Ancillary Task: Digi Pak

Ancillary Task: Magazine Advert

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

While shooting the powder paint scenes creating the correct lighting was important because if it was too dark then it was difficult to see the colours being thrown which would have really taken away from the effect we were tying to create. Once we had identified the need for decent lighting in these scenes we had to come up with a way to create the correct lighting, this is where we began to struggle because we were filming in an outside shed which meant there wasn't a lot of space to fit in large lights, to over come this we took one of the single florescent light bulb sticks off the ceiling and placed it in front of the actress, this created a bright light which effectively light up the shooting space. Although this wasn't a professional way of creating light it worked really well for us and created the specific high key lighting that we needed. During the shooting for the performance scenes we needed to have the sound track playing in the background for the actors to sing along to and play along to, this was simple enough to do in the music studio of the instrumental performance as there was a sound system in there which was easy to set up and was loud enough to play over the sound of the drums. However when it came to filming the singing side of the performance we actually filmed it in an empty class room, and because we were in school we were unable to access YouTube to play the sound track, eventually we realised that the song was on my Mac therefore all we had to do was connect the speakers via the aux cable and play the song through the main speakers. Once we had set the sound up for the actor to sing along to we were even able to pull the lyrics up on the white board for him to look at between shots. This was helpful because he was able to recap the song lyrics before shooting which meant that we had very few shots that needed refilling due to incorrect lyrics being spoken. 

Created with Padlet

Once the video had been completed, we found it very beneficial to post it online onto YouTube, as this allowed a large audience of people that we didn't necessarily know us that would be spaced all over the country and potentially even over the world. This meant that we created awareness of out video. And because of the share feature on YouTube people who like it can share it with friends and gain even more views. YouTube was the main way of gaining views on our video, however this didn't give us any feedback, this is where the use of Facebook because important because using this site people we knew and were close to were able to give us personal feedback that we would receive instantly. Therefore we found this very beneficial as we could respond to the feedback we had received and gain a further in depth information on their views of out music promo. 

Shot List

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Before we began to plan our music video our group created vox pops and interviewed people to find out their favourite music video and why they liked it. We also created a questionnaire and a focus group to find out what our target audience was expecting from us and to find out if they felt our initial ideas were suited to our genre type. In doing this primary research the group were able to gather a basic plan of what the music video is going to look like.

From the information that we gathered we learnt what our audience was expecting form the costume and location, we acted on this by fitting our costume and locations to what the focus group were expecting. We also learnt that the focus group felt we needed to be careful not to make the music video too repetitive as they felt the lyrics were repetitive and they felt that this would make the music video boring. 

Our mentor helped us with frequent meetings to discuss the progress of the music video and any changes necessary. From these meetings we were given a list of improvements and changes to be made and a few days to make the changes. This was helpful because it gave us an outside opinion on the video and some other inspiration. It also allowed us to get our music video to the highest possible standard. 

Once the video had been completed and uploaded to YouTube we were able to gain feedback from a larger audience who didn't necessarily know us and by using the PollEverywhere we gained harsher feedback because people could respond anonymously therefore wouldn't feel obliged to give positive feedback. The feedback we got was mainly very positive and several people ‘Shared’ our video on Facebook. Not only this but we were able to contact the band EchoTape and sent them a link to the video, the band gave very positive feedback on it and even asked if they could share it on their own Facebook page, this meant that the perfect target audience was reached because EchoTape’s own fan’s were able to see the video and feedback. On top of this we create another short focus group with a different set of people to ask them questions on our finished music video and ancillary tasks (Below)

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

By looking at these media products as a whole, I feel that our group met the task very well. This is because I feel that we managed to produce three different types of media and bring them together to create a promotional package. As well as this, our three products work together to give out our desired representation of our chosen band ‘EchoTape’ and then carried this representation throughout the other elements of the promotional package produced. 

To make the three products work and relate to each other it was important for us to create a synergy, meaning that when you looked at one product you would instantly know that it was part of the ‘EchoTape’ promotional package. We did this by keeping a main and recognisably unique band logo and used this through out the three products Not only this, but we decided to have the lead singer appear on both the front cover of the magazine advert and on the front and back of the album cover, tis way anyone who sees the music video will instantly recognise him in the advert or digipak and vice versa for the other products.This helps with advertising as it begins to build up an image for the band that is relatable throughout its work. Along with the use of the lead singer appearing in all three products, on the inside cover of the digipak we chose to have a shot of the girl on the bike holding up the wheel to go behind the CD panel. We choose to have this image here because ‘Whiskey Bar’ (the song we used in out video) is the main selling point for the video therefore we felt it important to make a strong link here.

Ideally, our magazine advert would be advertised in independent music magazine through out the UK and globally. This would mean that the audience who are viewing it will take an interest in it and the advertising will be worth while as we are making the best possible attempts to reach our target audience. Below is a list of magazines we feel our magazine advert would fit into well and would mean maximum target audience was reached. 

The Wire 

The Wire is an independent, monthly music magazine covering a wide range of alternative, underground and non-mainstream musics. The Wire celebrates and interrogates the most visionary and inspiring musicians on the planet, past and present. Its office is based in London, but it serves an international readership. The magazine was founded in 1982, primarily as a jazz and New Music magazine. Between 1984-2000 it was owned by Naim Attallah's Namara Group. In December 2000 it was purchased in a management buy-out organised by the magazine's staff and has been run independently ever since.

