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

I have used many different types of technology throughout my project. Most of these technologies weren't available 10 years ago, even 5 years ago in some cases, and their part in my project has been crucial. Without these different technologies I would have struggled to present all my work via my blog, to make the products with the video camera and Photoshop and then finding ways of showing the audience what I have produced in order to get feedback without youtube. Therefore these technologies have made a large difference to my project, enabling it and enhancing it in many ways.


This link goes to Slideshare which shoes a slideshow of a technology analysis table. Press full screen in the right hand corner to view the slides.
http://www.slideshare.net/sarahdixonmedia/technology-table-6347865

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I think I have created a very effective package that promotes the album 'the triology' extremely well. It is obvious when looking at the three products that they fit together. When looking at the synergy of the products it can be seen that several elements have brought them together into a successful promotional package. I think having a package like this will make people more likely to buy the album because after seeing the video or advert it'll make them wonder about the music and the subtle hints given to the album's content from what they have seen previously.

I think the package appeals to the target audience:

• large range of ages - Indie music fans come in a large variety of ages, approximately ranging from 15 - 40 years, but I think 16 - 20 would be the primary age. We have tried to make our package suitable for such a range of ages whilst really targeting the primary ages. I think from the cast of the music video being of a younger age promotes the feel of the target audience, as viewers will feel more empathy for the characters and it seems closer to their lives.
• both genders - Indie fans are either gender but maybe with a slight tendency to male. I think by using a unisex palette of colours it has made sure there is a balance and the package is not biased towards one gender.
• The Killers fans - first and foremost the package really must appeal to Killers fans that will expect similar to previous works by the band. Killers have always made a package that fit together and the Day and Age album with the 'Human' video are a prime example as shown below.

Similarly to our ancillary texts, and most others, the advert is the digipak image enlarged with slight differences in colour. The theme is very natural and the mosaic type image reminds me of aboriginal art as does the landscape it illustrates. The advert advertises the single 'Human' and when watching the video for this song it is obvious that it strongly links with the digipak and advert.

The setting for the video definitely continues the theme of naturalistic setting with the wild animals but is quite based on the band from their performance that takes centre stage in the video. The 'k' light at the beginning emphasises the band's logo that features on digipak and advert. The final five seconds of the video link directly with the image on the above products with it being the exact same image.

How my products fit together

•  Colour - there is a common colour scheme of dark colours between all three products which reflects 'Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine''s lyrics and storyline. The blue texture overlay effect was commonly used on the digipak and advert. The spotlight used on the inside of the digipak under the explanatory story text symbolises the bright light used in the interrogation room scenes of the music video. The digipak is also especially shadowy, as are all the backgrounds of the pieces of texts, which demonstrate the in-the-shadows nature of the crime the character has committed.

• Image - the images used for the digipak and advert are similar to the final interrogation room scene. The character is crouched looking vulnerable and weak and this concludes his fate. This crouch is a repeated image of when he has just killed Jenny as shown in a flashback. I used a timecode image again on the digipak and advert continues the CCTV that is key in the music video. The use of the common motif of CCTV emphasises the paranoia of the character as the true events of the crime he has committed is revealed.

• Text - A lot of the text used on the digipak and advert is in a typewriter type font called 'Times New Yorker' that was downloaded from the www.dafont.com website. This typewriter style symbolises the interrogation room write up. The text is often shadowy and dark which also symbolises the dark, sombre nature of the video's storyline.

• Convergence of products - The music video is a bonus element of buying the digipak, so these products have converged.

In what ways does my media product develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In what ways does my media product develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?


Music Video

• A convention of a lot of Indie music videos is having the band wearing their own clothes and are not particularly costumed I found this was the case in The Drums video - http://sarahdixonmediablog.blogspot.com/2010/09/video-analysis-drums-forever-and-ever.html but in The Killers video I analysed, Smile Like You Mean It - http://sarahdixonmediablog.blogspot.com/2010/09/video-analysis-killers-smile-like-you.html the band were wearing dark suits which suited the dark theme of their video. So for costumes in our video we didn't use too elaborate costumes. The main character wore normal clothes, if a little scruffy, to show he represents just a normal person, the interrogator wore more formal clothes to show his dominance and place in society and Jenny wore a dress to show her vulnerability and feminine role in the video.

