What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback is the best was to assess how effective the music video is. By asking members of the target audience how they feel bout our music video has allowed me to see how we could have improved if we had more time. It has also shown me the strong positive points of the music video.

Firstly, the main good points were that our quirky idea was good, it helped the music video fit in to the indie category. As well as this, the editing to the beat was good, and we had some clever ideas like the moment when the masked character is on the swing and the she is gone. Also, we have a range of effective shots throughout the video so that it never gets boring.

However, the main negative points that were stated were mostly about the performance section and how lip syncing wasn't as strong as it could be, and the instrument imitation wasn't convincing. There was also a comment on some of the acting, that it wasn't as good as it could be.

We did find that under the time constraint it was a challenge to make the music video as perfect as it could be. I have noticed that the performance section was possibly the weakest section in terms of the audience feedback. I do agree that we could have improved the performance section a lot. We could have used a wider variety of shots, and after watching back the video we did realise that there could have been more shots but we didn't have the time to implement these changes. As Callum said, the drumming doesn't really resemble the drumming in the song. Annaliese can't play drums very well so we did our best in editing to work around that, and there were a few sections where we felt that the drums did match smoothly, however it was hard to make the instruments look perfect when none of us are professionals at playing the instruments. The lip syncing was just an editing issue, we tried all different methods and clips out to try and fit the singing to the song, when performing I didn't emphasise the words I was saying enough so it was hard to fit it to the song.

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

The music video and the ancillary tasks share the common theme of the masks and whether the masks or the person is the reality. The masked characters are probably the most memorable and iconic part of the music video as they are shown frequently, and they are the main theme that runs throughout. Therefore it seemed to fit that they should be the main part of my digi-pak and poster. The combination is effective as both have direct links to each other, and they can appeal to fans of the indie genre as they are usually the younger generation so these ideas can relate to them as they are fun.

Firstly, the combination of the music video and ancillary tasks are effective because of their common link. The common link conforms to one of the main connotations of the indie genre, by using the idea of the quirky theme consistently throughout the music video and ancillary tasks means that the audience are always connected with the artist. Audience would feel comfort in the consistency, its not too random and different, it all ties in so the audience knows from the advertising poster, and from the digi-pak what they will get from the music video. So the combination is effective therefore as it allows the audience to know what the artist and the song is all about, and what they will see in the video. Being a younger target audience, having the fun and quirky idea run throughout the ancillay tasks and the music video was a stable choice as young people enjoy, and are attracted to products that they can relate to. This fun idea is relatable to the younger audience, they can connect with it because indie music is made to entertain the young generation and so my ancillary task had to be made to entertain that audience too.

Secondly, the indie audience would know from seeing the poster and digi-pak that this song is part of the indie genre and that they would enjoy the music video and want to buy the single. An audience would see the digi-pak in a shop and would be able to see the disjointed pictures on the covers and the colourful text on the front. The yellow text is especially obvious and stands out on the dimmer background of the picture. Yellow is a positive colour associated with happiness which is what the indie genre is all about, promoting happiness. From the poster, which shares the same font and colours, and the digi-pak an indie audience would be interested, and after viewing the music video which contains many common indie conventions, the audience would be extremely interested in the media product as it completely appeals and relates to the indie audience.

Finally the off-beat jumps in the song, are emphasised in the music video by the sudden cuts on those beats, and are then further highlighted in my digipak and poster with the crooked fonts, the edgy, off centred looking pictures, and the positioning of the text. All of these quirky features make my combination effective because the word indie is in fact short for the word individual, and therefore the audience are attracted by media products that look original and different. This is the reason I have made my digipak and poster tie in with the off-beat timings of the music video, as this will truly relate to the indie audience, by it being unique and different.

However, I was going to have a band picture on the front of the digipak to promote the performance side of the indie genre, and therefore I thought that would make my digipak effective, which it would have. However, it would not make the combination of my ancillary task and performance effective enough because I didn't feel the performance was a strong enough motif than ran throughout my music video. This is why I decided to use the band images on the back of the digipak. It wouldn't be the first thing the audience sees, as the front cover is more attractive, but it does still promote performance and still uses the masks motif. Because of the combination of the masks and performance, I feel the combination is even more effective as it uses two of the main themes of the video, yet links them through the most dominant motif.

