Evaluation Question 3: What have you I learnt from my audience feedback

Throughout the industrial process, I relied upon audience feedback to improve my products. For example, when myself and Joe had finished our rough cut, we asked other media students and class members who fit into the age demographic of young adults (our target audience) any changes or recommendations that they would make to improve the video. I decided to ask media students as they were more likely to notice technical aspects or ways in which we could develop our meaning within our video perhaps than another audience, through the practice of making and studying other music videos. We simply asked them as it was a quick and effective method to use to gather any information needed. Based on this feedback, they identified a fault in which we had not, and altered some of the shot colours used in the video, as they did not match the rest of the tone of the video. This feedback helped improve the overall quality of our video and was therefore very useful.
However, after our video was complete, I issued 10 questionnaires to people between the age range of 17-22, my target audience, and sent it out to both men and women. This was because we identified our target audience to be mixed to see if my music video achieved the desired effect, and if not, how I could change this in the future, as well as if I had correctly identified and target my target audience.
I used the method of a questionnaire because they are not only one of the less time consuming methods, but also provide insightful valuable data, as my questions were mainly open ended meaning all feedback received varied from each person.

Both my question 1 and 2 were however simple tick box question to simply and quickly identify the age and gender of the person filling in the questionnaire. I divided the age boxes into categories of 15-18, 19-22, 23-27, 27+. I divided the sections into these categories as I had estimated the age of my target audience as between the ages of 16-22, but by dividing them up into smaller categories, I was able to see if my video appealed to the younger, or older target audience, or indeed if it appealed to a wider range of people than I initially targeted and identified in my audience profile.

For my question 3, I simply asked 'In your opinion, does the video reflect the genre and the music?'
I deemed this one of the most important questions, as the importance of genre is often stressed by theorists such as Christine Gledhill who states that 'Genres permit the creating and maintenance of a loyal audience which becomes used (to recognizing the conventions of a genre.) Essentially, by mainly conforming to the genre expectations, it both guarantees and pleases an audience. It was therefore in my interest to create a music video which mainly conformed to my genre conventions, and this question asks the recipient if I had successfully done this.

For question 4, I asked the respondent On a rating of 1-5 (5 being the highest) How well did it capture your attention?
I asked this simple question to give me an overall idea on how well I managed to engage my audience.

Question 5 How did it hold your attention?
This asks the audience for more detail on how it engaged their attention, to identify if it was by the aspects I had deliberately chosen to include, such as by the unexpected realist narrative, or by the concealing of faces, or if in fact it was other aspects which I did not expect which captured and held my audiences attention.

For Question 6, I asked Was the music video:
I simply asked my audience to tick the relevant box in relation to whether it was too long, short, or correct in its length.This is likely to link to the previous 2 questions which asked how well it held their attention, as if they gave it a low rating on how well it held their attention, and also decided that the music video was too long, then this would be a way in which I could change my music video to make it more appealing to my audience. It would also tell me if I should have perhaps chosen a different song if my audience identified it as too short in length, as our song length was only 2 minutes 33 seconds long.

Question 7, Aspects of the narrative you enjoyed?
I deliberately made this question ambiguous, as it meant that each individual was likely to interpret the question differently, as the audience could tell me both their overall general thoughts on the narrative, which was the key element to our video, or specific scenes or shots within the music video that my audience enjoyed.

Question 8, Ways in which you think the music video appeals to its audience?
This question asks the respondent to personally reflect upon parts that appealed to them within the music video, as well general themes and techniques that we used to again see if it was aspects which I anticipated as being the most appealing to my target audience, or if it was in fact again other aspects which I had not expected. This question not only tells me about my most successful themes and concepts within my video, but it also allows me to better understand my target audience.

Question 9, Are there any aspects of the music video that you would change/is there any way you think I could improve my music video? 
I asked this question to see if the audience thought I could improve my video, and to see if there were concepts which I myself had not considered when constructing my video that may increase audience appeal. However it could show my audience to be passive, which confirms 'Hypodermic needle theory' as they may simply be content with the media in which I am exposing them to, or alternatively it could prove my audience to be an 'active audience'.


