Finished Magazine Advert!!

This is the finished ancillary task. I am now going to analyse this advert.

The Heading:

The colour of the heading is red because the it signifies Romance and the fact that it's the only writing that's coloured is because I want it to stand out. The main aim of the video is a love story and the use of red colour sends out the message as red associates with romance and love as well as passion.

The Background/Image:

The image is in black and white, however it was originally taken in colour. Yes, there is a reason to why it is in black and white. These colours you don't often see in magazine adverts therefore it would easily catch the audience's attention amongst those other bright coloured magazine advert. The aim of this whole use of rare colours is keep it sweet and simple rather than packed and filled with bright colours which could grab an individual's attention instantly. The image is of the couple holding hands, holding hands signifies love and attachment which is what this music video is about. It shows that they don't want to be apart from each other...

The Scan Code:

Many youngsters seem to own a blackberry and since i am an owner myself i know how this works. The Blackberry app world consist of an app which you can download for free and scan things to find out prices or where something is available. I think the use of this barcode is effective in my magazine cover because my intended audience is teenagers, Teens usually own blackberry's and thus they would want to scan to find out whats available for them.

HMV/Itunes/Amazon:

HMV is where people usually by music and movies from, having this on the magazine advert informs people where the music is available for purchase. Itunes is also a known software where people usually buy their music from thus as well as it's advertising Itunes, it also helps us get our intended audience to go buy it. Amazon is a site from where you can order things, having this on the magazine advert shows the audience other ways to get hold of the music.

Quotes:

"All I need is a guitar and my baby" this quote is part of the lyrics of the music, by including this on the magazine advert makes the audience wonder what this could be about and it also gives them a hint of the storyline of the music. 

Finished DIGIPAK! :)

After all the hard work and the struggle.... I finally have the digipak!

This is the front cover of the Digipak. I used an image of the couple holding hands because holding hands in my view is a sign of love and never letting go. Having this as the front cover is effective because it gives a message that the music video is about love and romance. I think that the use of a red top or ring would have been effective as it shows more of the love.

This is the first panel that the audience will expect to see inside the digipak.

This is where the cd will go.

This is the image of the main actor and this will also be present inside the digipak.

This is one of the panel of the digipak which is found on the outside. This is a screenshot from the music video, i used this because the audience know what they're looking for in the music video, it almost introduces them to the actors or if they've watched the music video before, it helps them recognise the artist.

This is the back cover where we have the playlist for the CD and the barcode so that when the audience is buying it, it will be easier to get scanned. The playlist consists of real and made up songs by the artist itself or other known signed artists. This makes my digipak look realistic.




The first three panels..

The 3 panels inside the digipak, rotated.

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

While creating this media product, technologies have played a big part throughout.  From new to old, they were all used with my research,planning and the actual media product.I have created a presentation using Microsoft publisher and slide-share to ask this question. The file was too large for it all to fit in one therefore it has been divided into two parts... 

Evaluation question 4 part 1

View more PowerPoint from Chitra Jeebodhun

Evaluation question 4 part 2)

View more PowerPoint from Chitra Jeebodhun

Evaluation Question 3): What have you learnt from your audience research?

While creating any media product, it is important that we have an intended audience in mind. This is because there is many differences between some one from a high social class's choice than someone who belongs to a medium social class. And it also matters when it comes to age, a person at the age of 40 will prefer a different kind of music than a person that's 14-18. 


Before staring with any of our task, it was essential for us to find out whether or not, my intended audience like the music and what kind of things they would want to see of we're making a music video based on this specific music. To accomplish this task, we made a focus group where we asked people to spare a fe moments and give their opinions on the music we've chosen. Below you'll find the focus group.


These are the questions that were asked: 
-Did you like the music?
-Can you think of any alike artist?
-If you were making this music video with the same song, What would your idea for the video be?

What have we learnt? What does the audience want?

By creating this focus group on our music choice, it has helped me and my partner to make decisions on what will our music video look like. Many of the people we interviewed were around the age of 15-18 and this is the intended target audience for my music video therefore it is important to know what they think when it comes to an R 'n' B music. This genre is very famous in our modern world therefore it was approved by the majority.  We found out some ideas we can include on our music video for example use of candles and simple things like that we were told which we included on our music video.Through the focus group we've learnt many thing, for example we learn more of the choice of the intended audience and what is it that they'd liken to see in a music video. A better question i personally think that should have been asked was what is your favourite genre?, Everyone's choice on music varies therefore it would have been good to know what they prefer. Being a teenager myself and being around my friends, i realised that R 'n' B does have a higher popularity than the other genres as we all prefer to listen to it. 

