Me and Lewis are going to do a promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with
A cover for it’s release as part of a digipak (CD/DVD package)
A website for the digipak (CD/DVD package)
We’ve chosen to do this because both our main interests are music, we have done lots of research watching music videos online on websites such as Youtube and Vevo.
We are going to ask the audience what types of music they listen to most of all, and base a song around this, we’re also going to ask them how often they watch music videos online, and on television, how often they buy CD’s, what thier favourite songs are at the moment, and what they like to see in music videos.
We are going to put all of our questions on survey handouts and then refer to this feedback as our investigation goes on, and when we have to answer our audience feedback question.
We will also include pictures of our chosen designs and put them up against each-other, so the audience can choose the one they like the most, this will give us a good concrete idea on which CD and DVD covers we will use for our final piece, and hopefully because the audience had a say in this, they will enjoy our final project.
We could have a focus group and ask for all thier opinions.
Send an email to MTV, EMI ect. even if they don’t reply you can say you did it.
Do some animation about, 10 seconds.
In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media?
For our product we used the same logo throughout which we kept the same on each thing we produced, the font, size and word was the same. The reason why we kept it the same was so that whenever people see our logo, they will remember it from our merchandise ect, and know that it’s related to our band.
For our CD cover we wanted an image that would represent the story being told in our music video, we wanted it to be like we were the characters in a story, the story being our music video, so we had to act in all of our photos like we were the people in our music video. I am sat down on the floor facing downwards, and Lewis is stood up facing upwards. Lewis is stood up to represent domination because he has power over me, and I am sat down because I am scared of him. I have a sad look on my face to show that I am the victim, and Lewis has a smug look on his face to show that he is the bully. The reason it is like this, is because our music video tells the story of domestic violence. We used a cartoon effect for the picture, to make it quirky and different, and to give the effect of us being drawn onto a storybook page.
We made a website so that our fans could keep up to date with what we are doing, and what we are up to on a daily basis. We included a welcome page which includes a picture of a book with a pen on top. We did this to carry on with our storybook theme, the whole website has this theme so each page is a new page in the story. We wanted to have this theme on everything we make so that it was consistent. The next page includes a biography all about me. We chose to include a biography about both of us so that our fans can feel like they know us more, and can relate to us. Some of the things on mine include what I like to do in my spare time, what my favourite music is for on the road, and all about where I live and how I grew up. Alot of bands and singers, such as Taylor Swift, have blogs online so we wanted to do the same. Lewis’ biography includes all the same things as mine, we both have a picture each too. We have an access all areas page which shows what we get up to backstage, a blog too tell people what we are getting up to on tour, a page of pictures from our tour, in each city, with captions underneath, our music video so that it’s available in more than one place, a podcast from a local radio, and the last page consists of all our tour dates, times, and places. This page also includes a count down timer for all of the impatient fans!
We felt that if we wanted to challenge forms and conventions of real media products, a website was key to our project, because bands and singers always have a website or blog which they keep up to date with. We wanted to make our project seem as real and suitable as possible.
For our music video we decided to choose the song “Love The Way You Lie” by Rhianna and Eminem, who are RnB and rap musicians. We chose this song because it has a really good story-line that people can relate too, and which can help people in the same position to speak out. The story-line is domestic violence between 2 people in an on/off relationship. One moment they love each-other, one moment they hate each-other. We have shadowed this as best as we could in our own music video. That’s why we have a male and a female in our band, and we have scenes in our video where we hit each-other, and scenes in our video where we are happy together and smiling and laughing, we feel that all these elements helped us to use real forms and conventions of other music videos.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The music video and the ancillary texts create a good and professional combination because they both have the same colour scheme, audience, genre and informal/formal tone. The genre of our music is pop music so our target audience for our main and ancillary texts is 18-30 year olds, we chose to aim our product at this age group as this particular type of people listen to pop music, more than any other age.
