In order to explain and answer how my group used media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages of our work, myself and my group partner Calum also collaboratively answered this question. We used Gliffy, a mind mapping website, to list and analyse every form of technology which was really important and beneficial to us. The mind maps can be seen below, they are best viewed by clicking on them to expand them and then opening the images in a new tab. Media Technologies - Hardware
Media Technologies - Software (Internet related)
Media Technologies - Software (Computer Technology)
Video Feedback: Here is a range of feedback from different age groups regarding our Music Video. We used different formats to put this video together, such as audio recordings and videos, we edited this using Premier Pro and Windows Movie Maker. We had a lot of answers about things such as what they liked and disliked, whether the products relate to theories etc. At the end of the feedback, we did a mini interview with Ryan, who is of the age range for our target market, and asked him a few more questions.
Questionnaire Feedback:
Here is some pictures of feedback we were given by our class members about our music video. The age group is roughly 17/18.
Online Questionnaire Feedback:
We created an Online Questionnaire via Survey Monkey. We asked students from our school to answer questions which featured closed questions. We thought this would help us learn quickly about what viewers thought as it would take less time for people to complete and therefore appear more appealing to do so. Three males and three females answered it and they were between the ages 17/18. The questionnaire can be seen below.
Conclusions regarding feedback:
By
viewing and reading all of my audience feedback I had to draw valid conclusions
of what
I have learned about as a result of gaining feedback from different people. I
have analysed how they responded to my music video and ancillary tasks which
has resulted in my knowledge about audiences and how to target them increasing.
For example, I have made theoretical links to their feedback which has helped
me to explore the fact that different people will have different responses,
opinions and emotions towards my media products. To cite an instance,
in relation to Hall's Reception Theory, those who recognise and agree with the
messages in relation to love and the loss of it I have incorporated
within them, would take on a dominant reading.
When asking members of the audience
questions regarding our main product and ancillary tasks we received a range of
reviews which we were then able to assess and analyse.
For example one of our questions was ‘What
did you like about our main products?’ to which we received a range of
responses.
For example Olivia, aged 17, said ‘I
really liked the part where the main girl was behind a black background and she
was edited to changed colours…I really liked that’ this shows that – as I asked her
afterwards- she had seen the video that we were referencing with this effect
‘How Deep is Your Love’. Due to the fact she had seen the video she had more of
an understanding and appreciation to the effects we had used as opposed to
people who hadn’t seen the video but did like the effect we had achieved. I
would definitely use this effect again, or attempt to imitate other famous
music videos our target audience had seen because it makes the music videos
more interesting and appealing to our target audience.
Gayla, 47’s, response was that she ‘liked
the storyline’ which shows that even though she wasn’t in our
target she still appreciated the storyline and the effort that was put in to
it. So when thinking about what I have learned from this comment I would say
that by having a clear narrative it makes the music video more enjoyable to
watch from all different age ranges.
Ryan, 17, said that he ‘liked
the Point of View shot’ which
shows that the range of shots we used made the music video more interesting, in
particular to a media student who could appreciate the video and the hard work
that went into creating it. I have learned from this comment that I will always
continue to put in a lot of effort with special effects and camera shots
because although it is more time consuming, it can be appreciated by a wide
range of people.
When we asked viewers ‘What
didn’t you like about our music video?’ we received a lot of responses that can
help us improve should we create another music video, and learn from these
comments.
Karla,16, said ‘I
think that you could have explored the character more’ which
I think is referring to the fact that we don’t get to know the male character
from any perspective other than how the female portrays him, therefore we are
getting an unreliable representation of him. We learn from this that our target
audience wanted to engage with the character more, seen as that is what we gave
to them to engage with – as opposed to the artists being in the music video.
Olivia, 17, also within our target
audience gave some useful feedback to this question also. She said ‘Personally
I didn’t understand the change of lighting, however this has been explained to
me and now I understand and like it more’. Olivia was referring to the change from
warm tones in the beginning of the music video to cool and dark filters towards
the end of the video. We tried to make this as clear as possible to represent
the change in the girls mood, however upon receiving this feedback we have
established that this is not the case. We have learnt from this that although
we may feel that we are creating a clear meaning, some people may not
understand this – so we can keep things like this in for the people who do
understand it, or take it out to avoid any confusion.
Samantha, 44, said ‘Maybe
the music video could have had more lip-synching’ which was a fair enough comment as there were
only short snippets. This shows that we didn’t conform to conventions of the
Pop music genre, and people realised and expected this from that kind of genre.
