Hannah McMinn Media Studies A2 G324: January 2016

Question 3 from HannahMcMinn

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

In November I researched our TA to gain feedback on our rough cut.

"We started creating our music video on Final Cut Pro X, by adding, synchronising and cutting the clips we filmed. The video is not fully finished, however we wanted to gain some feedback before carry on, about what would improve the music video. So we got a group of teenagers aged between 16 and 17, to help with us developing it further.

The questions we asked to the group were:

What do you think of the shots used?
Is there anything that you think we can improve on?

Their responses were:

17 year old female: Likes the night shots and how we used the car headlights as lights and how they were some of the most effective shots.

16 year old male: Likes the cut aways to the group and giving it an actual story(narrative) and how he liked the beginning with one of the band members waking up and pressing the alarm because it worked well with the lyrics and how he was singing as he was waking up.

This comment was mentioned by another person in the group, along with the night shots being affective as well."

This TA research confirmed our choice of lighting for the night shots and was useful. I decided that we should repeat some of these shots in order to maintain this interest.

It was also useful to learn that the TA spotted the links between the lyrics and visuals and that already, they could follow the narrative. I agree with the feedback and believe that the close up on the alarm clock is effective and i think our narrative was clear. Upon reflection, we could have used more of this feedback. I think it would have benefitted the narrative if Courtney had been more voyeuristic and flirty with the band members. This would have developed the idea of her causing disruption ' Todorov' and ensured that the TA fully understood her role.

In October I researched the TA and the influence of digital technology.

I found that:
"According to McQuail it is difficult to define a digital audience. We have to ensure that our Music video and promotion package reached our TA.

One survey recorded youtube, radio and itunes as the most common way teens consume music video.

There was an interesting Guardian article:one concern is the reluctance to pay for music. few buy cd's yet we are making a digipak for which, there seems to be a limited audience.
"They are very reluctant to pay for it (most never having bought a CD) and a large majority (8/10) downloading it illegally from file sharing sites."

The Guardian agree itunes is popular however there are still financial issues.
"A number of people use the music service iTunes (usually in conjunction with iPods) to acquire their music (legally) but again this is unpopular with many teenagers because of the 'high price' (79p per song). Some teenagers use a combination of sources to obtain music, because sometimes the sound quality is better on streaming sites but they cannot use these sites whilst offline, so they would download a song then listen to it on music streaming sites (separate from the file)."
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/jul/13/teenage-media-habits-morgan-stanley

We need to consider the use of amazon and youtube. Most people have a playlist on youtube."

This research was really useful and made me consider how my TA were going to access and consume my product. Upon reflection I could have made more use of this. I took the idea of it being on youtube, because of it being such a popular site for the TA to consume music videos and even music. Then moving onto radio, which was thought about because of me choosing Kerrang as a possible distributer and them being owned by Bauer and them having their own radio station so this would be another way in which it can be distributed and heard by my TA. However, I didn't consider and include iTunes onto any of the promotional products, but instead used amazon as a distributer and seller for the song. This was another choice I had and is a worldwide known online store, however, looking back, I feel that iTunes would have appealed to the younger digital audience, where it is more well known and used much more than Amazon.

TA profile and research

"Our audience is:

Gender: males and females
Age: 16 - 24
Sexuality: hetrosexual
Regionality: Rural - there is a sense of nature and most shots are to be outside.
Lifestyle: relationships, college, friends, socialising
Religion & Ethnicity: any however the MV will largely appeal to only those in the Western culture
Digital audience with apps, mobile devices"

This shows that my TA hasn't changed through out the making and planning of the music video and is still the same compared to later TA research done. Looking back at this, I can see that my TA will understand the narrative well, with it being relatable for the modern audience. Having this profile meant that I already knew that they would understand the narrative well, however I needed more TA research to back up this theory.

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

1) construction

These images show the organisation and construction of filming the music video.
They show the organisation of the actors and there cues on when to come in during the video and what they will be doing.

This was done by playing the original song out loud so the band and actors were able to hear it and take their cues from that, then showing whereabouts on the script/lyrics they come in at.

This was key to make sure everyone played their part and came in when needed. This was easy to follow and no mistakes were make apart from one or two missed cues. This didn't delay the filming and we were able to get the film we needed for the music video.

This also shows the filming of the band and actors, this was done using a Panasonic TZ62 camera, with a tripod to keep it steady. The tripod helped when it came to panning round, this was used to ensure the shots were held steady. This was more difficult when we panned and there were some shots and pans we had to edit in order to remove any shaking. The tripod made panning smooth but i had to learn how to handle the panning in order to keep it smooth.

