Group Interview

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

For our project we decided to create an 'Indie Pop' music video, a digi-pak and a poster advert. The only links we have between our products in the red balloon, the female and the use of the beach imagery which we depict in the music video. We really wanted to highlight these links throughout all three of our products so our target audience could recognise the symbol of the red balloon with the artist. When comparing our products they do have a lot in common each product focuses on the female with the red balloon, shown in the music video the front cover of the digi pak and the main image on the advert poster. Through this convenction the colour follows throughout the entrire products creating an easily rememorible link between the balloon and the artist for our targer audience. Some viewers may even pick up on the focus of the scenery of the beach throughout the products we did this deliberatly but knew it would not be a main link that an audience would focus on. However we still followed the beach theme and each product includes the theme. The dig-pak and advert only include the scenery of the beach which was the main focus on the production of the music video. But the music video has two sets of scenery in. We focused the main attention to the scenery on the beach so we could create a combination between all of the products. We didn't want to divert away from our initial ideas of how we were going to  use the nature so we re used the front cover of the digi-pak for the advert. Straight away the audience would associate the powerful image on the front cover with the poster advert thus taking in the information given on it.

As you can see below even though there is a clear link as the  images are the same for both the front cover of the digi-pak and the advert poster. We had to change the colour of the advert as it was too dazzling for the text. But we decided to keep the colour of the balloon the same we used photoshop to keep the colour of the balloon the same as the music video and album cover. We did this as the main focus throughout all three products is the balloon so if we changed the colour of it to fit with the change of colour to the advert then we faced a problem that audiences may not associate the balloons with the artist. We wanted to clear clear associations throughout all of our products expecially with our digi-pak and advert.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

After looking through our audience feedback we are delighted that we have created and produced effective job at representing our 'indie pop' genre. When we have showed our music video and print products many of the target audience have stated that the genre of the artist is clear. The switch beween the depressed black and white footage to the more joyful/happier shots in colour highlights the female looking back on memories which fits in well with the isolated imagery which is what we intended. However what we have learned from some of our feedbacl is that the red balloon element and it's meaning could be unclear at the beginning till the end of the muisc video when the female lets go of the balloon. It was suggested that the male character in the coloured shots could have been wearing red which would then the balloon would clearly symbolise the male and the love for each other. If we were able to create the music video again this is something that we would definatly take on board and put into the music video to create a clearer narrative for those in our trager audience who struggled to understand the narrative of the music video at first. They all liked the quality of the shots many have said that they were nicely composed expecially the black and white shots which seemed to stand out as being the favourite from our feedback. They partically noticed the transitions and spacing between the black and white shots and the coloured flashbacks which were described as being done well. We really wanted the transitions to flow smoothly which was highlighted in our feedback noting that none of them were too disjointing or ineven with one more than the other. Others did criticise the flashbacks as there was a few differences in the brightness and the level of light but continuted to say thar it was hardly noticabale. From our feedback we were applauded for our digi-pak stating that is was their favourite part of the project as it looked professional and up to a hight standard considering they were taken on a mobile phone and a 'very outdated camera.' Many did say the advert was the least favourite which as a group we completly agree with. The advert is definatly not up to the high standard quality which we produced for the digi-pak due to the colouring of the image which we tried to follow for the 'Noah And The Whale' advert. If we didn't follow the concept from the advert we found in our research we would have been able to create our own unique twist to it just like we did for our dig-pak.


I thought it would be extremly useful to interview a few individuals who were not in our target audience to give us feeback on our music video and print products. Below is the video for the interview.



I asked the two individuals in the interview which out of the three products was their favourite and most professional they both agreed on the digi-pak which was also highlighted throughout the rest of our audience feedback. As a group we also agree that the digi-pak we created was the most professional and when looking back at our products we would most defiantly take the feedback we recieved on board.

