Evaluation Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

We have created an indie pop band with a music video, album cover, and music website.

I think that our three products use, develop and challenge the existing forms and conventions of real media products. Although our products are mostly conventional, there are aspects of all three that both develop and challenge conventions. However, we have mostly incorporated music marketing conventions to ensure a professional standard media product that appeals to the target audience.

Music Video:

This is a mindmap of music video forms and conventions:

This is a padlet for Vernallis's music video conventions. It shows how we followed/broke conventions in order to make a professional-standard product.

Our music video follows the forms outlined in Simon Frith's Theory of music videos by having a combination of performance and narrative. Additionally, we have used forms and conventions to fulfill Frith's 4 functions of music in our music video and to appeal to our target audience and the public as a secondary audience.




Website:

In modern society, audiences are more active and engage more with interactive campaigns that involve audience participation. This has been particularly influenced by the invention of "Internet 2.0", which allows the audience to interact with websites with features such as social media that allow the audience to like and share online content. We have therefore created a website that gives the audience many opportunities to interact with the campaign, for example, by purchasing merchandise and music, by partaking in contests, or by using social media in conjunction with the website.

We have used the website to converge our media products including the music video and the album cover. It will provide the audience with information and opportunities by acting as a hub for all of our band's products.


Here is a slideshow of the conventions we used in our website and how we used the form of the website to achieve them:



Best Coast Official Website
Our Website

We have used the form of a website to allow us to follow conventions and to allow us to make an effective product that will appeal well to our target audience.

Album Cover:

The two album covers we took most of our inspiration from were Fantastic Playroom by New Young Pony Club, and Alvvays by Alvvays. Fantastic Playroom is a conventional album cover for an indie pop band, while Alvvays uses its form to express the band's aesthetic and branding.

Annotated album covers (New Young Pony Club, top, Alvvays, bottom). Please click to enlarge the image.

We have used various techniques and conventions to create our finished product, drawing from these two influences. Here are our internal and external digipak panels followed by a table explaining our use of techniques and conventions to make the product.

Our external digipak panels. 

Our internal digipak panels.

A table showing the forms and conventions of our digipak. Please click to enlarge.

Evaulation Q2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The point of a band's marketing campaign is to generate interest in the band, and get audiences to buy into the brand and generate profits. Band marketing campaigns are usually funded by the record label, whose main interest is to make maximise profits through the sale of band music, tour tickets, and merchandise. Marketing campaigns in the music industry have changed since the proliferation of new technologies, such as Web 2.0. They have become more interactive to compete with other companies for audiences, who demand interactive and engaging campaigns. It is important to portray a band's genre through the marketing campaign as it informs the audience of the type of music the band make, and also because it will appeal to fans of the genre. This is done through the use of genre conventions, such as colour scheme.

We made sure to use a range of marketing techniques in our campaign, as outlined in this coggle:


As a group, we aimed to create a promotional package with branding throughout all of our products to make our audience buy into our band's brand. The combination of our product and ancillary texts (each with their own purpose in the campaign) all work in synergy to promote the brand and sell the music to the audience. While this is the case, our 3 products work well separately as a marketing technique.

Table to show the function of each product (left) and flow chart to show the marketing campaign (right).

When looking at how the three products work together in a marketing campaign, I studied Best Coast's campaign, as they used a number of above the line and below the line promotional techniques to give the audience opportunities for interaction and purchase.

This is how Best Coast have used all of their products to make a successful marketing campaign.


After looking at Best Coast's marketing strategy, we decided to implement some of the same marketing techniques. These include the release of the single, a music video, album and album cover, live performances, tours, merchandising, website, Facebook page, Twitter, photos and video clips, downloads, competitions, tie-ins with other brands, appearances, news and info, and word of mouth.

Here is a padlet to show how we built up a successful marketing campaign using our three finished products.

We also made sure to present our band as 'real' and 'authentic' using Dyer's star theory, which shows that it is important for audiences and institutions to have an artist with 'star quality' that will appeal to the target audience.






