Digipak Final Product

For my second draft I didn't want to change too much from my original draft as I thought my first attempt was a well made digipak. However with my second draft I took some advice I received from feedback I got from friends and looking at my peers' work.

First of all I added the albums spine in as I forgot to do that on my first draft. Obviously all albums have the spine with the band name and album title on it as when you put them on a shelf side by side you can easily see which albums you want to listen to. The blue colour of the spine is a juxtaposition to the album name "Black Cloud" and I wanted to get across the whole things will always get better idea which is something I did in my music video of the protagonist finding someone he can be himself with at the end of the video.

I also added in a new image to the back of the album as I thought the colour element I used wasn't very good and I'd already used that on my inside cover. I added yet another image with an orange tinge to it to keep with the colour scheme for the album. Also adding the bar code and record label logo (EMI) shows a much more professional element to the CD as this is a key feature you would find on any album as the record label want to take credit for the album and the money the album makes as bands tend not to make much money from album sales due to the digitalisation of the music industry.

Digipak Poster // Final Draft

My digipak poster has typical conventions of an album poster such as a quote/review, album release date and what's included. Obviously I used the same main image as on my album as that way if someone was to buy the album they would automatically know what the album artwork was as they have seen the main image on the album poster. Also the main image is one of the main things that would draw you to looking at the poster in the first place. In my research I discovered that lots of album posters are printed in magazines and London underground stations which is of course very fast pace down there so the main image has to grab someone's attention if they are walking to get their next train but are also looking at the adverts on the wall. 

Also having a release date on the poster is key as then people will know exactly when they can buy the album. If you didn't have this there wouldn't be much point in advertising the album at all if no one knew when they could buy it. Saying what platforms it's available on is also very important in today's society as we now consume music in a very different way that we did twenty years ago.

The biggest form of buying music is of course Downloading so obviously you would make the album able to be downloading. However in recent years Vinyl has made a big recovery with younger kids getting into buying records. Because of this younger bands have now started to release their albums on vinyl to cater to all needs.

Evaluation // Question One

Media Evaluation Question One from joebryant206

Evaluation // Question Two

Evaluation // Question Three

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

At the start of the year I put a poll on my blog to get basic information from people for example age, gender, what kind of music they liked and what types of music videos they liked. From using social media this lead to me to find specific examples of what younger people like which turned out to be a performance element to music videos with a narrative alongside. Because my genre was rock I looked into other things that rock fans would be interested in.Because of my AS studies last year I knew that rock fans are big readers of Kerrang magazine and having looked at their demographics I knew I had to cater for the younger audience in my video as the 15-24 age bracket was the biggest consumers of Kerrang.

I also conducted a focus group were I ask questions about what people my age would expect from a rock video and where they would consume said video. Focus Group Questions Here This allowed me to get an understanding of what people would like to see in my video such as a performance and narrative storyline alongside each other as this is a key feature of a rock video. I also found what types of edits and camera shots people would expect to see such as close up shots to show emotions and fast edits to accompany the fast pace nature of the song. All of these elements would give me great influence on my music video which I then went on to film.

Once my first draft was complete I asked people to fill in some audience feedback questionnaires in order to gain an understanding of what was good/bad about my video and were improvements could be made. The positives I found were that people really liked the performance scene and thought it was a good representation of a rock video performance scene as the use of framing and fast edits fit the conventions of the song as well as the genre. However the narrative wasn't as clear as it could of been in which I decided to re shoot the narrative to make it much more stronger and understandable. I was able to secure actors for specific times and locations with my second draft (something I struggled with for my first) which made things much more easier for planning shots. One of the consequences of changing actors and extras was that I had to go against the storyboard in the second verse in order to make the narrative entertaining yet understandable which I really enjoyed as I was able to experiment with different scenarios and different elements of cinematography which made for a much more enjoyable filming experience.

One of the pieces of feedback I received from my teacher was to use a specific shiny edit on the antagonist in the final scenes to give a representation of hope and also represent one of the themes of the song of things getter better. This was a big improvement in my opinion as this scene was key to the narratives structure and something we really wanted to look good. 

Post production I conducted some more feedback of my final draft with the band that were in the performance scene to what they thought was good about the video or maybe anything they didn't like. I found that the narrative was much more clearer from their feedback and that the performance scene was a true representation on a rock performance scene with the mise-en-scene of instruments and clothes being the main part of that. Post Production Feedback Here 

From a theoretical point of view, Bulmer and Katz' Uses & Gratifications theory looks at how we as an audience consume media and how personal identity can effect our viewing. For someone viewing our first draft they could think completely different to some one else. The same with our final product someone could think it's the best video they've ever seen, another person could think it's one of the worst series of moving images out there. However who is right? It's all down to our personal identity of what we like and don't like.So by us taking advice from people around us we can cater to what they and other like minded people would like, granted we aren't going to impress everyone but no one ever can. Stuart Hall's reception theory can also be brought in here this theory is an active audience theory which sees the audience as being actively engaged in the interpretation of media texts rather than as passive consumers. Individuals receive and interpret texts in different ways. This theory also links to Bulmer and Katz as one person will see our video and possibly get a message from it of hope and striving for better. While other will take a completely different view of the video and why should they be wrong? Unless it's something completely off the wall perhaps.

Even things such as a persons social class could effect their interpretation of a media text. For instance a upper/middle class person could completely blank this message and say they can't relate to it in any way. However a working class kid could relate it as they may have gone through some hard times themselves and being outcast and that's the great thing about the feedback we received. Some people may have liked it for that reason while others may not have understood it because of their circumstances.

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Evaluation // Question Four

Audience Feedback // Final Draft

Audience Feedback (Watch Here)

After we completed our final draft we decided to get some feedback from the band in the performance scenes to see how they liked it and what they thought was good about the video. Also I think they just wanted to see what they looked like as well...

iTunes Advertising

As one of the main ways we consume music now-a-days is downloading I decided to create an advert for my album on iTunes. First of all I imported the image of my album over the main advert of the iTunes Store which is first thing you would see if you were to be downloading songs on there. I included the text of "Includes The Single Black Cloud" which is a key feature to album advertising an online service such as iTunes as you only have a limited amount of space to say what the product includes. 

I also included the album cover in the "Featured Artists" section which is where the main downloads are shown which would mean it's been a hit that week and would allow more people to see said album. I imported the album artwork over another album, got rid of the original text and put my band name and album title underneath using the most alike text than the others on iTunes which was Myriad Pro.

Finally I showed the album in my iTunes where it would be after someone downloaded it. All I did for this was change the album artwork of an existing album that was in my iTunes and changed the artist and album name which shows an overall professional feel to the album advertisement and eventually ending in a product you can listen to much like a real album. 

Audience Feedback - Questionnaire

We printed out 10 questionnaires to give to people, who have watched our video, to fill out so we can learn what the audience likes and dislikes about our first draft.

Feedback from joebryant206

Shots from 29/3/14

This shooting schedule was different in terms of structure. We decided to get all of the solo shots of myself out of the way at the beginning rather than going through the shots in chronological order. We also replaced Niall Foot to play a different role as we needed to shoot the shot of the couple within the narrative with the help of Amelia Rothwell. Niall's original role will be replaced by Stacy Peacham between the 3rd and the 4th; within this time re-shooting with Kiera Jowett will take place as we are not satisfied by the shots that she is in.

In terms of these shots, I feel like these are an improvement.The weather does not really represent the mood of the song but this can be made darker within the editing process. The sun also created shadows on the pavement which can be seen in some shots. To avoid this we will try to crop them out within the editing process.