As well as this, I have changed the idea for my poster. I was going to use a picture of the masked characters behind a tree in the woods. However, I didn't feel that it related so well to the rest of my ancillary task and music video. The scene in the woods is only a short scene and I didn't think it was memorable enough to make up the whole poster which is supposed to advertise and promote the digipak and music video, which I didn't think it was strong enough to do. Therefore, I used some images which were used in my digipak and and small image of the single, along with another couple of images which link to the masks and the music video. I thought that this new idea was a lot stronger as it can tie in with all the other tasks I have completed.

Overall, I feel the combination of my ancillary task and music video is effected mainly because of the reccurring theme of the masks which makes the connection and promotion of the media products very strong. As well as this the connection of the media products to the audience makes the combination effective, because the younger generation can relate to it and will be attracted to it and want to buy the single. And finally, the very original looking design and fonts of the ancillary tasks and the links to the music video make the the combination extremely effective as they stand out.

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

The song which we made a music video for was My Little Haunting by Hot Club De Paris, and as a group we felt that the song fell in to the 'indie' genre. Once we knew that the song was within that genre we could start researching the conventions to get an idea of how we would create our media product. We researched in to bands, similar songs, and the the general audience and looked for common trends, themes and ideas. We discovered that some common forms and conventions were fun, humorous and quirky ideas and themes. That there was a focus on the performance of bands but they don't use the band members as promotional tools like those in pop videos who are constantly seen as the main focus of the video. Bright vibrant colours are used and the videos generally have a positive feel to them. From this research we knew that we would use many of these conventions to give the video the true indie feel.

Firstly, our research returned that the quirky ideas and themes was very commonly used throughout indie music videos and I feel we have used and developed this convention by using the masks as a main theme which add humour and a light hearted mood to the video, this is generally reflected in most indie media products. After first hearing the song our whole grouped returned similar ideas of the main theme which should run throughout the music video. Because of all the references in the song to 'hauntings' and haunted connotations. All our ideas had the ghost costume involved, and most had the ideas of other characters wearing masks, we knew we had to have this as our main idea and focus as it would work well within the indie genre and we had so many ideas. We felt very confident with this quirky theme as we could picture this video fitting in with the current indie conventions.

Secondly, another convention which our music video develops is the performance aspect of the indie music videos. Most indie artists, for example The Wombats, try to promote their performance as much as possible. This is because performance is a large part of the indie culture, fans of indie music generally enjoy going to gigs for the full experience. We, therefore, felt we need to use this within our music video trying to infuse as many performance shots as possible. There are examples of this at the start of our video where there are short shots of the instruments being played when they are the most dominant sounds in the song. This is so we had the performance running along-side the narrative consistently, otherwise it was a big jump to the main performance at the end. It is very common in indie music videos to not completely have performance as this probably wouldn't entertain indie fans, the genre is more about fun and excitement and this is why we chose to have performance and narrative, this strongly develops the forms of other indie music videos.

Many indie music videos use the form of having narrative and performance running throughout, or some infuse the two. Our music video uses this form idea but has separate narrative and performance that are inked through the masks. As well as this, many indie video have a slight story line, usually a simple one that runs throughout. This is where are music video conforms and breaks away from conventions. Our story is that the lead character who is also the band front man is followed by these hauntings throughout his day to day activities and is scared by them and so tries to get away, he ends up getting knocked down and wakes up playing with the band. The story-line is quite simplistic, but it is also surrounded by ambiguity, the different effect on the performance is to signify that you don't know which sections are reality. This ambiguity is backed up by the constant changing in the masked faces to the normal faces. This is why our music video is slightly different to conventional indie videos as it has more depth to it. However, some indie videos do still use this and therefore we still worked closely within the genre and stuck to the conventions of media videos.