I think that we used our products effectively to appeal to our target audience, and that the combination of our products meant that we could reach and appeal to wider audiences. We managed to use these products to generate interest in our band and to encourage our audience to buy our products.

Evaluation Q3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We took audience feedback throughout research and planning and the production process. This meant that we could make sure our products would appeal to our target audience and be likely to listen to the band's music or buy into the brand.

This is a table showing who the different audeinces are, and roughly how we attempted to appeal to them. Please click to enlarge.

The main theory we used when implementing audience feedback and appealing to the audience was Blumler and Katz's audience uses and gratifications theory.

PRE-PRODUCTION:

From our audience feedback on band identity, we learned that every aspect of the band is important in helping the audience understand the artist and the type of music they make, and therefore relate to them. We felt that one of the most important aspects was the band name, as we had many working band names and found that none of these really matched the band well.

An example of a band that has changed it's name to fit with it's image is the Beatles, who have changed their name a total of four times: the Blackjacks to the Quarrymen, to the Beatals, to the Silver Beetles, to the Beatles. This has reflected the changes in band members and therefore the changes in the band's image. The Blackjacks were formed by John Lennon and other members from his school (Quarry Bank High School), but changed their name to the Quarrymen after they found out a local band had the same name. This new name reflected where they all met and the type of band they were. Once Paul Mccartney and George Harrison joined the band, and the other members (apart from John Lennon) left, the name was changed to the Beatals, as the Quarrymen no longer fit this new group of people. They then kept changing their name until they got to the Beatles, a name which reflected their music and personalities well.

We successfully used our pre-production audience feedback to plan well for our music video, keeping in mind what we had learnt about portraying our band's identity clearly, and making sure our product matched the genre.

MUSIC VIDEO FEEDBACK:

We took a video of our audience feedback for our music video. Please turn on Subtitles/CC in order to view my annotations while watching. Thank you.



Our audience feedback for our music video consisted mainly of our primary and tertiary audience, as it had indie music fans, pop fans, and indie pop fans. Additionally, all of our audience members were in the age bracket for our primary audience.

All of our audience members were able to guess the genre and target audience for the music video. They were able to pick up on the genre conventions we used such as bright pastel colours and handmade props, and thought they were engaging aspects of the video. They also all understood the narrative, with some of them understanding the deeper and less obvious aspects. This meant we have effectively used the narrative in order to appeal to a wide range of audiences, with different levels of conceptual understandings. Lastly, all of our audience members enjoyed recognising the different inter textual character references, and some even said that it is the sort of thing their parents would enjoy.

Altogether, I think that our music video successfully appealed to the primary, secondary, and tertiary audiences, and used forms and conventions well to create a professional-standard media product.

ALBUM COVER FEEDBACK:

We interviewed some members of our target audience with our album cover to get their thoughts on the product. Here is a mindmap of some quotes from our audience members and what they mean:

Overall, our audience said that our digipak panels all worked really well with each other and with the music, and everybody got a clear sense of the genre from the album cover because of its "fun, bright, pastel colours". Additionally, they seemed to like the 'authenticity' of the band members as they showed some personality, and they aspired to be as confident as them. All of these show that we have made a successful product that is likely to get many audience members to buy into the band and buy the album.

WEBSITE FEEDBACK

We collected audience feedback from a group of our primary and secondary audience members by screening the website and asking some questions about it afterwards. Here is a prezi including some quotes from our audience feedback.

Our website feedback was very positive, and showed that all of our audience members found it easy to navigate and enjoyed the interactivity of the site. Most of them said they would make purchases on the website, and all of them said they would be interested in listening to the band's music. I think overall we have made a great website that appeals well to our target audience.

OVERALL

Overall, I think that we have made three high-standard products that appealed to all o our audiences. Additionally, they all seemed to engage well with the products and immediately understand the genre just from looking at them, showing that we have implemented conventions well in all thee products.

I am very pleased with our feedback as it is all positive, and no one said they would improve anything about any of the products. I also think we have portrayed some good star qualities that the audience all really liked.

