Homework xmas break - evaluation & audience feedback

Hi All
We are entering the final stage of the coursework which is the evaluation. You have 4 questions which must finally be presented as a digital media format (ie not an essay)


We are changing to a new blog for the evaluation: http://leighmediaa2eval.blogspot.com - there is a link on the right


This task to begin with is individual but you will work in teams to finally present these.


Before you leave for the holidays:
1. Export your video and post to youtube/then to your blog


2. Upload your Digipak & Website images to your blog


Then over xmas finish your website...


3. Collect audience feedback using social networking sites


Build a questionnaire for Facebook & Myspace and circulate to members of your target audience - *IMP USE THE PAGE YOU CREATED FOR YOUR ARTISTS RESEARCH/MARKETING STRATEGY - IF YOU HAVEN'T DO SO NOW & INVITE YOUR AUDIENCE

• Facebook - http://www.quibblo.com/facebook-quizzes-surveys
• Myspace - http://tjshome.com/survey/

4. On your Individual Blog, add a post of preliminary notes/answers for each of the evaluation questions - they do not need to be full sentences just blog thoughts.
Look over the previous year' students examples for guidance (click on the links to see Sean's grade A example)


5. Look over the mark scheme (following post on the blog)  - why did he get L4?

Evaluation Question 1

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

 

Capture 9 frames to demonstrate this

Evaluation Question 2

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

Include visuals (print screens etc)

 

Evaluation Question 3 

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Include print screen evidence of comments/questionnaires from Facebook - Youtube - Myspace & The bands website feedback

Evaluation Question 4

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation?Include images from your work in development on your blog to back up your comments

Please be ready to present these when we return in January

Merry Xmas & well done!

Mr.B

Characteristics of Music Video

Characteristics of Music Video

Characteristics of Music Video

Ultimately we will advocate using cultural models for the rhetorical analysis of music video. To fully understand how a cultural model facilitates rhetorical criticism of music video, it is first necessary to explore the unique features of the genre. Music, particularly rock, has always had a visual element. The album cover, the "look" a band strived for in performance, concert staging, and promotional publicity have all helped create a visual imagery for rock (Goodwin, 1992). The use of video to stimulate album sales and the birth of MTV as a continuous outlet for viewing simply served to enhance the visual potential present in rock.

Viewers typically do not regard the music video as a commercial for an album or act.Aufderheide (1986) describes the connection of viewer to video."With nary a reference to cash or commodities, music videos cross the consumer's gaze as a series of mood states. They trigger nostalgia, regret, anxiety, confusion, dread, envy, admiration, pity, titillation--attitudes at one remove from the primal expression such as passion, ecstasy, and rage. The moods often express a lack, an incompletion, an instability, a searching for location. In music videos, those feelings are carried on flights of whimsy, extended journeys into the arbitrary." (p. 63)

That music videos present compelling mood states that may claim the attention of the viewer is not a matter of happenstance.
Abt (1987) states that "directors of videos strive to make their products as exciting as the music. In the struggle to establish and maintain a following, artists utilize any number of techniques in order to appear exotic, powerful, tough, sexy, cool, unique" (p. 103). Further, Abt indicates a video must compete with other videos.

"They must gain and hold the viewer's attention amidst other videos; help establish, visualize, or maintain the artist's image; sell that image and the products associated with it; and perhaps, carry one or several direct or indirect messages . . ." (p. 97).

Music videos may be further characterized by three broad typologies: performance, narrative, and conceptual (Firth, 1988).
These types describe the form and content selected by the director or artist to attract viewers and to convey a direct or indirect message.

Performance videos, the most common type (Firth 1988) feature the star or group singing in concert to wildly enthusiastic fans. The goal is to convey a sense of the in-concert experience. Gow (1992) suggests "the predominance of performance as a formal system in the popular clips indicates that music video defines itself chiefly by communicating images of artists singing and playing songs" (pp. 48-49). Performance videos, especially those that display the star or group in the studio, remind the viewer that the soundtrack is still important. "Performance oriented visuals cue viewers that, indeed, the recording of the music is the most significant element" (Gow, 1992, p. 45).

