Evaluation

(Could not stop the speaking from overlapping at the start. YouTube was unable to break the beginning bit down). 

This is my media evaluation. Some of it was done during when we had the countryside theme and were going to keep it. Towards the end is when i talk about the changes we have made and why we have changed them.

Music Video Final (finished)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcjJoQRnUGM 

This is our final version of our music video. This is to go with the updated digipak and poster. The difference difference between this and our original version is the fact that we have taken off the shots from the outside and replaced them with inside shots. This is something that our audience thought would be a good idea to do. 

One thing you will notice what we did was that we used the same clip more than once. We wanted to represent the chorus with something. We wanted to separate the song between the chorus, and the rest of the lyrics. We thought if we used the same clip for the chorus of the song then it would be easy for the audience to recongnise this. Also because the lyrics of the whole song tell a story, we thought it was important that we were able to show this, and act out the lyrics as close as we could, and because the course lyrics are repeated, then we thought maybe we should try that with the shots aswell.

Both me and my partner believe the improvements that we have made have improved the video as a whole, and because we have improved it in a way in which our audience and our teachers believed we should have, it gives us confidence that we have done alright. The camera angles are typical of what is expected in a pop music video, as are the props and costume we used. We are also happy with the way that the lighting went. 

Audience feedback

Having completed both the music video and the ancillary tasks we wanted to get some audience feedback into what they thought of it all. We asked teenagers as we know that is who the target audience is for pop. We tried to limit the questions to yes or no answers, so it wouldn't take up to much of their time. We wanted to know if what we had done was appropriate for our audience, and if we made the right decisions when it came to mice en scene and fonts etc...

This is the first question that we asked our audience. We showed them the clip of the country side in our original draft and then we showed them the finished piece and we wanted to know which one they prefer. Our teachers recommended that we replaced the theme and me and my partner eventually agreed with them but we wanted to see what our audience thought. The results show that a high majority of the 15 we asked believed getting rid of it was the correct decision. This is good to see because at first we were 100% sure we were not going to get rid of the countryside theme because we wanted to add some colour to the video, but i think filming it all indoors wasn't as bad as we expected it to be.

 I used different fonts on the digipak so that the writing like the song titles were easier to read. I thought this was more important than having it all the same, because if you cant read what the song titles are then you aren't going to buy the album. For the title on both the digipak and the poster we used the funky slightly immature font hoping that it would be eye catching and something that the audience could relate to because it isn't something you see often. The results of the questionnaire shows that they did think it was appropriate.The font is a good way to link the two together aswell as the theme of pictures. When it came to the font of artists name we used the same font, the same colour and the same style, so it was easy for the audience to recongnise, and when they saw it, they would know straight away who it was (logo).

We know already that getting rid of the countryside theme was something that the target audience agreed with, but we also wanted to know if they thought the urban theme we changed it to was appropriate. We thought that it matched the title of the album and we tried to use the most appropriate pictures to suit the theme we were going for. The results show us that again, the audience seem to agree with us and like the theme. A few said they didn't think it was suitable, but they didn't put why. I can only assume it could be because the pictures aren't up to their standard. But with the two most popular answers showing a positive result this helps us know we have improved it for the better.

This was to just see if the audience thought it suited them. It was also a way to find out if the audience thought that what we have done was good. The results are positive and shows they believe it does suit the teenage audience. From previous research we know that teens are the main listeners for pop music and so we had to make sure that it was something they could relate to. The way which we portrait the character and the actually lyrics of
the song could have helped with this.

Going back the video we wanted to know what the audience thought of the lighting. We already knew that a pop song has to be quite light. Because most of our song was indoors getting a bright colourful light was quite difficult and a bit of a challenge. We were worried it was too dark and not what the audience are used to seeing. The results show that the lighting was appropriate and that the audience were happy with it. Some thought it could have been better though. It is important that we reach out to everyone so should if we were able to do it again we would need to make sure that we improve on the lighting. I personally would also try and add more colour into it, so i would add some shots outside.

Some of the props we used were the phone, the Ipad, the costumes/onesie, TV, guitar etc... The results show that the props we used were all suitable for the music video/ancillary tasks. I think the main reason for this is because of how we used modern technology. Because the song we used is quite modern, using modern props was very important.

