Evaluation Q1

Evaluation Q2

How effective is the combination of your music video with your digipak and magazine advertisement?

For me, I wanted my music code, digipak and magazine advertisement to be similar and have correlation in terms of the way they look.

I wanted to have the idea of the dark included in my music video, digipak and magazine advert as this darkness reflects the insanity that the central character goes through. The dark is mostly associated with death etc and I wanted this dark mood to be portrayed which is why I used the element of 'night time' in my music video, made my digipak dark consisting of the solar system and made my magazine advert background dark with white text for a contrast. I also used the ides of the 'dark' as I wanted to have almost a horror aspect to my digipak and magazine advert as the music video is quite spooky in terms of the journey that the character takes you on and her emotions.

I also kept the appearance of the main character the same with the black clothes, red lips etc on my digipak and my magazine advert as I wanted to create effective synergy between the two as this makes the artist familiar to the fans. I chose not to have the artist in typical feminine clothes as I wanted the colour of the clothes to be a representation of the music as the music is almost quite trance like and mysterious. I also chose some mid shot/long shot images from my music video for my digipak and magazine advert as this creates a tense vibe due to the facial expression of the artist being emotionless as this allows the audience to be intrigued as to what the artist sounds like and what genre she will be. The reason why I wanted the artist on the front was so that the audience is drawn in by the contact lenses in particular, so that they would want to know why the artist has this 'demonised' look.

One thing that I kept different was the font of 'The Blowout Being' on my digipak and on the magazine advert. The magazine advert would be the first thing you see before buying the album in some cases and I felt that having this particular font on the magazine advert gave it more of a fun feel to it as it is pleasing to the eye and lightens the mood of the artist's vibe.

The influence for the mid shots for my digipak/magazine advert was from my music video like these ones:

Evaluation Q3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Our target audience was predominantly teenagers of both genders as they could relate to the given circumstances happening in our video such as love and heartbreak.




The video above was our first approach at getting audience feedback by pitching our music video concept to our media class. At the end of our pitch, we gave our class mates the opportunity to ask us questions and give us feedback in terms of what we could change/improve.

We then created a Twitter account for our artist to promote their music video/album and to engage with 'fans'. We found this an effective way to get our music video heard and seen by our target audience. We received feedback from 'fans', below is a screenshot of what they said:

@theblowoutbeing LOVE your new music video. So creative! When can I see you live?
— Alyce Berry Lopez (@AllyBL) April 15, 2013

We composed several tweets to make our artist's twitter seem more realistic. We mentioned tour dates, future collaborations, thank you's, the link to our music video and where to buy our new album etc.

My tour dates will be released on Friday 1st March 2013, stay tuned! I may even give one lucky follower a free pair of tickets to see me
— The Blowout Being (@TheBlowoutBeing) February 26, 2013

Would love to do a collaboration with @delilahmusic
— The Blowout Being (@TheBlowoutBeing) February 26, 2013

Thank you everyone for your support, I really appreciate the feedback
— The Blowout Being (@TheBlowoutBeing) February 26, 2013

'Constellations' is now available on iTunes
— The Blowout Being (@TheBlowoutBeing) February 26, 2013

Hi guys check out our new music video 'In For The Kill' youtube.com/watch?v=pgODea…
— The Blowout Being (@TheBlowoutBeing) February 26, 2013

We then went onto the social networking site Facebook and asked our 6 questions from our questionnaire to 5 teenagers. We decided to do it this away as it is easy to interact with our target audience this way as social networking sites play a big part of their everyday lives. We opted to ask open questions to receive more qualitative data rather than asking closed questions. Here is an example of how we gathered our results using Facebook:




Here is our actual questionnaire with all our feedback:

Person 1
1. What part/s of the music video stood out for you the most?
"I liked the lip syncing and how in sync it was. I also loved the way the character's eyes changed."

2. Is this music video easy to understand or a challenge?
"A bit of both."

3. In your opinion, is there a link between the lyrics and our narrative?
"I would say that there is as I could understand the connection between the two."

4. Does the music video appeal to you enough for you to watch it more than once? Why?
"I would definitely watch it more than once. I loved the effects."

5.Would you say this is a typical music video for our genre? (Dubstep/Electronic)
"Kind of, it is a little bit different and unique though."

6. What could we improve on?
"In my opinion, I like it the way it is."

Person 2
1. What part/s of the music video stood out for you the most?
"I would say the bit that stands out the most is the candles...I loved that!"

2. Is this music video easy to understand or a challenge?
"Quite easy to understand."

3. In your opinion, is there a link between the lyrics and our narrative?
"I think the link between the video and the lyrics is really there and understandable."

4. Does the music video appeal to you enough for you to watch it more than once? Why?
"I think I would definitely watch it again because there are so many different locations which makes it interesting to the eye."

