DigiPak - Feedback

I thought it might be a good idea to collect some audience feedback on my DigiPak. This is a video of my father who kindly obliged to answering some simple questions after viewing my DigiPak. By gathering audience feedback, I can see whether my techniques through the construction have been proven effective and successful or not.

 

Key points talked about:

• Liked how the theme of the DigiPak matched out music video through the inclusion of 'emojis' and the scenic setting of the imagery.
• Liked how the yellow emoji images stood out in font of the black and white background becoming striking to the audience
• He thought there could of been more inclusion of the emojis as he particularly liked that aspect

Magazine Advertisement - Feedback

I thought it might be a good idea to collect some audience feedback for my Magazine Advert. This is a video of my father who kindly obliged to answering some simple questions after viewing my Advert. By gathering audience feedback, I can see whether my techniques through the construction have been proven effective and successful or not.

 

Key Points Discussed:

• Liked how the general theme matched both my music video and my DigiPak through the locations used and the inclusion of emojis.
• He generally had no criticisms and thought it was a professional looking piece of work. 

Magazine Advertisent Questionnaire

My project partner (Louis Rose-Fall) and I created a questionnaire on our Magazine Ad in an attempt to generate some audience feedback. The questionnaire can be found here.

 

This result is highly positive to us as all who answered the questionnaire believed that our magazine stood out to them and drew their attention. This suggests that our purposely incorporated features (e.g yellow 'emoji' in front of black and white background) has been proven successful.

 

 

 Another highly successful result. This result tells us that all the participants of the questionnaire believed it was clear what were trying to advertise. Having a clear point and message is key within advertising. The customer must easily understand the advertisement to begin to be enticed by it. 

 

 

Once again another positive result for our DigiPak. This result show that all of participants believed the advert is typical of what they might see of a drum and bass album advertisement. We managed to construct our magazine ad around the generic conventions of drum and bass magazine ads. These generic conventions were identified through a heavy research process.

 These are some opinions/answers based on what our participants liked about our advert. One comment included 'the simplicity'. Simplicity was a key factor involved in the creation of the advert as we felt it intrigues the audience into delving deeper into the product(s) - this therefore was a positive comment. People also liked the imagery, how the theme matched our digipak and music video, and the contrast of yellow emoji and black and white background.

 

 

 

DigiPak Questionnaire

My project partner (Louis Rose-Fall) and I created a questionnaire on our DigiPak in an attempt to generate some audience feedback. The questionnaire was aimed at our A2 media class whereby most lie within our primary target audience (males: age 18-39). The questionnaire can be found here.

Results:

 

This result is an extremely positive to us as everyone who answered our questionnaire believed that our DigiPak drew their attention. This suggests that our methods to do so were successful. Although we have an simplistic design, it still manages to draw peoples attention which is highly positive. The aim of the simplistic design was to intrigued our audience into delving deeper into our product(s).

 

 

Another very positive result for us. It tells us that 100% of participants believed that the DigiPak is typical of they'd expect to see of a drum and bass genre DigiPak. Research of real media products allowed use to generate common conventions of drum and bass DigPaks which we then used as a platform to create out music video around. We did however challenge certain generic conventions, so its positive to see our audience can still depict it as a drum and bass DigiPak. 

 



This result incudes some positive opinions that people have on why they like our DigiPak. People seemed to like the inclusion of 'emoji' images. They like how they stood out significantly in front of the black and white themed background - we did this purposely to make them stand out. They also like the inclusion of 'emojis' because they have large relation to our music video.

 

 

These are just generic answers/opinions about our DigiPak. One suggestion was to make the spine apart of the front cover rather than back - we did experiment with this during the process, however felt it looked better connected to the back (our personal preference). Generally these comments are positive with a couple of constructive suggestions.

Evaluation Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (5 marks)

 

Music Video:

Before I created my music video, it was important for me to research the standard formats and conventions of such products, so that I would be able to do the job properly. I found that the following things are what music videos typically include;

• Establishing shots
• Diegetic intros/outros 
• Enigma codes
• Fade transitions 
• Shot types & variation
• Continuity editing (e.g. following the 180 degree rule)
• Focus on a main character/(s)
• Mise-en-scene & Verisimilitude
• Possible mix of sound/music (diegetic & non-diegetic)
• Editing (e.g. to the beat)
• Narrative 

Throughout my music video I use, develop and also challenge these common formats and conventions. I used these conventions as a base to create my music video around. For example, there is huge focus on our main character as he's seen throughout a majority of the shots. Another example would be through the editing; we matched the pace of the editing to the beat of the song.

For my main and ancillary products I conformed to the generic conventions of 'drum and bass' music videos. After heavy research into this chosen genre, I was able to identify these conventions which were used to influence me within the planning and construction process of my product. For example, the typical conventions that this genre uses are as follows:

• Narrative (opposed to concept videos)
• Realism within narrative - high levels of emotion
• Little Star Treatment
• Focus on main characters
• Use of run down locations (e.g abandoned, rough looking buildings) - links to realism 
• Editing - beat of song matches pace of editing
• Complex/professional cinematography (scenic, meaningful images) 
• Little performance apsect

I incorporated these conventions into my product through my decisions regarding locations, costume, shot list and post production editing:

• Use of abandoned warehouse
• Scenic based locations
• Editing - we matched the pace of editing to beat of song
• Main character included in all sense and majority of shots
• Storyline - purely narrative, no performance

One of my predominant decisions based upon the research I underwent was the decision for locations. We strongly believed that a major part of narrative drum and bass music videos are the locations that they use. Using these locations also allows for creative and innovative cinematography.  One video that inspired our decision of using abandoned buildings was Disclosure - 'White Noise' which involves many different unique and unusual abandoned buildings giving the video a really creative and unique aesthetic/look which we liked.

