Final music campaign

Music video:

Website:

http://sashawardsmith.wix.com/nothingtokings

Digipack:

Back cover

Front cover

Inside right

Inside left

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

Evaluation Question 1 from franparisi123

Our Music Video:

The Kooks- 'Down':


The Arctic Monkeys- ‘When The Sun Goes Down’:

Our Digipack:

The Kooks Digipack:

The Arctic Monkeys Digipack:

Our Website:

http://sashawardsmith.wix.com/nothingtokings

The Kooks Website:

http://thekooks.com

The Arctic Monkeys Website:

http://www.arcticmonkeys.com

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

For evaluation task 2, as a group, we created a video to discuss the question 'How effective is the combination of your main products and ancillary texts?'

In conclusion...

Link

Our music video and ancillary texts did work well together due to our intended continuity within the texts. For instance, our monochromatic colour scheme used for our website was bold and abrasive suiting the indie-rock genre, we used the same colour pallet in out album artwork our feedback suggested that they worked very well together;"Yes they all work well as they all use the same colour scheme, and the linear thee gives it an interesting angle." Whilst the intricacy of the aubum artwork mirrored the disorderliness of the video which we achieved through our use of props demonstrated clearly in the woods scenes.

Promotion

Each of the texts work well to promote each other, on the website we highlighted both music video and the album cover to promote the album with addition to social meida links and information about their work. Whilst the music video promotes future tours and albums as the audience can relste to the individual personalities, which we displayed. The album cover promotes further investigation into the band due to the intriguing indie rock star image that we conveyed.

Overall Image

The overall image of our band was aimed to achieve a messy indie-rock look, which would appeal to a young generation of 15-25 year olds. Therefore our band was made up of rugged teenagers who had interesting looks such as long hair or interesting personal style; in fact, 100% of our online survey recipients said that the style was appropriate. This use of personal style created this messy indie rock star image as imagery of the band was evident in each text.

Feedback
Throughout the process of creating the texts we received feedback through focus groups and surveys from our target audience, gaining positive feedback and constructive criticism. For example, from our online survey 70% of survey recipients agreed that all three products we clearly linked. The remaining 30% said that two out of the three products linked and 0% stated that the products didn't link at all. 

Evaluation task 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

What have you learned from audience feedback?

Throughout the process of developing our three media products, feedback has been a critical factor in making creative decisions to create the best products suited to the genre and target audience.

Online resources played a major role in recording feedback. The media sharing website, YouTube and Blogger. YouTube, in particular, allowed us to document our entire development process from our original individual pitches to displaying our final video to be viewed globally. The videos uploaded to our unique channels allowed us to share content within ourselves and also on Blogger, alongside other social media websites such as Facebook, which gave us a range of feedback from a range of demographics.

1) Presenting initial ideas to the class
Initiating the development process of our music video, pitching our individually crafted ideas allowed us to express and share ideas. Due to these concepts only being in their infancy stage, the ideas were quite malleable in response to the feedback received. Blogger allowed me to communicate my ideas through text, images and photos, to accurately convey my visions to receive the most relevant feedback.

Here are some screenshots showing my presentation on blogger.

Following my presentation, I immediately recorded my feedback. 

I created a powerpoint presentation to record this feedback, the presentation allowed me to document my thought process of advancing my ideas through text and images to accompany the feedback.

Feedback on initial ideas from afran123

The response from the group, provided a mixture of positive and constructive critism. The feedback gave a clear consensus over the most popular concept being my third idea; it involved a Wendy house deteriorating over time resembling a relationship. Though I hadn’t worked out the logistics of this idea, the class commended the unique metaphorical concept and creative aspects of the idea as it drew from the theme of childhood from the original video. It was suggested that I was to use a dollhouse so the size was more manageable and could be contained within a studio. Also, it was suggested that the dollhouse would burn down at the end, combing a concept from my first music video idea.

From this feedback, the idea developed so the video would become a reverse sequences of destroying a doll house, the house would start of fire and would progressively become less destroyed after a series of destruction (i.e. kicking the house, throwing stones at it etc), to become a perfect dolls house. The sequence would resemble a deteriorating relationship as this was a key positive point highlighted in the feedback. The couple which the house would resemble would be the artists and hence the video would reintegrated with footage of the couple either performing or 'candid' footage of the couple interacting.

