Evaluation written

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

In my main product I wanted to create a storytelling narrative that would have a message held within that would also be relevant to its audience. My target demographic, sutible to genre, was teenagers just moving into adult life and experiencing new things. This concept I took on would target these issues of relationships and alcohol and try and mak

e them identifiable for the audience I was aiming the pro

duct at. The narrative aspect was done effectively be the use of many close upsto show emotion of the protagonist.

As part of the narrative I wanted to form it i

n the way of a conventional story, using the film theorist, Todorov's theory of Equilibrium. This included the equilibrium being disrupted (by alcohol) and restored by the protagonist. This gave the narrative an easier to follow structure.

The narrative aspect was used in combination with t

he digipak. The digipak is a sort of linear timeline, with the images chronologically telling the story.

Also, i wanted to create a brand identity, or an image that was constantly re-shown in everything the band produced. This had to fit in with the urban, grass roots sound that the band has taken on. This is becoming a very popular

style for pure music lovers, wanting out of the world of computerised, commercial pop that is currently in the charts. The image I selected was of railings you could find anywhere in suburban England,

taking the music and images back to the streets. This was popu

lar in my research as "Devlin" and "Arctic Monkeys" choose images similar in their own projects. This image was also replicated in the advert.

3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?

The audience f

eedback is a piece of informati

on that is imperative and vital for any new product to have. This shows how effective people think your product is, and also, more importantly what they think can be improved. I decided to show my product to the most relevant people as possible, which was my target audience. My project was aimed at 17-21 year olds, so I showed people in my media class. These are all people of the correct age, so i was hoping they would be able to relate to the images I was showing. They also have media experience because they are doing their own project, so they knew what could be changed and were realistic with their suggestions.

The first part I showed people was the r

ough c

ut. This is a viewing half way through the creation of the video, leaving enough time to change whatever they believed did work or didn't. The feedback I got was gen

erally good, especially for the range of shots I had produced and the quality of the editing so far. I found this part a little bit unreliable as much of my narrative was not filmed yet so was hard to follow.

People had a slightly difficult time working out what was actually happening because of the gaps in the narrative. I found that I had to explain most of what I was hoping to create narrative wise, so didn't really get any feedback on how the narrative worked. I was however very pleased that they enjoyed the quality of the camera angles, which is what I really wanted to create in an acting based video.

In the digipak, people felt it was good that I had linked in the narrative video. However, they felt that the images inside were slightly bland.

It was then that I started to add contrast and brightness to tailor the images into being more ascetically pleasing. I was unfortunately unable to act on the suggestions of adding in wording or lyrics to the middle pages because I personally felt it didn't leave enough space for the images to be interpreted correctly by the reader.

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

I used many new media technologies when I created my work. I used youtube and the internet extensively to research and gain ideas. IMovie, the feature that I used for editing is very good and easy to use. It has many different features that I used including Speeding up clips, Vignette style and black and white filters. Getting the footage onto IMovie is also very easy, so I was aided by this media technology.

The internet and their search engines helped me achieve all of my research. Also, I was able to gain a font that suited my digipak and advert perfectly via the internet. Youtube proved very helpful also.

Equipment wise, I used a tripod so that the scenes I filmed would be perfectly still. Also, I used a good quality camera that has an easy to access SD card and is easily uploaded to IMovie for the editing process to begin.

As i said before it has many features, and here are some of the features that I found most impressive and were used in my final video. Vignette which allows for a first person, keyhole view, which looked like the person was drunk. Then the speed up shot was used to match the tempo of the music. Finally, Black and white helped me show the changing tone and attitude in the narrative

1) Vignette

2) Speed up feature

3) Black and white filter

The editing screen allows you to link your footage to the music so that it plays over the top as one complete project. Without these media technologies, I would h

ave been unable to do the project whatsoeve

r, so they were the most important component in

my opinion.

Evaluation video

Question 1

Comparisons with real artists

I have taken great help from artist, which I have tried to show throughout this blog. Here are a few images that show how alike my work is to thiers and are, in my opinion, the main influences and comparisons that you can make to what I created.







I also believe that the sound of the band is very much like the artic Monkeys and also the image I create. I was always trying to create something a little bit like what they have done, which is why I took many camera angles from their video (shown below) as I felt it is the easiest exclusively narrative music video to follow, made by an indie band.

Brand Identity

As i have commented on throughout the project, I wanted to create a theme of urban, street great brittish sound. This is becoming a more and more popular with the majority of people because of the repelling from the "fake, computerised, commercialised pop" that is currently in the charts. Real music lovers are turning to more natural, pure sounds. This has taken shape in the indie world through the rough guitar recordings and colloquial slus of the lead singers.

Because my band has all of this, I really wanted to play on this and push it to the forefront of my project. From the outset I decieded that I wanted a resounding central image to represent urban life and found it in the form of the park railings:

With this image created I wanted everything else to play around it and access my target audience (17-21) This is where the idea for a relevant message came from, which was alcohol. Through my research I found that this was something that many bands incorporated into their work and was a topic that was very much up for debate. This makes my band relevant and the Great British identity that I have tried to embed onto the band, in my opinion, has been successfully done.

Audience feedback on Advert

Again I asked 7 boys and 7 girls from my class, who are all in my target demographic. I asked them to list their thoughts on my magazine article in relation to the other things I have produced about the artist.

The overriding feeling was that the advert was a success. They liked the simplistic nature of it and the continuing band image of the lead singer against the railings and felt it was a very strong image. The little reviews also went down well as people felt it was important to have professional opinion and found it very persuasive.

My Advert

Here is my final advert. I think it is fairly simplistic and tidy. The image is the same that is used in the digipak and main video which has now become identifiable to the audience. The reference to reviews by major players in the music world also helps, as well as the wording "get" which is an imperative verb ordering people to find out about this band. The release date is also very clear.

The font is graffiti for the song name and band name, but is basic for the rest of it so that the band and song are more recognisable. I used the red colouring to separate the informational bits from the band names and the star rating given by the magazine. This just makes it stand out more. I also wanted to make it clear that this is the debut single, making out that there is a lot more to come from the band and the audience should familiarise themselves with the new sound of the band.

I am overall very pleased with how the magazine has come out.

Magazine info

The New Musical Express (better known as the NME) is a popular music magazine in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It was the first British paper to include a singles chart, in the 14 November 1952 edition. In the 1970s it became the best-selling British music magazine. It has circulation figures of over 30,000 per 6 months, which may be on the decline, but reflect the whole magazine industry as a whole. It still holds itself at the forefront of musical magazines. It has however got over 1.6 million hits on its internet site, which shows that it still holds great regard in the music world.

As a magazine, it specialises in all things rock, and most recently Indie has become one of the most spoke about genres within it. With the amount of people reading it, it would be the ideal magazine to promote my indie band as my target demographic will be reading the copy. Its important that I make an advert that will be able to stand out when people are flicking through the pages.