Final Post! =)

I beleive I have finished my production successfully . I hope you have enjoyed my production and analysis! Overall I have appreciated conducting this blog, it has enabled me to learn about the genre 'R&B' in great depth. I leave you with my three final productions I have produced over the year. ENJOY! =)

Final Digipak Design

Final Magazine Advertisement

Final Music Promo Video

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

Throughout the vert start of all three of my productions, the research and planning stage, construction of my video, and the creation of my digipak and magazine advertisement, media technology played a vital role in every single one of these constructions.

When beginning my research and planning, Youtube enabled me to view several different music videos. From regarding these videos, both as a group and individually, it aided us to come up with ideas of our own for our very own production. Not only did it help us with ideas, but the more i used Youtube to watch 'RnB' videos I became to familiarise with typical conventions 'RnB' producers used. It also allowed me to pause the videos and analyse them, along with permitting me to take screen shots. This was a great advantage as our chosen genre was 'RnB', we was able to follow some of the conventions.

Another form of media technology I used was music channels such as TMF, MTV and so on. Not only were we able to view the videos on a wide screen, gaining the auduence view but most music videos talk about the videos, mainly analysing them. From this I was able to collect ideas and link them into my construction.

I beleive if it wasn't for the internet, I would not have been able to construct this production. The internet for my production has come to great help from the start ( research and planning) till the end (gaining audience, feedback). I was able to research into the genre 'RnB', different artists and gather crucial information. Google and googlee images aided when gathering pictures for my digipak and advertisement. I was able to find useful and appealing pictures.

When actually constructing our music video, we were provided with cameras and tripods allowing us to work with the best results. We then worked on our shots with iMovie. iMovie allowed us to edit our footage, providing us with several different features that could be applied to our video. The iMovie also permitted us to record our song, we was able to finish with a clear recording that was later put onto our soundtrack. Each time we edited or uploaded our work was saced onto a external hard drive. This hard drive came to great use as we were able to take our work to the CLC training centre and work on our shots there.

Overall, media technology was a great advantage to my production as it permitted us to produce productions to an excellent standard.

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

Between all three of my productions, I created synergy, letting them be identifiable. The choice of colour is kept throughout all three of my productions, white, gold and black. I chose these colours as I found it typical of the 'RnB' genre. There is the use of the same font in my music promo video, digipak and advertisement. I chose to use italic as it highlighted the female artist and also when undergoing my research I noticed many female artists use italic writing, rather than something bold and simple. The choice of italics in all three of my productions creates a relationship between them all. There is also synergy created between my digipak and advert with the use of the same pictures. Using the same pictures permits the audience to familiarise themselves with the artist. Synergy is also created between all three productions through the use of black and white pictures. In my music promo video, we made our footage change from its original colour form to black and white, therefore the black and white dark image on my digipak and advertisement creates a link between them all. I beleive all three of my productions are effective. They relate well to eachother through the use of the same characteristics. Therefore, this relation between all three productions allows the combination to be immediately recognised.

In what ways does your advertisements use, develop or challenge forms and conventions?

When researching magazine adverts I noted different conventions of 'RnB' magazine adverts which I intended to use in my own creativity. I also researched into the typical conventions of a magazine advertisement, in order to allow my design to be successful.

Used

As I was influenced by Mariah Carey's album, 'Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel' I used the conventions of her colour scheme. The use of gold and white colour font is a typical usage for 'RnB' female artists. Therefore, I embeded this into my design making them my two main colours. I used the typical conventions you would read on a magazine advertisement, these were the release dates, the artist's website and so on. I used similar shots, close-up shots on both my digipak and magazine advertisement, these shots relate to the male gaze aswell. This will enable audience to familiriase with the artist at once. When conducting my research I noticed many adverts take note of where the album is available, this was mainly at HMV. Therefore, I used this convention, adding in this information, permitting the audience to familiarise with a well known company.

Develop

I have developed my ideas into my album magazine advertisement through the use of my naming my main song. Many album advertisements just name the album rather than name the hit single, this is something I noticed for most 'RnB' adverts. However, I decided I would include my song as this is a main promotion, in order to allow the audience to straight away familiarise with it.

