Final Music Video

Final Magazine Advert

Following feedback from my teacher about my magazine advert - I redid the entire thing. I kept the main concept of the idea about the flower with the words around it but changed lots more.
The main things she commented on were..

1. How it should be portrait not landscape
2. How it should have more conventions - such as the band name

She also commented on how I should ensure the writing isn't mad difficult to read by the colours chosen. She encouraged me to play around with font and text size. She did like the concept of it and that was why I carried on the colour theme and concept. I made sure all the photos in the magazine were ones I had taken so I used one I had taken in a photo shoot when I filmed the graveyard scene.

Final Website Link

This is the link for my website.

Q.4 Final

Q.3 Final

Q.2 Final

Q.1 Final

Evaluation Q.1
In some ways my media products followed conventions - in others they didn't. I had reasoning behind each convention I followed and challenged because it all linked up to form the basis of the message and feel I was trying to get across.

1. My music video was quite unconventional in the narrative in the sense I had lots of micro narratives and didn't have a specific main character. This was to emphasise the meaning of the video about how not everyone is okay and it wouldn't be fair to focus on one character over another. However, other smaller aspects like sound were quite conventional as I didn't have additional sound on top of the music e.g. diegetic sound. The video also broke conventions like the stereotypical representation of age as I didn't show teenagers as fun loving and carefree. 
2. On the other hand, my magazine advert was quite conventional. For example, it was quite eye catching (with the minimal but well chosen choice of colour) to make sure the audience paid attention to it. I also made the product very accessible by showing places that the album will be sold. 
3.  My website was actually really conventional bar some exceptions. For example, the music video was on the main page for the audience to immediately see. Also, there were other pages such as merchandise and a contact page for the audience to look at.

For each task I did some work on the conventions of the products. I did blog posts for website conventions and music video conventions. I did a Canva presentation about magazine advert conventions. I also did some research on representation and Goodwin's ideas.

From my research and analysis (shown above) I decided what ancillary texts to do and what I wanted to include in each one. For example, I liked the convention of having a clear title at the top of a website screen that remains there even if you click on different pages within the website. It also flagged up things I didn't want to include, such as lots of bright colours as it would clash with the tone of the video.

RED = Challenged
GREEN = Followed

• Video - Recurring close ups of a main artist throughout the video - I didn't feel the need to have the entire thing based around one person, I felt getting the stories of different people across was more important and it backs an ideal of everyone matters. Plus I don't think it works with a narrative as well as a concept or performance video. As the clip below shows, The beginning doesn't focus on one person, it shows everyone. Doing this also broke narrative conventions because I had a lot of micro narratives and there wasn't really a clear beginning, middle and end within these little narratives and within the whole video. Having normal sound and no dialogue throughout - I tried the idea of having some dialogue in but the audience feedback on it wasn't great and the meaning of the scene was clear without it. You can clearly see in the clip below that the teacher is having an argument with the student and trying to get him to co operate for the photo. I also kept with the genre by not having a happy video because I feel like a happy video wouldn't get the message across. I also had lipsyncing and a sort of stage performance within the video which fits in with performance music videos. I think this fits well with the genre especially as other music videos by My Chemical Romance mix narrative and performance. I used the convention of cutting to the beat an awful lot. I think this is just key in music videos because it makes the video flow nicely and makes the transitions a lot more natural and therefore more aesthetically pleasing.

• Magazine advert - Colourful - I didn't use lots of colour in my magazine article because I wanted to reinforce the black and red theme. So the only colour I used was red (other than black and white) which I feel made it more eye catching and interesting as someone looking at it would be drawn to the red rose as it is the only colour. I also wanted to stand out and be different. The connotations of red is that it is quite an emotionally intense colour and black symbolises negativity which really fits in with the feel I was trying to get across. These colour choices also match My Chemical Romance's other products which makes it really fit in with the rest of the genre. Simplicity - I made my magazine advert rather simple as I want the audience to be able to easily find the information they need without having to search for it and then get bored and uninterested. I followed the convention of making my product accessible but advertising where it could be bought on this poster. For example, my poster has reviews from HMV etc on it. Also, I advertised Spotify on it. Spotify is advertised on my website too which is great synergy. I chose to make Spotify a focus because it is what a lot of young people are using recently to listen to music rather than the old school buying the CD method.

• Website - Advertisements - I didn't put any advertisements in because I felt like it would detract from the design and theme of the website and will just distract people who are on the website. I did decide to have the title and logos big at the top of the page on every page though because I think it is important that the audience can see these, throughout the website and that they are the first thing someone sees. I also had the main video on the front page because it really gets the audience's attention and shows them exactly what the brand has to offer without bombarding them with a barrage of text to start with and it just fits well with the banner announcing the new album on the same page. I wanted to have my site simple but interesting. To make audiences want to explore it and know more but without them getting confused or overwhelmed with information. So, I had five main pages all with different things on, none of them with too much information and all of them offering something visual as well as words to read. For example, I did a merchandise page because my young audience would be the type who would buy into that and would want to show off their interests by wearing band tees etc.

• I broke a lot of representation conventions. For example, the age one about teenagers being carefree was completely thrown out the window and I also haven't shown any of the females in the video as sexualised objects. I did this because the whole video is about challenging people's first impressions and conceptions of others so surprising the audience and challenging their initial thoughts on the characters will make them think. 

• I followed some of Goodwin's ideas and broke others. I have stuck with Goodwin's idea of music and visuals being linked as there is cutting on the beat and lipsyncing. I did this because it gives the video a nice flow and looks good. There is also lots of intertextual references - mostly to other My Chemical Romance songs e.g. in the photowall scene. I did this because lots of fans of the band's other music will pick up on it so it adds another element to the video. I didn't stick to the close ups of the artist one though as explained above.

