The Wonderful End

"We weren’t too ambitious when we started out. We just wanted to be the biggest thing that ever walked the planet." -- Steven Tyler of Aerosmith

The Blog explains everything that we done so far this year in my A2 Media A level through a series of carefully constructed posts. And it is great that it is finally finished for good now.

Its seven months of pure written labour to write all the blog posts and the many hours from an idea on paper to a fully worked and polished pop music promotional video.

Unfortunaltly like any project we encountered a number of problems. Our first was the loss of a group member which meant our production team dropped from a group of three to two. He was the main driving force behind the band and as such about 1/3 of all our man power. When he left we had to both take on more roles than we were previously comfortable with before.

Another problem we had to tackle was that of our original drummer dropping out of the scheduled shoot only one day before we were due to film. This left us in a state of disarray . However we managed to overcome this problem to the best of our abilities which I think worked well as a substitute in the end.

The Directors Commentary

We prepared a directors commentary, created by myself and my partner Ben Marks. We spoke in front of a camera and explained what was happening in the music video .The purpose of this was to explain our video , in terms of why we shot scenes , the way we edited it and overall composition of the video. And what we were trying to convey in our video.

Task Three-What Have I Learnt From Audience Feedback?

Having collected a variety of feedback from our pop video for our pop video and ancillary products from members of our target audience and from other audiences demographics – via Youtube, a Focus group , our friends and other sources.
The target audience we were aiming at were 16-25 year olds from the JICTAR groups from E all the way to A . This meant C,D and E range from not as well brought up backgrounds to A,B,C which include people with more money and more sophisticated. There aspire to achieve high in life , highly educated they are the lawyers and account of this. The video could be interpreted as Four rich kids who have dropped out of school to play music and become the worlds greatest rock band which may appeal to A,B,C . Yet it could also be seen as four teens who have worked there way up from nothing to fame and fortune which would appeal more to C,D and E.

The video was uploaded to Youtube and Facebook. After six weeks and 500 viewings .These were the comments we received:
Youtube-
‘’Loved it ! x” ElleSevs1990

Facebook-
“ Awesome ‘’ Elly Sams

We set up a focus group which consisted of Eleven students ,seven being male and four female. We didn’t give them a questionnaire instead we let the group watch the video once beforeasking them the questions. We felt this method was far more superior over the traditional questionnaire as it really puts the person on the spot which means we get there true feelings about the media product. The point of this group was to find out if our group enjoyed the video and to see if they actually understood the meaning of the video or not. We questioned the group individually , with great results . Everyone seemed to have an opinion on the video, which usually integrated with the meaning we intended to give and the audience identifying with the characters on the screen. This was the idea of them being young, rebellious , edgy male members of our particular group . It worked in the main as some of the group identified with that image. Niall an intelligent ,down to Earth 17 year old from Kilburn , North London stated that “ These guys where living the dream , who would not want to be a rockstar?”

The questions we asked were:
Did you like the choice of song? Like that kind of music etc...

How do you think the band was represented?

What qualities (in terms of the band members as individuals) came through the most?

Did you locate any kind of message within the images and the narrative?

If you could compare their image, style and song choice to anyband - who would it be?

Were there any blatant inspirations in terms of their image and style that you pickedup on?

Do they seem like the kind of band you would be interested in? I.e. purchase a Dd, see them in concert etc...


In terms of the theory of Blumer and Katz on “Uses and Gratifications” We tried to use it to acesss our audiences response. Blumer and Katz say that audiences respond in four ways . The question was did ours respond to our pop video in this way . Blumer and Katz identify four ways that the media is used or gives.These are;
Diversion (a form of escape from everyday mundanity), Personal Relationships (companionship via TV personalities and characters), Personal Identity (the comparison’s drawn between the characters and your own life) and Surveillance (a supply of information concerning the welfare of the world). In terms of our pop video, we had diversion which appears when the audiences watches the video and relates to the idea of being free and having fun , fame and fortune . Being a rock star is a job that many people relate to the idea of Instead they are trapped in this never-ending loop of a nine to five job that they loathe. They use the video as a form of escapism to get away from reality even if it is just for a few minutes.