This is also something that we needed to know as part of the audience feedback. This was mainly for the music video. I wanted to know if they thought filming it in a house was a good idea and if they thought it suited the song. This is something our teachers thought would be a good idea and we decided to go ir it, but its what the audience thinks that matters for us. A high majority think the locations was suitable for the song. This is good because if they didn't like it then it means they wouldn't like the video as it is all shot in one location. The house suits in with the theme of having a teenager who's family is well of but he is lazy. You get this from the large house that we used. I said earlier how we want to try and please all of our audience so the people who said know they might think that because it was all in one location and there are other places where you could be lazy, like in school or at work. Overall though me and my partner are happy that out audience like the location.

The final question was the most important for us to know. It was to find out if the video and the ancillary asks linked well. We knew it wouldn't be as good as our first draft because of the fact that we shot the whole video in doors and the ancillary tasks are urban, but the title of the album links to music and outdoors, something which both consisted of. We explained this before the audience answered just so they could fully understand it and the results show that people agreed with us. This is something that we really tried to concentrate on. The actual song itself consists of many instruments being played and so with the artist on the digipak we made sure that he was holding a guitar, which was he most noticeable instrument being played. We followed modern conventions in the pictures used don't have to match a particular song, but to make sure they all linked together we used the same font, and the same costume.

Overall we are happy with the feedback that we have got and it gives us confidence that what we have made is suitable for our target audience and something they can relate to. Linking the ancillary tasks to the updated video was hard but i think we found ways around it. We asked 15 people in total as we thought that was enough to get some reliable feedback. We are happy with the way everything went, and our final product. The improvements we have made for our final draft i think were needed. The lighting, camera shots, and mise en scene i think was appropriate for a pop song which is something we aimed to have at the start.

Improvements we have made

Since our last final design we have made some improvements in order to increase our mark. We took some of the advice that our teachers and students gave us, and used it for our final hand in. The main changes we made were to the ancillary tasks.

Digipak

As you can see the digipak has changed completely. We decided to get rid of the country side theme which did not have a lot of support and instead go with the urban theme which our teachers thought suited the song.

We changed the title of the Album to what it is called in real life which was 'doo wops and hooligans'. I wanted to get this title through the pictures that we used. The 'doo wops part' we showed through the use of the actor and the fact that he was holding a guitar to represent the music. And the 'hooligans' part we showed through the teenagers riding on the bmx's in the street and the tin can left on the floor along with the graffiti. Looking back on it now i think it is much better than the country side look that we were going for. I think it adds a lot more colour to the digipak and so makes it more eye catching for our target audience.

In terms of the font that we used for the main title we used the same as we did before. The reason for this is because we thought he made it stand out and it was easy to read, as well as being a bot immature which is what pop is about. We saw no reason to change it and so because of that didn't. However for the name of the artist and the title of the songs on the back cover, we decided to go for a font which was more plain and easier to read. This was so the audience would be able to see it from all distances. With the song list on the back we made the font as big as we could so it was able to fit on to one side. We chose a white font so that it was easy to read for the audience.

The artist on the front and the inside left cover are the same images as our original copies. We cropped them in through Photoshop. We thought that the digipak should have an image of the artist on their so that the audience will be able to see that it is him. Also having done previous research i noticed that most digipaks tend to show the artists and so to show in order to show we have used media conventions we did this.

Poster 

 These are the changes that we made to our poster for our final hand in. Like the digipak we have changed it so that it has an urban theme. Through synergy we think that the ancillary tasks link together well. I think the two work and link together well so that the audience can link the album to modern pop and modern music. Again, like the digipak, we decided to listen to what the teachers and some of the audience said in previous feedback and got rid of the countryside theme completely. We started to see that it didn't link in to the video well and that if we changed it to an urban theme it would match the title of the album.

With the use of the graffiti with the location we thinks it links to the idea of hooliganism well and so matched the title of the album. We used the same font for the title as we did with the digipak to help link the two together. That way it gives our audience something to remember them by (USP). Because the font stands out and is different we thought this would be perfect to go with the theme.

the font we used for the artist name is the same as what we used when we wrote his name on the digipak. again, this allows us to link it to our digipak and allows customers to pick up similarities between the two. the picture of the artist walking on the poster has been cropped in (through magic wand) and the reason for this is because i believed that there should be a picture of the artist somewhere within the picture. This was the only way i could think of, but i didn't want him to be to big because then it would take away the eye catching background which is what i think will attract the audience to look at the poster.

