Our media product follows basic media conventions with some simple development, and never challenges these forms and conventions, as the product we are promoting (a Wham! video & album) originates from the 80's, and we have decided that it's important to mantain the 80's ethic. Looking at the original video and some other 80's pop/rock videos, we decided to follow similar conventions and use distinctive mise-en-scene. The hair was big and elaborate, the t-shirts were baggy with stand-alone logos, and certain fashion accessories were questionable. The original logo in the Wham video read "Choose Life", but we tweaked this to love life, to make ours more original. Also, our main character wore pink leg-warmers, which was our take on the ridiculous fashion acsessories of the period.
Originally we had drafted a storyboard (as shown in the blog) that contained a story-theme that would unravel in our video. Unfortunately, the tempo of the song and the lyrical ambiguity didn't really lend itself to a storyline, and so we decided to scrap the idea. Therefore, our video became more like the original video, focussing on the dancing and energy of the tune. Also, the facial expressions (captured in close-up shots) were key. As it was a happy-upbeat tune, it required our actor to seem happy and smiley, which was evident in the original video also. when the song becomes more sombre, the actor is more reserved in his mannerisms, and this is really as far as the song lent itself to a feeling or story.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
All of our products have a similar stylistic theme, which works to it's advantage. The digipack and the music magazine advert are similar in colour (orange/red) and the font style (Poplar STD), and because of this they seem a complete package, as the style is instantly recognizable and familiar. The digipack contains images from the music video, and is an example of our main media product being incorperated into into the promotional products; an example of synergy. This makes it clear that the products are linked not only in style but in purpose; that the advert is clearly advertising the digipack, and then that the digipack will conatin the music video on a CD. It was also important to have a similar stylistic theme, as many of the Wham albums covers were similar in style and format; creating a unique Wham-brand. We tapped into this idea, creating a theme that suited it's audience. Our audience liked Wham and similar pop bands (Spandau Ballet), so a cheesier less formal type of layout would suit them best. Also, the George Michael forum had quite an informal feel to it, with lots of smilies, bright texts and pictures, meaning the likelihood of it suiting it's audience therefore, is significantly higher.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
To gain audience feedback, we had several sources to gather information. Firstly, we posted the youtube link onto the George Michael official forum (The most likely place to find Wham! fans). We had previously posted here to get an idea what elements a typical Wham! fan would like to see in a music video for a Wham! song; in this instance "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go!" Over the next few days, we gathered a lot of responses from users of the website, all positive. This showed that our video certainly appealed to its target audience, and is therefore a successful "product". The users of the George Michael forum noted that it kept within the Wham! music ethic (cheerful, not overblown, cheesy, etc)and paid tribute to our lead performers choice in pink socks. Examples of comments made by the George Michael fans are as follows...
Very funny, I like that. Congrats to you!
Great video and great socks! I like it!
All these users are genuine and have been members of the forum for a substantial period of time, and have not been invented by our group to improve our audience feedback. From this we have learnt that each fan of a certain genre or band looks for something different in their music videos. Our music video was very simplistic in concept and filming-wise, but it fitted its audience and met their needs.
Another form of audience feedback has come from the comments of users of youtube. However, this is essentially useless, as most of the comments are not genuine i.e come from people in media wanting 5 star ratings on their own videos. Nothing can be learnt from this,apart from it shows that youtube is an easily manipulated source of audience feedback, something that is exploited by the media (i.e Internet confidence tricksters)
Our third and final source of audience feedback comes from fellow students, and unlike youtube, is a genuine response to our video. The response was generally positive, the common reaction being "So bad...it's kinda good!" This is not really a problem to us, as Wham! the band made music and videos which were pretty bad but loved by many. We had this in mind when we made the video, and our other media products (digipack, magazine advert). This too shows that a product doesn't have to have a lot of technical quality, but a likeable factor that still appeals to people, and this has been an important thing to learn. There are examples of this in every day life (The "Jedward" phenomenon), and our feedback has helped us to understand this to a further depth.
How did you use media technique in the construction & research, planning and evaluation stages?
In the preliminary planning stage, we sketched a few ideas and produced a rough storyboard. From here we started to develop our ideas, eventually producing a storyboard that went into enough detail and looked presentable. This was then scanned and we were able to upload it onto our blogs in two sections. For our audience research, I created a profile on the George Michael forum under the alias "George Michael Lover" in an attempt to get some audience feedback. This was our main source of information, and was an easily accessable source of information. I made my posting informal as to hopefully get a happier response (which worked).
When we were filming we kept the length of our filming to a minimum. We used a lot of close-ups on the lead characters face.
Youtube was a key resource to help us create our video. We could check the existing Wham! video and decide which factors we needed to keep in our own video. We could also see over music videos made by media students for different songs/genres, and see how their videos had turned out. From youtube, we could take the existing video and put it onto my blog to analyse, and also the availabilty of access of youtube made it easy to get our video onto the internet and gain audience feedback.
The blog itself is www.blogger.com,which is easy to access as all you need is a G-mail account, and once you have chosen your preferred background and layout it is quite simple to function. Blogger allows you to upload images and embed videos (Edit HTML), and also you can move and edit your posts however you like, so it is useful if you decide something needs changing. Having never made a blog before, I was surprised how easy they are to make. The blog itself operated as a running commentary as we progressed from planning to filming & editing. Each blog is of a certain length and is all ordered in chronolgy, so all the information is easy to find; making it more practible than using a word document in essay form.
The filming of the video was a relatively simple process. We had a film and tripod, and went out filming. Most of our shots were shot from the tripod, and in only one scene did we use a tracking shot. Whilst we were shooting, we had to take into account lighting, and we arranged the camera in positions where the light would help and not hinder the quality of the image.
When we had all the necessary footage, we used Adobe Premier to help edit our clips together. Adobe allowed us to brighten to video, as on the day of filming outside the weather was overcast. We used the footage we had and inserted an mp3 track, which is an example of synergy, and once the video was synced in time with the mp3 track with few cutting and transitional techniques (fade, etc) the video was completed and ready for youtube.
To create our ancillary texts (Digipack & Magazine advert)we used Photoshop C3. It was easy to use, as we had used it before to create a media package for our AS coursework, and as this was less comlicated it was quite a smooth process. Also, photoshop helped link all our products together in synergy; still images taken from the video could be placed into our digipack to show that they were directly linked. Once our digipack and advert had a similar look, font and layout we had finished our whole package. Also, the use of text on photoshop helped to describe and show the link between our products, making it an effective media product.
Finally, once the video had been uploaded onto youtube, it was easy to place the link on social networking sites such a facebook and the George Michael forum, making it even more accessable to a broader audience. This left only the evaluation to complete, which is a lengthly blog entry on blogger.com
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