Stuart Hall suggests a theory that producers enco

de a preferred message that the audience proceeds to decode in any one of three ways. These ways are either the audience accepting the preferred meaning, or they become oppositional readers, rejecting the preferred message, or negotiated readers, wherein they decipher their own meaning. The pop video has a preferred meaning , the band are an edgy , rebellious rock band who wont let any one tell them what is right. The narrative in the video is about the world being an open and expansive place , that you just have to make that one step into and go for it. There is no time for holding back and seeing what the futures brings for you , instead you have to reach forward and live your life to the best it possibly can be . Enjoy it as you only live once. In our focus group it was only the males who actually interpreted this meaning and connected to the semiology of it . The females felt it was sexi

st in the way we portrayed the girls as drinking with the band , and the idea of them all being ‘’groupies’’ to the band .


I was skeptical at first but I feel that the perform

ance and documentary parts of video worked well together yet wouldn’t have been so effective by them selves. I wished that we could of shot the band in a real urban location in London in a old abandoned factory since I feel that the studio doesn’t feel to grimy or edgy which detracts from the bands image we were trying to convey. From audience feedback I also feel that the documentary element of the band traveling between shows could have been made more interesting since it becomes to similar when showed over and over. Alternatively another element could have been added to create more a

narrative in the music video and maintain interest in the video. However I felt from the focus group we managed to get the message of enjoying life and living your life to the maximum potential as you only life once. Many people connected with this ideaology and I think connected to the members of the group .

Task Two-A Power Point Presentation To Explore How Effective The Combination Of My Main Product And Ancillary Text is?

Blog Task Two

View more presentations from hurtwoodhousemedia5.

Magazine Advert

In our magazine advert I wanted to give the band thh brand of beinf young and rebellious . They aim high in life yet they just want live the 'good life' no matter where it actually takes them .I created the poster using a mixture of both Adobe Photoshop CS5 and Indesign CS5 to create a piece together my advert into a visually pleasing way . I used a black background to give the poster a grungey look , black resembles edgeyness , rebellious and masculine. Which I think works well as the band is driven by a masculine force. I kept to a very simple colpour scheme , black , light lue and a purplish colour. This made the arrangement simplistic and easy to arrange . I used a photo from the digipack front cover but converted the colours to gry scale as I though this looked much better , than having a blue cover overlapped on the photo. The banner below my photo I used a simple font with the bands name in a black font with a white stroke on the outside, I got the idea by reasearching various punk bands on the internet. Originally I had guns under the text but this was soon dismissed as I felt it didn’t fit with the genre very well. I then added the tour dates which I wrote in white so they could be easily seen and a bright pink to show ‘the special guests’ under the bands venue .

We are putting it on the back of a magzine so we can draw awareness to out audience to successfully promote and advertise our band. This advert is aimed at 16 – 25 year olds since this is the target age group we our aiming the style of music at. The magzine is supossed to root the brand down of the band

Digipack Evaluation

In our digipack I wanted to give the band the brand of being a young , rebellious punk group. There aim in life is to have fun through various stimulates like alcohol , drugs and sex. They abitiion is to aim high but at the same time ant to make the most they can out of life , no boring dull jobs they want to life the glam rock style they were born to lead.

I created the digipack using a multimedia editing software package alled Adobe Photoshop CS5 . On the first page of the digipack , I wanted to use quite grungy colours , which were black , white and grey. I took an image and applied many effects and filters and also repainted over it again to give it a look that didn’t resemble perfection. The shapes on my cover were vertical and rough , jagged shapes connate the idea of the band being edgy , not quite right and rebellious ( rough around the edges).

