2. Question 1 -
In what ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
3. From my research of digipaks I
have learnt that a convention
of Tyler the Creator’s is to not
follow conventions. If you look
at each front cover of Tyler’s
digipaks you will notice that
they are not consistent and
don’t follow a certain theme.
Therefore this ends up being
the a convention in itself. This
is something that is not only
apparent through his digipaks
but rather his whole way of
being - as you can see from the
analysis of Tyler the Creator on
my blog (click here.)
Here you can see
three of tylers front
covers. Each cover
has a completely
different theme
and meaning.
This is a style sheet I made when doing my
research. I made because it shows how
unconventional Tyler is.
4. An example of Tyler’s creativity would be
the use of unexplained baby heads on this
digipak. This is a very weird thing to do - I
tried to replicate this on our digipak, as
explained later. Also on this front cover you
will notice it features a drawing of Tyler on
a bmx, this is the very same outfit and bmx
that is featured in some of his music videos.
This subconsciously creates a stronger
brand for Tyler and I realized that I too
would have too incorporate some brand
strengthening in out digipak.
This shows how I used
Rorys head to represent
our media products. The
picture on the left is the
inside cover of our digipak
and the image above is the
title taken from our
magazine advert.
5. This is how I used these conventions. Regarding the baby heads, I used a cut
out image of Rory’s head through out the digipak. Rory was the actor in our
music video therefore I thought the use of his head would create a stronger
brand image for the video. Also, and quite simply, I cropped out the image of
Rory’s head because it makes people laugh - everyone who I have asked: class
members, target audience and other friends have liked this feature and said it
is very fitting to the genre and conventions of our music video, digipak and
poster and also those conventions of Tylers. Because the album is an exclusive
playlist album I thought it would be appropriate to feature an image taken
from the set of out music video - this image was used as a background for the
front and back cover of the digipak. The reason for this was because the
image has dark connotations which reflects the meaning of the song. In other
words, it wouldn’t have been appropriate to use a very colourful picture, to
market a sad song.
This shows my digipak and the magazine album advert
6. How did I challenge these conventions in my digipak? An important note to make
however is that in not challenging the conventions of Tyler the creator, I am challenging
the conventions of most other artists. Put simply its very unconventional to have an
unconventional digipak and magazine advert, most other artists will have a strong and
clear brand image that they follow and express throughout their medias. Rick Ross for
example conforms to the conventions of his genre, he brags about money, girls and
possessions which is important because he is apart of a larger sub genre of music
whereby the audience has to have that connection between themselves, the artist and
the conventions that are portrayed as part of that genre.
On the other hand I have challenged the inconsistent convention of Tylers, I have kept the
design of my digipak, album advert and video consistent with each other. This is
something that Tyler the creator choses not to do. If you look at his website, then at his
magazine adverts and his videos, they don’t match, which is unconventional.
Left (digipak front cover,) middle (music video,) right (digipak back cover.)
7. My research told me that a convention of album magazine adverts was that it needed to
feature at least; the name of the artist, the release date of the album and the name of the
album. I have of course used this convention and included all of the
above mentioned.
8. From my research I found that most album
adverts were very basic, I decided to challenge
this convention. For my magazine I included
some starred reviews from certain magazines,
this was deliberately done because its
something Tyler the creator has never been
known for, Tyler is known for hating reviews on
his adverts and marketing, this is because he
likes to think that his audience already know
what to expect and will buy the album
regardless - due to his persona and image. I
thought it would be interesting to add these
because it provokes questions for the target
audience, especially because of the choice of
magazine and newspapers I chose to review
the album. The independent and the daily
mirror and the guardian are all sophisticated
newspapers, these newspapers would never
been seen to be listening to this genre of music
and likewise Tyler the Creator would never
been seen to be reading these newspapers.
(ignore the fact Tyler is American and these
papers are British.) The reason I decided to
include all of this is because, to the target
audience, it is very funny. The target audience
will know this feature is a joke and will be
attracted to it because it follows Tyler’s
convention of being unpredictable and having a
strange sense of humour. This feature says to
the audience ‘I don’t follow convention and I
do things my way.’
9. Something I learnt from my research of music videos is that each genre has different
conventions and must feature different objects, camera movements and editing styles
to convey these conventions in order the create a connection between the video and
the viewer. Without this connection the viewer will not be attracted to the video,
therefore may not like the song and choose not to buy the album.
Chiddy bang’s album artwork shows the connection between
our work and existing alernative hip hop media products
10. Most of Tyler’s videos are very abstract and don’t follow themes and
conventions – much like all of his media products. Yonkers however is slightly
different, Yonkers is a very unconventional video in terms of the way its shot.
It focus’s entirely on Tyler, because this relates to the lyrics of the song. Thus
conforming to Andrew Goodwin’s thought beats theory which state that the
visuals of the video need to be reflected and relatable to the meaning and
sound of the song. The song Yonkers has no chorus’s its all one verse
therefore I decided to play on this and shoot our video all in one take. The
effect of this is that it creates a connection between the meaning of the song
and the visuals of the song.
11. Andrew Goodwin’s thought beats theory also states that there needs to be a certain
level of address from the star image towards the viewer in order to attract them into
the video, that is, where the act of rapping to the camera creates a two
communication device between the artist and the viewer. This means that our target
audience want to feel connected to our actor. We played on this by making our artist
the only focus of the music video.
This is a screenshot from our video showing
rory’s looking and pointing at the camera.
(Showing an aggressive mode of
address, which relates to the attitude of the
video and the conventions of Andrew
Goodwin.)
This is a screenshot from the original Yonkers
video showing tyler looking and pointing at the
camera. This shows the relationship between
the two videos and how we represented the
original video with ours.
12. The colour scheme in the video is very important, to put this into context, a viewer will
expect a dark video if the meaning of the song is dark. If this expectation is not met
then the viewer may feel cheated on and therefore not be able to connect to the song
and video. We chose to shoot our video in monochrome, the effect of this is that it
takes out all of the emotions that are connoted through colours.
These pictures help show the connotations of sadness
that are associated with the use of a monochrome filter.
The use of black and white takes out colours which can
represent different emotions. Red for love and passion
for example.
13. As our media product isn’t just the music
video but rather the video, the digipak
and the poster. We needed to keep the
colour scheme constant throughout all of
out media products. The effect of this is
that it suggests to the viewer that all of
the products are related, a secondary
effect of this is that it strengthens each
product in terms of branding
14. A convention of album adverts and albums themselves is that the design is consistent. As
I mentioned before a convention of Tylers is to not be consistent with design. I have
chosen to challenge Tyler’s convention and used other genres and artists conventions by
keeping the design of the advert consistent to the digipak. The colour scheme of the
advert is dark, which matches the colour scheme of the digipak and also matched the
visuals and connotations of the music video. If these three pieces of media were to be
seen separately, it would be acutely apparent that they are related - due to the colour
schemes, fonts and general design. One specific way I have connected the advert to the
digipak is through the use of the cut out image of Rorys’ head.
Three digipak covers taken form Tyler the Creators digipaks.
15. As you can see from this slide
all of my media products follow
a theme and look professional.
This is important because it
helps the viewer to create and
associate a brand and this
imagery with the song.
16. Question 2 -
How effective is the combination of your main
product and ancillary texts?
17. The colour scheme between
our video and ancillary texts
are always constant.
18. It is important for an artists music video, digipak and other media texts to be related. This
is to create and reinforce a brand that the audience can connect to. In order for a strong
image to be created each media product has to interrelate with each other. If not then an
artist can seem inconsistent which could ultimately result in less song and album sales.
My products and ancillary texts all extensively relate to each other. As you can see the
advert and the digipak feature the cut out image of Rory’s head, Rory also happens to be
the actor in our video. The effect of this is that it creates a strong connection between all
of the products and Rory - because each of the products relate to each other, they
strengthen the performers image and a stronger image sells more. Because the audience
can relate to and identify each of the products they will be more willing to go out and buy
the album.
