Question 1

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

Introduction

There are many real media products that have influenced our band in making the track and myself in the making of the music video.

Bands like Nirvana, Manic Street Preachers, Sex Pistols, The Clash and the Arctic Monkeys have a similar genre of music as The Upgrade and therefore have been a big influence in the process of making this Album and music video. 

Locations

In my music video, I used the generic locations for metal, punk and rock videos by filming around the Norwich city centre.

A generic convention for rock locations are run-down urban locations, such as car parks, abandoned offices or closed factories. The reason for this is due to the origins of the genre and similar genres like punk, metal and grunge that originated mainly from angry young unemployed working-class boys who didn't have anywhere else to go to and 'hang out' in other than what their part of the city had to offer. It is also said that the thick bass lines, thundering guitars and loud drums were inspired by noises coming from the machines in the surrounding factories.

It was important to me to use this convention and make sure it links to the origins of rock. I decided that the best location reflecting this which was situated in the band's hometown of Norwich, so the bad members could still properly relate to the area, was Anglia Square as it offers a run-down atmosphere (surrounded by britain's cheapest shops, which would have been all the creators of the genre would have been able to afford), a car park and abandoned offices who the government and the council have not yet taken care of. This is why some of the walls are covered in graffitti.

Another location we used to shoot in however heavily challenged this convention.

The location outside the Playhouse Bar in Norwich is very much loved by it's middle class white british citizens. The city council take good care of it and its surroundings, which include a riverside and a playground and it is very family friendly. However we felt it was a good area to shoot the funny outtakes in, as filming a heavy rock music video with rock musicians in this area would be rather cheeky and this perfectly reflected the boys' characters.

For the performance part of my music video I challenged the urban, run-down generic locations and used an auditorium in our school. The reason for this was because this was a place where the Upgrade band in specific originated from and had used a lot of times to play and rehearse in one of which times lead to writing the song. 

Costume

I used the generic form of costume in the metal, grunge or rock area in my music video. 

A common conception for clothes in the rock and alternative genre is the stereotypical leather jacket worn by so many great rock stars over the decades.

(mick jagger, keith richards, joe strummer, kurt cobain, alex turner)

Obviously we felt it was necessary for us to use this convention and so I asked the lead singer and the bassist to wear these for the filming of the music video.

For the photoshoot I asked only the lead singer Solay to wear the jacket, so as to emphasise his importance more.

Another common association with costume in the rock and alternative music genre is denim, sometimes ripped. Once again, a very commonly used convention of style. 

(denim artists)

(kurt ripped jeans)

I used this convention in my music video as well. Nick, the drummer, was asked to wear baggy blue denim jeans.

       

Black is a colour commonly related to this genre as well reflecting its harshness and roughness. This is why I asked Sam, the bassist, to wear black jeans.   

However I challenged this convention by asking Solay to wear his bright red jeans to the video shoot in the city. Red is a colour associated with anger and blood, so this was appropriate for the angry anti-american hymn 'USA' the band play. 

Use of Performance

For the performance part of the music video, I researched the best filming techniques.

I used generic conventions in the filming, for example the use of low angle shots and close up shots (of the guitars as well as the performers).

These shots are often used in performance music videos such as the Sex Pistols' God Save the Queen and Anarchy in the UK.

I also researched more recent performance videos like Six Boom Six's The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions which is a full performance music video.

Intertextuality

Here are a few shots that were inspired by the Manic Street Preacher's similar shots in their "Motorcycle Emptiness" video

Here a few shots from Sex Pistols videos for God Save the Queen and Anarchy in the UK and how my music video is paying hommage to them:

Close up shot of the speaker

Here is an iconic scene in the film Control, which is a biopic about Joy Division's Ian Curtis when he is walking down a city street angrily wearing a leather jacket. I felt this scene was so powerful that I just needed to pay homage to it in my music video, with Solay walking down Anglia Square:

 

Another video which this shot of Solay walking references is the Rumble Strips "Not The Only Person". However this video is not available on Youtube and i could therefore not embed it on this blog.

Narrative Structure

I have challenges a lot of music video conventions by not following a specific narrative structure.

However my use of performance has conformed to the generic convention of rock bands.

My main influence in terms of unspecific narrative structure are the music video for A Hard Day's Night.

The editing of the video cutting between scenes filmed on the streets and performance is also very similar to The Doors' video to People Are Strange, although on difference is that The Doors are using Goodwin's theory of the video amplifying the lyrics and the music, which is something my music video challenges.

