Evaluation Q3- What have you learned from your audience feedback?

FRONT COVER

INSIDE RIGHT COVER

INSIDE LEFT COVER

BACK COVER

FINISHED MAGAZINE ADVERT

FINISHED VIDEO







`The first step to find out our feedback was sending out questionnairs to our target audience.
this was done near the start of my coursework,
my questionnaire basically included the opinions of my target audience, what they would like a good music video to include, what they expect from a good music video, how many music videos they watch on a monthly basis, etc. all this was done to get to know our target audience a bit more and to find out thier expectations so that we can fill out all the specifications!
My Questionnaire and the response goes as followed..



Ashley and I created a questionnaire to ask a bunch of people what they expected in a music video and their thoughts, opinions and what they liked and did not like about music videos. our questionnaire was no more than 6 questions and they were very important to ask our audience so that we can make a music video that they would like, they were very basic.It goes as followed

1) Gender?
Male Female


70% of the people we asked were male and 30% of the people we asked were female.






2)Age?

40% were aged 17-25 and the other 60% were 8-16

0-7 8-16 17-25 25+

out of the people we asked, they were either 16 or 17, so they fitted in two specific boxes. 40% were aged 17-25 and the other 60% were aged 8-16


















3)How many music videos do you watch per week?
0 1-3 4-7 8-11 11+

60% of our audience (which is majority) said that they say 4-7 music videos a week

the other 40% said differently.
20% said that they watch 1-3 music videos
20% said that they saw 8-11










4)What is your favourite genre?
RNB RAP DRUM n BASS INDIE
DUBSTEP ROCK HEAVY METAL OPERA SOUL

This was the most important question on the questionnaire because here we really got to find out our target audiences opinion and what kind of music they liked. This is where we had the biggest variety of answers.
The option that was the most popular was ROCK, we asked 10 people and out of them, 8 people ticked rock as one of their favourite music genre.
second most popular option was INDIE. this was ticked by 7 people.
6 people ticked DUBSTEP as one of their favourite type of music
RAP & DRUM'n'BASE was only ticked by 5 people.
RNB& SOUL was only ticked by 3 people.
The least popular option was HEAVY METAL and OPERA , which only one person ticked,




5)What would you expect to find in a music video?
dancing shots of the performer(s) close ups of actors cutaways
establishing shots of locations titles


this was another very important question as here we got to find out more about people's opinions on what they liked about music videos.
here everybody we asked our questionnaire picked 'SHOTS OF THE PERFORMER' 'CUTAWAYS' and 'CLOSE UPS OF ACTORS' were expected to be found in a music video. We planned to put all 3 methods of shooting in our music video. and the fact that our audience was very keen on it motivated us and made us glad that we thought of putting these methods of shots in our video.
those were the mos popular options.
DANCING got no ticks which shows that no one thinks that dancing is compulsory in a music video which is good because we were not planning to put any form of choreography in our music video.
4 people out of 10 said that they thought TITLES were important in a music video and only 2 people said that ESTABLISHING SHOTS OF LOCATIONS were important in a music video.



6)How important in your opinion is that the narrative of the music video links to the song lyrics?
0..1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..9..10

In this question no one picked lower than 6.

10% picked 6, 30% picked 7, 40% picked 8 and 20% picked 10

1 people picked 6
3 people picked 7
4 people picked 8
2 people picked 10











The second step was analysing my formative feedback, this is all the feedback i got during my constructive process, when i showed my music video to the classroom- who are my target audience, i got both positive comments and constructive critisism.
The postitive comments were complimenting my visual video effects such as the fade away and the cross cutting and also they liked the split screens, also the effect that was really popular with my target audience that they seemed to like was the one where ashley was on the roof and he spinned around and then it went in slow motion.
I got some constructive critisms such as 'I dont think he is putting enough emotion into the song'
my peers told me that they felt like Ashley was not acting out the lyrics well as it is an emotional song and they felt like his expressions and body language did not match well. They thought that some of his singing lacked emotion. this comment helped because I then decided that the future filming, there will be extra effort  to add in emotions.

