Evaluation

Me and Sofia realise that the lip sync of our music video may potentially let us down a little as it also effected other areas of the video which the audience pointed out. Bearing that in mind we think that the rest of the video had a positive outcome with mostly good comments about the video and both our ancillary tasks. We were lucky enough to have audience feedback throughout the process of this project, so we did take it on board to make slight changes to our music video, web page and magazine advertisement.

Both me and Sofia have done separate evaluations, but I have not got the original music video saved onto my area (it is saved on Sofia's computer) therefore I will not be able to show it on Movie Maker, instead I can show you print screens and I will put our final music video below (or next to) the first evaluation question so that you can access it easily.

Information that you should know:  As you now know, our band consists of different ethnic minorities, the name of the curvier band member with the fringe is Jess, she plays the keyboard, the band member with the red hair is Alice who plays the tambourine and finally the band member from a black ethnic minority is Genelle-the lead singer.
Unfortunately, some of the pictures for question one haven't shown up and instead came up with a black image, I think there was a problem when trying to publish the video.
Question 1

Final music video (please refer to it when looking at all four questions)

More points in relation to question one

I think another convention we could talk about is how one of the band members (Alice) is represented. By this I mean that on the bands official website, the fact file on Alice says that she is the bands 'drummer', but as you can see she is playing the tambourine in this music video. This is distinctly showing her musical talent of playing different instruments and kind of gives of this hippy image as it is a tambourine, which is again challenging the conventions of Soul/RnB music video.

The slowed down effect along with tracking with the camera gave a more dramatic effect here (below)

...as seen in Mary J Blige's video 'Why?' (below)

These are the videos that I made links to in question one

Coldplay-Fix you

The Script ft Will.i.am-Hall of Fame

Question 2-How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Question 3

Question 4

When I was trying to upload the video from my documents onto the blog it didn't work for some reason and a message from blogger said that there was an error. Therefore I uploaded it through YouTube on my channel. Below is the error message. 

Overall, we did face some problems, some were easier to over come then others, such as replacing the school camera and finding a location and having our models ready to perform as well as the website and magazine advert being constructed quite easily and well. Whereas other problems included the change in location and of course the lip sync not being in time and the video not being able to publish after quite a few attempts. I am happy that we started our ancillary research and construction while getting ready to film our main task, I think over come all of these problems we should have started our editing earlier so we could have avoided any errors. 

Audience feedback-Music video

After creating our second draft for our music video, we asked 10 people from our target audience   (16-35 year old females) to write one good and bad comment. We collected all the opinions and made a mind map showing the negative feedback in purple and the positive feedback in Blue. We asked for audience feedback before constructing our final music video in order to make sure that we can get rid of most negative feedback to make sure that we will attract our target audience.

General good points:

We have received a wide range of positive feedback as some commented on the narrative of the music and others commented on the editing and transition of the music video.
Comments on narrative:

• The narrative was seen to of "went well with the song" and the circular narrative of the music video is "effective and made it more clear that park scenes was a flashback".

Comments on transition:

• One of the respondents felt that the some of transitions such as the circular and heart transition and zoom on the instruments was "good".

Comments on the setting:

• We received quite a few of positive comments on the setting some felt that there was a ''good use of location"and that the setting some scenes in the park made the music video look more 'natural and realistic''.

Comments on specific scenes;

• The filming from specific scenes such as the roundabout scene which commented to go 'well as the song slowed down which made the scene more dramatic'.

Comments on the performance:

• One comment was made about liking the performance of the main singer in the music video '' main singer shows different emotions''. I was very pleased with this comment as the key theme in this music video is emotions as the portrayed relationship is meant to very volatile.

Comment made related to gratification theory:

• A comment was also made relating to the gratification theory as they found our music video to be ''entertaing". This also shows us that we conforming to the conventions of Soul/RnB music video as in the conventions questionnaire most of target audience would listen to music for entertainment.

