Welcome to our A2 Media Coursework blog! :)
You can navigate through the posts by clicking on the labels to the right of the blog.
There are:
"Research and Planning" labelled posts which will collectively show you our group's research and planning.
Individual labels for each member of the group's contributions: "Aidan Contributions", "Daniel Contributions", "Raagavi Contributions" and "Shobnam Contributions".
Each of our evaluations also have seperate labels: "Aidan Szczurek Evaluation", "Daniel Gittings Evaluation", "Raagavi Sivakumar Evaluation" and "Shobnam Islam Evaluation".
Thank you for taking the time to read our blog. We hope you have a good time!
To summarise our project: Song: "Unbreakable" (Originally by "Fireflight") Artist: The Defiance Genre: Rock Target Audience: 15-22 year olds
Throughout the project, research and planning of real media products influenced every decision we made as a group. We researched real artist brands, music videos, websites and album covers to note conventions of these products and draw inspiration for every aspect of our project. Below are outlined some of the artists and campaigns that influenced our decisions such as: Paramore, Within Temptation, We are the In Crowd, The Script, and Train.
Music Video
This director's commentary explains how we wanted to follow some general music video conventions, but also produce a rock video which stood out from others and gave a meaningful message.
Narrative influences:
As explained in the commentary, many of the rock music videos we watched were performance-driven or only followed the lead singer in a narrative e.g. just dragging the seek bar quickly through the music videos below, the narrative only follows Sharon Den Adel, the lead singer. The second video demonstrates the conventional performance-based rock music video.
This video is an obvious example of the lead singer being portrayed as the most important figure, which we wanted to avoid.
The Paramore video is completely performance-based, which is also what we did not want for our own video, as we thought our song was more meaningful (addressed further below).
We wanted to break this convention, and decided to create a narrative-driven music video. Although our storyline was inspired by "Hall of Fame" by The Script, the idea for the whole band narrative stemmed from "Rumour Mill" by We are the In Crowd. These are the final shot of the characters in "Hall of Fame" - They have successfully achieved their dreams.
As shown in the gif of "Rumour Mill", each band member had their own storyline, which we wanted to re-create. The story itself in uncommon in rock songs, where performance is the priority (as mentioned in the director's commentary). Our message of never giving up or becoming "unbreakable" was not common in the rock music we listened to, or the videos we watched in the rock genre.
"Rumour Mill" band member character storylines
Our recreation of this
Todorov's narrative theory:
As we wanted to tell a story, almost like a film, we decided it best to stick to this theory.When we had access to our edit suite, the first thing we did was start working on the narrative sequences for each character. This was because we had not had many performance shoots, thus we did not have much footage. The narrative footage was also easier to edit together as it did not require as quick editing as performance would.
Each character had 3 sequences, which we tried to fit to Todorov's Narrative Theory as best we could.
After trawling through hours of footage, we picked the best shots, and created 3 short action sequences which we could integrate together for the song verses in the music video.
My / The lead singer's narrative sequence
Aidan's / The Guitarist's narrative sequence
Camera/ technical influences:
The music video to "Drops of Jupiter" by Train heavily influenced the camera movement in our video. We wanted to create similar constant camera movement. Although this particular song is not a rock song, many rock music videos (such as the ones above) do contain a lot of camera movement. Without narrative, or with less narrative, it is crucial that the performance maintains audience interest for the duration of the song.
Drops of Jupiter camera movement example
How we tried to recreate constant different camera movements
Styling
The artists already mentioned: Within Temptation and Paramore, also influenced our styling. The band members are dressed in casual but stylish t-shirts/ shirts and jeans. Each member has an individual look but complements the others.
Screenshot form "Ignorance" - Dark shirt, sleeves rolled up - This corresponds to the colour of the drum-kit, therefore completing his look as a drummer. His costume is different to what the other members are wearing, therefore he stands out even though the outfit itself is quite simple. He also has a beard, which none of the other band members do.
Screenshot form "Ignorance" - The guitarist appears the light, quirky one of the group as he is wearing a light blue shirt, and even his guitar is a brighter colours He has his own character and personality within the group, which is an important convention of music videos when portraying band performance.
Screenshot form "Ignorance" - As mentioned, each member of the band has an individual style, but also work together well to complete the whole band look. We wanted a similar effect for The Defiance.
As you can see, we chose a more Paramore - inspired look for the male members of The Defiance, while the leader is dressed in a more Gothic style dress. This was so that she was immediately different and unique in the band.
In this screenshot from "Stand my Ground", the band are all dressed in similar black Gothic clothing, whereas we wanted to emphasise the lead singer in the group shots, therefore we broke this convention.
