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

I believe that we have followed the conventions of the electro-pop genre well and was able to easily tie in our product with our ancillary texts as a result. There is also a clear connection between both products because there is a specific house style. 

By combining Raina's personality as an artist, how the audience sees her in the music video  with the ancillary texts, you can see that I tried to achieve that by selecting certain fonts, images and effects by still making it conventional to the electro-pop genre. I also aimed to appeal to our target audience, which is teenagers, in the same way that the music video does. I looked at a variety of different artists albums such as Lorde's, Charlie XCX's and other indie, alternative artist's album - that way I can make sure what is trendy to the target audience. I found that each album has its own aesthetic but also represents the artist in a memorable way. From this, I chose to make the beret Raina's trademark as it represents her and her culture alongside the neon lights; this way people have something to remember her by.

Both the media product and ancillary texts match well and is effective because it doesn't stray away from conventions but it also has its own colour at the same time. Considering the feedback given from our classmates, who all fit within the target audience range, ultimately it was successful. The main points that was given was that both the music video and ancillary texts are highly appealing visually and the entire thing flows well together. It was an advantage for us as a group because we ourselves fit into the target audience therefore we knew together what we wanted and how it should look. 

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

Niamh's part was cut out right at the end therefore we have to type up her part. 

Niamh:

Premiere Pro proved to be one of the most important software's involved within the creative process as the whole construction of the video came down to editing. This was more so the case for this video as it relied a lot upon the editing due to the shots on their own only becoming relevant when edited together with the effects to create this ground hog day narrative result. Therefore, the editing was the process that made them work within the video and link into this story that we were telling throughout. In addition to this, the editing helped to make the video conventional of the genre with the effects applied within, and the fast pace editing as the most artistic aspect was the coloured filter, stamp text and the overlays. Without the use of Premiere Pro and the access to tutorial videos, the assembly of the footage would be less interesting and sophisticated. 

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

Final music video

First draft music video

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Final poster and digipak

This is the final version of my poster and overall, I think that I have successfully portrayed the edgy and modern look that our artist gives. 

Although it is a simple design, I wanted to think about it from a consumer's point of view. Something eye-catching colour wise yet promoting the essential information that they would need to know. I used the same photos and colours which I had used for the digipak to give it a clear house style. 












This is my final digipak as well. As I said before about my poster, I aimed for my digipak to stand out in its own way so I stuck to dark images and neon signs to give it contrast. 

Discs

There wasn't much to correct for the discs apart from rotating it to make it upside down but overall it was quite easy to do as it just required some cutting and putting it on top of the purple smoke photo. To match everything else in the digipak, I used a plain location shot from God's Own Junkyard as opposed to a photo of the artist. 

 

Cover and tracklist

For the cover I wanted it to look more mysterious and direct - to achieve this I used a photo where the artist is making eye contact with the camera. I experimented around with the positioning of the album name but as a result, I put it at the top because it looked the least stuffy there.

I also made the album name have an overall neon look to put the focus on the title rather than the actual image but also I wanted it to fit the background. The name of the album is 'Jeunesse' which means youth in French. 



For the tracklist, I wanted it to fit the music video's narrative so the entire product can fit well together and that's why I chose a picture of a train as you see in the music video that Raina is travelling. I chose songs that fits the artist's lifestyle as well as her image. The font chosen is inspired by graffiti to give it a rebellious feel to it.

1. Amour
2. Midnight
3. Love Haze
4. Neon Riot
5. Disparate Youth
6. Lost Train
7. Espresso
8. Running Late
9. Wonderland
10. Purple Smoke

Overlay

I started off by using a digipak template as a guide and individually added each square in and working on every one at a time.

The first box that I started working on experimentally was the one below. I was already familiar with the effect called 'overlay' so I used that to on top of a normal photo that was unfiltered. I ended up liking the result therefore I made that part of the theme for my digipak - It gives it an edgy, abstract look to it and fits well with the aesthetic. I got the neon image that says 'It was all a dream' from google images when I searched neon signs. 

 

This is another example of the overlay effect.

Reshoot plan

After receiving feedback on our first draft of our music video we realised that we needed to fix some minor things such more artist shots.