Areas for improvement:

• The lip singing needs to improve as one found that the the lip singing was ''not in time with the song''.This will makes our music video look unprofessional.
• The timing and transition of the bird flying needs to be slowed and dissolve effect needs to be taken off as this scene was said to "dissolve effect does not go right and the scene looks slowed down''.
• The scene showing the showing the squirrel should be slowed down as"'the squirrel is hard to notice''. This means we would have to slow down the scene.
• The transition of wine disappearing should be more smother as it was said that ''transition is very jumpy and needs to be smoother''. This means that we might have to another transition as the wine glass jumps to much.

Final MUSIC VIDEO!

After many attempts of trying to edit the video so that the lip sync was in time we finally had to make do with the closest thing we had to the correct lip sync. Below is our final music video.

Information that you should know:  As you now know, our band consists of different ethnic minorities, the name of the curvier band member with the fringe is Jess, she plays the keyboard, the band member with the red hair is Alice who plays the tambourine and finally the band member from a black ethnic minority is Genelle-the lead singer.

Quick analysis:  The narrative of our video is quite basic as it shows lots of different clips in the video, some related to the videos and others not so much. One thing that I learnt because of the is that we didn't have to add every clip that was related to the video as there would be too many jump cuts and not a clear narrative. After asking some of the audience members about the last clip of our video and what they understood about it most of them said that the effect used made it seem like a flash back in the beginning to what happens at the end and they could link why she was happy at the end as this 'mysterious possible love interest' has made her happy as it was unclear why her mood switches from the beginning (throwing leaves) to when she's sitting on the bench. Me and Sofia wanted them to anticipated and watch the video to understand why the beginning shot was shown, which is what happened  We were happy that the audience could distinguish a link between the link from the beginning to the end this means our idea of including a circular narrative worked as it wasn't originally intended.

Final magazine advertisement and webpage

Click on pictures to enlarge

This is or final magazine advertisement.

This is our final website for our band (there is a link below)

http://smaaroufi16.wix.com/band

(Please make sure to go on the website link as we have missed out the 'Tour dates page' and we would also like you to see the transitions from one page to the other and how they work.

From the audience feedback of the website we were told the colour scheme being a recurring problem which meant that we had to change it to a shade lighter, just so the writing was easier to see and so was the pictures.

Audience feedback on ancillary tasks

(IMPORTANT INFORMATION: THIS POST IS SUPPOSED TO GO AFTER 'FINAL MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENT AND WEB PAGE'-PLEASE LOOK AT THE ABOVE POST BEFORE THIS ONE, THANK YOU)
This is our audience feedback on both our ancillary task. We asked 13 females between the ages of 16-35 about their opinion on what the positives and negatives of our magazine advertisement and web page. We presented this to the class and told them that the ancillary tasks were based on Soul/RnB music. We had a problem when presenting the magazine advertisement and website as the interactive white bored was too dark which made our products look quite dark even though the colours were already quite dark. I think this is were there was quite a few negative comments about the colour   (All images can be enlarged if you click on them)
This is what they said:

In general, the audience feed back was quite positive with most of them saying both ancillary tasks looking 'good' and 'professional'. Other positive feedback included:

• The use of different pictures in the website, I think this was a positive as the audience may have thought it was like a 'photo shoot' something they would expect to see on a website.
• The website had a lot of information, this means the audience had a good understanding of the difference that the magazine advertisement was designed to 'attract the target audience', whereas the website was then used to give more information after they wanted to view it. 
• For the magazine advertisement the audience commented on how effective the camera angle was and the editing on both the website and magazine advertisement.
• Some of them commented on the location and scenery saying it went well with the colour scheme.
• Most of the audience said that the colour scheme was the same throughout both, the website and magazine advertisement. Me and Sofia are happy they picked out this point as it shows 'continuity'.
• The overall layout of the magazine advertisement was 'very good'. One person from said that it looked like a 'vintage style'; is good because it shows that our band is different.
• Another member of the audience said that the magazine advertisement was a good way to leave you wanting 'to know more'.
• As we presented both ancillary tasks to the class with what genre they were, not may of them commented on the fact that it didn't look like a Soul/RnB music advertisement.

Things we could have done better:

• Lighten the overall picture on the website as it looked a bit dark and dull (this could also be because of the white bored).
• Some of the audience suggested that the genre was unclear. We were hoping this wouldn't be a problem, but I think it is OK because the majority didn't find this an issue to comment. This shows that doing a big audience feed back on the ancillary task was a good idea as we got quite a few different opinions.
• Others commented on the fact that the models should look more natural and not so posed. 
• Some of the audience members thought that the general image of the magazine advertisement should have taken over the 'whole' space instead of a section. We were unable to to this because of the size of the image being horizontal.
• The writing could have been clearer with a different colour maybe.  

Research of record label and TV channel for music video: EMI and MTV

The record label that we have chosen to promote our band is EMI because it is home to some of the most successful recording artists such as Katy Perry, Snoop Dogg as well as British artists such as Emeli Sande, Lilly Allan, Tinchy Stryder. As well as popular bands from The Beatles to Coldplay.

As you can see all these artists all have different genres of music and are internationally very big as well as in their own countries. For our band we are hoping that the record label (being well known) help to make our band national stars then take tours internationally and work with artists in America for collaborations and other producers. We are thinking of this because EMI records owns and runs the world-renowned recording studios such as Capitol Studios in Los Angeles.

Looking back at the history of EMI records, the recorded sound and music as one of our original companies was founded by the inventor of the gramophone, Emile Berliner.
Since then EMI has always been at the forefront of technology and change. EMI scientists invented stereo recording and closely related magnetic recording.

Coldplay became the first recording artists to sell more then one million digital albums in the US and two worldwide.

MTV UK 
After looking at the MTV website I have found  that most new videos are aired on the website first, and MTV itself is a world wide known music site especially in America. We would like the video to be aired on MTV first then go on the TV channels for other audience to watch.

Construction of website

The process of making our music website, we decided to make our website on Wix at the end as we thought it had more creative options for us. (click to enlarge each print screen)

1.) We decided to use a blank template instead of using a ready made template as we wanted to make sure that we could create a website with the same layout as our draft which a landscape format with a navigation at the bottom of the website.

Home page for website 

2.) This print screen shows that layout of the beginning of the layout. The right side of the print screen shows the page manager which shows what pages we have created. So far we have just added a blank homepage. 

3.) This print screen shows us choosing a background colour for the website. We clicked on the background button and then clicked on brown (respondents from questionnaire preferred brown earthy colours) which came up with different brown backgrounds. We choose a brown gradient colour as we wanted to have different tones of browns on the website. At the bottom we created a navigation bar by adding pages on the page manager and then dragged the navigation bar at the bottom of the website. Once we created the navigation bar we double clicked on the navigation bar and then pressed on the format text button which lets you customise the font and style. We choose a formal style font (preferred by the respondents from the questionnaire) with different tones of browns.

4.) We wanted to see to adjust the colour of the background to make the website look more darker by clicking on the background button on the left side. We thought by doing this it went with what the target audience expect in an RnB/Soul music website (dark colours) although we had to be careful that you could still see the writing. 

5.) For the homepage we added a picture of the band (requested by the target audience) by clicking on the add button and then uploaded the images of the band from my computer and then onto the website.

6.) As our target audience wanted a retro and nature based we decided to add a old film frame on the main image in order to give a retro effect which enhances the actors style of clothing.

7.) Whilst adding features onto our website we changed the colour and made the background colour lighter as we think brown makes the website look better. We then clicked on the add button on the left hand side and then added the band name on top the main image. We used the same font from the navigation bar but different colour as wanted the bring out the white frame, so that the main images stands out.

Biography of website 

8.) When creating the biography page, we double clicked on the page and then added a Article template as it has a navigation at the side which changes the page to each article.