Representation:
Goodwin's theory points out that the music industry often has "voyeuristic treatment of the female body", hence we wanted to steer away from the sexualisation of women as outlined in our gender representation research post. Thus, the lead singer of The Defiance, while we tried dressing her stylishly and so she would appeal to both the male and female audience, is not exposed or inappropriately dressed.
Website
In a research post, we investigated the features of music artist websites and female fronted rock band websites:
We stuck to these music artist website features, but also had to personalise ours to suit our rock genre. Dark colours, such as on the Evanescence website, were typical of rock websites, so we wanted to portray our genre clearly, therefore followed it. There was also a banner, which most artist websites had, that stayed constant in all the pages of the website to promote one overall brand, which we also drew upon.
Evanescence website banner
Album cover
The Album cover features were some that are present on all album covers such as a bar code, album title, artist etc. The cover similarly portrays the genre of the music, and must efficiently give an idea at first glance of what the audience can expect from the songs.
The following research made clear that we should include an image of The Defiance band members on the front to immediately promote our brand, and our album and artist names should be clear and bold.
Altogether, we wanted a product that was somewhat conventional to the rock genre, but we did not want to simply copy or follow blindly. Therefore by having an unconventional narrative, we tried to make our debut single and music video stand out.
Our music video is a 50/50 narrative to performance. We chose the Rock genre for our song, and played it as a three-piece band. For inspiration we used Paramore and others which I will go into detail about later on. When creating our media product we researched the forms and conventions of real media products and then decided how we would use them in our music video. We decided we would have to conform to a few conventions of the rock genre to make sure our product was recognisable and liked by the genres' fans, but we also felt we had to develop and challenge come conventions to make our video stand out and hopefully change the genre to make it better in the future, like having a female lead singer who isn't sexualised.
Goodwin's Theory:
We followed Goodwin's Theory as this is the backbone of a music video so we showed strong links between lyrics and visuals to emphasise the songs lyrics and there meanings. We also used complimentary and amplificational links between the music and the visuals to create a more exciting feel to the video. We want to develop the genre by not sexualising or objectifying the female character as we don't want to have objectified women as a convention of the rock genre.
Above is a Prezi explaining the forms and conventions in our video. Use the arrow buttons to navigate and the bottom right button to use full screen.
Directors Commentary:
This is our directors commentary where we go over our video from our perspective.
Website:
On our website we needed to have clear navigation to give ease of use for the audience so they could access everything with ease. We used large simple buttons on the header to make it obvious how to access all the parts of the website. We followed convention with the sections by including band member profiles, a gallery of photos for the band and an interactive section where the audience can connect with the band. This section connects to social media and also makes it able for audiences to purchase band connected items. This makes the audience feel they are receiving extra content from the band and seem like a more dedicated fan so they feel closer and a stronger connection to the band itself. We also have our band name in large font at the top of the screen in front of a large picture of our band to emphasise the connection between them. It also creates synergy with our video as it is the same word design as is on the drum kit in the video. This picture is shown on every page of the website as we are a new band so we need to maintain a strong band image.
Album Cover:
Our album cover includes the album name in large predominant white letters which is the convention of debut albums along with the band name in white letters that makes it stand out but the album name is still more eye catching. The title was to do with how we are a new band and that we are rising to the top. We also include a mysterious background that I made using multi-layered contrasting. This gave the sense that we are new and unknown but have a lot to offer that we have not shown yet. We also kept convention by having all the band members as the main image on the front cover but also had more images of band members on the inside as well. We are all looking up to create connection between the image and the text as we feel that we are ascending and a looking forward to were we are rising to.
Overall we wanted a product that challenged conventions and didn't just want to copy what has been done before. By having a strong narrative in our debut music video, we felt this would make us stand out.
We tried to make all of our products synergise with each other to make sure there was a clear connection between them to give our band a really strong band image. This means that audiences can recognise our band through our ancillary texts and thus stay in the loop with the information and events that our band has.
Synergy in Branding:
Fireflight are a band that we took a lot of inspiration from as we did use their song. They have a strongly synergistic campaign as they have their logo all over their media products. It is on their website, album and on their iTunes. They use the same fonts for their writing on all of their platforms.They also use the same black and white colour scheme for all of their platforms including their videos.
As one can see on our three platforms, we had our band name as a dominant part in all of the pieces. On our website we have the name in very large font in front of our banner. In our video we have the band name in the same font on the front of the drum which is shown multiple times throughout the video to anchor it in the audiences minds. We also have the band name in a different font on our album cover to create a clear connection to the album title which made it more appealing while still synergising with our other platforms.
Other synergies that we used were the colour scheme between the video and the album cover where they both have that light blue eerie light. The band members are in the same costume in the website banner and the album cover. We also use the same font on our website banner and our video. This shows how all three platforms are connected which creates our well flowing synergistic campaign.
