lfennelly media

In this voice recording I will be answering the question, what have you learned from your audience...

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 13:27:10 +0100

In this voice recording I will be answering the question, what have you learned from your audience feedback?

In the early stages of my research I conducted initial audience feedback to gage what type of music video’s people enjoyed. I did this by emailing links to three very different music video’s and asking people to reply with their response. I sent this e-mail to a variety of people from siblings to teachers to get a variety of responses. I learnt from the results that people enjoyed creative music video’s with a loose narrative. This feedback led me to develop my narrative accordingly.

During my research and planning I discovered that The Nationals main target audience were American males, between 25 and 40 years of age. If my text was a published, real media product it could be specifically targeted to this audience by, for example, advertising in different parts of the world or targeted advertising on social networking sites.

Unfortunately, I had no such facilities so I distributed my music video via Facebook and Twitter after uploading to YouTube. After posting my video on my Facebook wall the views went from 28 on YouTube to 98 in a matter of days. Yet this was only reaching a niche audience which mainly would have been UK teenagers.

Yet this got the job done and people were able to view my work and form an opinion on it. The online feedback I received was positive with two likes on YouTube and 9 likes on Facebook, yet no verbal, specific feedback was obtained. Knowing this, I directly showed people my music video and asked there opinion. I asked an 18 year old, UK male who liked the locations and the contrast of long and short cuts. I then asked a 50 year old, UK female who found the narrative slightly confusing but thought the editing looked professional and impressive.

I believe that feedback is crucial throughout the process of creating my music video and I think if I were to do it again, I would have conducted more informal research into what people want from a narrative. It was easy for me, during production and post- production to envisage the outcome and therefor I think I rushed too it and missed details out which could have made it confusing for the audience to follow. Whereas whilst I was editing I could have shown people the video as I went along and if necessary edited differently or reshot parts of my music video to meet the audiences expectations.

Video

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 19:23:26 +0100

Photo

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:22:32 +0100

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

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 11:12:00 +0100

I spent a lot of time researching throughout this project trying to get a flavour or different music video’s spanning genre, age, music etc. which I think helped me create a believable music video. I specifically focussed on previous music video’s of The National’s and the types of conventions they conformed to and subverted.

I really loved the original Fake Empire music video as it was creative, conceptual and beautiful. I tried to recreate this euphoric, vastness of both the song and the video. I did this by using broad landscapes such as the beach and on top of the hills, this both helps the narrative on and sets the scene. This is also a reoccurring convention in mellow genre music. In the original video, I liked the timings which help create great contrast between the scenes, suggests a passing of time and links the video directly to the song. This is something in post- production I was keen to achieve as I thought it was very reflective of the quirky genre and elevated the intensity of the story.

I decided to make the characters in my piece silent and merely puppets to replay the narrative I envisaged. In the original video, the characters begin silent and then begin to perform the song. I did not want any performance in my piece as it would have looked misplaced with only two characters and would have disrupted the mysterious air I created around the characters. Even though I subverted this slightly from the original video, I think it is quite common to have no performance or visual interaction in a music video. I also think that this helps the music video more timeless for example if I had the character contacting each other by phone or driving to meet each other in a car, then in a few years time both the car and phone will be outdated.

Some of the scenes, the quality and the colour of my video are quite distinctive and possibly unusual of a video made in 2011. I decided to go with this almost retro 80’s style for my video as I thought it was appropriate for both the song and the narrative. Reoccurring scenes such as the record player instil the throughout the video, which I think also effectively opens and closes the video and makes it feel like a convincing whole piece.

I decided to create the photographs for my ancillary tasks in a studio style setting to make it convincing and professional. This shoot was simple but I think the results were really effective. Having studied both art and photography I was able to use photographic idea’s such as the rule of thirds and rules of composition to create original, creative photographs. I think that the random nature of the playing cards on the white background reflects the ‘alternative’ nature of both the music and the target audience. I am a firm believer of less is more which I think is demonstrated in both my ancillary tasks which are simple photographs, simply edited. I think this makes the impact of the pieces great as it gives the audience confidence in the product because of the translucency of the advertising.

This is the promotional magazine advertisement for my album. I...

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 17:03:00 +0100

This is the promotional magazine advertisement for my album. I have used a photograph from the same shoot as the photograph for my album cover to create consistency, I decided against using the exact same image as the photographs are so simple I thought it could be uninteresting. I also decided to edit the advert the same as the album cover again to create consistency between all three of my products. I used the bare minimum of text to add importance to the content of the text that was chosen, it tells the reader everything they need to know, the band, the album name and the release date. I am really pleased with the final outcome as the simplicity makes it look professional and believable and if I saw this in a magazine and liked the image I would research more into the type of music and watch the music video which would make sense of the playing cards image, creating publicity for my other two products.

Photo

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 19:33:50 +0100

Photo

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 20:08:00 +0100

This is my finished album cover, for The National’s single...

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 17:01:00 +0000

This is my finished album cover, for The National’s single Fake Empire. I have adjusted one of my photographs on iPhoto by reducing the saturation and adding a warm filter. I then imported the file into Adobe Illustrator 5.0 on an iMac to add the text and angle it to compliment the photograph. I saved it as a Illustrator file, opened it in Adobe Photoshop CS4 and transformed it into a JPEG which would compromise the quality but made it small enough to be saved onto my USB device.

