question in the viewer’s mind saying ‘what is the outcome going to be?’ ‘What is going to happen to him?’ This is an example of a narrative theory that can be applied to my media product.

My music video conveys the message of unrequited love, loneliness and despair – which is synergic to Sam Smith’s original

music video and others on his album. It is echoing that of his usual conventions of his music videos including lip-syncing sometimes present, cuts between scenes. A melancholy narrative and dark

colours appear throughout too.

Question 3What have you learned from

all of your audience feedback?

FeedbackI asked ten people from my target audience, to view my music video during production to get an equal percentage. Also, I asked the same ten people to look at and judge my ancillary product ideas.

I also put a 15 second clip of my video during production on Instagram and asked people to like and comment. The video received 77 likes from peers (my target audience) and also received some comments stating that the video had a good narrative, was filmed very well, some even said it made them cry. I responded to the feedback by adding more cuts to the video after seeing that normal conventions of pop music videos had more cross-cuts.

Mostly target audience

Some target audience

It was a benefit to have other viewpoints, particularly of those in my target audience – as I then knew what I needed to keep/change in order to relate to their needs.

Some feedback during lesson presentations included that:‘There were unnecessary scenes that did not relate to the overall storyline’‘There are not enough cuts and it doesn’t flow.’‘There are repeated scenes which disrupts the narrative.’I used this feedback and created four new scenes all over 6 seconds in length and added them – including one of the panoramic view of Birmingham which ended up being my establishing shot.

General Feedback - Album Cover(s)

Too simple, not enough room for typography.

This was some people’s favourite but some people thought that the heart was a bit too feminine for my deep

and male-oriented video. Also the subliminal message ‘Love Yourself’ in the heart itself wasn’t clearly visible.

Bold and symbolic, stands out to audience. Typography is unique – good progression

through ideas.

Question 4How did you use

media technologies in the construction, research, planning

and evaluation stages?

Research and PlanningBlogger enabled me to create and change blog posts- also embed hyperlinks and images in order to make it more accessible.Youtube: research similar music videosLinks accessible from anywhereComments & likes, to judge an aspect of the video. Also, I could upload my own work for feedback from a world-wide public.

Using Gmail and Google Drive also enabled me to share files with those helping me with filming/cast. Therefore I could share links to my blog with them so they could see my ideas for filming day.http://danieljacksona2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/drafting-and-planning-still-footage.html

EVALUATIONTo create my evaluation I used Microsoft PowerPoint and uploaded it to Issuu afterwards using my account on their website.

Some hyperlinks don’t work on SlideShare as I learned from my AS project and I found that Prezi changed the layout and font of my evaluation automatically so Issuu seemed the best programme.

TECHNOLOGY DURING CONSTRUCTION

MUSIC VIDEO-Sony HQ Video Recorder-Panasonic Lumix Digital Camera-Apple iPhone

To create my music video, I decided to use Serif MoviePlus as I had already used Serif programmes at AS and felt I would be more accustomed to it. It was easy to apply the soundtrack and manipulate cuts and timings and very beneficial to my project.

Some disadvantages of MoviePlus is that the software wasn’t completely updated so the video kept slipping out of sync with each other – also, it took a long time to manipulate the video clips and add cross-fades in the particular way I wanted as there was not a range of effects.

Timeline from MoviePlus

MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENT

-Serif PagePlus; Microsoft Office; Paint.Net; Photoshop; Picasa 3

To create my template for my magazine advertisement, I selected the A3.5 ratio as magazines tend to be slightly bigger than A4 but when open are slightly smaller than A3. Once open, it was easy to add, crop, recolour images and format them easily.

I used Picasa and Photoshop to add effects to my image, to make it look less like me and more like Sam Smith (my star.)

I used Microsoft Office and Paint.Net to add the text over the top as there were some extra fonts downloaded from http://www.dafont.com

DIGIPAK

-Serif PagePlus; Microsoft Office; Picasa 3; Paint.Net; Instagram Editor

Firstly, I created my DigiPak template after creating to scale imaging of a real-life digiPak case. Then I began adding labels (front, back etc) and began importing my images onto PagePlus. I had used PagePlus for my AS project so I was fairly able to reuse my skills.

I used Instagram Photo Editor to utilise the photo filters they have to enhance a photo and I thought this was necessary to add a modern effect to my album cover.

EVALUATION OF A2 MEDIA STUDIES: G324

CHOSEN BRIEF: Music promo video (with magazine advertisement and digiPak)

For full blog, see: http://www.danieljacksona2.blogspot.com

With extra thanks to my good friends Joe, Charlotte, Talia, Kamila, Rian, Jenn and the whole of my group! Thanks to anyone else and most of all thank you to Sam Smith.