A narrative video presents a sequence of events. A video may tell any kind of story in linear, cause-effect sequencing. Love stories, however, are the most common narrative mode in music video. The narrative pattern is one of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. Action in the story is dominated by males who do things and females who passively react or wait for something to happen (Schwichtenberg, 1992).Conceptual videos rely on poetic form, primarily metaphor (Firth, 1988). The conceptual video can be metaphysical poetry articulated through visual and verbal elements. "These videos make significant use of the visual element, presenting to the eye as well as the ear, and in doing so, conveying truths inexpressible discursively" (Lorch, 1988, p. 143). Conceptual videos do not tell a story in linear fashion, but rather create a mood, a feeling to be evoked in the experience of viewing (Firth, 1988).

Conceptual videos contain the possibility for multiple meanings as the metaphor or metaphoric sequence is interpreted by the viewer.
"Thus the metaphorical relations between images structured according to musical and visual rhymes and rhythms play a suggestive role in soliciting multiple meanings from us, the viewers/listeners, that resonate with our experience--something we can feel and describe" (Schwichtenberg, 1992 p. 124).

A given music video may actually have elements of more than one category. Goodwin (1992), in describing Madonna's videos, suggests that the essential narrative component of a music video is found in its ability to frame the star, "star-in-text," as all Madonna's videos seem to do. A story exists solely for its ability to create, or in Madonna's case recreate, the star's persona. This blending of elements can also enable a type of music such as rap to have cross-over appeal to a wider audience.Although we may profitably interpret the message potential of music video using these three categories as a basis for content analysis, certain limitations exist if we remain on that path. "Analysts of music video narrative have been all too eager to freeze the moment and study videos shot by shot, but here the problem is that this generates not too much but too little knowledge, because the individual narrative is highly intertextual" (Goodwin, 1992 p. 90).

As a blend of video technique and imagery from film and television, music video offers us a new perceptual agenda by providing allusions to and incorporations of old iconic imagery from film, allowing us to reconstitute the pieces of the 20th century information explosion (Turner, 1986). The brevity of the music video has created a new grammar of video technique particular to this miniscule video form.

"Visual techniques commonly employed in music videos exaggerate . . . Interest and excitement is stimulated by rapid cutting, intercutting, dissolves, superimpositions, and other special effects, that taken together with different scenes and characters, make music videos visually and thematically dynamic." (Abt, 1987 pp. 97-98)

Born of an amalgam of commercialism, television, and film, for the purpose of selling rock albums, music videos frequently employ well-established verbal and visual symbols in telling a story or making a point. If no such symbols exist, music videos coin their own which, given the ubiquity of the medium, quickly find their way into the vernacular.How then to best understand the rhetorical properties that such a media form has for the audience? Schwichtenberg (1992) suggests that what critics should consider "is how music videos are woven into a complex cultural context that includes performers, industries, and diverse audiences who attribute a wide variety of meanings to the music and visuals" (p. 117).

These characteristics suggest that the most methodologically appropriate approach to understanding how music videos might function as rhetoric is to view them as cultural acts, intertextually located in the viewer's own experience. We define culture, with a little help from Bruce Gronbeck (1983), as a complex of collectively determined sets of rules, values, ideologies, and habits that constrain rhetors and their acts. This complex leads a society to generate meaning through various message forms to establish a series of societal truths. The extent to which any form of communication such as a music video plays a part in the process of truth-making is what the rhetorical critic attempts to discover through criticism.

Karyn Charles Rybacki and Donald Jay Rybacki Northern Michigan University

Audience feedback - (6 (work) days remain to deadline 4pm Friday 16th Dec

Time to start thinking about the next step. Your module result is based on the progress you have made on your video & ancillary tasks against the marking criteria. As your video has til next week til deadline this is a prediction on THE PROCESS and time management as well as what I have seen of your footage and editing progression and what you have evidenced on your blogs of the construction (photos from the shoot, during the edit, your reflections on your individual/group blogs..)

Next step - audience feedback


You should already have set up pages using social media to identify your target audience. If you have used an actual band use their website and collect feedback from them - this is 'client's feedback' and is valuable.

Facebook - Twitter - Myspace - comments on website

All ways to collect audience feedback on your work. Ensure you have an audience profile (photos) of your typical audience member.
Consider:
Age;
Gender;
Subculture (Punk, Emo, Scene Kid, Skater, Nu-Raver);
Region;
Outlook - values (facebook useful for this)

Collect the feedback and post to your blogs.

Evaluation is dependent on your analysis of the feedback - this includes each other.

If you are ahead please feedback on each others rough cut.

Thanks
Mr.B

Digipak planning

http://www.topalbumcovers.com/98to91.html

show what has influenced your draft designs from existing examples from your genre

Photos
Artwork
Designs
Effects

As a mood board show where your ideas for your drafts have come from & how you have been influenced by existing examples of album covers and digipaks.

