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

The conventions of an electronic/dance music video involve very fast paced editing, with many jump cuts, many different angles and a variety of actors. In our music video we tried to conform to these, via planning of the angles we would use by watching other electronic/dance videos for inspiration. One of our favourite videos was “Bass Phenomenon” by Krafty Kuts.

We followed the convention that throughout all music videos (not just electronic/dance) you should cut on the beat. This is however paramount in electronic/dance songs because the beat is the most important part of the song. This happens throughout the whole video but particularly right at the beginning (0:00 – 0:30). Another convention is using a variety of shot lengths e.g. long shot, close up etc.

We included in our video a vast array of shots and also camera angles. Again during the 30-second clip at the start of the video, that has already been highlighted, there are shots ranging from long shots to close-ups. Whenever filming scenes we did try to keep the camera level and straight so that there was a consistency in the clips that we could use, as if some of the clips were not level the integrity of the video would be lost. This video helped us to establish our knowledge of the conventions of this music genre’s music videos.

Another convention that we used is that we followed a storyline. This we feel develops the current convention for an electronic/dance video. The videos that we compared to find out what we needed to include in or video all didn’t have storylines. However we feel that this gives the video purpose, and this way it became much easier to know what to film rather than showing complex fragments of a story in a non-linear order.

In concern to Music Stardom the artist we chose, “Justice”, seem to inject their personality into their music which makes the tracks easily recognisable. This could be contrasted against other electronic/dance artists such as “The Chemical Brothers”, who in their music show little personality

We both feel that our music video doesn’t challenge many forms of a real media product. We feel this because we tried to keep the music video and its contents as close to our genre (electronic/dance) as possible. We felt that if we tried to use content and themes that didn’t fit into the genre the video would look unprofessional. This can be seen with our rejection of one idea we had of using ballroom dancing as a theme for our music video. As this was so against the norm for a music video we felt that firstly it would be unconventional, which at first we were intrigued by, however on second thought we realised that it would be harder to film than gym scenes. Secondly with fast paced editing that was needed for an electronic/dance song, and the slowness of ballroom dancing the music and the film would not be compatible. So in many respects our music video uses the conventions of a dance/electronic music video.

For our auxiliary tasks we feel that we have followed the conventions for the CD cover and Advert. For the advert we again chose to follow Justice’s style and make it very minimalist. This we feel conforms to the normal convention of a electronic/dance poster. Also we felt that if there was too many other pictures on the poster then the viewer’s eyes would be distracted from the actual purpose of it, which was to advertise our CD.

The original Justice CD was very minimalist and we wanted to keep that theme running through out the CD cover. This is why we chose one image that spread from the front to the back of the case. We also chose to follow the same type of CD case as Justice had used by using a digipack. This also allowed us to be more creative with the layout and allowed us to change what we wanted to suit the song we chose and the artist, rather than having t use the generic plastic case.

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

Personally we think that this combination of our CD Cover, Advert and Music video is very effective. The main task was to make a music video to a chosen song. For the song we used www.spotify.com which allowed us to easily accsess the song that we needed.

The ancillary texts were to make a CD-cover for the chosen artist and an advert to promote the artist as well. All of these tasks belong to the process of selling an artist in several ways. A music artist makes music and after this he/she wants to promote him/herself. This happens using any form of Media. When a CD has been made, a CD-cover has to be made. When the product is sold it needs to look good and the CD-cover is used to attract the audience. Besides this, one or two songs are chosen from the album to be released separately. Released separately means that a music video is made to it and afterwards it will be shown on television to sell itself and the album. Also, the advert is also a part of promotion. All of these aspects make you realise what the process of promotion includes.

When making our CD-cover and advert we wanted there to be synergy between the two. This we achieved by using images and colur scheme. In both of the products we used a hand that we had posterized on Photoshop. We also followed the same colour scheme throughout the two as this would again promote synergy and become known asour artists products. We have also used the same fonts on both products. An example of an artis using synergy as we have can be seen with Mika's album "The Boy Who Knew Too Much" and his advert promoting it:

3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We showed the video during lunchtime and handed out around 20-25 questionnaires to the people who watched it, the questionnaire included questions about the video but also about the genre. This data was very helpful to us.