Digipack

I challenged the typical 3-Panel layout of a CD and added an extra 5 Panels, making my Digipack an 8-Panel CD case.

Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main product with ancillary texts?

The main aspects I kept a sense of throughout the digipack, the magazine advert and also the music video was simplicity to create raw authenticity and truth, showing the band as themselves and not an act they put on. This reflects how serious and passionate they are about their music. Coherence was created in many ways. For example, through the costume, which was the same for the boys throughout the digi-pack and advert and similar to these in the music video. Also, the colour palette stayed low saturated and black and white throughout the digi-pack and magazine advert. Imagery was repeated (the three boys standing in a row) and urban locations were used throughout.

Colour

There is a incoherence in the colour saturation of the Digipack and the music video.

My use of colour in the music video as opposed to the black and white or low saturation in the digipack is done to enhance the voyeurism, the video's attractiveness, and to maximise how entertaining it is. The colours make it more fun to watch.

The digipack however is more attractive to the target audience when it has a certain hip, vintage style about it with muted colours and lowered saturation. This represents the band as iconic, stylish and cutting edge. This would specifically attract the eye of hipsters, a subculture with has recently become overwhelmingly popular in british teenagers.

Giving the album a vintage look also suggests that it is musically revolutionary and will have a long shelf life.

Front and back cover panels 

The front cover and back cover of the digi-pack link to each other as the they depict the artists standing in the same place in the same position, but the front cover photo is taken from the front, with the band facing the lens, and the back cover is taken from behind them, with the band's backs facing the lens. 

This creates a complete presentation of the band, back and front, and also creates coherence throughout the digipack,

from the front to the back.

The simplicity and authenticity aspects of the digipack are reflected here as the band are standing in a straightforward manner, without much fuss made around them. This simplicity was also used in the editing of the pictures for the digipack on photoshop by only making small changes to the pictures, like lowering the saturation and making parts black and white.

A similar shot was also used in the music video, to again, create coherence.

Panels 2, the track list, and Panel 5, which holds the CD, have the same simple black background with the tracks written in simple white font, the same white shade as the logo, to keep the continuity, simplicity and coherence of the digipack. The black and white colours are staying in the low-saturated colour range used throughout the digipack, also creating coherence.

The four first tracks on the track list Panel 2 are actual songs names by the band The Upgrade.

I chose the name of the 5th track 'Rough Trade Me' with the intention of using vocabulary (rough) which was descriptive of the genre and hinting towards what kind of song this could be - Rough, angry, raw etc.

It is also a reference to a Rough Trade Records, a London-based independent record label who have promoted and sold records by similar bands as The Upgrade such as The Smiths or The Buzzcocks.

Track 6 is again using provocative vocabulary possibly describing what the song could be like again angry and rough, since in the name "Battleship" the word 'battle' relates to war and fighting and also anger.

Track 7 I named Casablanca because I remembered one of the band members saying they'd always wanted to go to Casablanca in Morrocco. This portrays the british city boy's  wish to get away from his hometown. 

Track number 8 is a reference to a band who The Upgrade are good friends with and play many gigs with, called The Crates.

I chose to add an acoustic version of the USA song, so the Album would be attractive to girls, who tend to prefer acoustic songs, as well as boys, who prefer the electric guitars.

Panel 3, 4 and 5 

   

For the inside of the digipack I used three close up shots of each of the three band members.  This presents a sense of insight and closeness between the audience and the band, which is also presented in the music video through the use of outtakes, giving the audience the impression that they have been invited to meet the band members behind the scenes.

The simplicity and authenticity aspect is also presented here in the same as in the front and back covers and in the location shots and performance shots of the band in the music video: the band members depicted straightforward, looking like they would on any other day (no big make up or special costume) without big drama or scenes around them distracting the eye.

Panel 7

The urban location the band are situated in on this panel creates coherence with the urban location used in the music video and throughout the digi-pack and magazine advert and it is also a generic convention of the alternative, metal and rock genres. Coherence is also established because this picture relates to the Magazine advert, which was taken in that exact location with the same lighting. 

Magazine Advert

As stated above in the description to Panel 7, this advert and the 7th panel relate to each other.

Coherence is created through the use of the same font as in the digipack, the same colour shading and the same range of low-saturated colour palette, the use of black and white, the costume and 'The Upgrade' band logo on the top left, which is the same as on the front cover of the album.