How will it have helped us?

This has helped us in various ways, me and my partner had good ideas of our videos at first but we didn't realise that it will be pretty hard for us to bring action to those ideas. The focus group helped us get more ideas that could be useful, some people suggested that the singer should be driving the car whereas others say he should be sitting on top of the car. Since not many of us drive, it would have been hard getting a guy to drive if he doesn't know how to! Therefore we could just stick to the idea of him sitting on top of a car and singing. It is simplicity of our music video that will make it beautiful to watch.

So...Did it actually help us?

According to me, yes, yes it did help us! It gave us ideas of what to include in the music video and made us aware of what the audience wants and how we c

an fulfill those needs of theirs. I have to admit at first it was hard to figure out a story-line for this. We came out of various ideas but the lack of actors had let us down.


In order to remind ourselves of the audience's needs, we made a wordle of all the specific things they want to see!

The wordle of our findings!

• Now that you've listened to the music, what do you think of it?

• On a Scale of 5, how would you rate it?

• Personally, would you consider this music video if you were making this music video?

• If you were making this music video based on this song, what would your music video be like? As in the story itself? 

11 out of 18 people think that this music is amazing for an unsigned artist.

12 people rated it 4 out of 5.

The majority would consider using this music in their own music video if they're intending to.

Many suggested that the artist should be on a car, there should be candles and roses. 



This is a screenshot of the audience feedback for my ancillary task which is available on my blog.

In the process of creating the audience feedback group on facebook!

I have written down the instructions of what this group is about and what the audiences are suppose to do in order to guide them.

This is the music video that i've posted, however i didnt realise the survey wasn't posted on the comment box therefore i've just posted it again!

I've added the magazine advert and digipak in different albums so the audience will find it easier to search.

Finally, I have posted above the magazine advert and digipak's album, the surveys that they will need to take.


Below is screenshots of my web link survey for the finished main product, however i won't put the digipak and magazine advert's survey on this post as it is more relevant to question 2 however it also answers my question of what i've learnt from that feedback of the magazine advert and digipak.

This is necessary as i wanted to see if i targeted the right audience or not. 

I have included this question in order to find out which gender is more interested in a romantic music video ,

In addition to this, I even posted the music choice on Facebook along with a survey so we can get more people to give their opinions.
I posted my artist's music on Facebook along with a survey from survey monkey. In the survey i have asked some question based on our choice of the music.

This is  really important for us at the moment since mine and my partners ideas are totally different and therefore some suggestions will help us to make our mind up since we really need to get filming or else we're going to be behind which is the last thing we want right now.!

Here's a screen grab of of the survey monkey while it was being prepared.

This a screengrab of me posting the survey to Facebook! 

This is now on Facebook on my t and people have started taking the survey... I will soon be able to have all the results in.


These are the results I've obtained from 18 people.

As you can see from above, these are the results unfortunately we couldn't do analyse it on a chart as i was using the basic version of survey monkey.

From what I've learnt from the survey is that the majority of the audience have appreciated the song by this unknown unsigned artist. And many have given it a rating of 4/5 which implies that this is a good song choice. The majority of my audience was ranged from 17 till about 40 and most of the 17-20 year old seemed to have appreciated the music more than an older person will. I've had one negative review which explains that although there is a majority of 17+ that likes the music, not everyone has the same taste in music.

The actual tasks:


For the Digipak and Magazine Advert, I created a survey on survey monkey which i've posted on my second evaluation question so that people may come onto my blog and take the survey.I intended to post it on facebook however it is difficult to post the survey with the digipak and the survey monkey on Facebook. And also considering the fact that i've posted my other survey monkey survey regarding audience feeback on my music choice on the social networking site, it will be good and challenging to try something different.


The audience feedback for the ancillary tasks informs me of what went good and what could have been better. Personally it is very important that we gain audience feedback as it's better to learn from your own mistakes. Yes, it took effort to make this task but only with people advising us of what could have been better will help us produce better and more effective work.


I have posted the magazine advert and digipak survey along with my music video survey on facebook as i feel that it is easier to get quicker responses. To establish this, I created a group on facebook named the "A2 Media Coursework- Stargazer" where i have added people to come and take the surveys. I have written down instructions for them and posted each post individually so that my audience is not confused.