A few of my completed questionnaires

What I learnt from my responses
100 % of respondents for question 3 stated that they thought that the music video reflected the genre, which I was pleased to hear, as it was my aim to stick largely to genre conventions.
90% of my respondents also rated the music video a '5' for how well it held their attention, which indicated that we successfully engaged our audience. All of the respondents that answered our questionnaire said that the main ways it did this was by focusing on the enigmatic element of choosing to focus on the feet as apposed to revealing faces, as well as by the narrative structure of events. These were the two main ways in which we tried to engage our audience, and so I am glad to see that these methods and approaches were successful in engaging our audience. As our audience ranked their interest in our video highly, they all responded that it was the correct length, which re-affirmed our track and editing choices.

When answering Question 7, all of my respondents said that they either enjoyed the narrative because of the unexpected ending, or that they enjoyed watching the relationship progress and develop and slowly deteriorate as they were able to relate to such events. This relates to Bulmer and Katz's extension of Laswell's Uses and Gratifications Theory that suggests the reason audiences view media texts relates to the audiences need for personal emotional relationships which can be 'lived through' by media texts. By making a video in relation to what I think my audience want, I am recognising them as an 'active audience' as they have ultimately decided what media products are successful.

When asked what aspects  they thought would appeal to my audience in the video, all respondents said they thought the same aspects that they themselves enjoyed would appeal to my target audience, except some respondents expanded on the uniqueness in its 'ambiguity of the characters' due to not being able to seeing their faces, and the focus of unique feet shots as a concept within the video which they thought would appeal to my niche indie audience.

The feedback from question 9 with regards to any changes that could be made to improve the video vastly varied. Some audiences did not give any criticisms or ways in which they thought I could improve the video. This conforms to the 'Hypodermic needle theory', that the audience are passive receivers of media texts. However, some respondents did not make suggestions, with the majority adding their own different ways in which they thought I could improve the video. This was to be expected with such a varied 'indie' audience. One audience member commented that the lighting towards the latter part of the music video was too dark. However, this was an effect which we had deliberately tried to achieve which perhaps suggests that it did not have the desired effect, and although we had attempt to make the change more subtle due to comments we received back from our rough cut, it now seems as if we should have kept the colour tone the same or made it yet more subtle. 

Gender differences found within responses
Although both male and female responses ranked highly for the way in which it conformed to the genre, would appeal to my audience, and that the video was correct in length, my audience feedback slightly altered the demographic of my target audience. Upon collecting my data, I found that the video was ranked consistently higher in the way that it held their attention with girls, than it was with boys. This is likely due to the traditionally more female themes which are prominent throughout, such as love and romance, although they still ranked the video a 4 or a 5. However, I was not expecting this particular result, as we had changed the cliche love story into a more representative image of real life romances, which we thought would appeal to both men and women.The reasons that most females gave for why they enjoyed the narrative, was because they said they could relate to the scenario, which confirms the 'Uses and Gratification theory' that a reason why an audience may consume a media text is to identify with a character. However, men typically responded with comments such as they enjoyed the alternative ending. However, a couple of the respondents, both of which were men recommended putting equal focus on the man and the woman to show their alternative perspectives, which would appeal more to a male audience. However, I wanted the focus to be on the strong independent striking female character which we had created, and by doing so,  my audience feedback has revealed that I appeal stronger to a female audience.

Audience findings in relation to Age
My findings showed that I had highest positive responses between the age groups of 15-18 and 19-22, which would indicate that I have correctly identified the age group of my target audience.

Audience feedback from my CD panels
To receive feedback about my digi-pak, I decided I would use a different method to receive feedback, and instead held a small focus group of 7 young adults of 3 females and 4 males between the ages of 19 and 21, my target audience, all of which were either ex media students, or had a good knowledge of the music industry. I felt that this would be a more suitable and valid way to receive feedback, as I had carefully chosen the participants and chose those who I knew would be honest in their responses, as well as the method allowed my audience to provide a more in-depth response and clarify any points that they made, which is more difficult than with other methods such as Questionnaires. Although I planned a few basic open-ended questions, I deliberately left the focus group fairly unstructured so that I could progress and explore any more relevant questions or issues that they raised.
To begin with, I showed all of the participants my music video, and then showed them my 6 finished CD panels and magazine poster so that they could understand more about what my digi-pak was supposed to be promoting.

