Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

To answer this question we have posted a video response in which we highlight how our product uses theories, and subsequently conforms to, or in some cases challenges, conventions of real products. In the video we talk about Goodwin's theory and Vernallis' theory, with particular focus on the music video we have created. We then go on to discuss how our two ancillary products, the album and website also follow or challenge the forms and conventions set out by the music industry.

Here are the relevant videos which we have referenced in this video response:

JLS - One Shot on MUZU.
In this video, during the dance routine the camera is never just still. It is always moving - regularly tracking from side to side or forwards and backwards. I thought this looked really good and made for a much more interesting dance routine, and so we used this technique in our music video and there is constant camera movement in our video.


The Wanted - All Time Low on MUZU.
This video was a big influence when researching the notion of looking. We took ideas for 'the look' shots from this video and this helped us a lot when identifying the individual members of our boyband. We also included individual look shots which were all influenced by this video.

Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I believe that the combination of our main product - the music video - and our ancillary texts works perfectly in creating an identity and brand for the product which we are trying to sell - 'THE FIX'.


As well as a music video, we decided to produce a website and album cover for our new boyband and all these texts work in synergy as the style of the imagery and focus on the boys in the band are consistant throughout.

The images above, taken from the album cover, website and video respectively show how the band are presented in the same fashion consistantly. They wear the same style clothing and appear in the same order, with Tom in the centre. The colour scheme is kept very similar through all the texts with the use of neutral colours being a theme with blue as the one primary colour used. This was extremely important to do as as a debut single/album we were trying to sell the band image immediately and make it into a recognisable brand - something that could not be acheived if the different media texts conflicted with each other in terms of the band image.

All our texts also combine to promote each band member individually as well as the band as a whole. This is important as it is conventional for a boyband to promote each member in order to give the young female audience to choose their favourite member!

Here are two examples of how bands have individual band member twitter accounts. 

(TOP: New boyband - The Wanted. BELOW: Even rock / pop bands do it! - Maroon 5)

 

Here's how we presented our band member twitters on the website - below individual profiles of the band members, which tell the audience about their name, age and star-sign - everything a girl needs to know! 

Fans also get to know the boys more through the interactive gallery online...

These individual personalities of the boys are also brought out in the video:

We acheived identifying the boys different personalities in the video by having close ups of each individual member, and their performances were all very stylised and unique.

The inside covers of our album also promote the band members individually and as a group as there is one panel which is a collage of lots of different photos of the band - giving further insight into each members personality.

OUR MEDIA TEXTS COMBINED:

The website sells the album - also allows audience to download from itunes (above).

The website features photos from the same photoshoot as the album cover - creating an obvious link between the imagery.

The Record label - FOCUS MUSIC - also appear on all our media texts, including the back cover of our album. There is also a link to the website on the green MTV bar on the music video and on the back of the album.

The website combines all three media texts very effectively as you can watch the video, buy the album, look at pictures from the album photoshoot, see behind the scenes videos, and much more...

Overall I think that the combination of our music video, album and website is extremely effective. All three texts have a similar mis-en-scene which promotes the band as a brand for an audience to buy into, and the individual members for the audience to admire and look up to. The three texts work together extremely well and definately would work to sell the product - THE FIX. If you watch the video you'll want to buy the album, if you buy the album you might visit the website, if you visit the website you might share it with your mates and they could hear the track or watch the video - selling the album to them simultaneously and so on...!

I am very happy with our final product and I think that all 3 elements of the FIX'S debut campaign combine very effectively and look incredibly professional.

Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Here is the video we filmed on the day of the screening in our media block. We had a massive turnout, with the majority of our year eager to see the video. Around 60-70 people showed up for our screening, and we captured all of their reactions, and even managed to grab a few words off some of them...

Since the screening, our video has had around 1000 hits in only a few days!

The last five minutes of the video contains us going through the audience questionaires to see what everybody thought. The average rating we recieved out of 10 was 9.3, which is a very positive result which we are very pleased about.

We printed and handed out 30 questionaires which were all filled in by the viewers, and at the end of the video (above) you can see us going through everyones questionaires to see what they thought.

There were both boys and girls at the screening, which meant we got a good varitey of feedback, however the audience were all of the same age - older teenagers: 16-18 years of age, meaning we didn't receive feedback from the younger female audience.

POSITIVES 

Amongst all the feeback, these were a few highlights that many people picked out:

• Themes highlighted: boyband / pop / girls / gay / money
• Favourite moments: Lights / dancing / individual looks / Hugh at the beginning / reversed dance edit / performances
• Professional: Everybody said that the video looked professional
• Average rating: 9.3
• Music video channel: MTV / Smash Hits

NEGATIVES

The most common negative comment was for people to say that there was not enough screen-time for Tom Owen (a.k.a Owen Blake). We were fully aware of his lack of screen-time, and reasons for it included him not being as good as dancer and lipsync-er as the other boys. However this in mind, when we did feature him, it was using close-ups. We also made the decision to put him sitting on the sofa with two of the the strongest performers, Tom and Jack, bringing out some great performance from him aswell.