This is where the audience is able to voice their opinions on what they actually think of the music video and what should have been done for it to be better.

On Facebook, on the group i created for my audience, i posted my music video as you can see from the above images. Fortunately the music video has received many likes which shows that the audience are impressed and they like it. Some people have also commented to congratulate for being able to attempt making a music video.

Some who hasn't taken the surveys have liked and commented on the music video's post instead. It is absolutely pleasing to see that they have appreciated our work.

Looking at the likes and comments shows that people are appreciating our effort, it may not be as expected but most of the ideas i wanted to include was there. If we didn't have to change actors, i personally think it would have been a really good music video as along with the actor we had to change the whole story line. 

As expected, the majority of people that took this survey are in the ages of 18-25 which is actually the mature age for them to understand relationship. This shows that my audience was correctly targeted! 

Here there is an equal amount of boys and girls who have taken this survey which shows that males and females both in that age category are mostly attracted by the romantic kind of music videos. This could be perhaps because this is the age people are starting to look for the right person or is with the right person.

Here, the majority thought that the effort was excellent which is amazing because after all the troubles we have faced with our music, actors and time, it was made to a reasonable standard and many appreciated the effort.

A huge amount of the audience though that the music was really good as they have rated it 4/5. This is interesting because for an unsigned artist, the music is well appreciated and it also helps promotes his music which may be able to help him gain more fans.

As you can see above is 2 screens-shots of the audience's feedback in writing. As well as we got good comments, "Nice job", "cute video", "keep it up", "great work". We were also faced with some criticism which was something expected. As we had a change of actor at the last minute therefore the new main artist was unable to fully learn the song as he tried learning it within 24hours which is not much time for someone to get used to song they've never heard. The lip-syncing is not exactly paralleled to the music, there are some bits that were fine but some bits were not and in order to hide that we didn't have no other scenes as we had a deadline approaching and my partner lost the first tape where most of the shooting had been recorded which we could have used to hide the un-parallel lip-syncing. Unfortunately this was also an issue so we had to stick to the ones that were already captured on final cut express. Due to this some scenes were shaky because they were not the original scenes that was suppose to go in the music video. The audience had a perfectly reasonable reason to critise as it also helps us to know what we could have done or could do to make it better if we were ever planning to re-make.

Overall view if the audiences...

I have taken every feedback from everyone and put them into a wordle so that it is clearer to what the audience think. I have included feedback i received from people verbally or by bbm as I invited my contacts to my website to have a look at my work and do my surveys through my blackberry instant messaging service. I had expected the words "Cute, Romantic and Sweet" because this was the main objective of my music video, to show romance and love. Overall I feel that, though we've faced many troubles, the music video was made to a reasonable standard and what I personally have learnt from it is the importance of planning. If I had found the music earlier, it would have been easier for me to figure out what kind of actors i am looking for. Me and my partner even decided to hold an audition for those who would like to be in the music video however since the music took time and to get hold of copyright took time therefore we just had to find an actor straight away, unfortunately it was a mess as our actor had their own exam to prepare for thus a new actor was needed. These problems have definitely taught me a lesson of planning for the ahead. However I am mostly pleased with my ancillary task as I completed those with my own hard work not knowing how to use a Photoshop. The results for my ancillary tasks were very encouraging. 

Evaluation Question 2): How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

Before making my three media products, it was absolutely necessary for me to find my intended audience. As I am a teenager/adult myself, i decided that my audience should be from middle social demographic group around the age of 18-30. I felt that this age group is more appropriate as it contains elements of romance/love/passion and it's something that people this age is more interested in. I have considered colours that will compliment with the mood of the music video and also applied it to my ancillary tasks. 


Both my magazine advert and digipak compliment each other very well and it also relate to the media product (music video).
In order to create these ancillary tasks, I have been through a lot of researched. From Professional to non-professional magazine adverts on the internet and even  from current and ex student's, these have given me ideas on how i'd like my magazine advert to look like. If you see from my previous posts on Magazine/Digipak Planning Research/Analyse you will find plenty of research that were carried out before the making of ancillary tasks. 
The magazine advert is very simple and basic but it is effective at the same time. I've used very basic and limited colours as in order to create something different it was vital that i challenge myself with 3 colours and a basic picture of the couple.The music video is about a couple in love and in their own world.  

