JC-Evaluation

2. How effective is the combination of the main product and ancillary texts?

The brief was to create a promotional backage for the release of a new album. This included making a music video, a digipak and an advertisement.

• We set out to create the three texts with the band image in mind at all times.




• After extensive research into the band, we knew how we would convey the band through our media.




• We set out to represent the band's authenticity, showing the group together with their instruments. We wanted the texts to have a genuine band feel to them.

The advertisement was designed to run in Kerang magazine. It was desinged as a whole page advertisement, and kept to the conventions of punk rock advertisements as well as conforming to the style of our other two texts.

• The advertisement had a colourful image and contained the album cover on it, the use of big wording that stood out made the advertisement effective as it jumped out at the reader flicking through the magazine.

Here is a copy of the advertisement, you can see by looking at it that the leading line is effective in the hard sale of the album.

The use of visual motifs reinforce the band image by keeping to their usual colours of white red and black and also by yet again showing their authenticity. The advertisement contained a picture of the band members standing together.

• Feedback from our audience showed that this helped give the message that the band played their own instruments on the album, and it isn't just a voice over pop group.




• The text on the advertisement was simplistic in terms of its content. This connotes the raw fact that the band want you to buy the album, and they're not all about being in the limelight.




• The same background patterns from the digipak were used on the advertisement, this time it was used as a border for the advert rather than its bulk content.

The leading line of the advertisement is:

• Album cover




• Band photo




• Text




• Out now

This was the desired impact of the advert as it quickly grabs the reader and the last thing they remember about the advertisement is "out now" so they know it is new and hopefully therefore more likely to buy it.

The text anchors the image of the band by again being simplistic. There isn't loads of wording to put the reader off or bore them, it gets clearly to the point.

• The band name is quickly seen which lures the reader in.




• The album name is read in quick succession so the reader knows from the offset what the advertisement is about, this makes it succesful as some advertisements do not have that effect and therefore are more likely to be skipped past.




• The colourful pattern keeps the reader looking and allows the eye to travel down to the album cover.




• The album cover shows the reader what to look for in the shops. This is effective because although they may forget what they saw in the advertisement, they will subconsciously remember it and so it will stand out to them when they see it on shop shelves.




• The reader then sees the band together, with the guitar, clearly showing that the band is genuine and the fact that they are there looking out at the reader conveys the meaning that they want them to buy their music.




• As the words "out now" are read, only moments from the page being turned, the album's message is anchored in the reader's mind and will hopefull influence the reader to buy the music.

The digipak was created with the music video well underway in it's editing stages. We were therefore able to use intertextual references with other digipaks, album work and our video.

• The digipak conveys the genre of the music with its colours and style.




• It is a four page digipak, typical of the punk rock genre and was designed to convey the band's authentic image. It shows their common meaning and and usual persona.




• The digipak contains a band photograph which is essential for the fanatic audience who like to see the band they are listening to, this helps them to feel closer to the group as they essentially have a piece of the band.




• On the front cover there is no image of the band, as this is not seen in the punk rock genre. The text is eye grabbing and quickly shows what the album is, it is recognisible easily from any advertisement the buyer may have seen.

Here is the front and back cover of the digipak.


• The back cover has the track names, numbers and playback times. It has a yellow text that is used throughout the digipak, meaning that it feels genuine and proffessional.




• On the inside there is the band photograph and the definition of Punk Rock, this is to help the the owner of the album understand the meaning behind what they are listening to.

Here is a copy of the inside pages of the digipak.


• On the page that the Cd would sit on is a white sillouhette of the band. This is a very influential image and helps to convey the mystery and dark nature of the band. It could also connote that they are still only human because the band are seen as white in darkness, rather than being dark themselves.

Both texts relate to the Music Video through:

• The use of the same three base colours throughout, red white and black. Other colours are rarely added in and only used for the relevant effects.




• Much of the music video is in black and white, so the coloured sections are important as they show live performance which adds to the authentic feel.




• By using these colours in the digipak and the advertisement, the reader who obtains all three will be able to relate the texts to eachother and will acknowledge the reccuring theme of the band's image.

By using Dyer's critical framework on the construct of star image, it is evident that the star persona is created through the three texts by use of light, colour, non-verbal language and visual effects.

• By having images of the band members looking towards the camera in the digipak, the owner has a virtual piece of the band.
• This creates a sense of accesibility to the band and also an inaccesibilty as this is a photograph of a band that they might idolise.
• This relates to Dyer's paradox theory of the band being made accessibile to the audience through being able to see what the band are like, and to have some visual links to them, to be able to understand what they have heard during the music. This is a paradox because the band is inaccessible to the owner of the digipak, the images help to create star image and the feeling of desire to meet these people.
• The music of the album, collected with the music video and the digipak creates a para-social intimacy. The audience will gain to learn a lot about the band, through understanding their values and beliefs through their music, learning about their career and what they look like in band photos etc. On the other hand, the band may not have ever met the possesser of these texts. The audience may know a lot about the band but the band has only a limited knowledge of the demographic that it plays to.