Evaluation Q4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

New media technologies were vital in all stages of this project, especially new media technologies which are becoming increasingly used in everyday life. We used a wide variety of different hardware and software in this project to create a quality product.

The internet was the most useful tool throughout our entire project, as it allowed us to create interactive content easily between different devices. This also helped us with sharing files between us as a group, and to get audience feedback easily and quickly.

Here is a prezi to show how different aspects of the internet have helped us in our project.


During research and planning, we used hardware and software to help us stay organised, get audience feedback, and share files. This slideshow outlines some of the hardware and software that was most useful to us in this stage of the project:



The construction stage of our product involved a lot more hardware than the research and planning stage did, and I feel that this is the area I learned the most in.

This is a table to show the different pieces of hardware I used during production. Please click the images to enlarge.

There were also new technologies used during the evaluation stage of this product, which included web tools such as Prezi, Slides, and Coggle, as well as Blogger.

This is the padlet control center, with an easy-to-access embed code.

Web Tools - Web tools were very handy in explaining in depth points and making my answers easier to read. The easiest web tool to use was padlet, because once the padlet is embedded in the blog, you can edit the content without having to re-embed it. I found the trickiest web tool to use was Prezi Next, as it was difficult to embed it into my blog properly, as it does not come with an embed code, and instead comes with a share link and a multi-use embed code. This however, did mean that I was able to change the content of the presentations without having to re-embed it, as it uses a source link rather than a code embed to source the content.

This is the Prezi Next share page, showing a lack of an embed code.

The switch from composition to HTML.

Blogger -  Blogger was helpful as you can switch from compose to HTML when writing content, which means that I can go from typing normally to using the HTML to better arrange my blog and also to embed my web tools. I learnt a lot of HTML coding techniques from using Blogger that I have used throughout my work, such as formatting images and line spacing.

Apps - I managed to stay organised using apps such as Wunderlist to keep on track of what I needed to complete. Wunderlist is particularly useful because it allows you to set deadlines and reminders for your tasks on your phone, which you can also sync to your computer.

This is an example of some to-dos in my Evaluation list.

Overall during this project, I learned a lot of new things about technology that I didn't previously know and that will definitely benefit me in later life. I also learned how important some pieces of equipment are such as the cyclorama, and realised how useful the internet, smartphones, and social media are in everyday life that I might usually take for granted.

Construction Post 6: Website Post-Production

Jack was leading the construction of the website, which involved using Wix.com to create an interactive website that wold appeal to our target audience. It also needed to include purchasing opportunities, information about the band and album, and our brand aesthetic that would synergise with the album cover and music video.

The website was created using Wix.com, a website that allows the user to create an interactive website of their choice. It had a variety of different layouts, which meant we were able to create a blog-style website similar to that of Alvvays.

Allvays's blog format website.

We also used some tools that were adjustable to our needs, such as photo galleries, social media links, and an online store.

MY CONTRIBUTION:

• I helped to edit photos for publish on the website, including spot-healing and skin-smoothing the models.
• I also helped by creating some of our merchandise, such as the band logo phone cases.

WHAT I LEARNT: 

• I was able to gain a deeper understanding of music websites and how they work to get the audience to endorse in the brand. For example, I learned that a pop-up window when opening the site would immediately give the audience a purchasing opportunity and would likely earn the band more money.
• I also gained an understanding of how a website synergises with all the other products in order to connect the brand together. It does this by creating an online hub to sell all the products and to appeal to the target audience.

This is the homepage for our finished website. It has a toolbar at the top that scrolls down to each section of the website when clicked. The social media panel follows the user down the page. The main focal image is a flick-through gallery of different promotional offers.

Our audeince were all very engaged by the interactive opportunities on our website, and one audeince member pointed out the contest in particular as being very exciting. This means we have effectively raised excitement among the target audience, and kept them engaged with our band's image.
Our teachers also said the interactive opportunities were effective, and that the way we were appealing to our target audience with an interactive and therefore engaging campaign was very effectiev for a modern-day audience.

