Welcome

Hello and welcome to my  A2 media blog. This blog tracks the development and research stages of my A2 coursework task of creating a Music video, Digipak and Magazine avert for a Daft Punk's 'Around the World'. Below are the Final Cut, Magazine Advert and Digipak followed by the Evaluation questions as well as the rest of my research and planning. You will find links lists down the right hand side of the blog as well as a search function for easy navigation, enjoy!

'Around The World' Music Video - Final Cut

Here is our final cut of the music video for Daft Punk's Around The World!

Rough Cuts: 

• Rough Cut 5
• Rough Cut 4
• Rough Cut 3
• Rough Cut 2
• Rough Cut 1

Final Digipak

Here is the final digipak design including more performance shots and advert photos.

Final Magazine Advert

Main Magazine Ad

Teaser Ad

Evaluation Question 1 - Use Of Conventions

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

Research Into Conventions:

General Conventions:

Diagetic Sound

The first step in answering this question is to first list the conventions of current media products. We can split this into three different areas: Music videos, digipaks and magazine adverts. For our research into these conventions we started by looking a the general conventions of the format then at more genre specific example in relation to our own product. First of all I will look at the music video conventions we found. First of all we can note the different forms of music video. We found the videos we looked at fell into three different categories: Narrative, Concept or a mixture of both. 

Performance Footage

Examples of narrative: 

• Wheatus 'Teenage Dirtbag'  
• Blink 182's 'After Midnight' 

Examples of Concept

• Ok Go's 'Needing/Getting' 
• DSL's 'Supalove'

Lip Syncing

These where very popular videos and shows this format can work well. Often narrative videos will combine a mixture of performance footage and the narrative in place. 

• This performance footage will often have a strong emphasis on the singer of the band who will directly address the audience. 
• Lip syncing is a major part of most music videos with lyrics and a reason we chose a song with some lyrics. 
• Different styles of editing are also used in music videos, continuity or discontinuity

  

  Know One Knows - Performance
  Footage

  or sometimes a mixture of both. This is seen in the video for 'No One Knows' where the narrative parts of the video contain a continuity style of editing, however when they switch to the performance footage a discontinuity style is used which could be used to attract a younger audience. 
• The use of transitions also links into the continuity and discontinuity style. For a continuity style you will most likely have simple jump cuts where as there is more room for experimentation in a discontinuity style piece. 
• Another common convention is the the use of a diagetic intro or interlude within the video. Another important part in some genre's is  cutting to the beat. 

Vodcast on general video conventions:

Genre Specific Conventions:
We looked at music from the electronic/dance genre for our genre specific examples. Obviously in these videos we saw a lot of the general conventions pop up again, however there where specific conventions which cropped up that where specific to our chosen genre. 

• We saw the use of a dance move in a couple of examples, in Sebastian's 'Embody' we see the same dance move repeated in a variety of situations. This move is catchy and can be easily replicated by fans of the song. 
• We also saw the use of inter-textual references in Deadmau5' 'Ghosts 'n' Stuff' where the main protagonist has a tattoo from the retro game space invaders. 
• Another common theme within videos of the genre is the use of special effects which would make sense with the electronic genre. We see this in 'Illmerica' and 'Levels'. 
• We also see an example of a viral marketing campaign in one of the videos 'I Love U so'where viewers of the video can download an app with a mouth lip syncing words to the song so they can make their own version. This will help spread the music video and give a way for the artist to interact with their audience. The conventions we see in these video help to appeal to the targeted audience of 15-24 year olds. 

Vodcast on genre specific conventions: 

Digipak:
For the digipak examples I looked at there where a range of conventions to take in. 