Themes:
In our individual band performance shots we had an individual colour scheme to represent each of our band personas. The purple of the singer connotes the fun, exciting and quirky nature of the singer while still being crazy and being a calm and cool colour too. The red for the guitarist represents his more playful and crazy nature, him being the more playful and energetic member of the band. The blue of the drummer connotes his calm, cool and collected persona.
We continued to anchor our representations through our website using both our photos and our profile pages. We used the photo shoot photos to further explain our bands persona so their actions in the shots represented their personalities. The meet the band section allowed us to go into detail about our selves so we could have one true anchored personality for our band members to our audience. Each profile discusses our hobbies and how we came to where we are today. Below is the detailed image of each of our band profiles.
Click on the images to enlarge and then click again to change image. Once finished press the cross in the top right.
Ineffective:
With our band name, we chose a font which we put in our video and also on our website. This was supposed to be our synergistic point across all our platforms but when I made our album cover the font we decided didn't look good so I decided to change the font to match the album name. This made our album cover look much better on it's own but slightly damaged the synergy in the our campaign. If we had more time, I would completely redesign our whole digi-pack. This would keep our campaign consistent and make it have a better appeal and connection across all of the platforms.
Overall we felt it was quite successful with our combination of our products. They combined and synergised nicely but to confirm this we used audience feedback which is discussed in question 3.
For our Music video we chose a target audience of 15-25 year olds of both genders. We conducted audience feedback throughout the process of developing our media product to improve it and to make sure it appealed to our target audience. We also conducted feedback once our product was finished to see how large our target audience could be and to see how large our appeal was to prepare for our marketing campaign.
Video:
In the early stages of editing we asked a randomly sampled group of our target audience to view the video and give there comments on what they liked and what they thought could be improved. The majority of the feedback was positive but there was a clear result that people did not understand the narrative as it was too complex. We then had a meeting as a group and started to whittle down our ideas to make the narrative simpler to follow. Once we cut it all down we had another feedback survey session. We then found that the majority could now follow the narrative and understood what was going on, which also led to getting a higher rating for in this session.
Once we had finished all of our sections of our product I conducted an online survey to be completed by any age and any gender online. I then received 66 responses and found that it was all very positive feedback. All the results for their rating of the video was a 7 or higher out of 10, and the average was 9.26. This is extremely positive and shows that our video has a really strong appeal to the audiences that watched it, that ranged between 17-52 years old.
Here is the data from my survey in a chart with the numbers in the table below
I also had this same group answer which target audience they thought the video should be aimed at. Our primary target audience during pre-production and production was 15-25 year old age group. We also had a secondary audience of 26-35 and a tertiary of 35+. From the 66 people that answered my survey I found that we have an extremely strong appeal to our primary target audience. We also have some appeal for our secondary and tertiary audience but it is clear that our video should be solely aimed at the 15-25 year old category as that is where it has the largest appeal.
Website:
For our website I created a survey via Twitter for anyone aged 15+ to check out the website, test it's ease of use and then give it an overall rating. The data that came back was a suprisingly huge amount of feedback from the 15-25 year old category. I also showed that the majority was positive and that they like our website and found it relatively easy to use. There were still a lot of responses that weren't as positive meaning that some people didn't like the design or found it hard to navigate around. In the older age groups the feedback showed that they, on average, preferred the websites design or accessibility/usefulness. The downside of the survey that I made was that I am unable to tell what the reasons are that some people rated it low. If I had time to conduct another survey on this scale I would include a comments box which would allow me to be able to change things that weren't desired by the audience. As I was unsure what the reasons were for people disliking the website I felt I didn't have significant evidence to change anything as I may ruin something that the majority
preferred.
Press the different age groups at the top of the graph to see different age groups survey results.
Overall I felt that our product was well aimed at the correct target audience as this age group gave us the most positive response. I was surprised however by how wide, age wise, the appeal spread. From the feed-back the thing I would have improved would have been the accessibility for the older age groups.
We used a range of new media technologies in all the stages of our project. This helped us in many respects and often saved us lots of time using certain programs to help us. In pre-production we used multiple web tools to help us with research. We used sites like Wikipedia and Youtube to help us find out about the genre and other videos to give us inspiration.
To communicate in our group we used Skype to live chat and bounce ideas off each other while also being able to work on other things at the same time. As seen from the image we could discuss things then research them, and then call back and find out what we discovered. This was very useful due to the fact that when we met in person we would give each other things to research and then meet the next day to discuss what we found out where as with Skype we can "meet" again within half an hour or so saving us lots of time. We also used Adobe Premier Pro and Photoshop to create video representations and images to help us with coming up with ideas and choosing what to aim for in our production stage.