However, there were some areas and connotations of the genre that we didn't stick to. An example of this is the colourful and vibrant aspect of indie. It is very common to see bright colours, flashing lights, fun flashes and bursts of vibrant colour. We didn't really use or develop this connotation of the indie genre. We did this because we felt with the theme and idea we had it was linked with horror and fear, and so the bright colours would ruin the humour and fun which we could create through dimmer colours. The idea was to create a music video that is humorous because it is laid out like a horror film but not in obvious places, for example the supermarket scene, its not often that a horror film uses people being chased in a supermarket, but we felt the bright colours would draw the audience away from the horror and haunting side of the music video.

Many indies artists are very different to pop artists because pop artists are generally the main focus as they are supposed to be the icon of their music, whereas indie artists tend to only promote their performance and not so much themselves as artists. They do this by not using them as main characters in their videos, they may use actors instead. However, we used me as the main character, we firstly did this because we found it hard to find someone who would fit the role correctly, fitting in with the indie genre. We also thought that the performance and the narrative wouldn't really link so much if we had a different character in the narrative, and that would mean that we would have needed to change the whole story line which would have been efficient. This aspect of our music video does challenge the more conventional videos within the indie genre. However, it is becoming a more common feature of music videos to have members of the band be the actors within narrative. This could be because it is harder to make money in the music industry now and therefore they don't have the money to spare on extra actors, as well as this it could be because there is less money in the music industry bands need to try and promote themselves more to get album sales.

Overall, my group chose to conform to most of the conventions of the indie genre as we felt this song itself sounded like a very conventional indie song and therefore this video would fit perfectly. We did however make some well justified choices to challenge certain conventions as it would fit in with out storyline. Below is a comparative video to show why we made some of the choices we did, and to show how our video fits in with other indie media products.

This video shows how our music video fits in with real media products of the same genre. We use similar ideas and concepts.

The man on the left is the frontman of The Wombats, a very well know indie band. As you can see his look is the very common shirt with top button done up. This is a classic indie style which I tried to encorporate in to the music video by using the best indie shirt I could find and do the top button up with skinny jeans.

The front man of The Cribs is wearing a retro style jumper and denim jeans which is similar to what Alex is wearing with her knitted jumper and denim shorts.

Babyshambles has a very smart style which has been claimed as 'indie' so the use of the bow tie by Annaliese is our attempt at trying to conform to the indie style.

Poster

Digi-pak



Front Cover

Inside Cover



Inside Back Cover

Spine



Back Cover

Evaluation

For the evaluation we must answer four questions, and we should be creative in the way we answer the questions. For example we could use video, diagrams and pictures. We could do a running commentary over the top of the music video to describe why we chose certain shots and used certain ideas.

The four questions are:

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

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

-What have you learned from your audience feedback?

-How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research and planning, and evaluation stages?

Ancillary Tasks

The ancillary tasks that have been set are to make a digi-pak, there will be four images: front cover, inside covers and the back. We also have to create a poster to advertise the single. The song my group had was My Little Haunting by Hot Club De Paris and therefore the digi-pak and the poster must relate to the music video focusing on some reccurring themes and images that are seen throughout the music video.

My ideas are:
Front cover:
For the front cover I have decided to have the band playing in their masks and costumes but with a cartoon effect on the image to reflect the ambiguity which is seen in the nusic video. Are the masked people real or fake? The cartoon effect will also make the cover quirky and colourful and unique like that of the indie genre. The font used will be colourful, possibly red and a very rounded fun cartoon-like.

Inside covers and back cover:
These will be split screen faces, where half is of the characters faces with masks and the other half will be of scared faces without masks. On the back it will have all the track listings including a bar code, again the font will be cartoon-like and colourful. I will also try to have bright colours around the images of the faces.

Poster:
The poster will be a shot of a tree in Oxleas woods with the Yoda and witch masked characters poking their heads out of either side, with the ghost costumed character at the foot of the tree. There will be a smaller image of the front cover of the album to advertise it. There will be a small amount of text at the bottom or top to describe and advertise the new release and promote the band. This links to one of the scenes in the music video and also links very well to the song and indie genre.