Digipack analysis tasks: video commentary

See example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUOlOmNDMu4

1. What are the conventions of the form and layout of a digipack? 
2. Discuss the Design of the: front, back, spine, what the images represent, how it relates to the artist, is it following conventions (feature the artists etc).
3. How has it been photographed/drawn/colours/photo-effects - what could this mean/symbolise? 
4. How does it re-enforce/continue the construction of their Image?
5. How do they contain conventions of the Genre of music?

Student example:

Looky here...It's a digipak analysis!

This is the debut solo album from Babyshambles front man, Peter Doherty. Released March 16th 2009, the album did not sell as well as was predicted - only reaching 17 in the top 40 album chart. However, rock/indie magazine 'Q' stated the album was impressive and awarded it 4/5. The Guardian also gave positive reviews and claimed that this album says "Goodbye to Pete Libertine the Rehab King, and say hello to Peter Doherty, outstanding singer-songwriter and charismatic poet-vagabond. It's a pleasure finally to meet him". Pete Doherty has always excelled himself with lyrics, even with former band 'The Libertines'. Being a fan of Doherty, i may be bias in saying that i think the album exceeded my original expectations and even though Doherty’s voice has been damaged by drug use, these tracks are poignant and meaningful. This digipak consists of the audio CD, DVD of extra performances, and a booklet in the centre with illustrations and lyrics. It is made from a rigid glossy card material.

Here is the front cover



We are initially struck with this imposing graphic design image of a woman with a burnt orange/brown/yellow colour scheme that runs throughout the digipak. This is also the design sold on t shirts to launch the album and his solo career, using this deisgn will allow people to realise it is from this album!



The fact that Doherty isn't on the front cover i would say is slightly inconventional however, more recently i think it has become more common for artists to do this, but then have some kind of image of themselves inside the package. (which we then go on to see) His name is in capitals but the font is quite small and therefore your eye is not drawn straightway to this, underneith is the name of the album 'Grace/wastelands' which is in a fine handwritten style font (handwritten being the style we have also gone for) but could be easily missed at a glance! The parental advisory sticker on the front along side the informative 'CD/DVD special edition' is recognisible with regard to CD packages and therefore know there will be strong language either on the CD or DVD.



This is the backcover of the digipak, once again keeping to the graphic design colour scheme and the handwritten names of the tracks particuarly stand out to me, because this is a key feature i think works with this individual artist - it creates more of a personal touch! :) Another thing i think we haven't mentioned until now is the barcode!....we need to include that! otherwise how would people buy our wonderful digipak!...here it is at the top right, slightly inconventional (as it is usually in either of the bottom corners) BUT i like it!




Here is the entire digipak opened up, and the front cover of the booklet inside which has song lyrics (handwritten) and further graphics. Each panel inside commits to the recurring colour scheme but has 3 images of a ballet dancer, which is relevant to one of the songs (and could also be relevant to the dancers her had at his live shows) Some lyrics from the tracks are also written across these designs again in a handwritten manner which i think works well!
To either side of the centre panel you can see the slots for the CD and DVD and at the bottom of the centre panel there is a long slot where the booklet goes, i think this is a very neat and well processed design!



This digipak has an extra panel (similar to ours!) which has yet another illustration, this time of Doherty himself (even though slightly distorted!) i like the black jigsaw pieces that make up part of his torso, its kinda quirky! :)

Finally, here is a photo of the spine - this is a very important aspect of the digipak design because most CD/DVD holders only show this part and therefore needs to be easily accessed and recognised



This one clearly displays the artist and album name, overall i think this is a good example of a digipak for an individual artist, my favourite features being, the handwritten fonts and the general layout :)
Thanks for reading, Lorna.

http://www.virginmedia.com/music/pictures/toptens/best-album-covers-ever.php?ssid=18

PLEASE LOOK!!! SENIOR EXAMINERS BLOG WITH EXAMPLES

http://ocrmediastudies.weebly.com/g324-a2-coursework.html

Goodwins Analysis - Research

see example of how to present your analysis covering the 7 areas

Download the video from youtube (same genre would be useful!)

You could add titles over the stilled relevant sections with your analysis

or you could use the green screen to present to Camera with the video behind you

or 

 you could record a commentary freezing over the relevant sections

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQJlWbjndp4

Class examples we have looked at