The first question on the questionnaire asked how old the person was who filled in the sheet. This ranged from 15-24 to 45-55, but not above or under this age. To the question whether they enjoyed watching the video every single person answered ‘Yes’. This always is very positive. The answers to the questions that followed were varied. Some people did not know the exact genre of the song, the majority did think it was dance or electronic but answers like pop, rock or R&B came across every now and then as well.


The majority of the people agreed that the party scene did not suit the rest of the video, as the link between the party scenes and the gym scenes is not clear. This means we have to change the continuation from the gym scenes to the party scenes to make it clearer for the viewer and the audience. In addition to this, a good idea would be to make the party scene a bit shorter; it was significant how not everyone liked it because it was too ‘vague’ and making it shorter could be a good solution to this problem.
However, to the question whether the filming, editing etc fitted the genre of music only a few people answered ‘No’ and the majority answered ‘Yes’, which means that it mainly is the link and continuation of the gym scenes to the party scenes whereas we thought the problem would lie within the filming and editing.

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

The most obvious use of new technologies is the use of the internet:

Though we have used the internet before this tool became very useful to us. We not only used it for help in research into our chosen artists, ancillary task etc but we are also using it to blog our findings and show our development and research. We have used the website ww.blogger.com to construct a format for the showing of our media texts and products. We have also used it to display our research. We have also used the internet in helping with our research. Without the internet we couldn’t have found out about our artist (Justice) as our artist belongs to a genre of music that without the internet would not be thriving today (electronic/dance). Also for the evaluation stage we have used the internet. Without the internet we wouldn’t have been able to get the picture, links and video that are required for our blog. The internet also helped us plan for our video shot. With the ability to email all involved we were able to let the cast know where and when they were needed for the video.

We also needed to actually get the music for our video. We found the song using a set list of songs provided for us on Spotify. We then downloaded the track off iTunes. These were both very familiar to us all because all of us have used/use these programmes almost everyday.

Another new media technology that we used were the Macs. The group hadn’t used these before so it was a challenge to get used to them at first. However both of us have used them before, and the programmes that we needed to use were quite simple to explain to the others. On the Macs we used Final Cut Pro which we hadn’t used before however. After our teacher showed us how to use it however it became quite simple to use which aided the editing stage of the film immensely.

Editing Development and Issues

For the Editing process we used a programme called Final Cut Pro. This is a programme that is unique to Macs and it is relatively easy to use. Wikipedia describes the programme as: “….a professional non-linear editing software application developed by Apple Inc.”.

(Click here for more information on Final Cut Pro)

To use the programme is quite simple. To upload the clips we had filmed onto the computer we first had to transfer them across from the camera itself. This was done via a USB cable. The clips were then recognized by the computer and opened in iMovie. This is a very basic form of editing software that allows people to string clips of amateur video together, though you can use sound on iMovie it is not as sophisticated as Final Cut Pro.

(Click here for more information on iMovie)

These clips once here were then saved onto an external hard drive that our teacher had given us. This hard drive could easily hold all of our files and clips as well as the actual song that we would have to add to the video. By putting the videos on the hard drive this allowed them to be available to import into Final Cut Pro. After copying the film clips into Final Cut Pro the editing can begin. To place a clip into the program you simply drag it from the panel on the left hand side of the screen into the timeline at the bottom of the screen. This automatically adds the clip into a sequence for you. From here more clips can be added and arranged.

(Click Here for a picture of what Final Cut Pro looks like on screen)

Issues:

The main problems with making a music video are keeping everything in time and sequenced. For example clips have to appear on the beat and if there is lip syncing then it has to be perfect otherwise the video’s quality will be compromised. Luckily for our video we were not going to have an actor singing along to the lyrics. This is partly because we didn’t think that someone singing along would suit the music video and also some of the lyrics in the song are hard to hear or understand.