Another major decision we made based upon drum and bass common conventions was to create a totally linear narrative music video. This basically means there is a clear storyline that is continuous throughout. This is commonly found in drum and bass music videos such as Chase and Status - 'Alive' and Sigma - 'Rudeboi'. We did this through creating a storyboard that followed a series of events resulting in the beginning scenario being different from the ending. Drum and Bass music videos tend either include little star treatment and performance or none at all - based on this, we decided to follow this convention. However we had no choice apart from to follow the convention due to the unavailability of the singer/artist.

One common convention of drum and bass music videos is the minimal inclusion of complex edited (e.g CGI, motion capture etc.) and high levels of realism. We challenge this convention through the inclusion of 'motion capture' to edit our PNG ' emoji' images onto our production - (More about that process). This use of editing reduces the levels of realism of our music video. Realism is a convention of drum and bass music videos e.g Chase and Status - 'Alive', Sigma - 'Rudeboi' and Drumsound and Bassline Smith - 'Through the Night'. We therefore challenged this convention by including low levels of realism. However it could be argued that our protagonist does in fact experience realism through the low levels of mood, angry/aggressive behaviour and social out-casting.

DigiPak:

Front:

• Main band/artist image
• Name of band/artist
• Title of album
• Logo

Back:

• Track list
• Another image (relating to front cover image)

Spine:

• Name of artist
• Title of album
• Record label
• Reference number

Insert:

• Song lyrics
• Photographs of artist
• Promotional/merchandise information
• Website information

Additional Information:

• Barcode
• Record label
• Year of publishing
• Copyright
• Composers/Producers, credit, etc. (usually located in small print on the back cover, or else as part of the inner sleeves or inserts.)

For my DigiPak I conformed to the most of these common conventions, such as including the artist and album name on both the front cover and spine, track listings, record labels on the back etc. One generic convention would be that the general theme runs throughout music video, DigiPak and magazine advertisement. We used this convention through the choice of imagery for both front and back cover. The images include scenic/countryside shots which are themes that run throughout my music video through the inclusion of scenic locations.

One convention of drum and bass DigiPak's is the use of 'grungey', street, working class themes that display high levels of social realism. Examples include Chase and Status - 'No More Idols'.  I challenged this convention as we didn't include these types of images/themes. We did however experiment with these themes but simply preferred the aesthetic of scenic imagery.

Magazine Advertisement:

Before creating my magazine advert, in similar fashion to my music video and DigiPak, I underwent research around already existing products. This research allowed me to identify generic conventions of magazine adverts. These include:
 

 Images / Graphics:

• Relate to the album and artist/band
• Images, Graphics, or a mix – will be appropriate to the genre of the music

Typography:

• Artist/Band name
• Album title
• Release date
• Reviews/Critical Acclaims
• Artist’s/Band’s website address
• Track names
• May include the names of other who feature in album

Additional Features:

• Record label logo
• Album rating

For my magazine advertisement I decided to conform with a large majority of these conventions. Magazine adverts are used as a promotional aspect to an album therefore it is important that it is obvious what is being advertised. For this reason, it was important that I included features such as the artist and album name in large, bold text; a review/ rating so that people can identify it is for a musician and the same photographic image that is used for my DigiPak (people recognise DigiPak from Advert).
There were however a couple of things we left out of the magazine advert; challenging the conventions. We wanted to keep the magazine ad as simple as possible as too much additional information can draw attention away from the main features such as the imagery, artist and album name etc. Factors we left out were track names, website address and additional artists featuring in the album.

In conclusion I feel that my media products do use, develop and challenge the conventions of real media products. The conventions are used, developed and challenged in a way that makes my own media products unique/different in comparison to others.

 

Evaluation Question 2

How effective the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? (5 marks)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Final Cut

This is our final cut for our music video whereby all the clips have been colour matched using the 'colour match' tool on Final Cut Pro. We have also decided to add an effect over the entire of our clips to create continuity of colours so there is less obvious differences in lighting, quality etc. We added an effect using Premiere Pro. After heavy experimentation with different effects, the effect we decided to go with was 'SL Gold Heat' as we felt it worked with our theme. We brought down the intensity and increased the black as this is a contemporary aesthetic. After applying the effect, we identified that the facial colours weren't correct and had a slightly yellow/orange look. We edited this by increasing the blue highlights.
Scope (left hand side) - shows how balanced the colours are, shows contrast and shows if any pixels are over limit.
Lumetri colour engine (right hand side) - a high end colour grading tool that emulates different film stocks. This is what we used to choose and edit our effects.

Our Final Cut: