Wildflower - Final Music Video

This is NOT the official music video to Wildflower by Carly Jo Jackson; it is an A2 Media Studies Project.

Ancillary Task - Final Digi Pack For Wildflower

This is NOT the official album cover for "Wildflower" by Carly Jo Jackson; it is part of my A2 Media Coursework.
Front Cover

Front Inside Cover

Back Inside Cover

Back Cover

 

CD

 



This is the finished digi pack for Wildflower and below is the finished magazine advert. We tried our best to make sure that both ancillaries met the codes and conventions of our genre; Acoustic/Pop. We wanted to show femininity, independence and power through our digi pack and magazine advert. The reason we used this typography is because it was a handwritten style which showed elegance and femininity. After testing many images we used this one because we felt it went with the codes and conventions as they tend to be close up pictures. Also it showed the power and independence in her face. We used a vine on both ancillaries to show the natural side of our music video. The colour of the typography, the digi pack and the magazine advert are all very similar to show the connection between them.

Ancillary Task - Final Magazine Advert For Wildflower Digi Pack

This is NOT the official magazine advert for "Wildflower" by Carly Jo Jackson; it is part of my A2 Media Coursework.

 

Evaluation - Question 1

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

 

 

Evaluation - Question 2

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

Our music video was very bright and colourful, so to create a link between the main product and ancillary texts it was important that the ancillary texts where also bright. The colours that we decided to use were pink and purple; it was a mixture of both. We felt that these colours represent femininity; to show the strength of a woman. We decided we wanted a feminine but strong style which is why we chose Vladimir Script as the typography for both ancillaries.

The image on the front cover is a close up of the actresses face; the reason we decided to do a close up was because we researched similar artists front covers and they also had close ups of the artists. Although it would have been ideal if it was slightly further away from her face so that we could see the background; her face shows her strength and power. The strong sunlight which is hitting her face connects it to the video as in most of the shots; the sunlight is on her face.

We wanted to keep the front inside cover and the back inside cover quite simple. To create a connection between the inside, the front and the video, we kept the background a pinky, purple and they have a vine going down the side. The vine represents that natural side of our music video and the pinky, purple colour matches with the colour of the writing on the front cover.

We also wanted to keep the back cover simple. We maintained the same colour and the vine going down along the side. We also had the required information at the bottom, along with a barcode and the Carly Jo Jackson logo next to it. We also had the list of songs in the same colour as the front cover font.  The CD had the same colour theme and also had the vine going along the side. We placed ‘Wildflower’ around the middle circle bit on the CD to remind the importance of the song. These things all connect the album together; the colour and the vine.

We also had to consider the typography for the ancillaries. We researched many different typography’s as we wanted to find the correct one; the one that showed femininity, power and independence. After having researched different typography’s we realised that most similar artists have a very feminine typography but also show strength so not too feminine. The style of typography that we chose was Vladimir Script, it is quite feminine but we felt that it also showed independence. Also some of Carly Jo Jackson’s previous covers were very feminine so we decided to do something similar.

We also had to create a magazine advert. Our magazine advert was very similar to the front cover of the album; the reason for this was to show the connection between the album, music video and magazine advert. We used the same colours and same typography from the album cover for the magazine advert. We also used the vine on the magazine advert, again to show the connection. The same image was used from the album cover and extra information about the album was included on the magazine advert. Information such as when the album is being released, ratings from newspapers and magazines and also contact references such as Twitter and Reverbnation. We wanted to keep the information on the magazine advert to a minimum as too much can put people off.

Evaluation - Question 3

What have you learnt from audience feedback?

 

To be able to answer this question it requires me to obtain audience feedback. I filmed 3 people's responses below.
 

 

 

I also asked 6 people a set of questions about our music video:

 

1. What genre do you  think our music video is?: 5 out of the 6 people either said country or acoustic which is correct.

 

2. Do you think that it follows the conventions of this type of genre?: All 6 people agreed that we followed the conventions of an acoustic pop/country music video.

 

3. Did you think there were enough varied shots?: 4 out of the 6 people said they thought that there was enough variation and 2 people thought we could have done a bit more.

 

4. Do you think the location was correct for the video?: All 6 people felt that the location worked well with the music video.

 

After gaining this audience feedback, it helped me to see what was good about my music video and what was bad. Some good things were that the audience felt that our music video met the conventions of the genre due to the location shots and the shots which focus on the actress. Also they liked the way we matched the music beats to the visuals of the video. Most of the audience felt that we had enough variation in shots whereas some thought we needed more. They thought that the location worked well for the music video but they felt that we could have used more than one location as they said it got slightly repetitive.