We planned to reshoot parts and film new footage since we needed more lip syncing as it was out of sync or it didn't look the 

way we had planned. We filmed using a variety of angles this time round in comparison to first time we filmed which was more straightforward. 

Digipak colours

Keeping the music video in mind when thinking about what the digipak should look like, I want to stick to the same colours we used as key inspirations for when we created our colour scheme. This is a significant choice because it will tie in the digipak with the music video therefore the audience will be able to recognise the artist easily. 

Teacher feedback

Your blog is looking good; you’re achieving a good level of reflectiveness and documenting your process. Your posts could perhaps be slightly more varied in terms of using the blog technology but this is a minor criticism in the grand scheme of the project. If you’re after full marks though…?!

Read through the attached checklist to make sure you have everything you should have on your blog and can you add to your recent post about filming on the 22^nd – photos maybe? Also do you have any digipak drafts that you could post to show your progress with that? Make sure you are documenting carefully what your individual contributions are to the production side of things too.

Please post this email on your blog.

Regards,

Leanne

Filming 22/01

This time we filmed at Bexleyheath's, Tenpin. We went there for the arcade and because it also has neon lights and that would connect smoothly, visually with God's Own Junkyard. The arcade is also one of the main locations as when we was analysing the lyrics for our chosen song, a lot of the words we could link to the arcade. This is so that we incorporate Goodwin's theory.

Filming 20/01

We planned to film on the 20th of January at God's Own Junkyard as it is one of main locations for our music video. The reason why we chose this place as one of main locations is because of the neon lights everywhere - which we thought would look good for 'the change'.

However, we did have to take pictures and record with our phones in the end because filming with professional cameras was prohibited unless we emailed a specific email address; which we was only given when we got there. 

Filming Day 1

As a group, we travelled to London Southbank as our first destination to film for parts of the music video and digipak. We used purple cellophane and put that around the lens of the camera and this gave it a dreamy, light wash of purple. Achieving the effect was successful however we could not adjust the focus properly because we had put a band around the cellophane when it went on the lens. Therefore the majority of the shots came blurry but interestingly we found that the end result was fitting. The wash of purple from the cellophane gave us the nightlife look we aimed for but we plan to add the purple manually during post-production just to compare which one looks better. 

We chose to begin filming as soon as it got darker and this is when the sun was about the set. This gave us time to shoot in dimmer lighting before it was completely dark out. One issue we had that day was the fact that it was extremely windy and this resulted in some shaky shots but to prevent this from happening next time we will take a steady cam/tripod. 

As planned, as I'm playing the role of the artist/mise-en-scene, I chose to wear dark clothes which helped blend with the nightlife. 



Location shots:

Animatic

Album art work

(From left to right)
 Santigold - 99¢
AlunaGeorge - I Remember
Goldfrapp - Silver Eye
Annie - Anniemal
Sia - 1000 Forms of Fear
Lorde - Melodrama

For inspiration, I looked at a few album covers under the genre Electro-pop to get an overall idea on what is conventional and what is not. All of the album cover examples above feature the artist and uses them as the main image however it is done abstractly. The artist is either embedded within the album art like Lorde - Melodrama, or iconography is used such as Sia - 1000 Forms of Fear. The album artwork is often bold or monochrome for a more dramatic and eye-catching aesthetic. In my opinion, it is because since Electro-pop is aimed towards the youth, they're most likely to look for album artwork that is pleasing to look at; to put for display. 

Sia - 1000 Forms of Fear album is a monochromatic photograph which puts the focus on the wig by emphasising the light reflected on it. The figure of the artist is subtle as you don't actually see Sia's face however, we know that it is her album because of her iconic wig. The title of the album and name of the artist is positioned at the bottom of the cover which connotes the importance of Sia's name and the title. It also looks like the title is scratched on and this links to the album's theme of 'fear'. 

Production call sheet

In this production call sheet, we've decided what we need and will refer back to this every time we film as we've listed the essentials for the music video. Within the group, we have allocated certain roles to each other:

Director/cinematographer - Maddie
Cinematographer - Fiona
Mise-en-scene - Kelly
Editor - Niamh

Edit: Due to time complications/clashes, we've decided to use myself to act as the artist because this makes it easier whenever we want to film and it's more reliable. 

Test clips/Behind the scenes

To record the test shots, which we used to practice editing on, I played the role of the artist temporarily.