Ignacio Fernandez- Buscare

• The first and most obvious convention of the digipak's I have looked at is the title of the album and the artists name on the front pannel. 
• There will normally be an image on the front of the digpak dipicting the artist or a concept image which relates to the centre. 
• We normally see a specific colour scheme all the way through the design of the digipak relating to the front cover. An example of this is in the Daft Punk's album 'Human after all'. 
• The front cover will often use bright or contrasting colour in order to make the digipak stand out. In 'Buscare' bright reds and yellows contrast against a black and white image of the artist. 
• On some digipaks we also see a sticker which will give information about hit singles within the album or bonus features such as a dvd or live footage. 
• On the spine of the digipak we once again see the artist name and the album name, however sometimes just the album name. We will also often see logos for record labels contributing to the album as well as a CD identification number. 

Daft Punk - Human After All 

Track Listings and Related Images

• On the back of the digipak there will be an image which almost always relates to the front of the digipak or the ongoing theme throughout. 
• A track listing will be displayed on the back sometime with the length of the tracks and track number. 
• On the bottom of the back pannel we will see information in copyright often smaller and in a different font to the rest of the album. 
• We are also likley to see a bar code as well as the contributing record companies at bottom right or left hand corner. We may also see information such as the bands website or the artists social networking sites. 
• On the inside pannels we are likley to see more background images relating to the theme throughout. There will often be details such as song lyrics however due to our chosen genres minimal lyrics this is normally not the case for the genre specific deconstructions. 
• We are likley to see the people who played the intruments during each song and anybody who contributed to the song such as the producer. There maybe behind the scenes pictures from tours of the band and in some cases all we see on the inside of the digipak. There are also details on the CD including the recording companies, the name of the album and the CD number.

Magazine Ad:
Going onto the magazine ad we can see a variety of codes and conventions. 

Artist Logo

• The artists logo is one of the most important informational aspects of a magazine ad. It usually comes near the top third of the advert and will either take up most of the width of the page, or take up roughly half of the page and be placed at the left side. 
• The album name is an important piece of information for buyers to know. This is usually shown just below the artist logo in a smaller font. I was surprised to see that some adverts, such as one from The Offspring and one from Machine Head, completely omitted this information and even on adverts that did have the album name printed, it wasn't as prominent as I would have suspected. I presume this is for a few reasons. Firstly, due to technology, just by searching for the artists name on Amazon, iTunes or other similar stores, or by visiting the artists website, the album name would be very easy to find. Secondly, the album will often be recognised by the artwork (which I will mention in the next sub-category) so mentioning the name isn't completely necessary. Finally, today artists make most of their money by tours and so it is the artist that is predominantly being promoted and not the album. The artwork of a magazine advert will very often be an expanded version of the digipak artwork, or will at least have an element in both that is the same. This makes the album/digipak easily recognisable to people who have seen the advert. 

Album Names

Website Address

• Reviews may be shown for the album, although this isn't too common. These reviews will usually come from magazines, newspapers or other media forms in which the primary audience is similar to that of the audience for the artist being promoted. 
• A web address for the band is usually located towards the bottom of an advert and will be small and discrete but still easy to read. While this used to include the full address, including 'www.' at the start, nowadays it is more likely to just seen the domain and not have 'www.' included. 
• A release date is quite important information and is given on approximately half of the magazine ads that I have looked at. It will either give the date or say 'Out Now'. I presume that those that don't give the date have already been released, but I'm not completely sure of this. 
• Tour information is only occasionally included on an advert for a digipak. Obviously

  

  Tour Information

  an artist has to have an upcoming tour for the information to be given, but even those that do rarely include it. Generally, as already mentioned, acts make most of their money through tours rather than album/single sales, which is a trend that has only come abouts in recent years due to the shift in buying habbits and the introduction and increase in illegal file sharing. Perhaps in the future including tour information will be more common to accommodate for this change in the industry. 
• The record label's logo will be shown on almost all magazine ads. It will usually only take a very small space and be located at the bottom of the page, either directly in the centre or in one of the corners. Product information is most likely to be found on adverts for albums that aren't just standard CDs. There will usually be a special promotional aspect to them: '20th Anniversary Edition' or 'Includes Live Tour DVD' etc. are commonly mentioned. Occasionally though some songs from the album might be listed. This will usually be a song previously released as a single or a couple of the 'best' songs from the album.