I began with asking generic open ended questions which I felt I needed to ask, to understand how successful and appropriate my final images were. I therefore asked whether they thought that all of my images represented a final coherent promotional package, which I felt was the most important aim of the design brief, as all aspects were supposed to represent the genre, the artist, and the music video. All respondents said that all panels thematically linked in some way to both the other panels and the music video. I was enormously pleased with the positive response, as I had previously debated as to whether the front and the back panels contrasted too much. I therefore decided to ask my participants directly if they thought that perhaps the two sides were too contrasting. However, they were all in firm agreement that they both linked, but many stated different reasons as to why they thought so. The male respondents mainly said the reasons they thought it represented a coherent package were due to the overall aesthetic look of each of the panels and the magazine advert even if they did varying images. Some referred to the colour tones which were purposely edited similar across all of the images to create a similar feel, whereas all three female participants thought it appeared coherent because of its similar mise-en-scene. 

I then asked what each member of the focus group thought on the focus on the umbrella within the mise-en-scene on both the front and the back panel as a general concept. Again the responses seemed to differ between both genders, with males stating and agreeing that it conformed to conventions of the wider music industry, by having a 'random image' on the front of their CD cover to attract their audience's attention, whilst 2 females agreed that they had identified the connotations of the image which they linked to the music video. However when I asked what those had interpreted the image to represent, one person said that they thought it represented the entrapment within our industrial society. This perfectly demonstrates Stuart Hall's reception theory that although an image may be encoded by the producer, it can be decoded by the audience differently, and different meanings of the same image are created, as this was not exactly how I interpreted the image, as I linked it more directly to Holly within the music video as a symbol to represent 'lost love.'

Linking to my promotional package conforming to wider industry conventions, I then decided to ask in what way my promotional package links to wider industry genre conventions. Again, the fact that I had chosen such an 'random' image of an abandoned umbrella as the focus of my album cover was deemed the most conventional as they recognised it as a common convention within the music industry to grasp the audiences attention. The general consensus was that the heavy focus on the location promoted both the exciting 'city feel' that is associated with the electro genre, and both the isolated reflective element which is often associated with the indie genre. This was one of the main aspects which I focused on and believed was significantly important to include within both my print production and music video, and their responses confirmed that including such locations were successful in portraying the genre and the tone of the music video. Those involved also said that the type face and simplistic layout was similar to other indie designs which they had seen as it was modern and simple in its approach which is a widely acknowledged and used convention both within the genre and the wider music industry. 

I wanted to know which theme and side of the CD cover my audience preferred, the front and back panel with the images of an abandoned and floating umbrella, or the inside long image of Holly walking down a street across the three panels. Some expressed that they preferred the stretching inside image as opposed to the outside covers. I then promoted them to explain why they preferred the inside image as opposed to the outside cover, and they explained that it was more visually interesting, with more contents to engage and hold the audiences attention. They then further went on to add that they liked the variety and tone of the colours, which were able to be captured with such a wide shot, and the composition of the shot as it acknowledges the use of 'rule of thirds' . However they agreed that it worked best as an interesting unfolding 3 piece design rather than a front cover, as it would not have the same effect if it was compressed and split onto the front and back panel. However the majority agreed that the exterior was their favourite side to the album cover, as it was the most ambiguous and therefore engaging image which they said captured their attention, an important aspect of design to consider when trying to promote an album.

I asked them what their least favourite of the six panels were, and they were all unanimous in stating that the plain inside folding panel of the river was their least favouirte. I did anticipate that this would be their response, as it was the plainest of all the images. However, they said it was not due to the simplicity of the image, but because the colour tone of the image was not inline with the other panels. This was because this image was more difficult to match to the others due to the variety of lighting levels within the image which meant that I could not simply manipulate the colours to create the same 'milky' effect. However, after hearing this feedback, if I was going to construct the promotional package, I would spend longer adjusting the image to make it more coherent with the rest of the panels, or I would alternatively use a different, but similar image. This was the only aspect of the CD panels that they would recommend changing.

I then asked them to discuss what their overall impression of the magazine advert was, and whether they felt it was a suitable image. All people said they felt the image was suitable as an album poster as it was both visually appealing as one person described it as a 'stylish image with a stylish female in a stylish location.' I was again pleased with this as it had taken a considerable amount of planning to capture the desired mise-en-scene which would add to the desirability and therefore empowerment of the female character. However another member said that it was the enigmatic element that made it suitable for album artwork, saying that "It looks as if she is on a journey, and she is encouraging the audience to follow her as they are intrigued by her lack of clear identity, and want to find out more by either watching the video or buying the music etc." As I have stressed throughout the creation of all of my finished products, the enigmatic element was something which I wanted to focus on as a method of engaging my audience, and my audience feedback has proved that it was successful as a way to engage the audience.