These images and media products from JAY Z’s
Magna Carta album are all interrelated. This link
explains why a brand is important
19. Another example is how the image taken from the set and used on the digipak
compliments the video. Because the whole video is shot in the tunnel, and because the
tunnel is very unique looking. As soon as you see the picture on the front cover of the
magazine you immediately think of the video, this connection has the effect of
strengthening the appeal towards the video, the audience will see the picture of the
tunnel and be reminded of the video, this will then subconsciously make them want to
watch the video, after having watched the video several times they may start to think
about buying the song or album. This is how the relationship between the design of the
advert and cinematography of the video sells the album.
20. When choosing a font for branding, you have two main families to chose from, the serif
family and the sans family. Generally speaking, sans fonts have modern connotations due
to their round edges, whereas serif fonts tend to be regarded as being more old fashioned
– see the image attached below.
YONKERS
YONKERS
This shows ‘YONKERS’ in a sans serif font.
It looks modern and conventional
This shows ‘YONKERS’ in a serif font. It
looks old fashioned.
This shows the font that I used for our
representation of Yonkers.
21. When designing our digipak and poster I decided to use a font from the serif family, a font
called Cochin. This is because, our video is in black and white, therefore it has connotations
of the past – this derives from the fact that the first films and pictures that were made and
taken were in black and white. As I mention before the serif font family shares these
conventions, that is, it’s regarded as housing more old fashioned fonts. Hence why I
decided to use it for our digipak and poster. If you take a look at our poster, I have designed
it in an authentic style, using an old newspaper overlay to creates a scrunched up poster
effect, as though it has just been pin up to a wall and left there. Now If I had used a sans
font I wouldn’t have been able to get this message and branding across as the poster would
have looked inconsistent and wouldn’t have created a strong relationship between the
video and the ancillary texts.
23. From our initial feedback, on survey monkey I learnt that our audience were mainly white
British teenagers. I also learnt that they wanted to be able to watch music videos on
YouTube, specifically on smartphones (this is something that we kept in mind when
rendering and uploading our video.)
During our video interview with two boys from our target age demographic I learnt that
the rap and alternative hip hop genre was very popular. In particular they said that they
like the lyrics and find them easy to connect to, another feature of the hip hop genre that
both interviewees said they like are the artists themselves - this was an important point
because it backs up all of the research to show that fans of Tylers like him partly because of
his image. Having found this out we decided to make the actor in our video a big
part of our whole project, ie including him in the digipak and album advert. The aim of
this was to create a fan base around him and use that as a basis for the audience to
connect with the song and album, therefore leading to them going out and buying the
album.
24. Something that one of the interviewees said that they expect to see in a rap music video is
rapping to the camera, this relates to Andrew Goodwin’s thought beats theory which is
where the act of rapping to the camera creates a two communication device between the
artist and the viewer. This means that our target audience want to feel connected to our
actor. We played on this by making our artist the only focus of the music video - much like
the original Yonkers video made by Tyler. The theory behind this choice is that, based on
our research and feedback, the audience would be able connect fully to our actor however
at the same time have no connection to the song - because the meaning of the song is so
dark, thus creating a juxtaposition between the viewer, the visuals of the video and the
lyrics.
As you can see throughout our video there is always a direct
mode of address from the star image.
25. This was some of our feedback from
people who were asked. As you can see
something that everyone who was
asked agreed on was the good choice of
location
Generally everyone thought the video
was very good: syncing, location, mise-
en-scene.
The only areas for improvement were
the lighting, which was said to be a little
too dark at some points.