On my second page I added a brief biography ,which told the audience a little about the history of the band , including there influences for why they play that particular kind of music. I kept to the same greyscale based colours as before to not over complicate things . I thought I would use the main driving voice of the band , the vocalist as the image on this cover to show that he represented the band the best .

On my third page , I kept the idea of simplicity and used just a plain white background . I added a picture drawn by Hunter S. Thompson with a following quote about drugs which summed up the lifestyle of the band very well. This rooted the band down to the ideology that drugs help produce some of the best music ever recorded.

On my fourth and final page I used a shot of my singer in the foreground holding what is clearly a bottle of alcoholic desent and a cigarette in his mouth about to light it up, there is the additional groupies near by which higlight the whole ‘Party hard style’ my band was trying to aim for . I feel that this hot suits a back cover well since , it shows the end of a gig , another day over and the celebration , the aftermath of the show.

Task One - In What Ways Do Your Media Products Use, Develop or Challenge Foms and Conventions of Real Media Products?

In our pop video we began by researching and analyzing the major conventions used to create a pop video. We looked at many pop video from the grunge genre , for example : Sound Garden, Alice in Chains and Nirvana. We look at other videos from the Punk genre from bands like ‘The Sex Pistols’. In our pop video we aimed to imitate the pop video to give plaisir ,we did this by having a performance element and a narrative in our pop

video. We also subverted the common conventions give jouissance to our music video. We did this by adding a documentary shot style to our narrative as the band toured around the country in their tour bus this added something new to the video.

These major conventions come from the theorist Keith negus and they are;

· The explicit and unashamed promotion of the artist’s “image” (aesthetic/generic/ideological) as a specific product with a brand identity, ready for mass consumption

· The featuring of the artist

(almost without exception)

· A wide and extensive use of shot types, camera angles and movement

· Repetition of reoccuring thematic elements and generically specific iconography (one key element often being dominant and providing the skeletal structure for the promo)

· A possible narrative structure

· A possible performance element

· The flexibility to disregard Realism!

· Shots cut tightly to the beat of the track

· Use of special effects (lighting, annimation, CGIs, in-camera effects)

· A carefully constructed Mise en Scene appropriate to the content and tone of the track

· High impact instantly! (Don’t forget that competition for airplay on the main music channel outlets is intense)

In our pop video we were trying to convey the message of the actual song . The song is about the joys and wanders of taking heroin , enjoying life. Its all about making the most of life through sex , drugs and rock’n’roll. The famous quote of live fast die young applies to the band. The brand we were trying to convey for our band was that they were happy go lucky guys about town . They are rebellious , urban , happy and carefree We spiked their hair up and messed it up to show the fact they are like this.

In the still to the left it shows the band having the after party with their groupies. We used Negus’s conventions to show the chaos of the party. We used various close-ups of the guys and girls and we had the camera on a shoulder walking around this party so it could get in close and make it a more intimate shot. We also used fast cutting to illustrate this idea of the band living a fast and furiously paced lifestyle.

In this still we showed the band on the tour bus traveling between their gigs. Again we used Negus rule and shot it in a documentary style to give the effect of a traveling camera recording all the bands movements. A wobbly camera was used to furthermore highlight this intention. This camera position also added a sense of realism , seediness and edginess to this scene .

In this still we showed the band performing in what is supposed to be the back of an old abandoned factory. We used conventions from Negus , including Close ups , Wide shots , long shots all of which to show the band performing. We had flashing light that ranged from Red, Blue ,Green to purple this connoted the idea of the world is never stopping and just constantly keeps changing.

For our digipack we used the rule of thirds to make the cover visually pleasing to the eye and would make everything look uncluttered. We used black , white and blue to keep simplicity in our design . The font was bold and we made it big and heavy to make it really stand out on the CD cover, we made the text Blue which really contrasted well with the black background. This all meant that we would be more likely to be able to sell the CD more successfully.