I wanted to know what they thought of my font on my magazine advert which when I asked them, they gave mixed responses. All were in agreement that they liked the lack of "hard hitting promotion, as it's more subtle, like the nature of the indie genre" and therefore the basic information displayed on the track, and the 3 reviews were enough to make it useful in its aims of promoting the band and telling the audience when it was out, and where they could find the album or discover more about the band. However a minority of the group said that they did not like the white box which displayed the bands name and album cover, arguably the focus of the album poster. When asked why, they said that it was not in keeping with the subtle tone of the rest of the promotional products, and the font colour was black instead of white which again differs from the rest of the promotional package. However this was a deliberate design choice, to make the bands name stand out from the mixed colour image of the background, as when I experimented without it, I felt the bands name and album title was lost amongst the image, and it was afterall a poster to promote the bands name and album. When discussing this matter, the majority of the group argued that I had not completely gone against the subtly which is presented in the rest of the promotional package, as I had still kept the font and the white box small and the rest of the page "de-cluttered and simple".


Finally, given my responses from my questionnaire being more positive among females than males, I wanted to ask my focus group whether they thought both the video and digi-pak would appeal to a male, female, or mixed audience. Both genders within the control group thought that it could appeal to both, but that it had a stronger appeal to women due to both the occurring female character used,the soft and reflective images used throughout the digi-pak. The men also generally seemed in agreement that as men are represented as weak and 'needy' within the music video, it appeals more to an empowering female audience.

Summary

The feedback from my audience has been extremely important throughout the process of constructing my final products, as well as in assessing their effectiveness in portraying the meaning which I had encoded into my products and how well they have been received. The responses seemed overall very positive and effective in engaging my target audience. However, it has also taught me on how if I was going to produce and market my finished products how I could make alterations to improve them and improve the appeal to my target audience. I think one of the most important aspects I have learnt from this audience feedback though is that my target demographic is not who I initially expected, as I have learnt that I have targeted a mainly female audience through both the strong representation and consistent use of a female character across all of my finished products.

Evaluation Question 2 : How effective is the combination of your main product with ancillary texts?

Fonts

The fonts above are the fonts which I considered using within my digi-pak and art work.

The initial font was what I eventually decided best suited my album artwork. The chosen font was 'Bebas Neue' which is a strong bold uppercase font. I chose this font because it is simple, makes a bold statement about the artist, and appears clean cut and modern. Using a uppercase font for the bands name captures the audience's attention and suggests that band are significant and important. However I later chose to counter-act this bold statement by reducing the size of the type face, which my research showed was a common convention of the genre. It is also a sans-serif font, which is more modern than serif fonts, as serif fonts are associated with gothic or traditional type writing font, which is why all of my possible fonts were sans-serif to connote the new and 'cutting edge-ness' of the indie-electro genre.

After contemplating various typefaces, I quickly decided that I would not use the bottom two typefaces, as I concluded that the jagged random sizes and edges of each of the letters made them appear amateur, unprofessional, and childlike, which is not whom our target audience is, who are in fact young adults, nor is it the way in which we want our artist to be represented.

 The third font I decided was not a typeface often used on album covers, as it seemed too simplistic and again amateur, which would connote to our audience that they as artists are not professional, and I also felt that it would not stand out enough to its audience. 

 

I then only had to decide between the first and second font . However although I liked the aesthetic look of the font, when I added it onto my album cover, it did not complement the image, and did not reflect the genre. Instead I felt it reflected the art nouvea era by its tilted letters, by which its style is now associated with dance music, and therefore by placing it on the front cover, would give our audience the wrong initial impression about our artist. I therefore chose to use a more simple font, such as the first font shown above, and continued to use this font across the entirety of my digi-pak work.

 

Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Within both our music video and album art work, we heavily conform to many of the music genres expectations, whilst subverting to the wider industries expectations of content to be included within a digi-pak and a music video.

We chose our track Firehorse-'Bloodstream' because of its high recording quality, good changing dynamics, and it's song length. As the song itself is so alternative to mainstream music, it involved me researching into the hybrid genre indie-electro to define what it was, and what its conventions were as it was a genre I knew little about. By completing this research, it gave myself and Joe a broader range of ideas as to what our indie-electro audience would expect to see from our music video, and how we could conform or subvert to aspects of the genre. By conducting this research, it revealed that many of the conventions of the indie-electro genre, contradict the expected features and conventions of mainstream music videos.