How We Followed Convention:

Music Video:

Performance

In our own music video we decided to follow some of these conventions. First of all we picked a narrative style to a video with a central protagonist. Our objective with our main character was to make them stand out and look wacky and enigmatic. We included some examples of lip syncing at the start of the video during the diagetic opening which is another convention we followed. 

Our video included a variety of locations in order to keep it interesting throughout with short scenes throughout and fast paced editing. We used cutting to the beat in parts but where careful not to overuse the convention. Mostly we just used a simple jump cut in order to enforce the continuity within our piece. We also took care in order to make sure we applied the match on action principal and 180 degree rule when characters interacted. 

The inclusion of a dance move within our video helped to improve it's replay value and was easily replicable. We tested this out at the creative arts evening where we got people to partake in the dance as well as making an instructional video. Another effect we used was multiple layering during some of the different encounters which we saw in the video for 'Under the Bridge'. Another effect we used was a projection during the party scene at the end of our video. This also included an element of intertextuality as the projection we used was from Daft Punk's video for 'Rollin' and Scatchin'. This was another theme we saw in our example videos so we decided to include it in our own.

Digipak:

Our Digipak 

On the digipak we made sure to try and follow the conventions seen in the examples we looked at very closely. This included our front image which is a shot from the music video so we included original images. On the front of our digipak we had the name of the artist and the name of the album as seen on all the digipaks. In more recent updates we added a sticker to the front cover which includes details of a bonus music video dvd as well as some of the hit singles from the album. We made sure that the text on the front was bright and bold in order to attract our targeted audience to the product. We used the Daft font so the front would be clearly recognizable to older fans of the band. 

On the spine I added the name of the album once again as well as the record label's logo on the bottom which we saw on most examples. Moving on to the back of the digipak we started by writing out the track list. We looked at of examples of the format to find out the number of tracks you would expect to see on an special edition digipak. At the bottom we added a barcode as well as the small text at the bottom which includes copyright information. We also added social networking icons to keep up with new technology so people know where they can interact with the band. On the inside we decided to include pictures from the viral contest we are running which will feature the Daft punk advert at different locations around the world. This is an important part in linking all of our media products together.  

Magazine Ad: 

Magazine Advert

In the magazine ad we also included many of the conventional features we saw during our research. We included the band name in the trademark font as well as the album we are advertising in a different font. We included an altered image of the traveler from the music video. This goes along with tour dates for our 'around the world' tour. We also included information linking you to the viral ad campaign as well as the bands website. We thought up a small slogan snap, compete, win which I think is catchy and links in to the picture campaign. 

You can see from this prezi the way the magazine ad follows convention: 

Evaluation Question 2 - Package Combination

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

Evaluation question two asks, how effective were our combination of main products and ancillary texts:

The first point to make when tackling this question is that normally one company wouldn't make all three products. For our own coursework we produced all the texts ourselves. In the real industry it would be likely you would get a company which specializes in creating a music video, digipak and magazine ad separately. 

Examples of these would be: 

• Disk factory a CD and DVD packaging company which offers versatile CD packaging solutions which includes digpaks.
• Project 11 is magazine advert design company providing modern full two page or single page design ideas for companies, events or products.
• Londonmusicvideo are a music video production company which specialises in affordable band promo and music video.

Theories and Audience:

Daft Font

We can look at a range of theories when looking at this question. Blumler and McQuail's uses and gratifications model suggests that people get what they want from the text they are viewing. The viewer of our work will take what they want from the text for example someone from our younger audience bracket may pick out certain aspects such as the party scene or the travelers quirky and amusing appearance. An older audience who are fans of the original Daft Punk songs may spot some of the intertexual references added into our piece of work. An example of this would be in the digipak where we used the recognizable 'Daft font' which older viewers will be able to pick up on as it was used on the 1996 album cover for 'Homework'. Small details like this have helped us appeal to a wider range of age groups and is important to consider when designing our texts.