This advert would feature in britain-based rock, metal and alternative music magazines such as NME and kerrang and Q Magazine. 

Question 3

There were two main ways in which I conducted audience research. For my music video I used the social network Facebook firstly posting a link to the video publicly for anyone of my teenage friends so comment on and watch, then I did more a specific enquiry and sent a message round to some of my contacts who mostly fitted the target audience.

I used hardcopy evaluation questionnaires to gather feedback concerning my digipak and magazine advert.

Music Video Feedback:

To get feedback for my edit of the music video, I first put the video on youtube. One girl commented on it saying despite the music not being her type, she really liked the video. She also complimented the rhythm of the editing.

After this I up a post on my Facebook wall to get answers from my general public of friends, which includes a quite diverse and international base of teenagers and young adults mostly, who do not necessarily fit the target audience requirement.

 Here are some responses:

(transl. Cool video! I like the fun energy in it (do you understand?) and the short parts that are a bit clipped. but sometimes the lip movement doesn't match precisely with the sound. Good job though!)

I  then sent a mass-message going around Facebook to some of my friends (6 girls and 11 boys) who I thought fit the target audience requirements the most and would be willing to give constructive feedback.

Here are some of their responses:

So all in all, the feedback was rather positive. The main negative response was that in some parts the synchronisation wasn't quite right and the sound didn't match the lip movement 100%. This is very possible. Even though I did put a lot of time and precision into getting the timing right, it is easily done wrong. 

Other negative criticism includes the close up shot on the Pearl speaker 28 seconds into the video. One boy (aged 17, british middle class, white ethnicity)  commented saying that this puts him off big artists since in professional music videos this could count as product placement and this made him think the band are selling out for money, which he disapproves of. 

Another 17 year old boy commented on the super cutting outside the location "Playhouse" in Norwich, for example between 1 minutes 14 seconds in and 1 min 26 secs in saying he enjoyed it but wasn't sure if it fitted the song or if it was relevant. 

Positive feedback included the use of lighting adding excitement to the performance shots and making them more interesting. Also the use of close ups, partly in reference to an extreme close up high angle shot of the microphone and the lead singer Solay singing towards it (40-43 seconds in).

An 18 year old girl commented that the "combination of on location shots and 'studio performance' shots are well in proportion" and that she thought the personality of the band showed through the video, which was one of my main intentions. One girl (18) and a boy (17) both complimented my choice of track and the band. 

For the second part of my audience feedback I used hardcopy questionnaires to get a feel of the audience's response.

I asked 10 contacts of mine, 5 boys and 5 girls between the ages of 17-20, who cover most of the target audience specifics (middle class, white british late teenagers/young adults who listen to rock/alternative rock) to fill out a questionnaire.

The questionnaire consisted of 10 questions, of which 6 are asking to be rated out of 5, 1 being the least true to the question and 5 being the most. 

The first question was "Does the package successfully reflect the genre of music?".

Two questionees, having then not yet seen the music video or heard the track, asked me which was the genre of the track. This made me realise that what was to me obviously a rock/alternative cover (due to the dark lighting, urban locations and leather jackets/ripped jeans) was not necessarily obvious to the audience.

However, as the 8 others did not ask me and anticipated immediately what genre the music was, I was relieved to find that most had the same perception of the cover as I had intended.

The questionnaire offered my chosen audience to rate the answer to this question from 1 out of 5. 

Girls: 4, 4, 4, 4, 3

Boys: 4, 4, 4, 4, 3

Question 2:

Does the package successfully promote the band/artist?

Girls:  5, 5, 5, 4, 4

Boys: 5, 4, 4, 3, 3 

Question 3: 

How do you rate the standard of graphics, text, finish of digipack?

Girls:  5, 5, 4, 4, 4 

Boys: 5, 5, 5, 4, 4

Question 4: 

How do you rate the standard of graphics, print finish of advert?

Girls: 4, 4, 4, 3, 3 

Boys: 5, 4, 4, 3, 3

Question 5: 

How successfully is the Britishness of the package established?

Girls: 4, 4, 4, 4, 3

Boys:  5, 5, 4, 4, 3

Question 6: 

Would the covers encourage you to buy the digipack?

Girls: Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes. Yes

Boys: Yes, Yes, No, No, Undecided

Question 7: 

Would the advert encourage you to go to an event by this artist?