One of Goodwin's conventions of music video's, is that there is a strong relationship between lyrics and visuals. After studying the lyrics, we decided that it would not be suitable to link the lyrics directly with the visuals, as the song was in fact about an addictive drug, and that we would instead take an aspect of desire within the lyrics from the line 'Don't leave me' and base our music video around the single line. Using a loosely related narrative to base our music video on is a common convention of the indie-electro genre, but did subvert what Goodwin outlined to be an expected convention of music videos. It was by researching the genre that I found that there is often a tenuous link between the lyrics and the visuals within the indie-electro genre. For example, Of Monsters and Men-'Little talks' is a rather abstract video, which does not have a strong link between lyrics and visuals, but instead is based around the singular line 'This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore.' 

However, often a more common theme within the electro-indie genre within music videos is to take a multitude of ideas from the lyrics and strings them together to create an impressionist narrative, used in video's such as Poni-Hoax-'Anti-bodies'  Or The Yeah Yeah Yeahs-' Skeletons' both of which I have analysed previously as part of my research as examples of narrative structures within the broad electro-indie genre. Again, we decided that we would not conform to this popular convention, and that we would instead take the idea of using a strong linear narrative concept which was extracted from the lyrics to base our music video on. 

Our music video does also not include any performance element, again does not conform to another convention outlined by Goodwin, which is that music videos will often include close ups of the artist. However we chose not to, as by using two unknown characters, it puts the focus solely onto the narrative and is typical of the indie-electro genre.

Romance is a typical theme which occurs within music videos, and so by choosing to base our music video on the topic, we were conforming to a popular convention of mainstream music videos. However, we did also challenge the expected romantic narrative, by twisting the plot towards the end of the music video, and ending it with a dramatic break up. However, again it is common within the indie-electro genre to portray controversial views about issues such as modern day relationships and romance within their music videos, an example of this being The Yeah Yeah Yeahs-'Sacrilege' which explores a controversial topic of promiscuity rather than simply repeating the too commonly exploited fairy tale.

During the initial stages of story boarding, we were going to simply conform to the mainstream genre conventions and  simply tell the tale of two strangers falling in love, and attempt to make it alternative by using different shots of the body as opposed to faces to tell the story. But upon further consideration, we decided that the story may be spread too thin, and that a twist and plot change would suit not only the tone of the song better, but would also better conform to our music genre's conventions. We chose to do this as we thought it would make our story more relateable to our audience, and therefore engage them, an important factor to consider when making a music video. However, we had to make our characters relatable without exposing their faces, and therefore had to carefully construct the mise-en-scene to include every day items, scenarios, and locations.

We did heavily conform to the expected location settings for our genre, by using busy city urban locations for our music video, which during my research stages, revealed was a heavily conformed to genre convention due to the popularity of the electronic music genre in cities. It therefore would be where the majority of our target audience were situated, and a setting that they could again relate to. The urban city location was important for our narrative as it made the possibility of romance seem less likely within such a fast paced impersonal environment and therefore when romance does occur, it almost makes the situation seem rare so that the audience are disheartened when the couple break up.



                                                

                                                                                                 Our opening city location shot

                                                              The shot of the couple walking by a city river within the video

                                           The couple sitting on a public park bench, similar to the indie film 500 days of summer

(as shown below)

In addition as to conforming to the type of locations we would set our music video in, we also conformed to the amount of locations that we shot in, with few varying locations being used, with many being repetitively used to help show the contrast in the relationship at the start and at the end of the relationship. For example within the Postal service 'A tattered piece of string' which is a song within the same genre as our own, a single location of a public city launderette is used throughout the entire music video, as it does not rely on new exciting locations and imagery to grip its audience, but instead relies on an interesting narrative, similar to our own music video.

The representation of of both of our characters within our music video is challenging to the typical representations as expected within the wider industry, but again, it is not an uncommon representation within our unique genre. For example, our music video is not shot with the 'male gaze' in mind as Laura Mulvey identifies as a common and recurring feature within many music videos, as our female protagonist is not viewed vouyeristically, a feature of which Goodwin also identifies as a common feature of music videos. Instead, she is portrayed as independent and powerful within the relationship which is as mentioned, a common feature of the indie-electro genre.

