1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Samantha and I apologize for the noise in the background (we did not realise how loud it was at the time) and would recommend the sound to be turned up.
Just in case you did not catch some of what we were saying here was what we said in powerpoint presentation (some details have been added that were not said in the video):
2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts (DVD digipak, Magazine advert)? Sir gave me a website where I could create a survey about my music video and distribute the questions to people online to answer.
I used surveymonkey.com for a quick and easy way to find out how effective my main product and ancillary texts were for my audience.
It took three simple stages for me to get my results.
Design Survey
Unfortunately, as my account is "basic", I could only create up to 10 questions so I spaced them out in two pages
First page was on my advertisement:
Examples: (click to enlarge)
Second page is on my digipak:
Examples:
Collect Responses:
Once I completed designing the survey, I was given this link to distribute;
I gave it out to 15 people and awaited for their responses.
Analyze results:
14 people responded in time; here are the overall results whichs tells me how effective our ancillary texts were;
Response summary for Advertisement:
1) What were your first thoughts when you saw our advertisement?
The word "mysterious" or "mystical" was used the most. From what i gather, the fact that it was simple yet had a "haunting" effect to it, left our audience curious and wanting to know more which is always a plus.
2) Who do you think this would appeal most to?
With 44.7% of the vote, our audience believed that it was teenage girls that our advert was aimed at; which also links in nicely with the belief that our video is also aimed at teenage girls therefore we know who it appeals most to.
3)How effective do you think our advertisement is?
75% of our audience said it was very effective and that they would buy it. 16.7% said it was fairly effective and only 8.3% percentage said its not effective at all but overall our large percentage of effectiveness overules that.
4) What would you rate it out of 5? (5 being excellent, 1 being poor)
Another large percentage of 66.7% rated it excellent and no one rated it as poor which is good=)
5)Any improvements?
Overall, the majority said no to improvement however to those who said something gave really helpful and constructive criticisms; such as "more colour", "from a male point of view" and "better text placement and fonts"
Response summary for digipak
1)What were your first thoughts when you saw our digipak?
We got really positive feedback such as it being "fantastic", "very good" and "good use of imagery that matched the video" which all work towards our digipak being very effective.
2)Do you think we represented Edie Sedgwick well enough?
97.1% said yes we did!!!
3) Any images/aspects of the digipak that stood out most to you?
We got mixed responses but it shows how different aspects appeal to different people however all work as equally effective. One person said they preferred the front cover and the right image when you open it, another liked the guitar tracklist image but most said it was all equally good. What kept coming up was the message of love we gave out, whether that was through images or meaningful quotes.
4) What would you rate our digipak for effectiveness between 1 to 5 (1 being not effective, 5 being very effective)
57.1% of our audience rated our digipak as very effective and no one saw it as not effective themselves. 5) Any improvements?
Again, the majority of our audience didn't believe so however those who did were very construction. One person particularly guided us into "linking the design of the digipak and and poster together" so the two products can relate whilst someone else thought a "small biography of Edie in the inner pages would be useful aswell."
Overrall, through gaining a certain amount of audience feedback, it has allowed me to know just how effective our ancillary texts e.g. our digipak and advert, was to everyone. By comparing and contrasting different opinions, I am able to find the highest percentage of something or what was most commonly said; whether this is praise or constructive criticism and and will come to an end of seeing how this has affected our overall rating. The most important responses I have taken from myfeedback which works into how effective the texts have been are that both were rated as being highly effective; the advert led to curiousity and wanting more and the digipak linked in nicely with our main product and as a result our single would most likely be bought. Aspects of our designs and portrayal of Edie Sedgwick were rated as excellent aswell which should only add to the effectiveness of our main product as some designs they were still shots taken from it and therefore leaving the audience wanting to see more of the video.
Why I think our combination of our main product and ancillary texts were highly effective:
3) What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
The feedback allows to me know who my audience is, what their views on music is and their views on my music video. The website is: http://www.surveymonkey.com/ and I found it very easy to use. There are three stages I had to take to get my results:
Design survey
Unfortunately, as my account is "basic", I could only create up to 10 questions so I spaced them out in three pages; 1)Tell me about yourself- where I'd ask their age and sex 2)Music- where I'd ask what genre they are into and why they listen toit 3)My music video- where I'd ask about my video.
(click on images to enlarge)
Collect Responses
Once I completed designing the survey, I was given this link to distribute;
Wordle generates a cloud of words from words you enter. It almost creates a brainstorm for different words you want.
I entered the words from the responses of the digipak, advert and music video into it, in order to expand on my evaluation about what i have learnt from audience theory.
The words that are bigger show what the majority of people thought of our music video/digipak/advert.
Sunday, 28 March 2010
4) How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Research
The film "Factory girl" is where I initially got my whole idea of doing a music video on Edie Sedgwick from. Sienna Miller's portrayal of Edie was incredible and I knew attempting to present a video in the 60's was going to be a difficult task so aspects of the film and other media technologies really helped me along the way to gather enough ideas before construction.
Here is the trailer of "Factory Girl" which I think sums up my research into the life of Edie Sedgwick really well.
Wikipedia:
Wikipedia was a brilliant source as it helped me research any information in so much detail (that I didn't get from Factory Girl) about Edie Sedgwick and her whole life; from her factory days, to her drug abuse.
(click to enlarge)
The factory days and Bob dylan
Her death and cause of it
Google images
Other than using the mise en scene used in "Factory Girl", I thought google images would be a perfect source to be inspired images of the real Edie Sedgwick and how she presented herself in them e.g. body language, what she wore, who she was with etc.
Other music videos-Youtube
One video that influenced me the most with the whole montage/home video style and how I expected my music video to look like was Beyonce's "Flaws and All"
As the embedded is disabled, check it out by this link; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1nYrVqHzJw
Bob Dylan Music;
"Just Like A Woman"
"Leopard-Skin Pill-Skin"
From these songs, it has inspired us to use Dylan's style of music in our music video to illustrate the relationship between Dylan and Edie. As we couldn't use copyright music however, we had to round trying to find someone unsigned whose music were under the influences and similiar to that of Bob Dylans.
Planning
Factory girl really got me motivated to pursue the idea of doing a music video about Edie Sedgwick and so I planned to use clips from the film as inspiration and help to guide me through the construction stages e.g. how Samantha should be presented in different scenes when with either Andy Warhol or Bob Dylan or when shes under the influence of drugs. It really helped me know how to present the mise en scene overall and also how to a convey a certain performance from Samantha through my camera work.
Here are some significant clips from Factory Girl compared to scenes from our music video to illustrate how much the film helped me before construction:
Edie Sedgwick and Bob Dylan
Factory Girl
Music Video
Factory Girl
Music video
Edie Sedgwick and Andy Warhol
Factory Girl
Music Video
Both shots of Edie (Samantha) with either Bob Dylan and Andy Warhol captures their love triangle and Edies struggle to choose between either fame and drugs with Warhol or love and music with Dylan. This narrative was emphasised throughout Factory Girl and so I tried to make it clear in my music video with constantly reminding my audience of Edie being presently on drugs and having flashbacks of her split life with Dylan and Warhol.
Edie Sedgwick herself:
Drinking alone:
Sienna Miller in Factory Girl
Samantha in our music video
On drugs:
Sienna Miller in Factory Girl
Samantha in our music video
Being filmed
Sienna Miller in Factory Girl
Samantha in music video
Sienna Miller in Factory Girl gradually starts to lose control as time goes on and I wanted to show that with Samantha throughout aswell. There are moments in the video where she is alone and the audience should pick up how lonely and fearful her character of Edie is becoming. She isn't her usual self like she was at the start; as her health declines under the pressure of fame and Warhol, so does her happiness and Dylans love for her.
Getting music for video
Since I wasn't allowed to get copyright music for my music video, I was given the website http://www.unsigned.com/ which gave you all types musicians who specialised in different genres but did not yet have a record label;
With this website, I started planning on finding an artist that fitted a few criteria's:
1) Male
2) Acoustic and folk
3) Lyrically suits my ideas on Edie Sedgwick
4) Influenced by/similar to singers like Bob Dylan
After a couple of researches under the genre of folk/acoustic, I came across an unsigned artistic called Gary Roberts who recorded a song called "Let me paint a picture" which stood out most to me. It's name could be linked in the sense of Andy Warhol being an artist and having a close but peculiar relationship with Edie but in another sense we could use it as Bob Dylan (as it matches his kind of music) presently singing about the past wth Edie and how heartbroken he is that he couldn't stop her from her drug addiction; as he sings, he is narrating a story which is gradually painted into a picture to what happened to Edie. Also lyrically throughout it matched my research on Edie and her drug abuse such as "..and you go and get so high." which is continously repeated throughout and can be linked to her factory days"...when they told me what they did to you"..."now i barely know you"
Construction
To film we used a HD camera and to edit we used imovie. Here are some images to illustrate our construction of it all:
Our music video:
Our digipak and advert:using Picnik.com
Evaluation:
Surveymonkey.com allowed me to get audience feedback on my music video or rating the effectiveness of my advert and digipak.
Powerpoint- I found organising and presenting my ideas easier using powerpoint. I can structure my answers in accordance to the main theme on seperate pages whilst also adding illustrations to back it up.
Slideshare.net allowed me to upload a presentation I made on powerpoint and give me an embedded code so that it can be displayed on blogs. It's a great way for people to be given information in a structured and organised manner with illustrations and looked over in one swift and quick click of the mouse.
Wordle.net
Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. I can tweak my clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images I create with Wordle are mine to use however I like.
I used Wordle to sum up my audience feedback on my music video, digipak and advert; all responses I recieved from the surveymonkey.com.