Girls: Yes, Yes, Undecided, Undecided, Undecided

Boys: Yes, No, No, Undecided, Undecided

Question 8:

Were there any aspects that you find offensive? i.e. representation of gender, age, british culture

Everyone: No.

Question 9: 

What are the three strongest features of the ancillary task?

Boys:

- bold colouring, images, design

- Layout, logo, photography

-The case photos

- portraits of artists, band logo, use of blue in the black and white (faded saturation)

- pics of the band members, logo, front cover is cool and edgy

Girls: 

- photos, fold out case, black and white theme

- the look of the boys, charisma has nicely been portrayed

- style of images represents music well, font of the band logo, construction/layout of CD case

- structure of the case

- colour/lighting, logo, layout

    

Question 10:

Rate the package overall

Girls: 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

Boys: 4, 4, 4, 4, 4.5

Any further comments: 

Girls: 

- Suggestion to possibly add an album name. Overall the package works well.

- Very nice.

Boys: 

- Awesome!

- I like the logo, it's simple yet effective.

Question 4

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

Displaying the work

My media blog was the most useful device to display my work and easily update its current stage and the progress being made. 

It was easily accessible throughout the year and saved me having to carry around heavy folders and papers and keep my research and planning organised with the use of Labels. The teacher's ability to leave comments and constructive feedback on the blogs also incredibly helped the process. 

Research for Music Video and Digipack

Finding my band 

Most of my research was done with the use of the Internet. 

I browsed through various unsigned band websites, but mainly my source was youtube. In the end I chose to ask my friend Nick if he and his band The Upgrade were willing to be part of this media project.

Digipack + Advert

The Internet, mainly websites like Google Images and Wikipedia was very useful in accessing images of past albums and their release dates/ genre specification and lead me on to similar artists.

For the research concerning my magazine advert however I relied mostly on print magazines since the internet websites of these magazines do not always show adverts for upcoming albums and singles.

Music Video

Youtube enabled me to watch past music videos by old and current bands who were very influential in the process of making this video.

The TV (also on demand catch up TV websites like BBC iPlayer) and DVDs were useful to the research to watch documentaries about bands and media-related films like the Kitchen Sink Dramas that influenced our work, and the feature film about Joy Division called Control.  

Planning

Websites like Facebook were also incredibly useful in arranging a shooting schedule with the band and the media "crew", since it would have otherwise been even harder to cooperate between 6 people's timetables and activities.

  Microsoft Office programmes such as Word, Powerpoint and Excel were extremely helpful to create files, tables and lists (for ex. Shot list/shooting schedule) and have an overview on the situation and progress.

Since at home I use a MacBook Pro computer, I had to convert files from Microsoft to Open Office or iWork 08. This was easy to do and made a wider range of programmes accessible to me.

I used the scanners which my school offered me to make a virtual copy of  the storyboard, which I had drawn onto paper, and publish it on my blog.

Construction

Music Video

I used an HD digital Canon video camera to film the footage for my music video. The touch screen technology of the camera was easy to use and its use of Memory Card rather than a tape meant we didn't risk accidentally filming over a scene and didn't have to keep fast forwarding or rewinding the tape.

The High Definition quality was perfect to create a professional looking music video. 

The editing was done with Adobe Premiere Pro. I didn't use many special effects and when I came down to the actual editing I didn't feel the need to lower the saturation or turn it black and white like I had originally planned to do because I felt the colour fitted nicely with the jokey outtake scenes in the video with music and the colourful lighting on the stage in the performance shots made the footage more interesting to the eye and more exciting to watch. 

I contemplated editing with iMovie, which was the programme I used to edit my thriller for last years AS part of the media A-level, but then decided that the facilities and the layout on Premiere Pro was better suited and easier to understand.

I chose mostly not to use transition editing because I liked the quick and sudden cut from scene to scene. It emphasises the speed editing nicely and makes it look more exciting rather than if the scenes were slowly fading into each other.

Digipack

I shot the photographs for the digipack with a SONY HD DSC-HX200V Cyber-shot Camera.

The editing for my digipack was attained through a combination of programmes. The school offered me to use Adobe photoshop to edit the photographs I had taken, which was my main editing programme. However I also used Apple's iPhoto on my personal computer to crop, flip and annotate the pictures, which I then uploaded to a USB memory stick and transferred to the Microsoft-operated school computers.

Evaluation

Social Networking websites such as Facebook and twitter were very useful in gaining immediate feedback from a wide audience or at wish a selected audience. 