 Holly is the most powerful character throughout the music video, most of the shots are focused on her and her actions, and we reveal her to be the dominating character who is in control. As the screen shot reveals, Holly is the main character who initiates the romance with her confident attitude, and is clearly comfortable and able to

lure men in at her disposal. As the relationship progresses and the romance appears to rapidly fade, she is the one who takes control, by ignoring Joe's phone call, and as the last screen shot reveals, she is the one who makes the decision to end the relationship, and pushes him out of the door. However, we do not entirely ignore Holly's

femininity, and in fact use this to her advantage to take control, a growing representation of women, used by iconic female music artists such as Beyonce who promote the idea of women using their natural femininity to empower themselves and subordinate men. However, an artist within our genre who demonstrates this well is Bat For Lashes within their music video 'A Wall' whereby the female artist dances and controls the man at almost all times, and the man seems powerless and feeble in comparison to the woman.

A further example of a portrayal of powerful women within our genre is seen within the music video by The Naked And Famous-'No Way' which shows the growing battle for women between wanting to be powerful, and yet trapped by the idyllic image of a woman which they feel they are expected to live up to. This is an issue which is beginning to arise and become more popular throughout the media, and especially within our genre. However, although it an increasing common portrayal of women, the portrayal of women as voyeuristic or as the 'damsel in distress' is style a dominant portrayal throughout the media and within our genre, an example being Owl City, Metropolis whereby the girl is 'saved' by the boy, and she is a powerless victim and bystander throughout.

Within our music video, we show Holly's femininity through both her mannerisms and her clothing, which are not at all voyeuristic, but are boldly flirtatious. 

Print screens from our music video are examples of Holly's flirtatious manner, which are typically used across the media to signify feminine attraction. 

The early close up shots of Holly reveal her femininity subtly through her clothing, for example in the opening shot, she is wearing a pair of frilled mint green socks, of which connote a female who is concerned with her delicate image. We then reveal her feminine leggings and jewelry items of which again make it clear to the audience, that she is a woman, without needing to reveal further aspects of her body or indeed her face. However, as the music video progresses their becomes a more frequent use of long shots, which expose Holly's clothing which are a mix of bricolage style, with clothing items typically associated with men, being used to create her own unique style and image, such as the 1970's style male bomber jacket, which we paired with a feminine white short blouse and leggings. We took great care in constructing our characters costume, as theorist Dick Hebdige states, that style can be read by others almost as a language, and is used to construct the identity of our character. This is especially important within our music video, as their is no dialogue to gather information about the character, but instead the audience read into the style and self expression of the character and extract elements of information to withdraw conclusions about her. Therefore by choosing slightly unique clothing, we were able to portray our character as the 'Manic Pixie Dream Girl' as I have previously written about, which is a typical convention to the indie genre. By establishing our character as an unique individual, it made it easy to establish our character Joe, as contrastingly ordinary, by dressing him in simple mainstream fashion clothing.

The props that we used were also conforming to the expected convention of our genre, by using vintage style props such as the bike in which we see Holly on at the start of the video, which is a common prop in electro-indie music videos. This is because it symbolises an adults child like innocence and freedom, and their desire to live at their own pace rather than to again simply follow mainstream society.

Indie/Electro examples which include vintage bikes:

However, it is also a common prop used across the wider music industry, such as in pop videos by artist such as Rihanna in her 'We Found Love' music video, as the use of a bike represents a sense of lack of cares and sense of freedom which is often expressed vocally as they sing the lyrics whilst on the bike.

We have also included props that we felt would make our narrative more relatable to our audience, as our target audience are older teenagers and young adults, as they are the key demographic who listen to our genre of music. They are therefore likely to have a good knowledge of new technologies, and it is likely to have a large impact on their lives, which is why we included scenes with Xbox's, mobile phones and Televisions, to focus on the realities of modern day deterioration of relationships. Making our video more relatable to our audience again as previously mentioned, conforms to Lacan's theory of the audience identifying with the media product.

During the editing process, we did deliberately attempt to conform to a genre convention as outline by Goodwin that both myself and Joe felt was really important within our music video, which was that their should be a link between the music and visuals. This affected how we both plotted our narrative, and edited it. For example we chose scenes which we thought suited the tone for the song, and used the drastic change in instruments during the middle of the song to signify the change in events between the couple which switched between hopeful, to miserable in a matter of a few seconds. As well as changing the tone of the scene to suit the tone of the music, we also ensured that we cut to the beat as it helps anchor the video to the track and make the two which initially seem contrasting, seem synchronized. This is a convention that is used in almost every music video created, and one which we therefore felt was necessary and to stick to.