5.Would you say this is a typical music video for our genre? (Dubstep/Electronic)
"I do think it fits the genre especially with the mix of tones and lights!"

6. What could we improve on?
"The only thing I would say is there was one bit where you were running through the forest that was in bright colours which I thought would have been more effective in a darker light. Also, more candles could have been used as I liked those bits."

Person 3
1. What part/s of the music video stood out for you the most?
"I liked the candles in the form of a heart at the beginning, the change of eyes and the burning photo."

2. Is this music video easy to understand or a challenge?
"You can tell that you were a couple and that you had broken up. It was clear that you were messed up in the head afterwards as well."

3. In your opinion, is there a link between the lyrics and our narrative?
"You looked like you wanted to kill someone when it says 'going in for the kill' and the 'now let go of my hand' when your hands slipped away."

4. Does the music video appeal to you enough for you to watch it more than once? Why?
"I thought it was really clever and interesting to watch."

5.Would you say this is a typical music video for our genre? (Dubstep/Electronic)
"I personally think so."

6. What could we improve on?
"The part where she pushes her boyfriend seems a little fake."

Person 4
1. What part/s of the music video stood out for you the most?
"I like the bit in the lift, the reverse shot of the cars and the bit with the trees at 1:50, they're quite fun and interesting."

2. Is this music video easy to understand or a challenge?
"I think it's easy to understand. It is definitely about a boy and girl falling in love and portraying the ups and downs of their relationship."

3. In your opinion, is there a link between the lyrics and our narrative?
"Yeah, I think the bit with the photo burning is good because the lyrics are talking about fire/desire. The bit with the woods is good because she's singing about being left out for too long."

4. Does the music video appeal to you enough for you to watch it more than once? Why?
"Yes, I've watched it a few times now, it has some interesting shots and it's nice to see a music video with some correlation to the lyrics of the song, not all of them do nowadays!"

5.Would you say this is a typical music video for our genre? (Dubstep/Electronic)
"I think the bits with the flashing colours are good for dubstep because they fit with the music which is quite vibrant and fast paced at points."

6. What could we improve on?
"I didn't really understand the bits with the candles?"

Person 5
1. What part/s of the music video stood out for you the most?
"I really like the first part where it's in slow motion when she hugs her boyfriend at 7 seconds."

2. Is this music video easy to understand or a challenge?
"No, it was pretty easy to understand, well I hope I understand it because what I think it means is pretty cool!"

3. In your opinion, is there a link between the lyrics and our narrative?
"I can definitely see that there is a link."

4. Does the music video appeal to you enough for you to watch it more than once? Why?
"Yes, I watched it a few times actually! I really like it."

5.Would you say this is a typical music video for our genre? (Dubstep/Electronic)
"Yeah, it's very straight the point and edgy so it goes with the music genre."
6. What could we improve on?
"I have no criticisms, I really enjoyed it."

Lastly, we also asked a couple of people what they thought of our music video after watching it at our showcase. Here is what happened:





In conclusion, we feel that our audience feedback was a crucial element within A2 as we wanted to live up to our target audience's expectations of our music video being unique and interesting to watch. We received positive and constructive criticism and we took this into consideration incase there was anything to change or improve. One suggestion was to improve the long shot of the main character running in the forest and to edit it so the lighting was darker rather than bright. We agreed with this suggestion so we decided to make it lighter and also add an effect to make it slightly distorted. Overall, we met our aim of introducing what happens behind closed doors of a broken relationship.

Evaluation Q4

Credits

We have now added credits to our music video so that the artist name and the song name is justified whilst the music video is playing.

Magazine Advert

This is my finished magazine advert. I chose to use a black background as it goes with the vibe of the music video and it also links in with the narrative being quite a dark and disturbing issue.

I decided to keep my magazine advert basic as I feel that less is more. I feel that things are much nicer to look at if they are simple. If there is a lot going on, I personally get put off. One key thing about this magazine advert is the review from NME as I feel that having one makes it really simplistic and only having one review allows our target audience to want to purchase it so that they could find out more. I also used white text on the black background so that it stands out. I had the links at the bottom of the page so that when our audience are finished reading it, they have the links at the end for more information.

Twitter

Me and Sophie have created a Twitter account for our artist as this is a good way to interact with fans in getting feedback. Here are some pictures below:

Music Video Questionnaire

Person 1
1. What part/s of the music video stood out for you the most?
"I liked the lip syncing and how in sync it was. I also loved the way the character's eyes changed."

2. Is this music video easy to understand or a challenge?
"A bit of both."

3. In your opinion, is there a link between the lyrics and our narrative?
"I would say that there is as I could understand the connection between the two."