After this audience feedback, if I was going to improve our music video I would take into account everything the audience has said. I would make sure that we had a more variety of shots. This would be much easier if we had more than one location; this is also something I would improve on.



Evaluation - Question 4

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

I used the Internet in many stages in the creation of our music video. One of the reasons were for social media. I used a site called Reverbnation which is for unknown and upcoming artists, to find our artist. This is a platform where artists can release their music. Once we had found our artist we then went onto to using Facebook to be able to contact our artist and ask for permission to use her song. The reason we used Facebook is because she had listed it as one way to contact her. Also Facebook is really easy to use and to get into contact with people. 

 

During research and planning I used YouTube quite a bit to look at our artists previous music videos and also to look at similar artists music videos. I also used YouTube to upload our final music video and evaluation responses.

 

Blogging was an important part in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages as I blogged all of my work online. Blogging allowed me to stay organised and share my findings and ideas with others. Also it allowed me to set a structure for my work.

 

I used different hardware and software during the process of creating our music video. The Macs we used had Final Cut Pro installed in them and this was the editing software that we used. This allowed us to cut, crop, add effects and add transitions. Also we used a HD video camera for the actual filming of our music video and for practice shots we used a HD camera not a video camera. The reason for using a HD camera is because they produce great quality videos and allow them to look professional. During the process of creating our ancillaries we used Photoshop to edit and change the images.

Also on question 1 of the evaluation I used Windows Movie Maker to create the moving text video.

Magazine Advert Ideas

We looked at a magazine advert for Taylor Swift. We looked at this as she is very similar to our artist and we could see the codes and conventions.

Creating a CD

We created many different CD's that would suit our artist:

Chosen Front and Back Covers

This is our chosen front cover:

 This is our chosen back cover:

We then tried adding an outside border to make them stand our more:

We made a group decision against the border, we felt it didn't suit it.

Back Cover Experimenting

We kept the colours similar so there a connection between both the back cover and front cover is shown.

Typography on Different Images

We tried many different types of fonts and colours of fonts on the possible front covers.

Front Cover Photo Shoot

We decided that we would try and capture an image instead of using the screen shot images. We tried to get a natural background involved as well. We tried to get well lit shots especially shots with the sun hitting her face.

Front Cover Photo Experimenting

We took another screen shot from our music video for a front cover photo:

We felt that this may work as it had more background features.

Differences between a magazine advert and an album cover

We looked at 2 images and we spotted the differences. We then later realised that one is a album cover and one is a magazine article.

 

They have many similarities and only a couple of differences. We listed below what stays the same and what changes.

 

We then were given headings that we could put onto our magazine advert.

 

We chose the headings we wanted to use and placed them down to show the layout that we would prefer.

Testing Different Typography's

We have used some images to try out different typography's that we could use on our Digi Pack. We also looked at different colours that we could use. We wanted the typography to have a feminine look but also have a hint of independence and strength.

Album Cover Picture Possibilities

We started to think about what images we would use for the front cover of the Digi Pack. We print screened 2 images from our music video that we felt would meet the conventions. We are going to make changes to it using Photoshop. These photos are just a possibility for the front cover.

Typography

In class we talked about typography; this is the way letters are created and formed. 

 

It is a style and type of writing you create for your artist. We were given different types of typography and we had to pick one; we chose this one:

 

The reason that we chose this typography is because we felt that it most suited our artist and song. We described why we felt this type of typography suited our artist and song:

We then started to create our own type of typography; what we felt would suit our artist and song.

 

 

We wanted our typography to be elegant and have a feminine touch but also show independence and power as the song is about freedom.

Acoustic/Pop - Similar Artists Album Cover Research

We researched similar artists to see what the codes and conventions are for album covers. All of the covers have the artists as the main feature and have nature as part of the background. The typography is feminine and shows a sense of independence.  

 

Evaluation of 1st cut of Music Video

We were given a mark scheme to mark our music video. There were four different sheets; Level 1, Level 2, Level 3 and Level 4. We marked our music video based on the criteria given which showed us what level we are on. This allowed us to be able to see where we need to improve our music video. We felt we were on a high level 2/low level 3 as we need to improve certain aspects of the video. One main point we realised that we need to improve is that we need to match editing pace to the speed up of the tempo.

We then picked some points and expanded on them.