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

For this project we have used a variety of different programmes and techniques to enspire, develop and create our product ideas. During are stages of our research we have used our 'blogs' intensively to express our ideas and creativity. The blog has helped us engage with members of our groups over the weekend as we are updated on their latest developed ideas allowing other members of the group to develop them further. The main aparatus we have used continiously is the 'video camera'. The video camera lets us express and practice our initial ideas for our media product leading to the final production where we were able to film our footage without hesitation and knew exactly what shots and angles would fit our genre of music best. Whilst filming the footage we thought it would be an effective idea to take some shots of our location on the day of filming so we could blog about our day and express to our audience what was going to be expected from our music video. Looking back on the images we realised the images were actually a high quality and were exactly what we were looking at for our album. Leading on to us using 'Instagram' an online social network, photo sharing service that allows individuals to take their own images, apply digital filters and share them. This allowed us to create the images for our album covers and the whole of the digi pak. We have also used 'Photoshop' on the front cover image. Once the effect from Instagram was placed upon the picture the balloons became a dull red and very cartoon like which was not how the balloon was seen throughout the music video. We decided to play around with photoshop to see if we could brighten the balloon without causing any problem to the effect already placed on the image. I was not familiar with 'photoshop' so the members of my group taught me how to create the new effect on the front cover image incase we had to brighten up the balloon again. I am now able to use photoshop without any guidence.

Below is a short video of how we created the image for the album cover using Instagram.


 

Below are screen grabs for how we created the brightness of the red balloon in Photoshop.

 

We used the magic wand in photoshop this was done by pressing down on the button 'alt'.

 

We then clicked refine edge

 

We then made the balloon look less harsh by using the feathering tool in photoshop. We had to make sure the balloons were equally even. After using this tool we were then able to change the colour of the balloons to a much more similar brighter red to the balloons in the music video. The balloons looked more natural and now didn't look as if they had been placed on top of the image.

 

 

However we then went on to image- adjustments- hue and saturation to change the colour again to get the pink tinge off the balloons.

 

Then we changed the lighting, saturation and hue of the balloons to make sure we produced the best red balloons we possibly could.

 

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The image above is the final outcome which we used for the front cover and the advert.

 

Due to the wind of the day of filming when we came to the editing process we tried many different ways to keep the balloon red whilst the background was black and white. We first tried 'Matte Effect' in our practice task which we realised straight away was not suitable for our final outcome. So we decided once the editing process began to use 'Leave colour' effect but again we encountered implications the red balloon was thankfully staying red but other parts of the footage such as scenery that had a slight tinge to the colour was also changing due to the effect. So after deliberating we decided the best idea was to commision someone who knew more professional ways to create the effect we needed for our music video. The effect was then created frame by frame a very time consuming and complicated way to create the effect. However the outcome was outstanding and created the exact effect we wanted with the red balloons.

 

I decided to film James explaing how he created the red balloon with the black and white shots.

 

                                

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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

Music videos are a source of entertainment; they create an eye cathcing link to the band and the music video they are trying to sell. We really wanted to create an artist that we all really had a strong passion for already in the music industry. We wanted to create a quirky independant artist. So to do so we looked at such artists that influenced are music preferences such as 'The Vaccines'. We each took a cluster of artists/bands and found the most common themes and shots that we could create a link with throughout all the music videos. When first conducting the research we fould that many of the 'Indie Pop' music videos focused them around nature and natural imagery. We analysied a vast amount of music videos and decided that nature would be an aspect we would use as our main focus for our music video. Following on from the basis of our nature idea we deliberated and decided to have the main setting of the music video at the beach where we could focus on the enviroment around us. We took on board some of the improvements we had from our 'AS Project' 'Where's My Mr Right?'. Our main location for this opening scene was filmed in a house the un-natural lighting created a huge impact in the quality of our shots and made them seem dull and unprofessional. The natural light at the beach really emphasised the black and white footage at the beach it made the shots seem more dazzling and high quality even with the black and white effect.

'The Vaccines' music video for the song 'No Hope' was the basis of where our ideas developed from. We partically enjoyed the focus of the flowers throughout the music video. So we decided to pick a few certain aspects of nature to focus on in our location, being the waves and scenery on the beach. Linking back to the main theme of 'Indie Pop' videos based upon nature. In the 'No Hope' music video numerous shots of flowers were shown throughout in different locations and scenes. The flowers used emphaises the story the music video was trying to portray. We wanted to use this impact but by the use of waves, the movement of the waves inparticular. Each time a wave crashes its a different speed or movement which we wanted to represent the change in the females attitudes and feelings throughout the music video we were creating. Not only did we want the audience to follow the story of the characters but the waves also so we created a sense of different waves throughout the project. Some of the waves are seen to be harsh, some are shown to be pityful and lastly in the final clip of the music video the waves are the closing to the story just like the use of the flowers in the 'No Hope' video.

