I n what ways does your media product, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The music video our group created both develops and challenges certain forms and conventions that are used in the real life media market today. By conducting both primary and secondary research into our chosen band we were able to use and add to the conventions commonly used by the band in many of their videos. Not only researching the band themselves, but by conducting focus groups with various age groups revealed who Snow Patrol's main audiences were and because of this allowed us to pluck out some ideas that the groups put forward. This was a key into the development of the video as it allowed us to combine conventions and styles that Snow Patrol use, with what the audience wanted to see.
By using Andrew Goodwin's music video theory it is easy to see how our production complies with many of his concepts. First of all, the genre characteristics shown in our music video are clear. The alternative/indie sounds produced by Snow Patrol and similar bands such as the wombats, the kooks and arctic monkeys are often made visual through concept art combined with performance imagery which is what we strove to also achieve as we found from the research that the audience wanted to see abstract shots that had some symbolic reference, rather than a cliche love song narrative story. We also though it important, although we made some key changes in the production of our music video that are adaptations of the usual genre characteristics, we decided it was vital to de-sexualise the women as done in many indie videos. We wanted to show her as beautiful rather than 'sexy' so to do this we represented her by using a horse, a majestic animal.
Goodwin states that there should be a connection between the lyrics and the visuals which in our case was not applicable. Similar real life media productions do not over use the idea of a 'literal' visual interpretation but rather project the overall message of the song through symbolic imagery.
The link between the music and the visuals we found was far more important for our production, as the slow pace of the music meant that cuts had to be perfectly timed and changes in clips had to be carefully selected so that the audience did not get bored whilst watching the video. I believe that the editing and shot length and arrangement was well suited to the song that we chose, and that it was much harder to achieve than it would be with a fast paced song.
The notion of looking put forward by Goodwin is a convention which is massively exploited over many genres in the music industry, especially the R&B and Rap genres. However we questioned weather this was necessary in our production as we did not to represent the women as a sex object. To minimise risk of Laura Mulving's male gaze theory being applicable here, as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, we decided to go against the conventional decision to use an actual women, and replaced her with a horse. This was to symbolise beauty, rather than sex because the context of the lyrics was not about power or degrading women but rather about love, implying deeper emotions are involved apart from sex.
The final of Goodwin's criteria is the inter textual content which links the music video to other film,radio, Internet or other music videos. Although this was not a large part of our finished product we have included some inter-textual content which is also symbolic to our chosen song. We have included a scene where a ring on a gold chain is thrown into a pond, which of course is meant to mimic the scene from Titanic, where Rose throws the Jewel into the ocean.
Overall, using Goodwin's theory as an indicator of a real media music video, it is clear that whilst our production does meet the the majority of conventions commonly found in our chosen genre (Alternative/Indie) such as using symbolic concepts rather than a narrative style combined with a performance element we have also developed certain conventions to suit the demands required by our particular song. We also challenged some conventions which are often seen in real life media productions for example by de-sexualising the women in our video, instead of showing her in a provocative light.
Our ancillary tasks should also be taken into account when evaluating how we developed and challenged conventions of real media products. For example, through the creation of a digi-pak and website, we have adhered to the conventions of the real music industry, as all bands have a website and usually a CD if they have managed to release. Although we conformed to the convention of creating a band site, we challenged the usual convention of using dark colours by using slightly more natural greens and browns which reflected our digi-pak design and created multi platform links for consumers.
How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary texts?
I believe that the visual links found between the website, digi-pak and music video are the most important element of our ancillary texts developed by our group. This was an important aspect of the texts, as we wanted to make the connection clear between all of the products so that our target audiences could easily associate them at first glance! To achieve this, we decided a common theme would be necessary throughout the ancillary texts. For example using similar imagery to that used in the video (the horse and the girl) on the front and back design of the digi-pak, as well as on the background of the website we were able to add consistency.
Although a poster was not created, we believed that the music video would be sufficient enough to penetrate directly into it's target audience which would then open up the channels for them to investigate our other products. This is why we decided to follow the theme with imagery directly taken out of our music video. The images featuring the horse and master, make up a relatively large segment of the overall music video and therefore will easily be seen as a key part of the product in the minds of the audiences. The idea is that through seeing the music video on television on mainstream channels such as MTV, consumers will be able to make a clear link when they see the digi-pak. Where the music video will target new fans as well as loyal fans, the reason behind the website containing the image of the horse are to promote the new album to already existing fans in case they miss the music video and simply investigate the website.
We based our digi-pak design not only on the footage from the music video, but we were also inspired by the research we conducted into Snow Patrol's real album designs. We found out that none of their album covers actually showed the band themselves which made our process easier as we only showed the 'lead singer' in our production and did not equate for a band to be created. Following a similar theme to Snow Patrol's albums was important to us as we wanted our product to be as realistic as possible! That is why we decided to increase contrast and lighting and were inspired largely by their 'songs for a polar bear' album design. The internal images where taken directly from the music video itself, and although create a distinctive visual link to the music video but can also be seen as simply generic band shots if the video has not been seen. The simple use of photo shop allowed us to create and edit a set of images and text that looked to a professional standard, maximising their effectiveness as they do not downgrade the hard work put into creating our final piece (music video). These images took time to create properly, however this was important as we had already planned to use the images on not only the digi-pak but also the website.
Overall I believe the combination of our main product and ancillary tasks was very successful. The reason for this being due to the fact we made a strong visual link which would enable instant recognition to any fans interesting in the band and it's products, as well as looking proffessional and appealing to the eye.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Audience feedback has played a vital part throughout the development of our entire project. We first began the process as soon as we had selected the song. We designed a suitable questionnaire so we could find out the demographics of each focus group as to put the results into context. After identifying which age groups liked the music we then looked over their ideas which surprisingly showed common similarities. We were surprises that many candidates put forward many of the same ideas which were almost all symbolic which is when we learn that they did not want to associate a narrative video to our chosen song, but instead a concept and performance.