Challenged

I have challenged the conventions of an 'RnB' advertisement by not using a provocative female picture. Many female artist from the 'RnB' genre, like Beyonce, Mariah, Ciara and Rihanna use provocative pictures, revealing alot of skin in their pictures, attracting the male gaze. However, I challenged this and did not use a picture like this. I thought is would not be necessary and realised from my audience feedback the pictures I did use did attract people and came across as appealing. I have also not used a typical male figure onto my digipak or advertisement as many 'RnB' producers do. I intended to make this production as a form of concentration on just the artist, Priscilla, eventhough there are male characters in our video. Other than this, I do not feel like I have totally challenged the convention overall.

Audience Feedback - Magazine Advertisement

Above is the results I collected after asking a group of twenty different people which magazine advertisement they preferred. I asked friends and family to contribute to this question in order to help me with my final decision. My results shows that out of twenty people, seventeen people favoured my second design rather than the first, leaving the other three people to chose advertisement one. Evidently, my second advertisement wins, and is much ideal than the first. My audience noted on the design, layout and choice of colour of my second advertisment, commenting on the way it is able to easily attract anyone. My audience became aware that I had followed the conventions of a magazine advertisement, picking out on the shop retailer, which I had not included in my first design, release dates and mainly the familiarity with the design of my digipak. I was able to productively create synergy between my digipak and advertisement as my audience noticed similarities between the two productions. Consequently, I have officially made my second magazine advertisement my final design!

Magazine Album Advertisement (2)

The choice of a floral background allows the magazine advertisement to have a feminine feel to it, reflecting on the artist. I selected to use this as my background, as my previous background was described as having too much 'white space', so a more detailed background in this design was necessary. I have chosen to use black as my font colour in order to allow the key information on the advertisment to stand out. Also, the background is floral all over and choosing a lighter shade of colour would make the information provided, difficult to read. The use of the two pictures and layout of them, on the top of the advert, permits it to catch the readers attention straight away, letting them to familiarise with the artist. Once again, I have followed the conventions of a magazine album advertisement, making my advert look like an archetypal one. I have made the changes which were suggested from my audience when looking at my other design, I beleive this advert is a more appealing and attractive design, when compared to my first advert, however I will base this on my audience feedback I intend to collect.

Backgrounds for Magazine Advert

One of the main suggestions made by people about my first magazine advert design, was to use a more interesting background. In order to come up with a more striking background I have found some pictures which I will choose from. I think the gold and white design below is the one I am more likely to use as it is the one that relates more to my digipak. I have picked out the other two designs as they can also relate to my digipak, seeing as they have butterflies on them. However, I feel black and white will not suit the design when put next to the coloured gold and white design.

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Editing Pictures for Magazine Advert

When commencing on my second design, I took the pictures I used and decided to edit these on the iMacs. As I wasn't 100% familiar with the editing software I have not been able to successfully give the pictures a 'professional' look, but have managed to change it's original form.

Here, I blurred the edges of the picture, turned its original form into the sepia mode and changed the saturation level, enhancing brightness or sometimes darkness into the picture. I also thought it necessary to crop the picture as I wanted the focus to be on the face of the artist and not on the background of the picture.

In this picture, by playing around with the saturation level, I gave the picture a blue tint to it. This was not intended, but I kept it this way as I thought it was original. I used the modal key on the iPhoto editor to give the round border shape to the picture, enclosing on the main focus, being the artist is face.

In this picture I have cropped it to a smaller size in order to make the focus of the picture clear. i thought this may be a usable picture as you are able to see the artist is full body ( long-shot). Once again, a light sepia tone has been applied to the picture.

I intend to begin to use these pictures in my next design now and hopefully be able to blend it in well with the overall design.

Audience Feedback for Magazine Advertisement (1)

In order to begin my second magazine design I thought it necessary to gather some audience feedback on my first design. Therefore, I asked a group of people the following questions:

1. Does this magazine advertisement grab your attention?
2. Do you like the layout of the advert?
3. What can be improved about this advert?

Here are some of the views I collected on the three specific questions:

Sarah Jane: 'This magazine advertisement does catch the eye of the passer by, however when studying the advertisement one may find the advert too simple and less creative. I beleive the layout of this text is great! It allows you to easily read the information provided. In order to improve this I would give the magazine advert background a more detailed look'.

