How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
New media technologies have helped us to share, develop and create our A2 media work; from planning, research and construction to the evaluation stage.
CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH:
To get an idea of what we wanted our video to include, we sent out a survey via surveymonkey.com, as a form of audience research. This was really effective as we could send out a link to everyone through e-mail and also that we could retrieve the answers relatively quickly, as opposed to handing out surveys by hand. The surveys gave us an idea of what people did and didn’t like to see in music videos. For example, they over-whelming didn’t like the idea of titles in music videos and they much preferred the idea of combining performance and narrative within the video as opposed to having a solely performance or narrative based video.
As well as taking our target audience’s ideas on board, we also conducted our own research into music videos by using YouTube, I analysed a performance video (Bon Jovi-Livin’ On A Prayer), a narrative video (Gwen Stefani-Cool) and a combination of the two (Rihanna Feat. Mikky Ekko- Stay). My group consequently concluded that we felt a combination of narrative and performance would be the most effective type of music video to use. We also analysed the videos in terms of Goodwin’s theory of the conventions of music videos i.e. identifying a link between music and visuals or there being voyeuristic treatment of the female body. By researching this theory we chose the conventions we did or didn’t want to use in the construction of our music video.
We also filmed a ‘focus group’- where we asked our peers to review our initial ideas for our music video and they gave us constructive criticism as well as alternative ideas. We found this really insightful as the ideas they came up with, including incorporating elements of slow motion is something we hadn’t previously thought of prior to this audience research and is something we did use in the music video. Filming this also gave us a chance to get used to our new cameras as they were different to the ones we’d used at AS, we then imported this to Premiere Pro and then uploaded it to YouTube. All of the audience research we did, we embedded into Tumblr through HTML codes- meaning that the YouTube videos/ surveys were featured on our blogs.
Researching digipaks and promotional adverts for albums gave us a really clear idea of the conventions for them and is something we took into account when making our own. I used Adobe Photoshop to create both my digipak and advert. With a wide variety of tools available, it allowed me to be creative for example, I used black and white, grain and ‘mosaic tile’ effects which made the product look more interesting. The fact that Photoshop is so established meant that I could try and make my ancillary tasks to an industry standard.
To edit the video, we used Premiere Pro and after building up experience of the last two years, we felt more comfortable using it while editing. We imported all the footage, chose what we wanted, then edited it. We also added in some creative features e.g. we lowered the opacity of some shots so that shots faded in together, zoomed in on footage and also used slow motion. The hardest part was probably matching up the miming to the audio track yet the fact you could zoom in on the timeline made it easier to edit.
To determine our song choice we again used YouTube, to find a genre of music that we liked as well as a song. Whilst we initially had a preference for a pop song, by watching videos in this planning stage, we concluded that pop may be too much of a mainstream genre and thought we’d need a less well know song. We then found Lorde –‘Royals’, of an electro pop genre, that had only just been released. We really liked this song as it had continuous ‘clicks’ throughout, which we thought would enable us to edit more creatively i.e. making cuts between shots when there was a ‘click’. We then contacted her record label to ask permission to use the track before we moved on to planning the video.
To plan the video, we analysed the lyrics of the song and decided that the song was based on a rejection of media messages, including that of a materialistic culture. We therefore wanted our actress to be relatable to the audience and so we chose an 18 year old actress to coincide with our 15-24 target audience. instead of being of ‘celebrity status’, we wanted to show our actress finding happiness in the simplest forms i.e. through dancing. This idea was reinforced in the planning stage after we looked at Blumler and Katz’s Uses and Gratifications theory and decided we wanted our video to have ‘personal identity’- with the audience looking for a model of behaviour that they could identify with as well as having their personal values reinforced. We also planned the target audience we wanted to appeal to- primarily female due to the female artist, aged 15-24 and with no specific identity.
As a result of the audience feedback, we could plan the type of clothing we wanted our actress to wear (indie) and the types of things she’d be doing in the video i.e. smoking, dancing. To plan what shots we needed to film, we developed the idea of a storyboard from AS and made an animatic on Premiere Pro by scanning in our sketches, this really helped us to visualise what we were going to film and also gave us an indication of how many shots we would need, before we started filming, as we put the visuals over the track. When it came to editing the music video, we numbered the shots so it made it easier to find the ones we wanted, this type of pre-planning really helped us.
To ensure we were prepared when it came to filming we created a shooting schedule as well as lists of the equipment, people and locations needed and then uploaded them to Tumblr, so everything was in one place. By updating our progress with planning on Tumblr, we could embed our planning documents such as pictures of digipak research to demonstrate where we were getting ideas from.
For the evaluations, I was given various questions regarding my A2 work. The first of which being: 'How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?'- for this question I reflected on the previous research I'd done on existing products and how they combined elements with each other i.e. Rihanna's promotional campaign for her album 'Rated R'. I then analysed how my digipak and advertisement linked with the music video my group had created. I felt this type of evaluation allowed to think about how each of my products complemented and reinforced each other i.e. using the same imagery promoted branding etc. For this evaluation question I used prezi, as I feel it's a creative way to present ideas, whilst being able to include pictures and videos also, I then embedded it into my blog.
The second question was 'What have you learned from your audience feedback?'- for this, as a group we made a presentation. Before doing so we conducted another focus group, as we felt this was a really effective way of establishing our target audience's opinions in the research and planning stage. We also then put our video on both Twitter and Facebook, in order to get a broader range of feedback. We felt the best way to present all of the feedback we got was to put them into a PowerPoint presentation, so that everything was in one place and we could add our own comments to explain what we had learned as a result of said feedback. The PowerPoint was then saved as a video to provide a more creative, visual aspect to the evaluation.
Lastly, the final question was 'In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?'- for this we recorded a directors' commentary, as we believed this was the most effective way to explain our choices in relation to the conventions. By doing this we could also incorporate elements of our video so that there was a visual representation of the shots we were referring to.