9.) We deleted the images and text on the page and then changed the text on the navigation bar and added the individual bands members names. Afterwards we changed the font and colour of the navigation bar as the same style of the navigation bar on the bottom of the website.We decided that we wanted to add an effect on the navigation bar by clicking on the replace skin button and then adding a casino animation effect which makes the bar scroll when the mouse is placed over.

10.) We then added the individual image of Genelle by clicking on the add button on the left side and then added the uploaded picture of Genelle.

11.) This print screen shows us adding the old film frame on the image as we wanted to show continuity of the retro theme we are trying to convey.

12.) We then added a text box in a shape of a speech bubble (make the text look more personal and directed towards the audience) at the side of the Genelle's picture. 

13.) We then edited the text by using the editing tool above, we changed the style of the writing and added a more formal type font. 

14.) We then added the name of the band member on top of the fact file in the same formal font.

15.) We felt that the top of the biograpghy page was bland and therefore we added the word biograpghy on top to make the page look more filled up.

16.) Sofia clicked on the add button and clicked on the clip art section which gave me a variety of images to choose from. Sofia and me felt that the star to make the page look more exciting.

17.) Again we added the Alice name on top of her fact file, to make it clear which band member the fans are looking at. Within the fact file we included that Alice is usually a 'drummer' in the band, but for this music video she decided to play the 'tambourine' to show her diversity in musical talent.

18.) We added Jessica's name on top of her fact file.

Gallery for the website

19.) 

Sofia liked the idea of a circular gallery as it goes with our retro theme and gives a 60's feel towards the page. Although I thought that the square frames were more conventional and it didn't look too extra, I did like the circles but then asking a few people for feedback, they all preferred the circle frame instead.

20.)  

To add our picture, we double clicked on the gallery and uploaded all our images from our files onto the gallery.

21.) We wanted to add the same effect from our homepage image which gives the illusion of old film effect which again shows continuity of the retro based theme for our website.

22.) Sofia and I clicked on the add button and then clip art which had loads of nature based images that we could use for our website. 

23.) When adding the images we double clicked on the image and added a glow and brown/ black tint to make the images blend with the background.

24.)  We then added the same effect here and a different image.

25.) We then added the same effect again and a different image.

Video for our website

26.) For our video page we clicked on the add section and choose a video style on the video manager and then imported our music video from you tube.

27.)  Then we added the title of the music video on the left side of the page so that the consumers of the website would find the information on the page more clearer.

28.) We then added a scroll box and added information about the music video so that information is more clear and professional looking. The scroll bar contained information about the record label (EMI), the famous artist who had written the song for the band (Emelie Sande) and when the album is coming out in store. These are all the conventions you are likely to find on a website related to the album release and other information which is relevant. The only difference is that you may find this information in smaller writing on a actual website.

29.) I suggested that we should add a nature based image on this page in order to show continuity of the nature based theme.

30.)  Sofia clicked on the video manager and found a transition tool which makes the video appear in a floral design when you click on the page.

Tour dates page for our website 

31.)  When creating our tour date page we added an image of the band together rather than a concert image which initially decided to add from our draft for the website.

32.) We then added a glow effect on the image to make the image look more effective and too stand out. 

33.) We then added the page title on the left side to make the page look more full.

34.) We then added a scroll bar for the tour date information.

35.) We then added the text but separated the text in three columns to make the tour dates more clear and easier to read.

This is the final look of our tour dates page.

Contact us for the website

36.) When creating the contact page we added a speech bubble effect on the outline of this page.

37.) We then added the contact box by clicking on the  add section and then the clip art on the comments button.

38.)  I connected my email onto the comment box so that when publishing the website all the comments will go onto my email account.

39.) Afterwards we added the contact us on top of the page.

40.)  Underneath the tittle we added address details of the company so that this page looks more professional and completed.

41.) This print screen shows us adding a rose at the side of the contact us page to make the page look more appealing and to blend with the nature based theme.