Liah Campbell: 'I think this design is simple and not too detailed. The magazine advertisement is layered in a way which enables you to quickly gather the key details needed for this advert. If I was to change this advert, I would change the background as there looks like there is too much white space'.

Sabrina Mohammed: 'When looking at this magazine advertisement I found it very attractive, the use of colours allow the magazine advert to look simplistic. The layout is very neat. If I was to improve this I would use one picture and made it clearer'.

Candice Modeste: 'When I first looked at this advertisement, the choice of colour and picture grabbed my attention straight away, it's great! The layout is perfect as everything is clearly stated, nothing is confusing. If I had to change this advertisement I would probably change the choice of background and make the same of the artist bolder and bigger'.

Roza Zobedey: 'The design is very uniqure, there isn't too much detailed but relevant information for the audience, which is good. The pictures are very simple and clear. The layout is good as it follows the conventions of a magazine advertisement. However, if I had to make changes to this advert I would make the detail in the same font and the same size an change the background, maybe a designed one would be more appealing?'.

Overall, from looking at the above comments, it is quite clear the background of the advert does not successfully grab the eye of the reader. Therefore, when producing my next design, I intend to find a more attractive design and work on this. The choice of colours, pictures and layout has been liked by people and therefore I will take on board the suggestions and change this.

Magazine Album Advertisement

Here is my design of a magazine album advertisement I have created. Most obviously, I have used the same colours from the formation of my album cover. I have chosen to do this as it creates a connection with the album cover and magazine advertisement, permitting the advertisement to be easy to recognise amongst a wide range of audience. I have followed the typical traits of a magazine advertisement in order to make my advert readable and most importantly look like a magazine advert. The use of italics highlights the feminine artist and it is for this reason why I have selected to use this font. The butterflies are a reflection on the album's love songs, most importantly the 'If I Had My Way' soundtrack. Therefore, I thought it was important to include this in my magazine advertisement in order to signify the hit single. I kept my advertisement simple, as I beleive a simple outlook results to a more attractive result. I do intend to create another design in order to collect a wide range of audience feedback to choose which is the best.

Imran Khan 'Unforgettable' Album Advertisement

I have analysed the magazine advertisement for Imran Khan's 'Unforgettable' album. This has helped me get a good idea of what I should be doing when commencing on my very own design. I am beginning to make evident links with album advertisements, which are helping me to create my very own design.

Imran Khan Magazine Album Advertisement Analysis

Imran Khan Album Cover

How did you use media technology in the construction; and research and planning stages of your music video?

Media technology was the key foundation to the production of our music video. Each time we filmed or worked on our video a media technology was involved through the process. From the cameras to the iMacs, media technology plays a vital role in the development of our music video.

Construction

When creating our video, media technology was our key material. Using the camera and tripod allowed us to film and develops our video during the first stages of our task, resulting to steady filming. The tripod permitted us to work quickly ans effectively with a creative flow to the task. Once we finished our filming our next stage was to upload our filming onto the iMacs. The iMacs were used constantly, during our lesson times and our free periods, therefore iMovie software helped us to gain a successful result. The iMac did not just aid us with our filming, but also with the creation of our music and song. This great technology helped us record our song, which later made it easy to upload to our video as it was all in one programme.

Research

Media technology facilitated my research when constructing my video. I used technology e.g the internet to study different 'RnB' videos, and the genre on a whole in order to inspire me. The internet, an increasingly vital tool in today's society, provided me with a great amount of information which aided me to plan my promo video. I carried out some of my research through questionnaires, and this was made on a laptop, once again technology playing a part in my research. Therefore technology plays an important part in my research as if it wasn't for technology I would not have been able to successfully carry out as much research as I have. I beleive it is the research stage is the most crucial part as it reflects on your final result.

Planning

When planning our music promo video technology helped to make this stage easy. We began planning our storyboard and later scanned our documents. This enabled us to gain audience feedback where we was able to collect different views and take on suggestions people made. We also spent a lesson on the reknown software 'Garageband'. This specific planning stage was not as successful for our group as we did not choose any of the songs provided on the software, however this is not to say the software did not give is ideas for our very own song. Technology was important when planning as it helped our group acquire different ideas with the use of uploading our beginning plans, e.g. the start of our song in order to gain audience feedback.