We used the Sony HVR V1E in our performance shots. We chose this specific camera over our other choices due to the fact it had a larger sensor, auto focus for fast paced shots and shoots HD. As our performance used lots of quick pans and movement, we needed a camera that wouldn't blur it so the V1E was a perfect choice for us.
We used the Cannon 5D Mark II in our photo-shoot. We needed a high quality DSLR camera for this to give us high customisability with lenses and settings. This gave us more possibilities with our shots and also meant we could create effects to aid us in our computer editing stages. We used this to shoot our the shots for our Digi-pack.
For our band we created multiple social media platforms so we could reach as wide an audience as possible. We created a Twitter account for our band so our audience could stay up to date with all our latest events. We also created a Facebook account to share things with our fans and also spread our marketing through it. This is a very effective way of reaching our target audience as these are the platforms that their age group uses. To create synergy with all our platforms one can always find a like to our Facebook and Twitter pages on any Web 2.0 platform that we used, like on our website for example.
For our website we used Wix.com to create our fully operational website HUB. This is a flash based website which meant it was fairly simple to navigate and create what we wanted. It also meant we were able to link in many interactive elements from separate websites to increase the accessibility of our website. There were still many functions that Wix restricted that we would have liked to use, such as changing the layout and colour of buttons. Even though there were some downsides overall, it was very useful to use a flash based programmer as it meant we could directly link to social media sites like Twitter.
For our album cover we included a QR code which links the user to the bands website. This increases the interactivity of the album and makes the audience feel more involved. We could also include exclusive content on this code which would lead to exclusive gratification for the audience that buy the album and for them to feel much more precious and in the loop.
In the evaluation stage I used multiple multimedia software. Once our products were made, to get audience feedback, I used online survey websites like SurveyMonkey.com. This made it easily accessible for people to fill out my questionnaires and poles to see there opinions on our products. This meant that I could collect data from hundreds of people at the same time and have all of the data laid out clearly in seconds, where as without this if I had had to do it by hand it could have taken hours.
Overall technology helped massively to improve the aesthetics of our product and giving it a much more professional look. It also saved lots of time which led to producing a lot more than would have been possible without it.
The main aim of our entire campaign and 3 products was to promote a brand, therefore consistent branding of The Defiance was very important. Our overall media product had to have synergy between all 3 texts in order to do so. We had to consider what connections and links to make between the 3 products in order to keep a consistent but not repetitive brand.
Venn Diagram demonstrating synergy between the different parts of our media product. Created on gliffy.com
"The Defiance" logo
After researching various fonts, we noticed that rock bands tended to have mostly black logos, but with an immediately recognisable font, that was consistent across all their products.
Colour schemes/ Band characters
A shown in the diagram, each member of the band had their own colour in the music video to connote their "character" or personality in the band. We tried to keep their individual personalities similar across all 3 products in a range of ways, not only using the colours, but other techniques as well.
Please refer to this image when mentioned below
Blue is typically used to connote a cool calmness, therefore the drummer was dressed quite simply, with a laid back hairstyle. He is different to the other members and this shows through his biography on the website as well, and the promo shots (shown in Daniel's bio below), both on the website and on the album inside panel, where he has relaxed and natural poses.
We played on the obvious of purple being a combination of red and blue, to demonstrate that the lead singer was the "glue" of the band. The idea of her was that as the only female member, and lead, she pulled together and completed all the members and the music. Furthermore, the purple was the best choice between red and blue back lights for aesthetic value as well. The promo shots (shown in Shobnam's bio below) display her as a quirky and fun character, and an integral part of The Defiance.
Red usually connotes passion and danger. The guitarist was intended to have an eccentric and energetic type of personality. Through the music video, we see enthusiastic strumming, and head-banging at points. Moreover, in the promo shots (shown in Aidan's bio below), Aidan has typical rock-star poses such as the "rock on" hand gesture, and the jumping pose. He is the "crazy" one, as we liked to call him.
Themes and messages
Through the title of our album "Ascension", the song titles, our debut music video storyline, and website biographies, we had one main message: Don't give up.
Our original post of the album song titles.
These are the biography images on the website. Each character has their own personalities as seen in the rest of the pictures, but the pictures are edited similarly, thus connecting them together.
However not all of our campaign worked together in synergy.
Inconsistency
We started with the intention not to be repetitive, and to keep our identity fresh, however realised that this causes discord within our media product and confusion as to our band logo and identity. It almost looks like a completely separate brand, and therefore contradicts what synergistic marketing or promotion of a brand is used for. The next post underlines why this is an issue regarding the audience.
Overall, the message is fairly clear to the audience (As outlined in Question 3), therefore we were somewhat successful in our presentation of the 3 products. However, in order to fully understand whether our campaign was successful, we required some audience feedback, which is discussed in the next question.
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