From the album cover the audience is able to get a sneak peak at what the music video is going to be like, and this will determine whether they will listen to it, so we needed to make it as excellent as possible. From the C.D cover the audience can figure out what kind of music ‘Better Than You’ is similar too. Other artists with similar styles include ‘ Beyonce’ ‘ Kesha’ and ‘Keri Hilson’ because they are all of RnB/pop genres. When we edited the album cover we wanted too follow these styles and have elements from each one, so we researched A C.D cover from each of these artists, and used them as influences we could use in our own C.D cover. For the C.D cover we wanted to have fire colours in our background, to show the audience the music we were going to create was going to have elements of sadness and anger. We wanted to make it as professional as possible so we decided put the Orange colour in through Photoshop. We then did a photo-shoot and decided to do a photo of Me and Lewis, and put this in front of the fire. Lewis is standing up, and I am sitting down, I have a sad face and Lewis has a happier face. We did this to show that Lewis is the one with all of the power, and because in the video we are using domestic violence to echo the original. In each of our ancillary texts we need to be the characters in the film, and both act like we are in a love/hate relationship. We made the album cover cartoon style so that it was different from other albums covers, and it made it more colourful and interesting to look at. The name of the band is in bold so you can tell the difference between the album name. We have put the writing away from our faces so you can see our emotions clearly, and so there isn’t too much going on in the picture.
We have aimed the music video at males and females (16-30), so we had to aim the ancillary texts towards this audience as-well.
As-well as an album cover we made a website so that our audience can look us up on the internet, and learn more about us. I have already mentioned what is included in our website. On the cover of our website there is a book with a picture of us on the front, and a pen next to it. We followed A storybook theme throughout our music video so we wanted to incorporate this into our ancillary texts. I am the female in the band so I am dressed in lighter colours such as blue and white, and my hair is down. Lewis is the male in the band so he is dressed in black and he is taller than me.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research and planning and evaluation stages?
We used iMovie to make our film and put it together, we were guided to use this by our media teacher so we felt it was the best application for the job. It made our video look professional and we were able to edit it to how we wanted quickly and easily.
We used Youtube so we could look at other music videos and research, and so we could look at the music video for the the song we chose. We also looked at getting tips and seeing which effects music videos were using at the moment, so we could try and use some of the same ones for ours. We also looked at different story-lines we could use for our own music video.
Two other sites we looked at frequently during our research were Rhianna’s official website (http://www.rihannanow.com/) and Eminem’s official website http://www.eminem.com/store/ ) We looked at these websites to figure out what kind of target audience our video would apply to and interest, because we can see how old the fans are who are on both thier websites. We researched about the use of green screen to see if we were able to use it on our music video. We decided to use it and make it look like there was a burning house in the background when we were both singing together, because his is what they use in the original music video. We feel this effect really grabs the audiences attention, and makes it clear that the video is about something negative and powerful.
We used photo-booth on the Mac computers to take pictures of us both, we took pictures of us together because we wanted to show stills in our video, and give the effect that the photos were taken out of a photo album, when we were in a good relationship.
We used Pages on the Mac computers to plan our filming schedule, so we could write down what we were going to film, when and at which location. We filmed at a church location so we had too plan this out, and felt this was the right way to plan properly.
We used Google a lot to research domestic violence, we wanted to get it right in our video so that it looked as real as possible, and so that it didn’t look like we were condoning it in any way. We also used Google to find a suitable background for our green-screen, which we eventually chose was going to be a burning house.
We used Photoshop to create our poster and CD/DVD cover package, we used this application because it enabled us to use different colours and designs, that were not possible on word or iMovie.
We used iTunes to put our music onto our video. We thought this was the best application because me and my media partner both used it at home, so we we’re used to how it worked. It presented the sound clearly, and we were able too find our music on it very quickly.
We used to Apple macs constantly because most of thier applications, Windows did not have. The Macs were easily accessible at school, and we found them easy to work with because we’d both had previous experience on them at GCSE level.
We used Sony video cameras to film our entire music video on. We used these because they are very high quality, easy to use, and accessible as they are available at our school all of the time.