Representing Reality - Mediation

In today's lesson we read about Mediation. The media is known for placing us at one remove from reality. They take something that is genuine, either a person or an event and alter its form to produce whatever they are aiming for, and it is this text we as readers and viewers end up reading. This type of representation can be linked into our music promo videos as we have been constantly editing our video to portray a specific storyline.

It is like thinking of an album, it is not just the sound of one or two musicians but the sound of mediation. The authenticity in the sound of the album has been mediated before it reaches to listeners. This is done through engineers and producers changing the sound which is created in the music studio until it is 'just right'.

Linking this specific type of representation into the production of our music videos, it can be said through the chosen setting and the use of our mise-en-scence we have mediated our video into a precise representation. This is evidently true as my group and I made sure we editing bits of our video which did not look like it conformed to the stereotype of the 'RnB' genre.

When something like the news is switched on we automatically tend to beleive what is being said to us. However, the News is the greatest mediated piece of media in today's society. Specific shots are used in order to interpret the story they are telling in a specific way. The story is always different to the experience of someone who was at the scene, this shows how mediated the News is.

Here are the three key things to look for in Mediation:

1. Selection: Whatever is being portrayed to you, there is a greater selection that has been omitted. For example, a specific picture has been chosen from a great number of pictures, to be shown to a wide range of audience.
2. Organisation: Different components are organised in the way the producer has ordered it to be in, usually not the same as in real life. This is known as mise-en-scene, linking this into the production of my music promo video, we chose to film in a females bedroom and urban area to follow the conventions of 'RnB'.
3. Focusing: The whole mediation process is to please us, the audience. Therefore, the audience are encouraged to concentrate on a chosen aspect. For example, when a film or video wants to depict the importance of character the camera pans towards them.

Representation in our music promo video

In this lesson we made a table on exactly what we wanted to represent and how we represented it in our music video. Here are the idea I came up with:

What did I want to represent?

1. Typical teenage love story/issues
2. Past and present memories
3. Meaningful lyrics
4. Non-conventional 'RnB' stereotype of women
5. A timeline feel
6. Portraying modern technology

How did I represent it?

1. Through the setting, mise-en-scence, narrative, storyline, choice of clothing and urban shots we successfully managed to replicate a typical teenage love story.
2. We represented the past through the black and white clips and depicted the present through the coloured clips.
3. Our lyrics we made up link into our storyline and therefore meaning is given to the lyrics as they are easily understood by the audience.
4. We worked against the typical stereotype of women in today's 'RnB' videos. Our protagonist is not represented in a sexual way, but in a more modest manner. There are no parts of our music promo video where we see Sarah showing off her body in a porogative way.
5. We were able to productively create a timeline feel to our music promo video by applying the photo album effect on the iMacs.
6. As many 'RnB' videos today typically portray the latest gadgets in their videos, we decided to represent some in our video. We have included clips of a most recent phone being shown and a car.
   

Beginning Ideas For Magazine Advertisement

After commencing on some relevant research, I have put together a few of my ideas for my magazine advertisment and made two designs. I intend to work on these designs, improving them and creating them on a photoshop software. These are not my final designs, but my starting point to this ancillary task. Here are the designs:

Design Number One:

Design Number Two:

Gwen Stefani Magazine Album Advert Analysis

I have analysed the magazine advert for Gwen Stefani's 'Love Angel Music Baby'. This has enabled me to come up with a few ideas of my own as I have noticed several similarities with the album cover and advertisement.

Gwen Stefani's Magazine Advertisement

Gwen Stefani's Album Cover

Analysis of 'The Family Jewels Marina & The Diamonds'

I have decided to analyse this magazine album advert in order to gain ideas when commencing my very own design. I found different typical features of a magazine album advert when studying this specific ad. One of my main findings was the similarity with the albm cover and the advertisement. This can be said to create a specific identity for audience and readers to relate to.

Marina and the diamonds The Family Jewels Album

The Family Jewels Marina & the diamonds Magazine Advertisement

Ancillary Task Two - Magazine Advertisement

Ancillary Task Two: to design a magazine advertisement for your digipak

As our second task, we have been told to design a magazine advert demonstrating a clear relationship with our digipak. In order to achieve this task we have to do the following:

• Research - look at designs, colours, images, font types, layouts, mise-en-scene and texture used in other magazine adverts from our genre to help begin our designing.