Once my video was complete, I was able to undergo the third step..
they were uploaded to YouTube for public to see and and I linked it to social networking sites such as twitter and Facebook so my online friends could comment on it and tell me what they thought of the final video. On YouTube I got two comments but on Facebook & twitter I got alot of feedback.
I also got a lot of text messages and blackberry messenger messages about my video.

I put my video onto Facebook, and here 15 people liked my video, these were mainly girls. out of he 15 people that liked it 2 of them were boys.
so 12 girls & 3 boys.

Ashley Kates, Nkem Gerrard Yossi Egboga & Tobi Sawyerr are all boys while the rest are girls

from this we can say that girls are more interested in our music video as it is a feminine song or we could say that more girls can be bothered to watch our videos.

List of comments i received about my video

all of my comments were positive and because of this, I was extremely happy about my video. Although i did get questions about the girl in the towel, lots of people were confused as to why my video girl was in a towel, but then after i explained to them that she was meant to be seductive, they then understood and thought the idea was good.

This is a private inbox i got from one of my friends.

This is another email that i received from another friend of mine

This is when i told more people to comment on my video. I got extra comments and % extra likes, all from girls.

If I could change my music video, I would add more location shots and I would make the make the main performer seem more enthuastic whilst singing, I would also make sure that we make it more interesting by maybe putting in more narrative shots, Instead of having it mainly performance. I think the video would have been better if I included these.
I also think that with the song lyrics being very repetitive, there was a limit on what could have been done in the video. If I could start my project all over again, I may re think about song choices and maybe worked in a bigger group instead of just working as a pair. If I worked as a group, there would have been more ideas and thoughts to work around and when one person was absent, it wouldnt have instantly meant hard work and heavy burden placed on the other partner.
A I am very positive about group work, I think this would have been a huge benefit.
                                      

Evaluation Question 2; How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

FRONT COVER

INSIDE RIGHT COVER

INSIDE LEFT COVER

BACK COVER

MAGAZINE ADVERT

FINISHED VIDEO





I think my music video looks like one that you would see on MTV. It looks lke what it is meant to look like, it has the theme that a slow RnB song has. First of all, what makes it look like something you would see on MTV is the fact that the pace of the song and the actions and shots in the video match each other. The song has a reasonably slow tempo and that is why we did not make the action match fast because it wouldnt have looked good. It also had the basic theme of a slow RnB music video is mostly love and thats what our music video is about and we have the video girl there like most music videos do.
Our music video resembles other real media products as there is always a girl and a boy fantasizing over her and being in love with her. but most of the time something happens between them at the end or they meet or end up together but this doesnt happen in our video.

Our digipak looks like one that you would see in HMV because it relates well alot with  the music video.
when you see our digipak it is obvious that it is out of the music video and the poster too.
they are all similar in a way that they all look alike.
We made sure that the music video, poster and digipak matched well so that it can show relation to one and other.


Our magazine advert is something that we will see in a magazine because it has all the characteristics that a professional poster would have.
It was constructed well and the composition was perfect. the picture and the text matched well as the colour theme was dull and simple. I have looked at professional
magazine adverts to compare them to ours to see the similarities and differences. I looked to see if there was anything we missed out, developed or could have changed. I looked at wretch 32's album poster for his album 'Wretchrospective' and there were more similarities than differences.
I did not compare the colour theme or the genre, I just mainly compared the composition and the text.
They are both very similar, the main attention on the posters is the male in the middle as it suggests that that is the artist. On Wretch 32'album cover, the text is written across the photo of him, while on mine the text is written beside the photo of the artist. A similarity is that the artists name are both placed in the same position, top right of the poster and right next to the head of the artist. Another difference is that on wretch 32's album there is a list of the artists featured on the album while on mine it is a singles album.
another difference is that on mine, I have put reviews and thoughts of the album from other people's point of view while on wretch 32's there are no reviews.
Over all the similarities outweigh t he differences and I think wretch 32's magazine advert was good to compare with ours.




