Another idea we can look at is Web 2.0. It is a term associated with web applications that focuses on a user-centered design to facilitate an interactive and increasingly content generating audience. So what does this mean in terms of our video and ancillary texts? An example of this would be the viral campaign in which we encouraged fans of our video and product combination to go out and participate in our work. Web 2.0 suggests that the gap between producer and audience is being blurred. In our own work we have encouraged this. The idea was to have fans go out and take photos of the magazine ad in the most interesting and unique places possible. This was available by scanning a QR code on the magazine ad which would then direct you to a post on the Quack cuts blog. This would give them instructions on how to participate in the competition. The winners pictures would then be included in a remixed version of the song in a new video. This was encouraged through our twitter site and the idea was to create an overall buzz about the competition. 

Magazine Ad

Blog Post

Twitter Post

Target Audience:
We set our target audience as males and females from the age ranges of 15 to 24. This is due to the genre of music we have chosen appeals to this age range the most. This music is likely to be played in clubs and at festivals where you will find people of this age. 

Primary target audience as shown in
our video.

The genre of music is also listened to by those aspiring to go clubbing or are interested in the dance music scene and we have found this age range to be 15 +. The act itself has a very broad following due to the fact that Daft Punk have been around since 1993 and have had many hits in the UK charts. 

We are aiming to appeal to audience which were of the ages 15 to 24 when they first became famous and a current audience of this age range. Meaning our secondary audience will be aged between 35 to 44 years old. We aimed to appeal to this audience through all parts of the project by referencing parts of videos which where around at that time.

We are also targeting another parallel secondary tween audience. Many younger teens 12+ listen to music often associated with an older group and will have been influenced by people around them and figures in the media. This age range will aspire to act in a similar way to our primary audience.  During our filming and project we have taken this audience into account by being careful not to reference anything which would lead to our video being played post watershed time.

Exhibition:

We considered how our products would be exhibited in a real world music magazine. We did some research and looked at a few different magazine before deciding Mixmag was probably the most appropriate choice to advertise in. Mixmag is a magazine that provides clubbers DJ's and music enthusiasts the latest new on a range of dance music related topics. We found the advertising specification online which we took into account when designing the magazine ad. We also used their audience demographics information to further aid the creation of our ancillary product as well as target audience. 

Addressing Audience:
To reflect our target audience in the texts we featured a variety of characters which we thought would appeal to the target audiences we had defined. More details on this are mention above using the uses and gratifications model. 

Younger character

Older character

Distribution:
To address our core audience we would aim to distribute our product online and in stores. We would likely make most sales online as that is most accessible to our primary target audience however both our secondary audiences would be more likely to make sales in high street shops. Sites like Amazon and Play as well as the itunes store are great places to sell our products as they appeal to a young audience living in technological age. 

As for the shops we would probably be gaining most sales from shops like virgin as well as independent record shops. The independent stores would also be able to buy into the competition idea. If we were to have this as a real life product independent stores would be were the contestants images could be exhibited and submitted. We could also feature the limited edition digipak in these shops as well as advertising the using the magazine ad tying the two products together. We saw this in action in Leeds when we visited Jumbo records on a shoot. 

Daft Punk Vevo

A prime place to exhibit our music video would be on music channel such as MTV as well as other popular cable music channel. Daft Punk are popular among many audiences so television music channels are an ideal place to show the music video. An area not to forget about is Youtube. Due to the rise in digitization and viral advertising music videos which go on Youtube can get many millions of views. Most popular artists are partnered with Vevo who help advertise music videos on the channel. Daft Punk's latest song Get Lucky has already racked up over 10 million views on the official video, not to mention fan made remixes and lyric videos.  