4. Does the music video appeal to you enough for you to watch it more than once? Why?
"I would definitely watch it more than once. I loved the effects."

5.Would you say this is a typical music video for our genre? (Dubstep/Electronic)
"Kind of, it is a little bit different and unique though."

6. What could we improve on?
"In my opinion, I like it the way it is."

Person 2
1. What part/s of the music video stood out for you the most?
"I would say the bit that stands out the most is the candles...I loved that!"

2. Is this music video easy to understand or a challenge?
"Quite easy to understand."

3. In your opinion, is there a link between the lyrics and our narrative?
"I think the link between the video and the lyrics is really there and understandable."

4. Does the music video appeal to you enough for you to watch it more than once? Why?
"I think I would definitely watch it again because there are so many different locations which makes it interesting to the eye."

5.Would you say this is a typical music video for our genre? (Dubstep/Electronic)
"I do think it fits the genre especially with the mix of tones and lights!"

6. What could we improve on?
"The only thing I would say is there was one bit where you were running through the forest that was in bright colours which I thought would have been more effective in a darker light. Also, more candles could have been used as I liked those bits."

Person 3
1. What part/s of the music video stood out for you the most?
"I liked the candles in the form of a heart at the beginning, the change of eyes and the burning photo."

2. Is this music video easy to understand or a challenge?
"You can tell that you were a couple and that you had broken up. It was clear that you were messed up in the head afterwards as well."

3. In your opinion, is there a link between the lyrics and our narrative?
"You looked like you wanted to kill someone when it says 'going in for the kill' and the 'now let go of my hand' when your hands slipped away."

4. Does the music video appeal to you enough for you to watch it more than once? Why?
"I thought it was really clever and interesting to watch."

5.Would you say this is a typical music video for our genre? (Dubstep/Electronic)
"I personally think so."

6. What could we improve on?
"The part where she pushes her boyfriend seems a little fake."

Person 4
1. What part/s of the music video stood out for you the most?
"I like the bit in the lift, the reverse shot of the cars and the bit with the trees at 1:50, they're quite fun and interesting."

2. Is this music video easy to understand or a challenge?
"I think it's easy to understand. It is definitely about a boy and girl falling in love and portraying the ups and downs of their relationship."

3. In your opinion, is there a link between the lyrics and our narrative?
"Yeah, I think the bit with the photo burning is good because the lyrics are talking about fire/desire. The bit with the woods is good because she's singing about being left out for too long."

4. Does the music video appeal to you enough for you to watch it more than once? Why?
"Yes, I've watched it a few times now, it has some interesting shots and it's nice to see a music video with some correlation to the lyrics of the song, not all of them do nowadays!"

5.Would you say this is a typical music video for our genre? (Dubstep/Electronic)
"I think the bits with the flashing colours are good for dubstep because they fit with the music which is quite vibrant and fast paced at points."

6. What could we improve on?
"I didn't really understand the bits with the candles?"

Person 5
1. What part/s of the music video stood out for you the most?
"I really like the first part where it's in slow motion when she hugs her boyfriend at 7 seconds."

2. Is this music video easy to understand or a challenge?
"No, it was pretty easy to understand, well I hope I understand it because what I think it means is pretty cool!"

3. In your opinion, is there a link between the lyrics and our narrative?
"I can definitely see that there is a link."

4. Does the music video appeal to you enough for you to watch it more than once? Why?
"Yes, I watched it a few times actually! I really like it."

5.Would you say this is a typical music video for our genre? (Dubstep/Electronic)
"Yeah, it's very straight the point and edgy so it goes with the music genre."
6. What could we improve on?
"I have no criticisms, I really enjoyed it."

Final draft - Music Video

This is the final draft of our music video. We have not changed anything except for the effect on the burning picture and we have have changed the video to a much better quality. We really like the way our music video has turned out. My favourite part of the music video is the burning photo edited on to the beat. We knew that we wanted the burning photo and we realised that part of the song would be perfect edit it on. I also love the close up shots of my character as you can see the clear transformation from her good days to her bad days as she portrays a devilish/demonised persona. I also love the effects we have put in like the 'dream effect' for her memories of her relationship as this differentiates between her memories/reality. Enjoy!

Analysis of Magazine Adverts

Chase and Status

It is clear the the bright yellow text is to catch their target audience's eye as it is against a black and white background. As you can tell, the artist is not featured in the magazine advert. This is quite common in the dance/electronic genre of music as it gives a mysterious vibe. What I like about this magazine advert is that it doesn't give too much away. You can interpret this advert in different ways. For me, the theme comes across as angry due to the bulldog being in the background and the base of the advert. This caught my eye as although there is a lot of text, it is simple in terms of it's colours and background.