We did however have to tackle the problem of making clips match the sound on the beat. This was a painstaking process but was however ultimately rewarding as we feel our music video has come out well because of it. The clips matching on the beat makes the music video flow well and makes it seem very professional.

Another problem we faced was getting enough clips to form a music video from. Our song “DVNO” is 3:56 long, and though that doesn’t seem a lot, since in our music videos we needed a new clip every 2-3 seconds we needed to film a lot. We did manage to film the clips we needed for long enough though which helped immensely and allowed us to experiment to see what worked well and what didn’t.

The final problem we faced was the differing in quality of cameras. As we had two HD cameras and one worse quality camera to share between 4 groups there was always going to be competition between us for the best cameras. One of our scenes (the dance class scene), we filmed with the worse camera. The quality vaired so much that we had to reshoot which lost us valuable time as the deadline loomed. However we managed toi get the clips that we wanted and with the better quality camera.

Booklet Development

Halfway through the process of the CD-Cover Development we decided to make a little booklet with it as well, because something like that is very easy to make and it does not take that much time.

So therefore we wanted a two-side booklet with three sections. On one side of the booklet we thought it was a good idea to put pictures of the main character, the thin man; Paris Mudan. On the other side we could use different photo's of hand, all posterised but in different colours.

All of these images are made by the selection tool, posterise function and gradient map function. First you select the whole image, than change the gradient map into the colour you desire, after this you posterise the picture or image as much as you want.

Outside Booklet

To make the CD cover and booklet link together, we used the flare tool in Illustrator to make some flares, this is noticable in the cover as well. So besides the fact both the cover and the booklet show hands, also the effects and the techniques used are similar and therefore connect.

These photo's were taken very easily. The first one is taken with a normal camera, but we print screened the other two from the footage we took during filming.

Inside booklet

CD-Cover Development

For the CD-Cover we looked on the internet and several books to see what kind of netts we had to use or design. We thought that having a CD-cover that you could fold open was the best one. In the inside was a gap that is 'holding' the CD. Later on in the process we decided to make a booklet as well, so instead of having one 'holder' just for the CD we made two so that both the CD and the booklet would fit in the cover. This is called a Double CD wallet:

So for the development we started off with taking pictures of Alicia's hand. During the development of the cover we bumped into several problems. The first problem was one of the main images: We took a photo of Alicia's hand, and when we printed out the cover we found out that the back and front of the CD didn't connect as there was a hand shown on the front but nothing on the back.

Original Photo (we deleted the background and then turned the rest of the image into black and white, after this we posterized the image, so you could see the difference in colour better (white, light grey, grey, dark grey, black etc. We did this all using Photoshop)

(We started off with a single holder, later on in the process we changed it to a double one, the one that is shown here is a single one)

We thought black and white would be good colours in combination with Justice. Their original album is black with gold, two very strong colours. However, just a black background is according to us a bit boring. So we made the gradient map change, that is why the inside of the album goes from black to white. Using flares we pimped the inside up a bit.

Then again, the hand didn't fit on the cover perfectly so we had to think about something else; taking pictures of the whole arm and hand together. So we did:

Changing this photo into black and white was a lot more difficult than the previous photo. Mainly because this photo was bigger and you couldn't see that much detail anymore, but also because this photo was taken a couple of days later and Alicia had painted her nails red. This meant that you could not see the nails that easily, which made the picture less interesting. Therefore we had to find another solution, either the arm had to stay colourfull, or the background. The big question that arised was the fact that the background looked quite dull, so how could we have turned that into colours? Plus, we had to think about the fact that the arm could have easily taken away the the attention from the rest, as we wanted to have the word Justice hovering above the hand. This meant that making the arm and hand black and white was the best solution and just go for the colourful background.