• Use similar, if not the same design colours, images, font types, layout, mise-en-scene and texture in our magazine advert as previously designed in our digipak.


• Be able to successfully show coherent links between our digipak and magazine advert and our music video and at the same time create a professional and realistic look.

Having begun researching some magazine album adverts I have already noticed the following are typical information found on an album cover:

• Artist's name and album title
• Websites are included
• Tour dates
• Outlets in which the album is available at
• Slogan/tagline
• Product content
• Name of record label

What have you learnt from your audience feedback from your overall Digipak?

After the completion of any new product, it is vital to collect audience feedback as this permits you to bring ideas together. In order to do this, I put together a questionnaire and handed this out to a group of people via Facebook. These are the three questions I asked,

• What characteristics do you like best about the digipak?
• What characterisitcs do you not like about the digipak?
• How would you improve this digipak?And why would you improve this?

I composed all the answers I collected for each question and worked on them, making an overal conclusion. Here are the views I gathered for the three questions above,

Candice Modeste: 'This album cover is likeable as it has a simle and appealing design and the album cover is not too crowded. The picture is also attractive and stays in line with the design. Thealbum cover may however prove too simple for some potential buyers who would prefer a 'busier' album cover where there is more to look at. If anything could be changed it would maybe be the background colour or design so that it would strike a happy medium to suit audiences who like both 'simple' and 'busier' looking album covers.'

Roza Zobedey: 'The album cover has a nice unique design with an attractive picture at the centre and simple designs surrounding the central picture. However, it can also be seen to be too simple and plain which some people may find boring, and so to improve I would suggest a change in the background colour, make it brighter with more detailed designs to appeal to a wide range of people'.

Sarah Williams: 'I find this digipak appealing as its simple designs gives the album a simple and elegant outlook. I like the choice of light colours as the album doesn't look too packed. In order to improve this album cover, I beleive a more striking background will enable it to improve the album cover's outlook. Overall, I would purchase this album cover for its simple outlook!'

Liah Campbell: 'The album cover is simple yet it still manages to catch the eye, the picture is pleasant looking and really pulls the entire cover together. The background however, could be a little more interesting to look at in order to engage people and attracts them to it.'

Overall, from the ideas I have collected above, it is obvious the background of the digipak comes across as 'plain'. My initial intention was to choose a white background in order to allow the album cover come across as neat, I was also influenced by Mariah Carey's 'Memoirs from an imperfect angel' album cover. The fact that the digipak is not too crowded was a positive point made by people. I think if I had to create another digipak, I would most deffinately choose a designed background as this seems to be an important and realisable aspect on a digipak.

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

Before commencing on our music video we had to do some thorough research into our chosen genre. I watched several different 'RnB' music videos, and compared the similar features. Researching typical conventions of an 'RnB' music video allowed me to gain a clear understanding of what exactly is required. When beginning our storyboard, we tried to embed similar shots that are used in 'RnB' music videos, and most of all a typical storyline in order to follow the conventions. This was all successfully acheived, as we were able to depict what we wanted to represent in our videos. Aspects of our music video evidently challenge the conventions of a archetypal 'RnB' video. We present a typical storyline but different to that of todays 'RnB' music videos, as we do not put across half naked women or film in a grand mansion. This does not mean to say we challenge the genre throughout our music video, features of our video do use the conventions of an 'RnB' video. This is seen through the choice of shots, the storyline and the use of technology e.g. latest mobile phone.

When beginning the ancillary task for our very own design of a digipak, I also carried out some research on 'RnB' digipaks. This aided me to get ideas when developing the design of my digipak as I was influenced by different digipaks. It can be argued the design of my digipak challenges the conventions of 'RnB', as most female artist tend to use a picture which is revealing to audience. However, I have not used an image likewise, but one where a female is covered up when compared to Rihanna, Beyonce or Mariah's album covers. The font choice develops the conventions of an 'RnB' album cover. Many female 'RnB' artist today typically portray their names in italic on their album covers to depict their feminine side and therefore I have followed this convention and developed it into my own digipak design.