The XX

This magazine advert created by another media student stood out for me due to the picture. It comes across as an urban, abandoned area which makes the theme seem like loneliness. Just like the Chase and Status advert, the simplicity of this really stood out for me as there is only a little bit of text with the picture as the main focus. I like how the text isn't too big but is just the right size. The fact that the artist's name is in the biggest font allows the target audience to know who the magazine advert is for. I also think that the rating of the album is effective as it is a good selling technique.

Delilah

I love this magazine advert as what really caught my eye was the triangle around Delilah's body. For me, it really outlines her body on the advert and makes her stand out. I also like how she is the only colour of the magazine advert whilst the rest of the advert is black and white. The fact that all of the reviews are scattered underneath her on the advert is a good selling technique to persuade the target audience to buy her album. I also like how the ratings are highlighted in white too. For me, the big font at the top of the page makes me want to read everything else which is at the bottom. The theme comes across as love as she is holding herself while her eyes are closed which could suggest a 'self love'.

Magazine Adverts - Conventions

The conventions of magazine adverts are:

1. Place of Purchase
2. Release Date
3. Record Label
4. Band/Artist name
5. Band/Artist logo
6. Reviews
7. Tour Information

First draft

This is the first draft of our music video however, we may want to change certain things in the long term if we don't like some of the things that we added in our music video. There is always room for improvement!

Finished!

Me and Sophie have finally finished our music video! We are really happy with everything that has been added e.g the stop motion of the candles, the bits we have edited to the beat like the burning picture and low angle shots of the forest. Also, we love our ending as the couple get back together and you see the transformation of my character throughout the whole video.

Nearly done!

Me and my partner Sophie are feeling really good about our music video as the deadline is in 3 days and we only have 1 minute and 6 seconds left. We have included our stop motions so that our music video is more diverse and isn't constantly of me. Also, we have included establishing shots of the environment that I'm in to show how her mood reflects her whereabouts. Now, we just need to add in the burning photo, and the scenes where I go back to my boyfriend and when I am back to normal and out of the rebellious stage.

New Opening

Magazine Advert

Today we looked at magazine adverts to get inspiration for our own. The one I am looking at is Biffy Clyro's advert for their new double album 'Opposites'. The advert is from NME magazine. I chose this magazine as it tends to cover all music e.g. Indie, Electronic, Dubstep etc. We broke down the conventions of magazine adverts and what they include:

Website
Artist/Album Name
Reviews/Quotes
Record Labels

Editing Progress

In Friday's lesson, we made lots of progress with our editing. We focused on making our music video really choppy and abstract to go with the atmosphere. We did this by using the reversing shots and fast forwarding them. We have also included insert shots of me lip syncing. We also used video effects on the scenes that are our character's memories as this shows the contrast between her thoughts and what she is thinking/doing in the present time.

Different Opening

From the start, me and Sophie said that we wanted our opening consist of the main character fighting with her boyfriend but it being shown as a silhouette against a brick wall. However, when we tried doing this, we realised it didn't work when we tried it with our LED light so me and Sophie have come up with a new opening. Our idea is to still use the candles which we were going to use in the first place however show them at the beginning of our music video creating a heart in stop motion. As this is our new opening, we wanted to keep the candles as a running motif throughout the play so we have decided to have the candles showing again in the middle of the music video but as half a heart and then show them again at then end of the music video back to the heart again to portray that our character no longer has a broken heart and that she has resolved things with her boyfriend.

Editing

We have finally started editing our music video. I think this is the best part about Media as it is fun and you learn a lot whilst doing it as it quite challenging.

Hurry up contacts!

Unfortunately, we have been unable to finish our filming as when we re-ordered some more contact lenses for our music video, they got lost in the post. However, me and Sophie had a discussion and we feel that we may not need more footage of my character as we have quite a lot. We have decided that we are going to order some contact lenses (1 pair) just in case, but we are mostly going to film some things that we can insert as symbols for our video.

Cutting down our song.

We have recently cut down our music video as we were worried that the song would be too long as it was about 4 minutes before. Using Garageband, we cut down the song so it was 3 minutes. By making the song shorter we just cut out some of the chorus' as there are a lot.

Digipak Update

BACK/FRONT OF DIGIPAK

 

 INSIDE OF DIGIPAK

 

This is the digipak that I created myself for our artist. I wanted to make the digipak dark as it goes with the genre of our music video and gives off a mysterious and eery vibe. Also, I like the use of white text being on a dark background as it allows the text to stand out a lot more. For the inside, I chose the use of stars as it goes with our album name being Constellations. We chose to have this album name/background for the inside as a lot of Electronic/Dubstep/Drum 'n' Bass artists tend to use space/solar images for the own singles and albums. We thought this was key as it would conform to our genre.