With the quick selection tool in Photoshop we selected the whole arm and hand, made it black and white and then posterised it. After this we deselected the arm and used the quick selection tool again to select the background. With the paint tool we gave the background a different colour, slightly purple/pink. Still having the background selected we made a yellow boll above the hand, which represents some light, as if something is lighting up. This is the place where the word Justice should be hovering. Again, we selected the whole background, including the yellow boll and posterised it. Personally we thought the effect and the result was amazing. Even though the colour did not really suit Justice. The effect of the posterisation was amazing.

The next step was to think of the typefaces and fonts, (see the blog Typography). We thought Bauhaus 93 would be the best typeface for Justice. We had put it in the illustration etc.

We filled the inside and the outside (this is the outside) up with this typeface. However, when it came to printing it out it printed it out in a totally different font. All of a sudden the computer did not recognise this typeface anymore and we could not download it either anymore. We first thought of keeping a simple typeface as we did not want to go through the effort of finding another one and to find out that one was not working either. Matt however, went to fontspace. com and quickly found a typeface that was even better than Bauhaus 93 and suited Justice even better. 'As if it was meant to be'. The typeface looks special, but it looks even better when it is used in the word Justice. See for yourself; It is as of there is a line going accross the S, T and the I, holding these letters together.

After including the name Justice and having the image on the CD it was time to look at the other things a CD includes, examples of this are the bar code and the tracks.

Of course the size will be reduced on the album. We found a typeface for the tracks that combined perfectly with Bauhaus 93; Copperplate, therefore we put the rest of the information in this typeface. Luckily when we found out we could not use Bauhaus 93 and therefore instead were going to use Final Frontier old style, we also found out that Final Frontier old style went perfectly together with Copperplate.
We got the original Justice Album (Cross) an copied as much information as possible onto our own CD-Cover. We also copied the Ed Banger Records logo onto our Album.

When we were finally finished, the teacher told us he did not like the colour of the album. In a way he was right; it looked good but it did not suit Justice. That was when we decided to make the album look darker. Not just because the original album was black, but darker colours suite Justice better. We also cut out the word Justice in both the inside and outside. We left the inside blanc so that when you open it you can see the CD but on the outside we stuck gold shiny paper onto the inside so it looked as if the album is more in depth.

Outside Front

Outside Back

The inside contains more information, but then about the songs. It tells exactly which songs are sung by a choir or not etc. It also shows photo's of the booklet, they are like little thumbnail.

Magazine Advert Development

After having looked at several examples of magazine advert (Mika and BWO) we got a good idea of what such an advert should look like. Taking ideas from both we came up with a good layout for the advert. However this then led to us discussing issues such as the images that we would use to compliment the artists and their genre. This then led to the overall layout of the advert; positioning of the text, type of font that we would use, what kind of typefaces suit the advert and the artist, and of course; what kind of images do we use.

The advert and the CD-cover should be connected so that the products have consistancy so that a viewer can see that they are related. This can be by using the same images, or the same font and typefaces. That means that after seeing the advert you should be able to recognise the CD and the artist. If you are not able to recognise it after seeing the advert there is no point in advertising a product.

First we took several pictures of Alicia's hand, after doing this we picked the best photo and we used Photoshop to create the desired image.

'Print Screen of image'

At the same time we started developing the CD-Cover, unfortunately after a while we found out that if you folded the CD-cover together the whole outside of the CD did not connect as there was a hand on one side and nothing on the other side. This forced us to take new pictures but this time of the whole arm+hand.

'Image that shows that the outside of the CD did not 'connect''

'Picture of Alicia's Arm+Hand'

Unlike the CD-cover, we wanted the advert to be as minimalist as possible. This would mean that a viewers eyes wouldn't be distracted and would be focused on the product, the CD itself. We did decide to use the same techniques that we were going to use for the CD-Cover, but we wanted the advert to mainly have it's own colours as we wanted the CD-cover (with all it's colours) to hover above the hand. Having normal and plain colours for the advert won't draw the attention away to the arm and hand, but to the colourful CD-Cover, which we are selling. So in other words: that combination was perfect.