Overall i think that getting rid of the countryside location and replacing it with an urban theme was a good idea, It is something our teachers thought we should do to improve it and it is something which not all of our audience understood. I think this is a lot easier to understand and links in to the title of the album better than fields would do. I think also by having a poster which adds colour makes it a lot more eye catching which is what a poster needs to be and so thankfully i think we have improved our ancillary tasks.

The Lazy Song - Bruno Mars A2 Media (Our Final Piece)

Final drafts

These are our final pieces for our media coursework. It includes the music video, the digipak and the poster. These are our final designs and so will be evaluating them and explain why we chose these final ideas. 

The picture above is our finished poster. As you can see it is different to the posters from the posters which we have been researching. Firstly we have gone mainly for the colours black and white. This is something that you don't see with other posters. Instead they try and make them as bright as possible or try to add as much colour as possible. This is seen a media convention and is used a lot. We thought that with this we were challenging media conventions by doing something different. We did however use colour for the guitar. 

The reason why we did this is because we wanted to show how important the music is to both the character/singer and the audience. We are promoting the fact that the music in this is the most important part. Both me and my partner believed that this was the best way to show that. 

In terms of why we chose the countryside location, we chose this instead of showing him being lazy because we believed this would be a more influential picture to buy it. We chose not to show him being lazy because of the fact that it was obvious the what the song was about. We believed that just a picture with him lying in bed or sleeping on the couch would be boring and have would be hard to make you catch your eye. I believe whilst the colours we have chosen wont catch the eye of someone i still think it will grab their attention because it is something different to what you usually see from pop stars in both past and present.   

We decided that we should have the singer in the shot. This is something that the likes of Katy Perry do and what the Beatles have done in the past. The other option was to do an animation of some kind and unfortunately we did not have the skill nor time to do this. 

In terms of the font we wanted to use the same for both the poster and the digipak. We wanted one that was different to the usual fonts which you see in other posters (the normal writing, much like this test). We wanted something that stood out and emphasised on the word lazy. We managed to find one and made sure that we made the word 'lazy' bigger than any other word for it to stand out. We put the title of the song at the bottom because of the fact that there was more space there and we could fill up more of the page to make it eye catching. We didn't want to make it to big though however, because we didn't want to over power the background.

The font style for the artist though however is different, and again we used the same for both the poster and the digipak. We wanted to use it as his signature. So whenever our audience saw someones name written like that they would no straight away that it was his. We had this at the top so it would be one of the first things that the audience notices.      

The two pictures above are our digipak. The bottom picture shows the templates of how it will be folded and how it will be laid out.

One thing we are proud of with the digipak is the fact that the front cover and the back picture despite being one picture looks like two separate ones. After doing research on digipaks a few months ago in preparation for this one thing i noticed is the fact that sometimes things like the location don't always have to be linked to the song. This is why for this we also chose a country theme. For our ancillary tasks we didn't want to have our photos inside the house because of the fact the majority of the video was filmed inside, and it would be quite dull for the audience to see.

The digipak when doing research seemed like it could be anything that the creators chose it to be. Colour seemed to be an important thing when looking on the internet for some. Because this song was released in the winter leading up to summer we decided to go for a mixture of brown and green/blue, with the costume being suitable for the cold.

The font that we used as you can see is the same as the poster but different colours. The reason for this was so that it was easier to read. Because we used colour in our digipak having the white font, like what we used for our poster did not work and it was hard to read. We kept the same font though however and that was to keep the identity of the song all together, and so hopefully whenever our audience saw that they would recognise it and know straight away that it was 'The Lazy Song'. I think what we did through the use of the font on the back page is very good and something that me and my partner are proud of. Through the songs that we wrote which would be on the digipak we managed to highlight each individual word to spell out 'The Lazy Song'. This isn't something that we had seen before and so we feel like we developed ideas which we got from other media conventions.

On digipaks which we researched, if they ever had a picture of the the artist on the cover it was usually a medium shot. This is what we did for both the front cover and the inside cover. The inside cover is a picture of the artist playing the guitar, or posing with the guitar. This was to link it to the song where, in the video, he is playing and walking with the guitar.  With the front cover he is being lazy but instead of it being at home it is inside a barn shed outside.
They are both linked in terms of the font style, and the location. We thought that this would be the best way to link them together, and to make people to realise  it is from the same artist