Our editing style nevertheless, was very particular to our genre, as my research had strongly conformed that hard cuts to the beat were used throughout the majority of indie-electro music videos to emphasize the beat of the music of which the genre is heavily focused around, meaning we were again conforming to our genre conventions.

Our narrative is a simple linear narrative, as opposed to many within the genre such as the music video by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs-'Sacrilege' which is a non-linear narrative and includes flash backs and flash forwards to create the feeling of disorientation for its audience, to make the audience attempt to deconstruct the intended meaning of the text. However this would not have been an appropriate method for us to have used in as we were trying to make our narrative clear to our audience, and we wanted to end our music video in a way in which perhaps our audience were not expecting, and therefore we needed to keep the events in a linear order to maintain the sense of enigma.

How I have used and challenged forms and conventions of real media products within my digipak?
My CD design almost entirely conforms to both the indie-electro music genre, and the wider music industry. For example, the composition of my CD cover conforms to the expected conventions of a CD cover, as my title is positioned at the top centre with a simple image at the centre of the panel like the indie-electro examples shown below.

My CD cover:

 

The font I have used is also typical to my genre and enormously similar to the title of the first example above. The capital letters in bold white typo in small font makes a bold statement about the artist and their music, which is that their music is fresh, genuine, and sincere and by using capital letters, it connotes that they as artists are estbalished and have made a name of themselves. However, by using a fairly small size font, it does perhaps suggest that they do not need to necessarily grab the audience's attention to buy the CD, but that instead their fan base is already firmly established and in existence and will find the artists album, without a hard sell as the music will sell itself. This is a bold genre convention which is particularly prevalent to the indie-electro genre, and a convention of which I have conformed to.The fairly simple font which I choose also reiterates the previous statement that the artist want to appear focused on the music rather than perhaps establishing themselves with an elaborate logo and type face.

It is uncommon both within the indie-electro genre and the wider music industry for much text to appear on a CD, as the image is almost entirely the main focus, which is why the chosen image has to both reflect the genre, and the band themselves and is therefore regarded as significant. I have conformed to this convention of using a minimal amount of text to allow the images to be the main focus of the album, only using it to display the bands name and album on the front cover, and the track titles on the back panel, which is expected by the audience, as they want to be informed what songs are on the album. The only other feature visible on the back of my album is a bar code, which was simply required as a necessary item to have on my CD, as it is designed to be sold in shops.  However I personalised the bar code for aesthetic reasons, to appear more subtle as I did not want it to withdraw the focus from imagery of my back panel and so I inverted the colours to make it plain white, and placed it in the bottom corner where it would remain reasonably unnoticed.
As the examples above show, within the indie-electro genre, the artist very rarely feature within the album artwork, which again shows that the focus is on the music rather than the artists image. I have used this concept within my design as I felt it was important to not only conform to this convention, but conform to the convention of recognising an active audience when making my media products, as I have an enigmatic image which enables the audience as individuals to personally de-construct the alternative impressionist image. This both engages and acknowledges my audience within the creative process.
For my inside panels, I have created a single long panoramic image which will stretch across all three panels to again make the album appear simple and minimalist, a  common convention within the music genre. The shot I have used as the inside panels is one which appears quite basic, again to emphasise the minimalist and simplistic design, which I have purposely created by removing objects such as the tree within the editing process which I felt subtracted from the simplistic feel.
The album poster again follows the key expected conventions of a magazine advertisement, as it includes reviews and ratings which I think will appeal to my audience and persuade others to buy the album. Music critics reviews are important on a magazine music advert as audiences often rely on well respected critics from established music magazines to recommend audiences new material, and by showing the track in a positive light by displaying 4 and 5 star ratings, it is encouraging audiences who may not have heard of the band to find out more.

As the example above demonstrates, the composition is also similar to my own album, with my bands name at the top of the page, a release date near the bottom, and a central image with reviews and ratings as such features are regarded as key expected items to have on an album advertisement, as the image is again used to leave the audience with a general impression of the band and their music, and a release date is required to build anticipation and a 'buzz' about an albums release, or inform the audience that it is immediately available and where it can be purchased.

Completed album productions





Reverse outside 3 panels

                          Inside panel                           Back panel                                 Spine and front cover


Inside 3 panels

 

 

Magazine advert

Music Video, final cut