Bearded 

Bearded exists to generate coverage for independent labels and artists regardless of genre, background or how fashionable they are. Bearded aims to do this with writing that allows the reader to form their own opinions rather than being told what to think and what to like. Bearded’s editorial direction is not dictated by advertisers, distributors or anybody else that might generate monetary support. It is put together exclusively by music lovers for music lovers – like a conversation in a pub, but much more polite.

FLUX 

FLUX is a spirited, independent fashion, music and arts magazine featuring the best, living, breathing culture from the UK & across the globe. FLUX was launched as a fanzine in Manchester in 1997. It evolved into a high end style and culture magazine distributed across the UK and beyond.

To gain digipak sales, I feel it would be important to sell our digipak in the large and well known music shop, HMV, this is because this shop is split into genres and shoppers know that they can find a range of music here. So not only will people who are specifically looking for our album know exactly where to find it, customers who are looking around for a new genre of music will also be able to find the album without having to go to specialised record shops. By being in HMV the digipak would be available to a large market of both existing and potential buyers. Another bonus to selling the digipak in HMV would be the promotional affairs that they do here, occasionally HMV will carry our ‘meet and great’ sessions within their larger stores and also offer CD signings when new and popular albums are released. This would mean that a promotional activity could be organised in which ‘EchoTape’ could physically come down and meet their fans and sign their Digipak’s. In doing this ‘EchoTape’ would be able to drum up even more support from buyers and potentially vastly increase the sales of their digipak and album. 

For the music promo I feel the best way to reach a maximum audience is through modern technology such as YouTube, Facebook and iTunes. This is because I feel that the audience who tend to listen to this genre of music are more likely to go out and actively search of the music they love online, via websites such as ‘last.fm’ and ‘YouTube’ where other bands and artist’s are ‘suggested’ to them. This is because I feel that this particular target audience are a lot more open to music choices and willing to discover new music and bands. By using these modern websites such as YouTube viewers have the ability to ‘share’ their favourite songs across many platforms such as Facebook and Spotify, meaning that an even larger audience can be reaches almost instantly and for no extra cost from the producers. These factors I feel make modern technologies more suited to advertising this genre because there is larger opportunity to reach a mass audience quickly and effectively. 

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

                 

With modern technology such as YouTube and Facebook, music videos have become a much more important part of the music industry, allowing bands and artists to give a visual expression to their music. It also acts as a strong and interesting promotional tool for new and old bands. And with websites such as Facebook and Youtube artists big and small are able to reach equal audiences globally, however not everyone viewing them maybe the right target audience the artist is trying to reach. While digi pak’s and magazine articles tend to target smaller markets the audiences viewing them tend to be more niche and suited to who the artist is aiming to reach. This is a more conventional method of promotion and is a lot cheaper then creating a music video, however some may say that a music video is key to the success of a music promo while not having a magazine article isn't too much of a big deal. By creating an interesting digipak customers feel as though they are getting something special and unique opposed to just the standard album, also creating a feel of ‘luxury’ to the product which often leads to people collecting them, adding value to the product. Digipak’s tend to feature the ‘6-panel’ template opposed to the ‘4-panel’ template seen with most album’s that are released. 

From the research we conducted our group gained inspiration from ‘The Family Rain’ music video ‘Trust Me…(I’m A Genius)’ from this music promo we liked the idea of using a bike, we thought this gave connotations of freedom which is important to the indie genre. Also from this video the use of flare smoke inspired us, we used this inspiration and developed it by using powder paint as we felt it was a unique concept that hadn't been done before yet still fitted the conventions of our genre. 

As well as this, by looking at ‘Example’s’ music video ‘Kickstarts’ we got the idea to use split screens, however we again developed this further by splitting the screen 4-ways instead of just two as featured in Example’s music video. We chose to do this because after experimenting with the split screens we felt that using 4 screens instead of 2 looked more effective and neater. It also allowed for more editing opportunities such as having each quarter flash in to the beat of the song. 

For the props, we mainly used the instruments and the bike, I feel that by using the instruments we are following all basic conventions of any music video as performance is a key part to many, if not all, music genre promos. Therefore must be included in out video to make it as authentic and conventional as possible. While the bike was more specific to our music video as it was needed for our main concept of the bike riding scenes. The style of the bike however was influenced by our genre as we chose a slightly older fashioned design which looked more classical opposed to todays modern looking BMX bike which might be more suited to a Rap music video. The pale blue of the bike made it seem more relaxed and had an ‘indie’ vibe to it opposed to something like a bright green or yellow bike which might have seemed bit out of place in our music video due to the pale pastel-y colours used during the power paint scenes. 

For the locations we again took inspiration from ‘Trust Me…’ by using an outside setting that was very quite. Not only did we think this setting was suitable for our video it was also practical because the road was very quite which meant that we could film the bike scenes without being interrupted by cars and predestines, making it a safe place to film.

For the instrumental performance setting we chose to use the schools music studio. This is because we felt it offered a DIY feel to the music video, which through researching the band we learnt is the kind of thing they aim to do. We felt keeping this feel of a ‘DIY band’ was important because it was their identity and as they felt it was appropriate for the band we felt it needed to be portrayed in our video.  So by having shots of the recording studio in the background we felt it gave it a more home-made feel which is what the band often tries to represent.