• When carrying out my research I noticed that The Killers tended to have storylines to their video, for example their Mr Brightside video(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqay9-U0vMQ&feature=related) and Smile Like You Mean It (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9uyb35McKM&feature=channel) so we decided to follow this convention with our video. There is no performance just miming of some key lines of the song by the main character. I think this worked well as a performance using instruments would have required a lot of effort and valuable time to find actors, instruments, practise and set up and then a high quality, realistic performance would have been hard to achieve. Having a storyline adapted from the song's lyrics is a very common convention of music videos, as identified by Andrew Goodwin's 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory'. In our video there is a definite relationship between lyrics and visuals.

• Our video's storyline incorporates a primary common theme that I discovered when doing my research - looking back over a time from the past. This was shown in The Killers video where the primary theme of the video's storyline is someone (who is possibly dead) looking back at significant events in their life. In The Drums video they seem to be looking back at by gone era, the 80s, and their image revolves around this past time. In the White Lies video, the name 'Farewell to the Fairground' already gives a direction to something that is gone and the video's theme seems to be people leaving and then returning home, back to their roots. In our video the main character is looking back over past events through a series of flashbacks and is therefore showing and developing this convention well.

• Effects were used in our video for example the scenes of the ghostly Jenny moving eerily using an effect on Adobe Premier. This is shown to be a convention as shown by the use of similar effects in The Killer's Smile Like You Mean It video.

• Again, with reference to 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory' by Andrew Goodwin, one of the conventions of music videos is the reference to looking, for example a screen within a screen. This is especially emphasised in our video through the theme of CCTV. This illustrates the theme of being watched and paranoia in the world. We used this our video to make the main character see more claustrophobic and vulnerable as he is unaware that he is being watched. We also used it too show past events, this portrays not being able to escape your past, and to show the ghost of Jenny. Overall making the CCTV quite a sinister part of the video. This gives us a clear and original main concept to our video.

Digipak and Advert

• The primary convention of the digipak and adverts, found through my extensive research, is that they all link together, with the music video as well. They use common themes of colour, text styles and most importantly image. The advert is simply the digipak enlarged. These help prospective buyers to link the products together. The image used for the digipak and advert is like the final scene of the video and his seemingly gloomy fate will make viewers wonder about the storyline of the song and therefore the content of the CD. The CCTV theme is continued throughout all the products by adding the timecode in the corner of the digipak and advert.

• Like many digipaks of the Indie genre a lot of post-production has been used. I used a lot of effects on the ancillary texts such as overlaying the blue texture and adding shadows to the Killers logo and 'the trilogy'. It was shown to be a convention of the Indie genre as it was widely used in all the digipaks and adverts, especially the Yeasayer products. This post-production is often found on the Killers products, the Sawdust cover especially.

• The elements of the digipak and adverts often reflect the mood or tone of the music content it is promoting, for example the Bombay Bicycle Club ancillary products were soft in colour and simply produced with little text and a painted image which reflected the acoustic-folk nature of its music. So for my product I recognised the indie-rock genre of he music that has dark lyrics and storyline within its content. So I used dark colours of varying shades of blue and greys. This gives it a bleak outlook of mystery that will intrigue prospective buyers. The mise en scene of the products also reflect the album title - 'the trilogy'.

• The products all feature the conventional elements that all digipaks and adverts have. Such as barcode, record label logos and information, release date and the songlists.

• When looking at how the products have challenged usual conventions there is not many elements to note. The use of a photo of a character fro the video as the main part of the advert/digipak isn't something not usually seen with digipaks, but we felt that by linking together all three products so strongly would make the stand out. There is also very little text used on the advert, which is quite unusual, but I thought that this mysteriousness would intrigue people viewing it to know more about the album.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

What did the audience want?