Besides the techniques that we used in Illustrator and Photoshop to create the desired image (such as Posterisation and Gradient Map, which will be further explained in CD-Cover Development), we also used the same typefaces. Again, this is another link between the advert and CD, which makes it easier for the audience to recognise both the advert and/or CD.

We made the background in this image black and white, and then used the posterize function, this is mainly recognisable in the shadow (different coloured lines). It does not necessarily takes the audiences attention away from the rest, because grey is a dull colour, especially compared with the hand, which has it's normal colours. We posterized the hand as well, but that is less obvious because it has more colours (red nail polish, skin colour, etc).

The information included on the surface is simple, yet effective. It tells you what the band is called, which is very obvious as it is very big and it stands out because it is black on a light grey background. It tells you what it is: an Album, and it tells you what hits it can include. This kind of information is very important. People who like these songs might consider buying the whole album as they don't exactly know what to expect from the whole album but they already know the other songs are good. This in combination with the high rates from the Guardian and AllMusic put pressure on purchasers to buy the album, as it is recommended as a very good CD. The advert also tells you when the album will be available for purchase, so the consumer knows exactly when he/she will be able to buy it.

The next steps were very easy. After finishing the CD-Cover (read about that in the post: CD-Cover Development). We only had to print out the cover, the booklet, put it together, lay it out and take a picture of it. After taking the picture it was necessary to remove the background using Photoshop. After this we only had to put the image into the advert and develop it in a way in which it looked good.

Edited in Photoshop version of the CD-Cover and Booklet

This image of the CD-cover is made using Illustrator. Using Gaussian Blur to the full it has got the effect as if the edges are faded. Unfortunately you can't really see the CD-cover anymore even though the effect is looks very good. The way to solve this problem is to put the CD-Cover on top of this image but without the blur:

'Final Advert Design'

Magazine Advert Analysis

Here are some examples of magazine album adverts that we can draw on to help design our own:





















Each has their own unique properties and each has their own individuality. The first property and this is shown in all of these examples, is the inclusion of the band/artists name and/or a picture of the band or artist. This is to immediately indicate what is being advertised to the viewer, this also helps target a fan of the music directly as they may recognize the band or artist. Usually if a band or artist is very popular the name of said band or artist itself will attract people into buying the album rather than the album name, causing the band or artist’s name to be printed larger than the album title. However it is vice versa with a less popular band or artist, causing the name of the album to be larger than the band or artist name, causing the buyer to focus more on the album which without a big name band or artist performing will help boost sales.

Secondly the adverts include release dates. These are very important as it shows the buyer when the album will be available for purchase. This will allow the prospective buyer time to plan when to go out and get the album, without leaving them to search high and low for the album. Only one of these adverts (BWO) actually has a picture of the album on it however. This is something that we feel we should include in our advert as this is the product we are trying to sell, not the band name. Whilst BWO have a picture of the CD itself on their advert, Mika’s advert is the same as the CD cover, this therefore promoted the album whilst keeping the advert more artistic and colourful, making it eye-catching.

Thirdly the theme of the poster is in keeping with the theme portrayed by either the artist or band or the album that is being shown. The advert for Mika’s CD is very colourful which matches his style of singing voice and music. The use of bright colours is also evident in the BWO advert. The yellow is not only eye-catching but it could be meant to show their national heritage, as they are a Swedish band.

For our advert we will be mainly focusing our attention on the BWO article. This is because it has everything that we intend to use in it. We will have a picture of our own album, along with a selection of some of the songs on it. A colour scheme shall also be used and also following the advert for to Mika’s album advert we shall be putting a release date on. Also like the BWO advert our album is a “Limited Edition” (rather than a collection of singles). This would appeal to a buyer if we were selling the album.

Development of Logo

We started the development while keeping in mind what Lady Justice (Click Here for more information) stands for. After analysing our own design we decided that we should simplify the weighting scale and make the word 'Justice' look more interesting. The 'original' logo looks like this:

Development in pictures:

We like the typeface, but it looks too simple and too feminine. It isn't 'catchy'.

Black graps the attention easily.

Simplified weighting scales