Here is a comparison and analysis of my digipak.

Below is a presentation I've done using slide rocket where i have talked about certain things that links all my 3 tasks...

In order to find out how well my main product compliment with my ancillary task as well as each other, i have made a survey using survey monkey.


I even allowed people to come look at my blog and answer the survey from here too just in case they don't have Facebook.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

I have now received most of the feedback from the audience and have the results to what the audience think of the digipak and the magazine advert.

My first question on the digipak was for the audience to rate the digipak. From the results it's obvious that the majority thought it deserved a 4/5 which is good to see because using photo shop was not a simple task for a first time user like me and to be able to come out with such a fine work is pretty pleasing. It's also good to see that 40% believed it was a 5/5! 

The magazine advert was the first thing i learnt to create using CS3 Photoshop after watching various of tutorials. Having the majority of audience rating it 4/5 is also very shocking for me but it shows appreciation into my effort.

In this question there was a tie! Half of audience though that the colours was very well complimenting each other whereas the other half think that the colours are not too bad.

Again for me, this was shocking but absolutely encouraging to see that people have appreciated my piece of work not even realizing that i am a first time user of that technology. This shows that if i was a good editor and used to the software my ancillary task would definitively have been great! 

Audience feedback on the last question on what improvements they suggest was vital, this was because it helps me to know whether or not they have like my work and what else could i add or do to make it better for next time. Some said that the magazine cover should have been a different colour whereas some said that more red should have been added in order to show that this is a romantic music video's magazine advert. Apart from these criticism, which is helpful, the rest of the audience thought that it was a fine piece of work and both the ancillary tasks compliment each other very well as well as with the main product


Analysis of the audience feedback.

I converted the audience feedback wordle into  a jigsaw puzzle which is fun  and effective! here's the link: http://www.jigsawplanet.com/?rc=play&pid=369b572562e7

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

This is a prezi I've made using prezi.com in order to answer question 1 on the media conventions. This prezi shows how i was able to use real media conventions in my music video and explore it what was i developed or challenged it. 

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

Making of Digipak.

This is just some screen shots to take you through the journey of the making of the digipak, It has been a HARD task for amateur users of photoshop like myself as it was something i've never used but by going through tutorials and attempting it a couple of times it's gradually coming to be. And hopefully at the end of it i shall be a PRO!


Firstly I searched for a 6 panel template so that it will be easier to know how it will look like by the end of it and it also helps me make decision if the colour scheme is the way i like it to be and it avoids me using different kind of colours. For example for the colour red, there are various reds like medium,light or dark and with technology you can choose how dark or light you want it to be and if i use one kind of colour it will be hard for me to try get it to the same perfect colour as it doesn't have a code.


This is how i started it a few weeks ago however I am only going to finish it off now as i've been busy working on the magazine advert and i would like to make sure it matches the magazine advert as it gets it catchy.

The black borders is where i will include some writing and some advertising objects. My intention was to put a white background everywhere but with stars of red,black and white unfortunately I've searched the web and they have none in that kind of combination but I was thinking if i could make my own background however i am concerned about the time as the coursework is due this week. It also worries me that it would be 'too simple'. The image for the front cover is the same as the magazine advert like I've said i want to keep most of the things the same and since I've made the image in black and white, it sounds more appropriate to have a starlight grey background as it shows the sparkly stars.

Sony is a known company and therefore distributing music through them is beneficial as it attracts more audience.

Image above: This is an internet based picture and seems to be a work of a student, though this doesn't really have much to do with the making of digipak, I've looked at it and it looks very interesting and it makes me think about making a few changes to my own magazine advert if i have time as this is pretty appealing to me as it advertises the digipak at the same time! I would probably consider these changes.

Since we don't intend to show the any pictures of the actual artist and co artist in either the digipak nor magazine advert because this helps build more suspense as to who this 'couple' is. 

This picture is originally taken like this with a professional camera by a friend who does Photograph and now i shall be editing in my way so that it looks black and white which will compliment with the colour schemes of my ancillary tasks.

Here is the picture that i've edited using picnik.com where i could get the black and white effect easily and it could be applied with much easiness as well.

The CD template: This is the CD template that I've created using Microsoft Publisher and Paint which i will add to the Digipak now. (5th Completed Panel)

FIRST COMPLETED PANEL (FRONT COVER):