26. Regarding feedback for the video. We uploaded the video onto Facebook, we shared the
video and has some feedback. The feedback was mostly positive, on the whole people
liked the fact that we shot the entire video in one take, they said it was ‘quirky and fitting
for the genre.’ This feedback was very helpful as it shows our video is successful and hints
that other viewers will also like the video
This shows how we used
convergence between different
technologies to share and get
feedback for our video
27. Overall our feedback was really helpful, our initial feedback helped us to set about making
our artefacts based on the audience wants. The feedback we had during the production of
the products was very positive which indicated that we were doing the right things and
that everything was working and relating to each other. Finally our after production
research reassured to use that our products were successful and were fitting for out target
audience.
Whilst making my digipak and album advert, I had constant feedback from the other
members in my group, also from other friends who I asked. Everyone I asked said that they
liked my ideas and that they were fitting for what was needed. When I had finished both
artefacts I sent the work around to some friends via Facebook - everyone that I asked said
that they were professional looking and very appropriate for our music video. This feedback
was very helpful and reassuring as it meant that all our three artefacts were consistent and
relate to each other.
28. Question 4 -
How did you use media technologies in the
construction and research, planning and evaluation
stages?
29. RESEARCH:
Throughout the research period I used a variety of different technologies. To document
and present my research I used a blogging site called blogger, this allowed me to upload
many different multi media posts and then share and access them from my smartphone, a
computer, tablet etc. Blogger was really helpful because I could use it to gather all of my
work in one place. The layout of blogger is really helpful because it makes all of my posts
accessible and easy to view.
30. I used Surverymonkey as a tool to ask my target audience questions regarding the
research into our music video. Surverymonkey allows you to ask up to ten question, this
was helpful in a way because it meant I had to make each question count and be
worthwhile. Surverymonkey allows you to directly share the questionnaire through
Facebook twitter, blogger and other social network sites. This was really helpful because,
after sharing it on Facebook and twitter - which have a larger audience I began to get
more responses. Once we had enough responses, Surveymonkey allows you to
collectively view your answers in tabular and diagrammatic forms, this is really helpful
because it allows you to have an overview of your data. Making for easier analysis and
interpretation.
31. Part of my research was to look at conventions of the genre. For this I used many
search engines, Youtube for music videos, rap genius for in depth lyrical explanations.
Having this data open for me to use is very helpful. Having 4G on my phone means I
could quickly access any data I wanted from any internet site which meant I could get
a better understanding of the genre which helped later on when making decisions
about making our video.
32. used a digital camera to film our interviewees during our interview with two boys from our
target demographics. This helped because it meant I could quickly transfer the video onto
my mac and then upload it straight to blogger.
33. PLANNING:
When looking for the location of our music video, Google maps street view
came in very handy. This allows you to freely look about any street in the UK –
to an extent. This was extremely helpful because it meant we could
find a location quickly, thus saving time and being more efficient. I used this
by finding our location, taking a screenshot of the street view image then
uploading it as evidence to my blog.
34. Because I was working in a group it was important to communicate with my other team
members. To do this we each had each others phone
numbers, Snapchat, Whatsapp, Facebook, twitter etc. Because we could access all of
these from our phones it meant if one of us had an idea, we could quickly share it with
each other. Snapchat came in particularly useful because it allowed us to quickly send
pictures to each other regarding props, location and other ideas we had for the video.
Snapchat allows you to send an image for up to 10 seconds to a contact which
automatically deletes itself when it reaches the time limit.
35. CONSTRUCTION:
For the construction of our video we used adobe premier pro, which is a high end
video editing software. This allowed us to extensively and professionally edit and
manage the video. We could change the keynote on a levels overlay for example, this
enabled us to achieve the special lighting we used in the video.
I used Photoshop for the construction of our digipak and album advert. I am very
familiar with Photoshop having been using it for some years now which meant that I
could quickly navigate around it and create professional looking artefacts.
36. EVALUATION:
I constructed my evaluation on Powerpoint and uploaded it to blogger via Slideshare.
Slideshare allows you to upload a Powerpiont and view it as Powerpoint intends on the
internet. From Slideshare I could directly embed the Powerpoint to my
Blogspot blog. This meant I could keep all of my evaluation on one post, without it
appearing to text heavy and being displayed in a cohesive way.