Our music video, digipak and magazine advert all had 'brand identity' which means that they were all very similar and you coluld tell that they all related to one and other.
They all have the same colour scheme and the same theme and the picture that is used is a snapshot from the video itself. I have made it black and white because I think that it makes it stand out more and it is obvious that the song is sad and is about regret.
The same picture was used on the digipak and the magazine advert. both of them look very similar, the only difference is the colour of the text. It is black on the cd and it is white on the magazine advert. I purposely did this so that it is obvious that they are part of the same media piece. I didnt want them to look too different from each other.

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

FRONT COVER

INSIDE RIGHT COVER

INSIDE LEFT COVER

BACK COVER



MAGASINE ADVERT






FINISHED VIDEO








I will address this question by looking at the typical conventions of RnB videos, and music videos in general.




                     1) NARRATIVE




This video uses a classic music video convention-narrative, something we used in our production.
In this video, Chris Brown is in love with a girl, just like our video. We see both of them living their lives separated  conveying their loneliness.
In our music video, we used this convention and we made Ash and Fade fall in love with each other and we portrayed their lives from different perspective, both of them doing their own thing and getting on with their lives but knowing that they are in love with each other.
However, narrative did not take up the majority of our video.

screen shot from our video showing the storyline and narrative.
we made Ash and Fade look like a couple and to flirt with each other to really  get the feel of romance. so when Ashley looked back it was like he missed out on an oppourtunity as the song lyrics are 'I should have kissed you'
we used an amateur footage effect. to make it seem more natural and impromtu. we made it clear that it was meant to be amateur footage by putting the 'REC.' sign.

                


                      2) MAJORITY 
           OF PERFORMANCE SHOTS


In this video, it is mainly performance shots that make up the video. The performance shots are done in the same location as the narrative.
Again, in our music video we have used this convention. In our music video it is mainly performance shots and the performance shots was shot where the narrative shot was filmed, just like Mistletoe by Justin Bieber
We thought that this was a good idea and we though that it will make our video we thought that it will be a good idea as we did not want to add too many locations to our video we wanted it to look familiar
I liked the Justin Bieber video and we thought that it will be a great idea to make it part of our on video as well.
This convention does not only apply to RnB videos. It applies to almost music videos in general.

shot of performance in our video, in this performance scene, it was done on the field where some of the narrative was shot. the field was a great place to use and it was convienient because as we are boarders, it is easy to get access to the field. also the weather was good and it didnt cause us problems. we shot several times and we then chose the ones that we thought were best.

              3) STEREOTYPE OF BLACK
                               ARTISTS

Beyonce Knowles

When people think of RnB, they immediately think of black singers. This is partly because there is a stereotype of black people being born with Rhythm.  It is well known that black people revolutionized the sound of music, mainly RnB, Reggae, Hip hop, Afrobeats, etc

people believe that some black singers are naturally born with powerful voices. artists such as Michael Jackson, Beyonce, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Sean Carter aka 'Jay Z', Usher, Chris Brown, Akon, Mary J Blidge, Kelly Rowland, etc.             
all these are examples of iconic musical legends that people see as role models and look up to because of their powerful voice, top selling records and their attractive image and catchy tunes.


Some people believe it has something to do with genetics.
 Although not all black singers 
possess it.some grew up in the church and through observation, they carried it on in their own technique. It goes back to slavery. In those days, the only way for slaves to express themselves was though songs. So they used everything physically in their bodies to express themselves through spirituals, and it has continued to this day. 

We challenged this stereotype as we made Ashley sing a Chris Brown song, Ashley is white which is not very common in the RnB genre. There a lot of white male singers but most of them are stereotypically into indie, acoustic and pop.
The most successful white men that are known for singing r'n'b and hip hop are Eminem, Asher Roth and Mac Miller. It has also been said that their mannerisms are black especially Eminem as he claims to have been born in a black 'ghetto' environment.