From looking at my initial audience research i can see exactly what the audience wanted from the video and promotional pieces.

• 'The songs are always really well written and the lyrics often tell a story' - We took advantage of the lyrics telling a story by adapting the words of the song to create a storyline for our video. This was a specific element of Killers videos that the audience like 'they always have a storyline making them interesting to watch and I like the performers part within the video.' We had minimal performance in our video as we thought it would be difficult to portray a realistic music performance, so we just had our main character miming the some lines of the song for emphasis.
• For the digipak the audience said they liked how The Killers always used 'creative, high quality images'. I think we have acheived this with our digipak as the final product is a creative way of promoting the album. 

My Audience Feedback

http://sweettalk.thekillersmusic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=14


I thought a good way of getting audience feedback from real fans of the band would be by posting the video on a fan page where they could then view the video and then post a response.


This is what I posted:

Despite the post getting over 92 views only two people replied so it didn’t work very well. I couldn't ask for very detailed feedback as I felt it would make people less likely to reply. However, the feedback I did get were positive responses, such as: 'Wow great video! Really! Good job.. Thanks for the post sarahdixonmedia!'

 Survey Monkey

This website allows you to create free surveys, that then show the responses in a clear way. (Although you must become a paying member to have the results presented in tables, graphs etc.) You can make a survey with up to ten questions and there is a large range of types of questions you can use. I found surveymonkey very easy to use and efficient.


http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HNR3DC5


This is a survey I created to generate some constructive audience feedback on all three of my final media products. I gave out my survey via a link to some friends via a message on Facebook.

My friends gave me some really good, constructive feedback and due to the well composed questions it was relevant and covered many areas.

1. On a scale of 1 to 10 how enjoyable did you find the music video to watch? (1 being poor and 10 being really good)

For this question 50% of people rated the video 8 and 50% rated it 9. I think this is a really positive response as it is really important that although the video must be well made with a good storyline it must be interesting to watch or no-one will watch it!

2. Did you find the storyline easy to follow and relevant to the song?

For this question I allowed the responders to write a comment so it is an open ended question this way, I could get broad range of answers. The feedback was all very positive.

'The storyline was extremely easy to follow and very relevant to the meaning of the lyrics.'

'I very much enjoyed the video, very easy to follow, but at the same time intriguing and unpredictable. It kept me in there.'

This shows we have made a good storyline that is 'intriguing and unpredictable' but it is still related to the song by being closely linked with the lyrics.

3. What elements of the video did you find particularly good? (eg lighting, performance, camera shots)

I thought this question would be good at specifically pinpointing exactly what we had got right about the video and highlight what made it a success.

These responses show that the dark lighting was atmospheric and really fitted in with the dark theme the video was trying to convey, this was something that viewers really recognised as a good point. One respondent also picked up on the use of camera angles to portray the characters emotions - 'the high angle in the interrogation part' - making the character look small and vulnerable. I also liked how it was mentioned that the use of effects made the video look professionally made but on the otherhand it was mentioned that our video seemed 'more independent' due to a large range of camera shots, showing we both used some of the conventions of videos but also challenged them as well.

4. Is there any constructive criticism you could give on how to improve the video?

Very little feedback was given to this question showing that the respondents to the survey found it difficult to criticise the video. One suggested that there could be more colour used in the video, although we used minimal colour in the video to convey the dark mood, this may have been lacking in interest for some people as colour could have made it more eye catching. Another found that in some shots the top of the character's head had been chopped off, I agree with this statement. We made our video widescreen so it looked better when being viewed and, as a result, this made the composition from some shots a bit off. In this shot above I think it looks a bit strange and it stands out that you cannot see all of the character.

5. On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being poor and 10 being excellent), how would you rate the digipak and advert?