This first stage was important as we learn what the audience wanted, and who the audiences were!
Secondly we created our video to what we believed would satisfy our target audiences as we had merged their ideas which would fit with the song, with the conventions that are commonly associated with Snow Patrol's music. It is important to point out here that if we hoped to create a realistic music product we had to take into consideration that bands are limited to change, as their audiences become used to their image, so any huge variances would effect sales and fan bases, that is why we thought it sensible to merge the audiences ideas, with what is expected with this style of music. We showed a specific focus group who we found out from previous research were our target market. We then learnt that the music video was missing something. We were made aware by our focus group that the shots were too long, and there was not enough variance meaning the footage became stagnant and boring quickly.
Taking this in our stride we went away and came up with several new ideas for our video, made shots shorter with an increased number of cuts throughout and fine tuned the whole thing.
After these changes had been made we took advantage of various platforms such as Facebook and YouTube, but also confronted the same focus group as well as a few more. We learnt from this that the changes had made a great difference to the video as the majority of the audience no longer found the footage boring or generic but instead enjoyed watching the whole thing. We also learnt that the deep level of symbolism used in our concepts may have been to complex for some of the audience as we received various comments asking things like 'what was the horse for' and 'why was it in a barn'. We learnt that although the footage was not bad quality, some of the implied meanings within were hard to decode without the summary provided on the blog, and next time we would make them slightly less intense.
Below are some examples of audience feedback from our sample groups;
I thoroughly enjoyed watching the video. The theme was clearly evident throughout and the hcoice of the two locations successfully represented the emotional turmoil of the two characters. The open space suggested a long ing for freedom,whilst the enclosed, grey dance space gave the illusion of being trapped. The tethered horse used in the first frame gave the impression of being trapped whilst the shot used later when the horse is loose, represents freedom. The choice of a dark, miserable, rainy day also helped to symbolise the breakdown of the relationship as the raindrops represented tears shed. I suggest that you use a few additional close up artistic, to reiterate and emphasise the symbols you have already used.
Mrs K Moore
Overall, I believe we learned much from our audience feedback at various stages throughout the development of our music video and ancillary tasks. We learnt at an early stage what the audience expected to see from conducting focus groups and questionairs. During the production stages we learnt that we needed extra footage, which allowed us to give the audience a more diverse range of shot. Finally in the post production stage we learnt what we could have improved on, as well as what we managed to do successfully overall.
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research,planning and evaluation stages?
Our group were lucky enough to have a wide range of equipment and media technologies at our disposal meaning we were able to produce, plan, research and evaluate successfully!
When researching I used several different media platforms to gain the research I needed to gain a deeper understanding about our target audiences and the industry on the whole. The first media technology we used, was the Internet. Using various websites such as Wikipedia, news sites and record companies sites I was able to discover more about Snow Patrol. Analysing the band's real website and others from a similar genre allowed me to discover specific criteria that makes a successful site! Wikipedia was extremely useful when trying to find out information about the music industry and how it has changed and developed over the years.
The other media technology we used was word programs combined with printing devices. This was so that we could mass produce questionnaires to give to several focus groups of different ages. This primary research was the most important as it outlined trends in demographics and helped us to establish who our target market were, which then allowed us to filter out the relevant ideas put forward by these individuals.
During the construction of my music video and my ancillary tasks, I used many different media technologies to achieve the finished products. The first of these was again the Internet. As the website design site was online it was easy to upload and edit the site with little hassle. Also, we thought it better to find a site which would allow us to choose our own domain name, and would actually be placed onto the Internet to add credibility and achieve a more realistic finish. To create the digi-pak we used a photo shop program that allowed us to edit the colour and contrast of the photos successfully, which we then were able to merge with the website as the background! The use of the photo shop clearly demonstrates how the use of one media technology can be spread and used across other media platforms. To actually create and capture the relevant footage to create the music video we used a digital video recorder which due to developments in the technology over the years was relatively small in size, and good quality! This combined with the use of a manual tripod allowed us to capture the footage we needed effectively and with few errors. Once we had captured the footage we needed we used I-movie which was can be found on any apple mac laptop. Having access to I-movie meant we had a much wider range of editing choices than if we used a similar competitor such as windows movie maker or others. We were able to add various transitions which made our production flow smoothly and look realistic.
The evaluation of our finished products was very successful due to the use of social networking sites which because of recent popularly meant that the finished music video received a large amount of feedback which was reflected on the view counter provided on the video. Of course to be able to post the video onto the social networking site, we had to upload it onto a video sharing website known as YouTube which also generated interesting comments which were all useful in the evaluation process of the product. It outlined where we may have gone slightly wrong (Some of the symbolism used was to deep) and of course where we went right, and mad the good features clear! Not only did we use these Internet sites to aid us in our evaluation process but by again analysing the data from the comments we later learnt that we were correct about the target markets we chose to aim for, as the majority of the comments were posted by consumers who fell into this demographic.
Overall, I managed to use many media technologies and platforms during the construction, planning, research and evaluation stages. During construction technologies such as cameras, Apple-mac laptops and I-movie where all used to create the film itself. Planning and research stages required a similar combination of technologies such as websites such as Wikipedia, Blogger, Yahoo answers providing secondary information with video cameras and the laptop to record and post our findings. We also used word processor to plan and draft ideas before sharing them. Finally for our evaluation stage I managed to combine the use of technologies such as social networking sites to gain quick feedback, along with audio recorders to provide a podcast style summary. Also the use of file sharing sites such as Youtube allowed us to upload our finished product to the internet which is how we distributed it to get the majority of our feedback.