2) Pitching to Luke
Following our group allocation, we discussed and developed our ideas, selecting and amalgamating those that had the most positive feedback. We developed two ideas to present to Luke, the schools creative director. We presented our ideas via Prezi, including lots of images to accurately convey our concepts to receive the most beneficial feedback. Unfortunately, we were only able to record one of our pitches to Luke, but we were still able to receive sufficient feedback for both.

Prezi for our primary idea, MGMT 'Electric Feel'

Recording of secondary idea pitch, Milky Chance 'Down by the River' (feedback from 4:00)

Prezi for our secondary idea, Milky Chance 'Down by the River'

After, presenting our primary and secondary ideas, Luke immediately came to the conclusion that our first idea was stronger, this was understandable considering we spent the majority of our time developing this idea.

Feedback from our primary idea recorded on Blogger.

Despite this, he had found some logistical areas of the idea problematic, such as in the urban areas we would not have time and permission to shoot there and also our idea of the band interacting with public could be oddly received and finally the track that we wanted to use had been used for a music video in previous years hence the two could be compared. Though Luke did like many aspects of the video such as the contrast of urban and natural spaces, and strongly suggested that we developed an idea that was centred on a dystopian forest scene, where imagery of the band and the city would be projected onto makeshift tents. He stated that the most important part for us to bear in mind is the narrative; he said that we should look at concepts like the development of a campsite and the people in it, before and after a festival.

Following Luke’s vital feedback, we developed this concept further by introducing a narrative of introducing a female figure to represent the ‘natural world’ whilst the boys would introduce the ‘urban world'. When developing our idea, we wanted to have a very large emphasis on the woods and nature following the feedback, we chose to have two 'woods' elements, a daytime woods scene which would show a dystopian woodland subculture where the band would be scene interacting with each other, and a nighttime woods element where imagery of the band would be projected onto the tents, following Luke's advise, alongside footage of the female figure and footage of London to visually show the contrasting environments. Eliminating the streets scenes by projecting urban imagery, we then decided to include a study.

Sketches of the new woods set

Eliminating the streets scenes by projecting urban imagery, we then decided to include a studio segment where we would also use the London footage to project onto the band making the video even more visually exciting.

3) Screening your test video to your class and/or teacher

Whilst editing our music video together, we created a ‘rough cut’ to get some immediate feedback on video to create the best final outcome that we could achieve. We collated a group of males and female teenagers together asking the both open and closed answered questions. We collated all of their feedback into a survey where we got some clear responses from the correct demographic for the indie-rock genre.

Our music video rough cut.

Here are the screenshots of the data collected from the closed questions.

The closed questions that we asked included:

-Did the band portray their characters successfully?
-Is the narrative clear?
-Did you like the overlapping at the beginning?
-Do you think there was enough variety within the sets?
-Did you get bored?

We included these closed questions to spark an immediate response from our target audience ranging from the bands performance to our use of editing, to get the broadest feedback to effectively target every element of the video.

Did the band portray their characters successfully?
This question received a very positive response, which was good as we didn't then have to alter the editing to disguise the bands performance. Though the feedback picked up on the bands friendship, so when editing the final cut we included a few more shots of the band interacting to further promote the band on a personal level.

Is the narrative clear?
Everyone answered this question 'yes' meaning that we didn't need to further emphasis the narrative in the final cut. This was a positive surprise for us, as the video we showed was only a rough cut.

Did you like the overlapping at the beginning?
Equally, everyone answered this question 'yes' as it matched the pace of the song well and was visually interesting at the start of the video, for the final cut we made sure to include some more interesting edits and jump cuts as our target audience enjoying this, with hindsight I feel as though we should have done even more of this as it matched the quirky nature of the song well.

Do you think there was enough variety within the sets?
Once again everyone said 'yes' though there was an emphasis in the feedback on the projections so in the final cut we made sure to include more projections.