Final Photoshop Evidence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfoZZ-CMQfk&feature=youtu.be

Photoshop Evidence for Magazine Advert

Photoshop Evidence for Magazine Advert

Q.3 Script Draft

Over the course of making my media texts, I used a variety of methods to get audience feedback. This is because my promotional campaign is dependent on consumers and people buying into it. So, making sure advertising suits and interests the audience is really key because it makes consumers and target audiences more likely to pay attention and look into your brand. This is why I aimed my promotional campaign at young people and that is where I got the majority of my audience feedback from. If people like my campaign, they will spend money on albums, merchandise etc so audience feedback and getting what they like is of the utmost importance.

One of these methods was emailing the whole school. I used this method because it’s an easy way to reach a lot of people simultaneously. I emailed a Survey Monkey questionnaire which had a few formal questions for them to answer about what they thought of my website such as “What do you like and what could be improved for the home page?” This method gave me honest feedback as it was anonymous. I found it very useful as it let me know what people liked and if I needed to change anything. For example, they all liked the strong red colour theme but thought the spotify link could be joined with a logo to make it clearer what the spotify link is. A downside of this method could be that people often open their emails on their phone and so go to the mobile version of my website rather than the computer one which is completely different as I’ve only worked on the computer version.

I've also shown people the website either in groups of two or three or one to one - I got some really good feedback from this from a couple people but it could've been improved as I was the one navigating the website instead of them so I couldn't get feedback on whether stuff is easy to find because I was showing them exactly what I knew what was there rather than them discovering it. This is where the emailing was better because it flagged up things like the spotify link not being clear. The people I showed the website to suggested I put the text on the merchandise page in bordered boxes. One person said, “Why don’t you group the merchandise in coloured boxes?” I followed this advice and made the change to make it look more professional. I put the merchandise text in a black box and made the text red to fit in with the colour theme. They also told me to add additional details to the contact form. However, I didn’t follow this advice because I felt additional details were unnecessary as the website has a contact form already. Plus, I wanted to keep the website fairly simple so that the audience doesn’t get bored or bogged down by information.

I also did some test screenings of the music video with small groups of people which was okay but I had to prompt most people into saying constructive criticism as most people just said that "It's good,” rather than giving proper criticism. I also tried to get feedback by posting a draft of the video on Facebook and letting people comment. However, I found this method not too good because people were hesitant to put their opinions on a public online post. I did get some ideas for the video though when I pushed people into saying more about it. For example, someone suggesting cutting a shot of the boy in the graveyard differently to get across the boy's emotions better. I ended up following this advice because it gave that scene a bit more meaning and depth.

As with some examples that I’ve previously mentioned, my audience research provided me with a lot of ideas and suggestions of things to change. For example, there was dialogue in the video previously but feedback from my audience reinforced my initial thoughts that it wasn’t needed and that it seemed out of place so I decided not to include it. I also followed my audience feedback with ideas about the banner in my magazine advert. Someone suggested having a translucent banner rather than an opaque one or no banner. I followed this advice and added a red banner because I originally thought it was a good idea to have the banner opaque because it makes it clear that the text and logos aren't part of the picture but I was worried it would look out of place as it wouldn’t fit with the photo. This is a good example of an idea I hadn't thought of but used anyway. I would get around this next time by making sure I fully know the capabilities of programs like Photoshop because I feel like I would've had more ideas had I known more about Photoshop and had the confidence to use it. Audience feedback helped me a lot with the website especially and I have multiple posts about it on my blog including more about how I responded to the feedback. For example, in a group of 3 people looking at the website, someone said “Maybe you should put the ETSY link in a box to make it stand out more?” So, I gave the link and text a red outline.

I got a lot of feedback from individuals who were more interested in media etc than the average person. E.g. other media students or teachers. This helped me a lot because the feedback was normally really detailed. For example, it was pointed out that a shot in the beginning of the student fighting the teacher lacked continuity due to the placement of his hand so I fixed this. It was suggested to have the poster writing changed to make it stand out more so I made it white instead. Lots of little advice like this really helped me because it helped me fix little mishaps which otherwise would've gone under the radar which would've made my work that little bit more unprofessional.

If I did this differently, I would use a lot more surveys emailed to the whole school. This is because it reaches a lot of people (especially young people which is who the product is mainly aimed at) and it is anonymous. I think getting audience feedback from younger people was good because they are more aware of the technologies I’m using and what I can do with them. So, I made sure to get some of my friends who were familiar with photoshop to have a look at the magazine advert as photoshop was the program I used and they thought of ideas that I didn’t know you could do with photoshop. I think I was quite objective but the thing holding me back was not knowing the full capabilities of some of the tech that I was using. Also, I won't be there to influence what people say and people will write what they think rather than what anyone else thinks. I would also reach out to people who aren’t necessarily my friends or my age. This is because they are more likely to be objective and also have different ideas to me. 

Question 4.. So Far

https://youtu.be/y2hWS8MQgnw

Question 3.. So Far

Photoshop Editing for Logo and Magazine Advert

For the magazine advert. I took a collection of photos myself in a graveyard. I also used one of the photos of the roses as the band logo. I then edited the photos in photoshop. Below is the before and after along with evidence.

Photoshop Evidence from Katie Colyer on Vimeo.

I also edited another photo.

I'm Not Okay Draft

I'm Not Okay from Katie Colyer on Vimeo.