 

When we've asked our audience about the website and album cover we have also got great responses, with some people even leaving comments on the The Fix's official website!

AUDIENCE VIEWS: WEBSITE
 

• Master (welcome) page very effecive - sells album / band
• Great photography and general imagery
• Liked individual member profiles and band member twitters
• Lots of interactivity, sign up / comment / official store
• Great advertising for the album and tour with links to itunes / ticketmaster
• Could have created some band mechandise to feature in the store

AUDIENCE VIEWS: ALBUM ARTWORK 

• Front cover- striking / simple / just like a real boy band
• Great photography
• Great styling of the band - looks really convincing
• Overall the album looks realy professional

Overall our product has been really successful and has targeted the audience just as it should've. The feedback we have received has been very encouraging and has confirmed that we managed to acheive the professional look we were going for throughout this project.

 [ABOVE: The thoughts of The Fix's choreographer]

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

For this question we have also chosen to produce a video response which shows all of the technology that we used. New technology has been extremely important during this project, from the camera to the world-wide-web, and has allowed us to research, plan, organise and produce our 3 media products - music video / website / and album art [digipack].

CAMERA:

• We shot our music video in Full 1080p HD - allowing for much greater quality than any of our previous projects which were shot in SD [480p].
• We managed to convincingly pretend that our video was shot with a 21:9 wide-angled lense, by cropping 13% off of the top and bottom of our video which wsa originally in just 16:9 widescreen. Of course we didn't shoot in 16:9 and then just blindly cut off the top and bottom - we used a humble roll of tape to conceal the parts of the video that would be cropped on our camera's digital display. 

ADOBE CS3 EDITING SOFTWARE:

• Photoshop enabled us to enhance all our photos incredibly. We could edit, colour correct, and adjust brightness and contrast to make our pictures look professional. 
• Did you know: The image on the front cover of our album is actually not just a photograph - it is composed of an individual shot of each band member 'photoshopped' together!
• Premiere Pro was vital in the construction of our video as digital editing software allowed us to cut and place clips wherever we wanted in just a touch of a buttton. As this year's project was a music video we ended up having far more video tracks than last years film project as there was so much footage for the same section of the song, however, we did not have to worry at all about editing multiple tracks of audio during our music video. We did use a lot of audio editing however in our other videos such as the 'Official Premiere' video.
• Did you know: Nsync's version of 'Just got Paid' is actually 4:20 long. Using Premiere Pro, we were able to seemlessly edit the songs duration to around 3:40!

STUDIO LIGHTING:

• We were lucky enough during this project to get to use our school's new 'Seward Studio' which is packed full of [mostly uneccessary and indulgent] technology.
• Did you know: There is over 100 miles of cable running through the ceiling and walls of the Seward Studio!
• The floor lights we used were key to our music video and became one of the videos greatest features.
• The haze machine we hired was also very effective in scattering the beams of light through to the camera which made the band more prominent.
• Did you know: During the filming of our music video, our excessive use of the haze machine caused the fire-alarm to go off throughout the school. During subsequent shoots we turned off the smoke detectors in the studio!
• We also used a three-point studio lighting set when on location in the photographic studio, this was extremely helpful in lighting our shots - something which could have been improved last year when we did our film project as we did not have these lights.

THE INTERNET:

• Blogger, youtube, and facebook they have been a great asset during construction, research, planning and evaluation of the project. 
• Facebook and youtube have allowed us to reach a wide audience with our video. It gives a platform to view our media product to young people which is easy, free and accessable.We were able to create a facebook 'event' to tell everybody about the screening, and we could invite all our friends. 
• Did you know: Our music video received just under 1,300 views in just the first 6 days of its release onto youtube!
• Of course, we can't talk about the internet and not mention 'google' - an invaluble search engine for research and referencing, enabling us to find all we needed to know about music videos.

Band Photography:

We used the lowest level of Lordship Park for photographs of the band which we have used on the website and album artwork. They turned out looking very professional, and a lot of it was down to having a great location.

Since shooting at Lordship Park I have come across to photoshoots featured in magazines at this same location (lower level). One of the photoshoots was for JLS!

Audience Feedback Questionaire:

Media Questionnaire

MUSIC VIDEO: SCREENING

We screened our music video in our school on wednesday and it was a great success. Around 60 people packed into the media black to see it! We printed and handed out 30 questionaires which were all filled in.

There were both boys and girls at the screening, which meant we got a good variety of feedback. The response we got was also very good, with our video's marks out of ten all being 8-10, with an average of 9.3.

I am currently editing a video of our screening, including interviews and reactions of the audience.