Did you get bored?
No-one found the video boring, meaning that we were successful in the fast pace of editing. This again was a surprise as the video was only a rough cut.

The open questions that we asked included:

-What was your favourite element of the video?
-Did you like the pace of editing? Why?
-Do you think we should use more of the girl? Why?

We wanted to ask our audience about their favourite moment because as a group we had become so involved in the creative process it was very beneficial to hear external opinions to adjust the final cut accordingly. Also we wanted to opening ask about the pace as this was such a vital factor of the editing process, along with the girl, as we weren't completely sure that her involvement with the band in the narrative was completely clear for the viewer to understand.

What was your favourite element of the video?
The vast majority of answers included the band in the woods, this wasn't a huge surprise for use as this part of the video highlighted the bands friendship which was the bands selling point. We made sure in the final cut to emphasise the woods element.

Did you like the pace of editing? Why?
All of the answered stated that they liked the fast pace of editing, mostly because it was exciting and fitted the pace of the song.

Do you think we should use more of the girl? Why?
This was the only question which had very mixed responses, this wasn't too surprising for us as the link between the girl and the band was slightly tenuous, this was reflected in the feedback which suggested her interaction wasn't clear enough. Ultimately we made the decision in the final cut to still include the girl but to enhance her involvement making her actions more clear for the audience.

Overall, the feedback was strikingly positive. Fortunately everyone said that they enjoyed it and didn’t get bored. The feedback stated that the pace if the editing was good as it fitted the pace of the song and the genre. Also, they made a strong point of saying that the woods section was the most effective part of the video. In response to the feedback, there was very little to do due to the very positive feedback apart from tidying up some aspects of the video including colour correction that was recommended. However, we make sure there was an even larger emphasis on the woods as this aspect was the most popular with our target demographic as it was fun and energetic.

4) Response to album artwork
Once each of our group members had all created sketches of possible digipack designs we utilised YouTube to film and record ourselves to discuss and advance our concepts.

Here is the YouTube video where we gave each other initial feedback.


From each others feedback we made the decision to use my artwork as the front cover but to integrate each of the other group members concepts. India's idea of the couple's silhouette from the video was used on the back cover and Pheobe's idea of using leaves was hand drawn by myself in the inside covers.

First sketch of front album artwork:

Progressing with ideas for album artwork:

Final front and back cover:

5) Holding a focus group to get feedback on your final cut of your video and rough cuts of your digipak and homepage

Once all three products were completed, being the music video, the digipack and website, we held a focus group with our target demographic to get some feedback on the campaign as a whole, opposing just the music video. We also created an online survey to generate some immediate statistical data from a wide range of demographics. 

As a group we came up with a variety of open and closed questions to ask our final focus group. It was important that the questions that we asked were based on the campaign as a whole rather than the independent products.

As displayed in the videos, the focus groups responses were largely very positive whereas the online survey that we produced was more revealing as the participants could remain anonymous.

Here is the statistics from the online survey which were collated by Sasha:

Is the genre clearly "indie-rock" throughout the three products?
Yes	90%
No	10%
Do you think the overall style is appropriate for the genre?
Yes	100%
No	0%
Do you think the image presented is suitable for a demographic of teenage girls (15-25)?
Yes	100%
No	0%
Do you like the colour scheme?
Yes	90%
No	10%
Are all three products clearly linked?
Yes	70%
No	30%
Do the products look like they are for a new music artist?
Yes	90%
No	10%
Is the website easy to use?
Yes	100%
No	0%
Is the artwork on the album cover eye-catching?
Yes	80%
No	20%
Would you be interested in finding out more about this artist?
Yes	100%
No	0%
Were all three of the products interesting to look at?
Yes	90%
No	10%

The results were also very positive, the only surprising factor was the question which asks about how well the products were linked which received a 30% no, possibly this could be because the video contrasted the other products in its colour scheme however we did successfully carry out the star image in all three products due to the bands messy, indie rock 'look'.
In conclusion, the audience feedback was critical throughout the process as our target audience drove the creation of the texts as without the audience or their feedback the products wouldn't be relevant to any demographic.