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.

 

.

 

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.