Upon reflection I could have incorporated more tracking shots and this would have developed the narrative further. However, we had no mobile stand for the camera and when i tried this it was too unstable.

Learning about lighting during filming was vital. We used natural ambient lighting for the day shots and at times this created shadows on the band's faces. Therefore we had to consider the settings in the camera, time of day and the position of our equipment. I also had to consider timings for filming as the video was shot in winter and the light began to change and dim quickly after 3pm.

Final Cut Pro X was a new technology I used when making the music video. This meant I created new skills towards making the video and learning the techniques needed to do it. These screenshots show the different functions that were used in the making, this includes using a cross dissolve. This is a transition that is soft and not as harsh as a cut. This works well with the point in the music video where it was less aggressive and more romantic.

Another tool used was markers which were used to mark down points in the song so I could it match up with the corresponding video clip. Doing this made sure the lip syncing was correct and made it look professional.

2)Research

When it came to researching for the music video and ancillaries I used a wide range of technologies for it. The first main piece of technology was blogger, this was used to present my research and show what I had found out. I could present and annotate what I had found out, for example music video research and digipak research that was done later on. I used it through out the course of the task and was even used when it came to my AS project.

The next piece of technology I used was Youtube, this was used to research existing music videos and how this could influence me in what I could include in my own music video. This helped me a lot through out even past the research stage, this is because I was able to publish my music video onto it so it could easily be put onto my blog and show the change and development through out the making.

When researching ideas for my ancillary tasks and video itself, I used the official pages of the original band itself, this was to help aid in synergy and what I could include. Along with the official band page, I even looked at official music website pages, for when it came to researching publishers and distributers for my MV. When it came to researching this, I had to consider the TA and genre of the MV, this is because some companies focus on specific genres than a wide range, however Bauer is a massive media corporation with smaller music companies, such as Kerrang, which is the one I chose, because of it's focus on the rock, pop and punk music genre.

As well as the official websites, I looked at magazines to get aid in what to include in my ancillaries. Doing this gave me official products and not other students work, if I searched online. It also shows that these are successful, because of them being in official magazines. Looking at magazines showed a ranged of different adverts to promote the band and CD, they all showed similar qualities and what I should include on my own. It gave me a range of different ideas of what to include, such as a use of layering words to create a show effect and using lines to break it up and help it focus on specific parts of the poster. As well as using magazines to help with the poster, I used the internet to look into existing digipaks. This was very useful and showed both digipak designs and the existing artists ones. This helped a lot and gave me a range of ideas that aided my decisions. Along with looking at the internet for ideas, I was able to look at digipaks from music magazines, this was very useful and again helped my decisions. I feel that doing this research was useful and without it, I couldn't achieve the quality standard of my final design.

As well as using youtube to look at existing music videos to gain ideas, I also used a camera to help gain location ideas and where I would be able to film. This helped and the locations researched were used when it came to filming the MV.

Planning

To help with planning, I used Celtx, this was useful because I could use it to create storyboards for what I'm planning to do for the filming of the music video. I used Celtx when the band were first performing, this helped give ideas and what kind of setting they would be best in, along with costumes. This helped, because it gave me ideas on what to include in the filming of the MV, and on what can be included in the ancillary tasks as well.

Microsoft was useful for when it came to creating production breakdowns, this was very useful, because it meant I could create a breakdown of the planned shoot and what will happen during that day of filming. It was simple but needed, this was so the actor knew their parts and what will be expected for them to do and their places in the shoot during that day.

The most important piece of technology was the camera used, which was a Panasonic TZ62 camera. This was needed so we were able to get our filming. The camera allowed me to capture what was needed for editing along with images for the advert and digipak, as well as behind the scenes footage and images to show how it as done and the layout of the filming.

When it came to creating the actual MV, I used Final Cut Pro X, which was a new piece of technology for me at A2 and was hard to get my head around at first. This was due to the many tools that was used during the process. To help with using Final Cut, I also used an external hard drive, this was to support the software when creating the video, stopping it from crashing. This was needed and helped when creating the video. Final Cut also helped when trying to create synergy, so I could link it to the ancillary tasks, it also meant I could create affects that wouldn't have been possible with just the camera, making it look more professional.

After creating the video on Final Cut, I moved onto creating my advert and digipak, this was done using Photoshop Elements 11, which I was more confident on than Final Cut, due to it being used in the previous project. I was able to create drafts and develop my ancillaries further, changing it to suit both the TA and the actually MV move. Creating synergy between each piece and linking them together by doing this.

Evaluation