Due to the fact that Samantha wasn’t in our target market it shows that it
could have just been her age group who are used to looking out for the
conventions, as the younger generation expect boundaries to be broken with
music videos. I have learned from this comment that as long as we stick to what
will be right for our target audience, it doesn’t necessarily matter about
other’s opinions although if we were to re-film I would agree that we could use
more clips of Lois lip-synching to make it feel more like a pop music video.
Gayla, 47, said ‘when
she was shaking her head around she was smiling quite a bit,
and I thought at that point she was meant to be sad’ I
understand her comment and do recognize the confusion however due to the fact
that we had an actress who had no prior experience with music videos It means that she cant remain focused at all times because she may not know when she's being filmed etc. However saying that I do feel that it was mainly my fault when editing the music video because I could have used clips where she was lip synching and not smiling but I didn't realise that the clip would be going in the part where she is sad. I have learned from this that I will check the music video more thoroughly to decipher whether or not I want to create an opposing effect to what the music video suggests, like that has been done, or whether I want the music video not to be confusing and to be clear about the girls emotions.
When asked 'Do you think it adheres to or rejects the norms and conventions of real media products?' we also learned a lot from the range of responses given.
Gayla, 47, said 'I think you can tell that its not really really professional' and this is something that we did try hard to achieve however due to the fact that we didn't have the budget of expensive music videos and weren't able to afford a crew etc., this is to be expected. There was nothing we could have done more in relation to this comment however I have learnt that perhaps shots that looked less professional we could have gotten rid of.
Ryan, 17, said 'it adheres because nowadays you get many love songs, with the relationship building up and then something devastates the artist/character' I agree with this comment because it is true that love songs in the Pop genre seem to have some sort of climatic ending, for example in Taylor Swift's music video for Blank Space we see Taylor smashing up her supposed 'love' interests car. In our music video we see the girl turning to alcohol and cigarettes to take her mind off her heartbreak. The fact that our target audience agrees that it adheres shows to me that we have learnt how to create content that links in well with our target audience.
I can
clearly link my audience feedback toHall’s Reception Theory.
This theory states that media texts are consumed in three different ways, which
are: dominant, negotiated or oppositional.
n my
opinion, the audience feedback I have gained using the various different
methods would relate to the dominant reading. I
think this because the majority of people I have received data from have agreed
with the intended message that me and Calum wanted to incorporate into the
video by working together as directors. Some of these even recognised that our
target audience would take a dominant reading.
I
have learned that we all share the same view that love can be incredible and
all-consuming, emotional and amazing. However love doesn’t always result in
these feelings and can cause a tumultuous outbreak of heartache and pain, as
shown in our music video. Since viewers recognized these themes within our
music video and ancillary tasks, it helped me to learn about how my audience my
consume media texts in relation to Hall’s dominant reading.
Since
some of the viewers made constructive comments me and Calum were able to learn
from this and therefore they took a negotiated view. To cite an example some
people didn’t recognize that we didn’t include the male character to put
emphasis on the female character, providing an original storyline – which
relates to independence – that rejects typical conventions as woman are
commonly seen in pop music. For example the Male Gaze Theory is commonly seen
in most Pop music videos as women are viewed in a voyeuristic way. This helped
me and Calum realise that viewers are different and could react to media
products differently.
The
uses and Gratifications theory can also be applied to my media texts because my
viewers commented that they think themselves and other viewers would use and
view them as a form of diversion to escape every day life and to have
entertainment. As our video revolves primarily around relationships it is very
relatable to people as they can all relate to these themes.
For our Second Question 'How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?' we used the Pixton format to create a Graphic Comic Strip to communicate our thoughts and ideas on the question. Me and Calum collaborated on the project and spoke our views about the question. After having this discussion we then created our Pixton and the character would speak basically what we discussed. We enjoyed collaborating on the Pixton to convey our ideas in a unique way
Here is our Album artwork, we used various different media sources to edit the pictures we took of the main character in our music video, and also decided to be creative giving the cover various different connotations. The word desire has many meanings and can be different to different people, we wanted to show this in our album covers and inserts.
The digi-pack template I used for my CD in Adobe Photoshop.
We wanted to create a website for our band, including things such as photographs, tour dates and merchandise, to promote the band further than the music video. We created our band website on Wix, and got an understanding of what band websites look like by analysing many of them online, such as Catfish and the Bottlemens website. Here is the link and image of the first page it brings people to when they click on the site.