Star persona is created during the music video according to Dyer's theories:

• The performance shots of the band have the singer often looking into the camera, especially during the extreme close ups, this helps to show the audience that the singer is genuine and potentially live during the video, it creates the feeling that the singer is performing to the audience.
• During the video, the girl looks into the camera during significant points of the narrative. This helps to maintain the sense that she is of a darker nature and that is very important in the video.
• She is not directly represented as a person during the video, she is the inner struggle of the lead singer. Therefore she is also the male, thus star persona is created by the video emphasising two sexes and two beings as the same person.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

• For our album, the target audience was males between the ages of 16-24. During the planning stages, we identified the artist's work as punk rock.


Pitch

We needed to test a concept in the planning stages to ensure that our video and album art would work. This was very important as without doing this test we could have been running blind. By testing our concept we could see whether the target audience thought along the same lines as us, without doing this we could have made something totally irrelevant.

• The results showed that our concept would work with the music




• The idea of using live performance video was accepted by everyone we asked.




• We asked our target audience as well as the other Media students.

We were concerned about the silent movie sections of the video, as we were not sure whether this idea would work.

• The feedback we got was that the use of a train line and a steam train would work well with the concept of our video.




• This screenshot shows the use of the steam train in the video. You can also see how the black and white effect makes the shot so significant in the video.

We told the target audience about the femme fetale idea during the pitch.

• This was accepted by the target audience during our pitch and so we decided to go ahead with our ideas.

Rough Cut

• When we felt almost finished with the video, we tested a rough cut of the video to a target audience. This allowed us to gain some feedback of our work so far.




• 
  The feedback from the rough cut highlighted a small glitch in one of our shots.

We were pleased to have got that as we had not seen the video on a large screen before and so could have potentially missed something like that.

We gave out a small sheet with some questions asking for comments.

• You can see an example of one of our question sheets in the screenshot.
  
  We asked if the video stood up to repeat viewing, everyone answered yes.




• We then asked if they enjoyed the video and why, everyone said yes and gave different reasons, these included the edditing, the use of steam trains, the use of railway lines, the performance shots etc.




• We asked if they could identify the genre of the song from the music video and everyone said rock/punk rock.




• We then asked them to name a shot that they particularly enjoyed, we had responses such as the face off shot, the steam train shot, the performance shots and the camera movement shot around the drummer.




• We asked if there was anything they thought could be improved, some said camera movement, some noted the glitch at the start and some said that there wasn't enough of the bass player.

Finished work

We tested our final work again to the target audience by the means of asking people to watch the video and either fill out a survey monkey questionnaire or give a vocal response if we watched it with them.

• Everyone we asked said that the video was strong and supported the sound of the song and supported the band's image.




• They said that the way it was put together looked very proffesional and looked great in the old film style.




• Having added camera movement to the video there were no more complaints about the way the video looked and we recieved very positive feedback for it.

The following short clip shows the camera movement around the drummer and also shows the shot that much of the audience feedback said was one of the most enjoyable shots.

We wrote the video with the intention in mind of having the girl as a haunter in the opening sections of the video, making a clear link between the singer and the girl and latterly in the video making the girl appear part of the the singer, a mentality link to "burning on the inside". The preffered reading of the video was that the artist would be portrayed as an authentic band and that the narrative sections of the video would contain a road into the lead singer's mind, in this case, his inner struggle and emotional link with this girl.

• We were pleased to see from our feedback that this was the majority reading of the video, and that they liked the look of the performance, making some viewers want to see the band perform live.




• Many said that the shots of the drummer were some of the best shots in the video. Here is a screenshot from midway through one of the panning shots.











• Post production




• The audience research carried out post production showed that the digipak carried strong links to the advertisement and the music video, essentially in its use of shadow and the three recurring colours.




• Many commented on how the digipak used the same background graphics as the advertisement, however in the digipak it had its contrast risen dramatically to wash out the details and give a darker effect.

• We posted our video onto youtube and it quickly gained many views, the first comment on the youtube site reads: "Awesome, well put together and good song. 10/10". The screen shot of the video shows this comment.

• The feedback on the advertisement was pleasing, as they said that it made the reader stop flicking through the magazine so fast to glance/read the advert.




• They said that it quickly made it clear what it was about and that they looked quickly at the name, album and out now then the album cover and was effective enough to get them to want to purchase it.







• The research showed that the advertisement was effective and aesthetically pleasing, as did the artwork of the digipak.







• The digipak contained pictures of the band, which was seen as an added bonus to the fans, as not only did they get to listen to the band but also got to see some images of them.




• They liked the artist sillouhette shot of the band behind the CD holder and said that the use of contrast was mostly effective in portraying the bands image, they said it was like many other proffessional album covers although it stood out as something new.




• Others said that the contrast ruined the digipak and we should have stuck with the background of the advertisement.