I really like the colour and sharpness of the image, the fact that the picture cards are closest to the camera adds depth of field, this is also accentuated through the use of focus which is strong in the foreground and blurred in the background. I decided to use this colour because it mimics that of my music video which is grainy and 80’s style which I thought was appropriate for the genre of music and the people it was representational of. I used a font serifed font, in capital letters. I thought that this traditional style, both juxtaposes and reaffirms the image, the font of the text is very different to the text on the cards but it matches the traditional nature of the images on the cards and the familiarity of playing cards. For me it was important to leave the space at the top of my album cover free as it suggests that the image continues, for example if I had put the text in the space at the top it would have looked too contrived. I like the depth and sense of light and shade in the photograph.

Photo

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 13:20:00 +0000

The diameter is a standard size of a CD case is 5”x 5”

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 13:09:42 +0000

The diameter is a standard size of a CD case is 5”x 5”

Photo

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 11:29:55 +0000

Photo

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 11:10:28 +0000

Photo

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 10:59:39 +0000

Photo

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 12:34:00 +0000

(from left: City and Colour 2009 album ‘Sometimes’,...

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 12:20:00 +0000

(from left: City and Colour 2009 album ‘Sometimes’, Dallas Green tattoo’s, Alexisonfire 2004 album ‘Watch Out!’)

Alexisonfire was a five piece, post- hardcore band formed in 2001 fronted by vocalist Dallas Green. The album ‘Watch Out!’ is the second album from the band released in 2004. The album artwork is reminiscent of cartoon comics such as Spiderman and is very similar to other covers by bands of a similar genre. The cover shows a modern day damsel in distress with the title ‘Watch Out!’ suggesting peril, this is again, rather common for an all male band.

City and Colour are a band, like Alexisonfire fronted by Dallas Green yet they are a acoustic, folk band. Comparing these two front covers is interesting when considering target audience. I think City and Colour have chosen to do a tattoo style front cover for their debut album to try and entice Alexisonfire fans to the band by encapsulating Dallas’ trademark tattoo’s.

The Sex Pistols album, Never Mind The Bollocks was released in...

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 12:12:00 +0000

The Sex Pistols album, Never Mind The Bollocks was released in October 1977 amid controversy from the use of the coarse slang word in its title.

God Save The Queen was released in 1977 as the second single from the album Never Mind The Bollocks, the album artwork was created by Jamie Reid and in 2001 was named number 1 in the 100 greatest record covers of all time by Q magazine. From this album cover came merchandise by punk designer for the stars, Vivienne Westwood who styled the band, the look which for many is definitive of the punk era.

The cover photo for Patti Smith’s 1975 album Horses was...

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 12:02:09 +0000

The cover photo for Patti Smith’s 1975 album Horses was taken by friend and photographer, Robert Mapplethorpe. The photograph was taken and not retouched as requested by the record company, but Smith overruled and the photo was kept natural. For me this is one of my favourite album covers because of its simplicity and the beauty and power of the female star. Because the photograph is so simplistic the costume must have taken some consideration, the outfit, like the photograph is monochromatic and masculine subverting an often sexualised image of women. The text is simple and in the top right, where there is the most space around the photograph. Everything about this front cover suggests style and portrays the personality of Smith and the album, Horses.

Font’s available on Macbook; these are font samples...

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 21:13:00 +0000

Font’s available on Macbook; these are font samples proposed for my CD cover. Alternatively I could hand write The National- Fake Empire, this would give me more freedom which aspects such as text arching and size.
For my front cover I want to convey a sense of both the band and the music video using artistic license, creating a conceptual piece. Therefor I want my text to reflect this, I like the font Apple Gothic because it is simplistic, modern and slick yet the letters are quite wide and suggests a childlike document. Hoefler Text, for Mac is similer to Times New Roman, for PC this is a serifed text which more often than not suggests formaility in print media such as The Times newspaper. However, I like the familiarity of this font. Fonts such as Herculanum have obviously been put on Mac for a purpose, they are not fonts used for large blocks of text as they are far too fancy, it is reminiscent of greek lettering and not at all appropriate for my CD cover.

Found images of playing cards proposed for my album, front...

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 21:13:00 +0000

Found images of playing cards proposed for my album, front cover. Obviously my front cover has to be square in shape and measure 120mm squared. I am considering either using my artistic skills to drawer/ paint a portion of my front cover, then scan it in a Mac and use iPhoto or Photoshop to manipulate or, use a photograph and do a similar thing. I love the ornate design of these cards and particularly that of the older looking cards (top left and bottom right)
When I first saw the top left image I instantly thought to use the part of the image inside of the circle to create the sticker on a record. I will drawer up design idea’s for this proposal.

Now having completed filming and editing my music video I have to now concentrate on the two...

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 21:36:00 +0000

Now having completed filming and editing my music video I have to now concentrate on the two ancillary tasks which accompany my video.
I have chosen to create a CD cover for my band and then a magazine advertisement, including my CD cover to promote the release.

My initial idea’s for my CD cover include motif’s from my music video including:

Playing cards
Record player/ Records
Checkered coat
Location shots etc.

I have not yet decided whether to include text on my front cover, I shall research my favourite album front covers and previous front covers by The National to create an appropriate cover for the bands target audience. I know I must use software such as Photoshop or iPhoto to manipulate my image but would also like to use my creative photography and art skills to create this final piece.