Construction Post 5: Digipak Post-Production

Me photoshopping the digipak.

I took the lead when creating our 4 panel digipak. This included editing together promo shots, images, and other graphics to create a realistic album cover that represents our band, brand, and our music.

THE STEPS I TOOK TO MAKE THE DIGIPAK:

1. First I chose and cropped photos of each of the band members. 
2. I then graded and positioned each of the band members on the album cover. At this point we were still deciding our exact design, as we hadn't planned exact spacing of the models before (we knew they would be a different size to how we were expecting).
3. I created a background for the album cover using the paint, smudge, and burn tool on photoshop. This allowed me to get an inky effect on the background, adding to the dreamy aesthetic of our album cover.
4. I chose fonts to use for the song and album titles that would suit our band's aesthetic.
5. As a group, we took the photo for the inside of the digipak, which would take up both inside panels. The photo was of a table covered in items that were related to our band and our album, such as photos and objects from our past.
6. I graded the photo for the inside panels of the digipak so that it appeared more saturated and clear.
7. I added some of the finishing touches, such as a bar code, copyright symbols, and extra bits of grading to solidify the aesthetic.

THE CONVENTIONS WE INCLUDED:

• Album/band name
• Focal image of our band members
• Bar code
• Copyright symbols
• Record label logo
• Song titles

WHAT I LEARNED:

• I learned a lot about using photoshop, because although I had already used it a lot in the past, I found that this project allowed me to develop my creative skills with photoshop, exploring different ways to create things.
• I also learned a lot about the conventions of an album cover that I had not previously considered. For example, I had never previously thought about copyright and record label on an album cover, but this project showed me the importance of informing an audience of the institution aspect of music. 

These are the interior panels of our digipak. On the left are many objects and photos that link to the album. On the right there is a dream catcher, referencing the single on our album, while also being a subtle piece of imagery once the CD is removed from the case.

These are the exterior panels of our digipak. The right is the front of the album cover, and includes a focal image of our band wiht the band name on it. The spine simply says the band's name and the record label. The left is the back of the album cover, and has a list of song, a bracode, copyright symbols, and record labels.

Our audience members all thought the album cover effectively portrayed the album's genre through the use of bright, pastel colours, and the focal image of our band members. Additionally, they all thought that all the information was very clear and easy to acces, such as the band name and the song titles, as well as the record label logo.
Our teachers also said that the information was very clear on the album cover, and they both agreed with the fact that the inside panels work well with the music and the theme of the album.

Construction Post 4: Music Video Post-Production

Emilio was the person in charge of this aspect of the project, although we all helped in creating the finished music video. We all started the music video together by going through all the footage we had taken during the shoot, labelling it, and deciding which were the best takes to use.

Me editing the music video.

The next step in the editing was to create a rough edit of the entire music video, pinning down some of the backbone shots. This meant filling in the majority of the narrative following the Singin in the Rain scene, the Sgt Pepper scene, the Alice in Wonderland scene, and the Mortal Kombat scene. This meant that we would be able to place the filler perfromance-based shots later, when we can see how the timing works out.

After this start to the project, we left the music video grading and other finishing touches up to Emilio, which involved grading each shot and creating fast-paced sequences of editing and graphics.

MY CONTRIBUTION:

• I helped with the editing of the music video, such as by helping to create the rough-cut and narrative.
• I also helped to make decisions on some foreground editing, and different effects used in the video.

WHAT I LEARNED:

• I lerned more about the editing process of a music video, which does not have a rigid story board. I learned that you don't need to follow a story board in order to create a high quality product, as it depends on the footage you have taken as well as how it all looks and fits together once in editing.

This is our finished music video.

Our audeince were all very engaged by our music video and found the intertextual references particularly engaging. Many of our audience also really enjoyed the narrative of the music video, and were all very engaged by it.
Our teachers said this looked like a real-life product, and after changing some cuts after their realsiation that they did not create fluency in the video, I think we created a high-standard finished music video.