Again, really positive feedback was given here with results ranging from 8 to 10. 50% was for 10 out of 10 which is great in showing that the digipak and advert look good and work well.

For these two questions I wanted to know what was good and what was bad about the digipak and advert. The results show that the text used was definitely what needed improving. I think this may be the lack of text or possible the fonts used, if I did another survey I would try to find out what exactly it was about the text that needed improving. It seems that the image, composition and colours used were the strong points of the products. I would agree with this myself as I felt the presentation of the digipak and advert were the stronger points and that is what has been picked out as viewers as being good.

8. How well do you think these three products work together as a package? (e.g common theme of CCTV, colour schemes)

Here I wanted to see if the survey respondents could see the link between the ancillary texts that I had tried to create through the common themes of CCTV and colour schemes. These four responses I got definitely recognised these elements.

9. How well do you think these products compare to real, professional products?

I was really happy with the 100% 'equal to' result. This shows the overall finish of all three products looks professional and realistic. Therefore it is the sort of product that you would see on shelves in shops and I feel that was one of the aims of the project, to make the look as professional as possible.

In conclusion, I learnt a lot from my audience feedback. I got very positive feedback from the survey I created on the very valuable surveymonkey website. I found that all three products have been a success, with great positivity towards the video's storyline and its use of camera shots and mise en scene (especially the lighting). Some feedback given in order to improve the video was that it was sometimes overly dark and that the composition of shots was often weak. The ancillary texts were proven to work well together and gave a professional finish due to the strong composition, colour scheme and image. However, here the text had room for improvement.

Final Music Video

My Final Advert Design

This is my final advert design which is obviously very much based on the front cover of my digipak as this is a convention nearly always used by many bands including The Killers. I have used a different image that is very similar but is portrait so that it fits the orientation of a poster. I have used more layers the blue texture this time to make the top left corner even darker and create a more intense 'spotlight' effect on the subject in the bottom right. The same Killers logo, 'the trilogy' and timecode from the digipak has been used to relate it very closely to it and create a common theme that the target market will recognise. I have then added some typical advert conventions - the release date, record company logos and 'the new album' to show what is being advertised. I have left the advert quite simple which makes it quite mysterious and leaves prospective buyers wanting to know more.

My Final Digipak Cover

This is my final digipak cover made on Serif Photo Plus. The image is a photo taken of the actor who played the main character in the music video. He looks particularly vulnerable in the corner which depicts his character's role in the video. I've made it look like he is in the darkness but with a spotlight over him like the interrogation room setting. The Killers logo has been used in the top left corner. It looks 3D and the white stands out against the darkened, blue shadow background, its lowered opacity makes it look ghostly which links to the character of Jenny in the music video. 'The trilogy' has been portrayed in a similar way but using the 'Times New Yorker' font, downloaded off http://www.dafont.com/. I decided to use a dark colour scheme to emphasise the theme of the dark storyline. The blue used prominently on the front is a blue texture overlayed several times to try and give the look of CCTV this has then been reinforced by the timecode in the bottom left corner which is a major part of the music video. It may make prospective buyers purchase the product or watch the music video because they want to know more about the mysterious CCTV theme. The back has the track listing, website, barcode, record label logo and some made up copyright information. This makes it look realistic as these are typical conventions of all digpaks. The centre fold of the digipak just has the the band name and album name over an almost transparent cover of the background.

The inside of the digipak is very similar to the one we originally planned. We used the same text as planned, which I then blurred to give it the ghostly feel this inner panel has. The images we used had to be taken by us so I took a photograph of the brick wall outside my house and rather than the ghostly image of 'Jenny' as planned we used a screenshot of our main male character from the video. His image being ghostly (by a lower opacity) illustrates his demise through the story. We then came up with the idea of putting the text in a black colour so it is almost transparent over the image. This is made to look like the interrogation write up over his image. The text is written in a type writer font to emphasise this. This inner sleeve is very dark with the only light source coming from the beam of light effect behind the left hand text, this is to continue the dark, sombre mood of the products.