The Vaccines 'No Hope'

Elliot Guy 'Lover's Eyes'

However even though we did follow some typical forms and conventions of real life media products in our genre of music. We wanted to make our music video unique to us so we could create our own identity for our new artist. This is where the idea of the 'Red Balloon' devloped. We not only wanted our audience to focus on the theme of nature throughout the video but something that would be rare and individual to our 'Indie Pop' artist. We not only wanted to create a link between the music video we were prodcing and the digi-pak, but a link between our music video and it's audience. So we could produce something that would be incomparable to any other 'Indie Pop' artist/music video around. In our music video we wanted something that the audience would be able to remember and create the link between the object (balloon) and the artist without knowing the logo of the artist. This would overcome difficulties of the audience liking the song but not knowing or remembering what the artist was called or the album name. So by having such an iconic object in the video the audience would be able to particular remember it and find the album due to the red balloon.

 

 

When conducting our research we came across a music video called 'Waiting For My Chance To Come' by Noah And The Whale. This video was the first in our chosen genre that we found had a switch between black and white to colour. When analysing the video we thought the switches between colour were really effective we could clearly see a change in setting when the colour of the music video changed. On watching the music video we decided that this was something we wanted to incorprate into our own work. After discussing and putting all our ideas together from the research we decided on using the beach scenes in black and white to create a melancholy and isolated atmoshphere but when we switch to colour to have the different shots fast paced and joyful to fit in with the brightness of the shots compared to the black and white ones. We believed that the colour differences was something that would clearly show our target audience the difference we were portraying in each setting. This effect worked really well we were able to create a significant difference between our two settings and stories just like the 'Noah And The Whale' music video.

 





'Noah And The Whale'- Waiting For My Chance To Come

 

As a group we all looked at different artists in our chosen genre. In our research we payed particular attention to the typography used for the artist name and album. We found that in our genre of 'Indie Pop' that the  typography used is usually bold but plain and still manages to be iconic. We tried many different style of texts to find the most sutibale one for our artist we ended up choosing 'Bookman Old Style' because the style followed the typical convenctions of the 'indie pop' genre. We also found during our research that many of the artists in this genre use the name of the group or individual as the logo. We followed this idea so we could make our artist as professional and realistic as possible. We really liked this idea and thought 'The Vaccines' logo was very effective as their target audience would straight away recongise the logo of the band. We wanted to do this for our own artist so the audience would not only be able to associate the red balloon from the music video but also the typography used for the artist. We used the same typography throughout the digipak and advert so the audiences association could be coherent.

ELLIOT GUY

However even though we followed many typical convenctions of a 'indie pop' artist we also challanged and developed some of them too. We found that normally in our chosen genres music videos and achillery texts they focus the products around the same sex as the artist or group. We wanted to challange this and create something that could be unique to the genre but not divert completely away from codes and conventions of our genre. We decided to have our artist as a male 'Elliot Guy' and base the artists achillery texts and music video around a female. We not only did this to challange the ideas of an 'indie pop' artist but also so we could reach out to the female gender in our target audience so they felt apart of the artist. We based the album cover, advert and music video all around a female with the red balloon. Creating a iconic image and reaching out to all our targer audiences. We really thought this was a successful idea and really captured what we wanted to portry.





 

 

When researching our genre we came across that in the adverts used for the artists the album cover is normlly used. We first decided that we would stray away from this idea but after trying numerous times to find an image that would be sutibale for the advert we decided to follow the original concept we found in our research. We got alot of our ideas and influences for the advert from 'Noah And The Whales' advert for the album 'First Day Of Spring. We recognised the same picture used from the ablum in the advert creating a direct link with the both products which is a clever and effective concept to follow. We also noticed the advert used pastle tones and colours alot of the image taken up with the sky. Luckily the image used on the 'Elliot Guy' album cover had a element of the sky in it too. We toned down the colour of the image so we could create the samel pastle effect as the 'Noah And The Whale' album which made the text on the advert stand out and effectively draw audiences attention to the stars and comments given to the artist. We kept the original colour of the red balloons in the advert so the brightness of them would draw audiences attention in to focus on the balloons and associate them with the muisc video.

 

'Noah And The Whale'- First Day Of Spring

 

 

'Elliot Guy'- The Root Of Memories


 

 

 

 

 

 

Presentation

Catherine, Ellie, Kelly and Sarah's presentation from Chris Earl on Vimeo.

Questiones- Interview With Audience

What do you think about the storyline?

How does it fit with the song?

What do you think about the transitions to black & white from colour?

How close do you think we got to creating a professional-standard music video?

Where do you think you might see a video like this?

What could be improved about the video?

What do you believe the concept of the red balloon is?

Based on this video, would you buy an album from this artist?