The available Blog archive our school has set up was also of use and helped inspire and guide us and if we ever didn't understand a certain part of a question maybe look at what past students had written or how they had laid their work out.

The screenshot function on my MacBook Pro made it very easy to screenshot certain scenes from youtube videos and upload them to my blog.

Completed Music Video

Digipack - My Explanation

1. How I wanted to present the band and how I did it

When spending time with The Upgrade, it doesn't take long for anyone to realise that these three boys make up a rather charismatic band. Individually each of them are already a character of their own and put together they have a certain exciting chemistry, which makes their band very fun and entertaining. Any journalist could interview them and come out with a funny and interesting article which many teenagers, and mainly the target audience, would enjoy reading. They are the sort of bands who the consumers would love to have as mates and this was what I wanted to sell about the band - its character. 

Shooting the video proved rather easy since you can put these three in any street anywhere and they will just be entertaining without trying. Whatever the location they always found some way of running around and messing about jokingly kicking each other and fighting that makes them very easy to watch. They don't need a big show around them to be interesting. This is why in the video, I used a lot of outtakes.

2. How I responded to what I think male and female consumers are drawn to.

When buying CDs and music by a band, male consumers are drawn to different aspects than female consumers. The male demographic of the target audience looks for the style of the band and also the music-  upbeat, energetic and angry.

I responded to the style aspect by asking the band to wear dark clothing, jeans (possibly ripped), visibly used trainers and leather jackets, which would conform to a grungy, rock style of clothing. 

The angry and authentic music was reflected through the locations and atmosphere of the shoot - in the dark, in slightly dirty urban locations.

These aspects also help the consumers to relate to the band members, which is a very important point in the marketing.

Girls however respond to the meaning of lyrics, wanting to relate to the emotions, they like to have a connection with the band members as people rather than musicians. 

The digipack provides this sense of closeness and connection through the close up shots of the band members on panel 3,4, and 6. 

The end product: 

The digipack was a way for me to introduce the band in a simple, straightforward and authentic manner, as they are as band members and as their music is.  This is why I didn't feel the need to make a lot of fuss around them. The locations for the photoshoot were urban, in the city centre of their hometown Norwich. I used buildings and stairs that could be found in any other British city as a background rather than famous Norwich-specific locations, because I wanted to show the band as typical (common) british teenagers which the target audience can relate to. Also the urban locations are a generic convention of alternative rock music, reflecting the poverty of its roots: music made by working class unemployed young men who didn't have anywhere else to "hang out" than their inner city.

For the cover, I told the band members to stand in row in the middle of a bandstand situated in a park and look straight at the camera - no big fuss around them, no big dramatic scenery.

I kept up the simplicity and authenticity whilst editing the pictures on photoshop by only making small changes to the picture, like lowering the saturation and making parts black and white.

Panel 5 holds the CD. I chose to make this all black, so it didn't distract the eye from the other panels and also once again to keep things simple. 

The same idea was used for the track list on Panel 2 which I gave a complete black background and listed the tracks in simple white writing.

For panels 3,4 and 6 I used three close ups of each of the boys' faces as a panel each and again the only edit I made to the pictures was to lower the saturation to nearly black and white. 

The close up shots establish a closeness between the consumer and the band members promoting their characters and selling the idea of them as normal people rather than big untouchable divas or rockstars.

The 7th panel is a picture of the band members sitting on stairs. These could be stairs in any urban location in any city in Britain - where any teenagers of the target audience would sit as well.

For the back panel I took a picture of the band in the same position as on the cover just taken from behind. This was useful to give the consumers a sense that the digi-pack provides a view of the band in its entirety: front and back, close ups and casual so as to emphasise the established connection between the consumer and the band and to give the consumers a sense that they can relate to the band.

Digipack Layout

Here is an explanation of the layout of my digipack, which consists of 8 panels rather than three.

NOTE: These are made with the panels from my rough draft digipack. After putting them together and letting them be evaluated, I made changes to the Tracklist Panel 2 (adding more song names onto the list), and Panel 8 (adding the barcode and record label info to the bottom right hand corner). Those changed panels are to be examined, these rough drafts are to be used to explain the layout only.

 This is the first panel and the front cover of the digipack:

When you open it, it opens into two panels, panels 2 (Tracklist) and 7:

These two then each open into 4 panels. Panels 3 (close up of Solay), 4 (close up of Sam) 5 (the CD) and 6 (close up of Nick) :

Folded back together, these make place for the back cover (behind panel 5):