Social Media:

Social media sites like Facebook or Twitter have played a large role in sharing our products and gaining feedback. By setting up a company twitter feed we could access non bias responses and share developments or advertise through posting tweets and and statuses. As a package we have gained audience feedback. We have found our magazine ad, digipak and music video are viewed as a coherent campaign that is tightly linked and appeals to our target audience in the right way. 

Viral Campaign:
Firstly our viral ad campaign, we asked fans who have seen the advert used in a magazine to take a picture in an un-specified location with the advert. The most inventive picture would then be included in the ending sequence of a remixed and re-edited version of the music video. Next, using new technology QR codes, Youtube, and image uploading to group our ancillaries with our music video whilst involving the audience as much as possible. 

Initially we had plans to create a suitcase digipak that emulated the suitcase used in the video. However this idea developed to use more original images from the from the video as well as viral campaign pictures. The magazine ad also developed from a suitcase leather style with stickers to the current and in our opinion, more eye catching design with detail on tour dates and release. Overall I think all three of the products link together well and create a complete package. 

• Matching Fonts
• Use of the same image
• Poster referencing the competition and digipak
• Links on poster to the digipak and where to view the music video
• Suitcase and 'Traveller' images on both products
• Matching colour scheme

Images used on previous digipak are taken form the viral campaign to

to photograph the poster.

Evaluation Question 3 - Audience Feedback

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Defining The Target Audience:

Our target audience is male and female aged 15 to 24. This is because the genre of music we have found appeals to this age range the most. The music is likely to be played in clubs and at festivals and 18 to 24 year olds are the average age range at these locations. The genre of music is also listened to by those aspiring to go clubbing or are interested in the dance music scene and we have found this age range to be 15 +. The act itself has a very broad following due to the fact that Daft Punk have been around since 1993. We are aiming to appeal to audience which where of the ages 15 to 24 when they first became famous and a current audience of this age range.

Simpsons reference - Appeals to

younger fans

We are also targeting a secondary tween audience. Many younger teens 12+ listen to music often associated with an older group as they aspire to be like them therefore we have included them in our target audience. We have not focused our project on appealing to them directly but we have considered them. For example excluding any references to sex, drug taking or drinking directly meaning our music video would be able to be played before the watershed hour.

Daft Punks Appearances In The Media: 

 Part of the reason Daft Punk appeals to so many audiences is the many appearances in the media as well as intertexuality. They have appeared on television multiple times through adverts and have been reference a lot in films and programs. In 2001 they appeared in a commercial for GAP clothing as well as on Cartoon network promoting the Toonami website. Anime influenced music videos from the discovery album also have featured in the feature length  Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem in which Daft Punk appears in their robot alter ego costume.



Daft Punk Coca Cola



Daft Punk In Tron Legacy

This is an example of horizontal integration which can also be seen in their latest movie soundtrack for the film Tron: Legacy.  In 2005 they also appeared in adverts for Sony Ericsson as well as Adidas. A lot of the promotional work Daft Punk do for products which are also directly appealing to our chosen target audience. An example is the Tron movie is the original Tron film from 1982 which appeals to the older audiences we entioned earlier. This all ties together to help grow Daft Punks fan base. This also links into convergence theory and the flow of content across multi media platforms and industries. This culture depends heavily of the active participation of the audience and a participatory culture. This also includs collective intellignece and the combining of skills and recources.

The Reception Of Our Video:

Our texts can be viewed on
multiple devices

Our music video has been designed to be watched in many different formats and ways. We acknowledge the fact that this will effect the way in which we get feedback. Due to the increase in technology and the increase in digitization our video as well as ancillary texts can be viewed everywhere at any time. Different audiences will be more likely to watch our videos on different devices. We have to bear this in mind when gaining audience feedback. 