Michael Jackson

Sean Carter aka Jay Z

Aretha Franklin

Stevie Wonder

and then this is Ashley Kates, the actor/performer

4) ATTRACTIVE GIRLS

                                               Another stereotype is attractive girls, they are either

1) In little clothing

2) Standing around and looking pretty/sexy

3) Being persued by the male in the video

4)Flirting with the male in the video

5) Being a tease to the male in the video
6) Dancing











Here Beyonce is dancing and she is wearing very little clothing and she looks very seductive, in most hip hop videos there are hot girls dancing around usually to the beat of the song because as we know the usual hip hop/ r'n'b video has upbeat tempo.











In this screenshot from this video, Ludacris is obviously flirting with the girl as he has his hand over her and is  sweet talking her.
her he looks more dominant as he is kind of putting his hand over her to shield her, comfort her, seduce her or caress her.

In this screenshot from the video 'Unthinkable' by Alicia Keys, we can see that the boy is trying to talk to the girl and her body language towards him kind of shows that she is not interested and she has power over him as her head is high up in the air

We got the idea of the seductive shower scene from the music video 'Cry Me A River' by Justin Timberlake. In the video, there was a very good looking girl who was about to take a shower and we saw her briefly in her towel and nothing less or more. In our video, we did the exact same thing. We got Fade to walk around in her towel to portray her relaxing to give the connotation that she is naturally beautiful










This video features mainly pretty girlss from all races, shapes and sizes. It is a convention of hiphop because artists like to put attractive girls in their video to show that they are doing well and they can get any girl they want which are usually beautiful.
We used this convention in our video because we portrayed Fade to be Ash's main focus in life, and she is a very pretty girl.

However we challenged some conventions as she was not dancing/heavily flirting. so overall it is as if we developed this convention.

this is a screenshot from my video of Fade in her towel looking attractive. we thought that it would be a good idea to have Ashley fantasizing over Fade and in this fantasy she would be walking around in her towel, we then decided that intead of a fantasy she would  actually do it. to show that she is flaunting her attractive body as it is a convention of r'n'b

5) PORTRAYAL OF WEALTH 

Another convention of RnB and Hiphop is bling. Most artists in this genre show off thier wealth and riches through materialistic things such as nice jewellry also known as 'bling', nice clothes, nice cars, nice houses and good looking females. all this to kind of show off thier reputation and gain street credibility.
Also Ashley's clothing was normal and it was not designer or as expensive so we challenged that stereotype about expensive clothing.

In this video, Akon drives up in a trendy expensive car which connotes wealth. He is wearing an expensive suit and diamond studs and is looking very classy and well groomed, he is also shown with a trendy phone in his hand and he is surrounded by other men which are tall and muscular and strict looking. This suggests that they are body guards as they are walking by his side. All of these show that he is rich and he is the "boss" as he is living life at his fullest as he walks into the club and he is surrounded by attractive women who just want to dance with him

We challenged this stereotype as we didn't make Ashley wear fancy clothing or eye-catching jewellery. He just looked normal like your average young boy. 

There were no connotations of wealth or power with Ashley in our video. We stripped this element down.

6) CHOREOGRAPHY

Most people think of dancing and choreography when they tink of hip hop and rnb videos.
Choreography is sometimes a major part of a music video  and the main reason is to be entertained and to get interested and induged in the video. It is also so that the viewers are wowed by the dancing so they can get lots of ratings for the music video.
A great example of a music video with chroegraphy through out is Beyonce's Single Ladies. in the video throughout she was performing choreography, most people that i know love the video and have learnt the dance moves. This is the exact impact that Beyonce wanted on her audience, for them to get interested and for them to relate to the video in a positive way.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                         


Again we challenged this stereotype as there was no dancing whatsoever in our video. We didnt think it would really suit in well with the tempo of the song even though in the original video there was a bit of dancing for like 5-10 seconds. It was nothing spectactular and it wasnt compliated cheorography it was just girls winding their wastes slowly in little clothing.