When showing the rough cut for the first time in the 6th form center we used a laptop to display the video. The viewing conditions weren't the best which effected the way people received the video. For example, the noise in the room effected how well you could hear the track a meant people couldn't pick out cutting to the beat. This didn't result in the best feedback so for subsequent viewings we controlled viewing for optimal feedback. This was also the same case for digipak and magazine advert feedback. If the products where viewed on bloggers page the resolution would be lowered in order to be uploaded where as if we showed the raw file the quality would be better and more details could be spotted. This also was shown when people viewed the pictures on phones or on a larger iPad or Computer screen. This can be seen below in our feedback videos.

Readings:

Different age ranges will have different responses to our products, however for this we are mainly considering the video. Three different readings can be shown towards a media text: 

• Preferred reading
• Negotiated reading
• Oppositional reading



Performance 

On earlier rough rough cuts of the video responses we had where mostly negotiated. People found the video to be confusing at times and the narrative wasn't very easy to follow. An example of comments made:

 'The overall video is good, but the narrative is hard too follow'

We took this on board so we decided to add more miscellaneous footage as well as transitional shots from one location to the next. We went further to improve our video by adding performance footage which anchors this point. These shots where meant to show Daft Punk having control over the traveler and influencing his decisions. This is shown from footage of the traveler on the laptop screen. We got more positive feedback from the inclusion of this performance footage and I believe this benefited our video greatly overall. It made the video instantly more recognizable as the helmets are a clear magnifier of Daft Punk.

Another point to make about the readings was the charity shop scene. When talking to people under the age of 15 we got mainly negative responses which is too be expected. Going to a charity shop would most likely be seen as quite un-cool for someone of that age. the older audience however thought the scene was quite funny and quirky. 

How we obtained feedback:
The first method we used was too go up to people at school and ask their opinions on our video. We would either film this or note it down to add to the blog later. This was the most direct way to get feedback and helped us alter our products appropriately. 

• We could also send people messages over Facebook with a link to the video so they could give us their feedback. 

Facebook Feedback

• We also obtained feedback from twitter as well as popular online forums such as the Daft Club and Leeds music room. 

Forum Post

• We also got feedback through Youtube comments on rough cuts as well as ratings with likes and dislikes. 

Youtube Comments

We used a variety of ways to get audience feedback as this would help us get the feedback we needed from our chosen target audience. We could then use this to improve the video and overall I think it has helped out a lot. The audience helps you pick out flaws in the narrative or footage that you may not have seen otherwise and change them to make the video as well as ancillary texts better. We gained feedback on each of our rough cuts so we could improve the next version of the video. These will be linked below. We also listed the feedback we took on board and the feedback we rejected.

Feedback Links List:

• Digipak Initial Feedback
• Dummy Digipak Feedback
• Updated Digipak Feedback
• Video Audience Feedback
• Rough Cut 6 Feedback
• Rough Cut 7 Feedback
• Rough Cut 9 Feedback
• Final Cut Feedback
• Final Cut Feedback - Older Audience

Rough Cut 6 Feedback:

Rough Cut 7 Feedback:

Rough Cut 9 Feedback:

As you can see from these videos we intervewed people and asked them a few questions regarding the rough cuts. After this we made a list of the feedback we accepted and rejected.

Accepted Feedback:

• Shaky camera movement
• Some long takes
• Narrative unclear at times
• Narrative in need of ancorage
• Performance footage is good
• Improve audio at ther beginning of video
• Traveler needs more impact

Rejected Feedback:

• Party scene is confusing
• Visiting charity shop
• Travelers outfit is strange
• Need more shot variety

We also gained feedback for the Digipak through written comments.

I think audience feedback did play a role in the production of our video however I believe codes and conventions of current music videos affected this more. Sometime feedback wasn't sufficient as to really appreciate the features of the video you have to have some knowledge of media language. Our own creative process during editing and video production also played a large part. We often created a lot of ideas through inspiration whilst on a shoot rarther than refering back to the feedback we have gotten. However overall getting an opinion and feedback from the audience of your product is important to make it appeal to a real world audience.