Evaluation Question Two

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

Before beginning my A2 coursework I knew I wanted to create cohesion between both my ancillary taks and my music video, this was due to making it look as real and professional as possible. When researching it I discovered not only my artist but others within the same/similar genres also did the same. Having clear cohesion between all three products links them and works as a form of promotion for all the products rather than just one.  Ways in which I did this included using the same colour palatte, using similar imagery throughout and having photos of the couple from the music video on my ancillary tasks. Again something I learnt was effective from my research. Having a consistant theme allows it to be recognisable therefore promoting products and to advertise the artist in a fluent way. I made sure that I took all the photographs or my ancillary tasks on the day of filming to make sure the lighting, clothing and weather conditions were the same, again to make sure continuity was created. The distinctive colour palatte allow audiences to easily identify the genre, alongside the music, as they fit the genre well. This not only includes these but also includes features from all four of the microelements: Mise En Scene, Sound, editing and cinematography. 

Costume is something I thought about and did research into before planning it. I wanted the colour palette of the costume to complement the colour palette of the music video. I decided to make the main male character wear grey and black so he stood out as well as complementing the mise en scene. I also researched the sort of colours example made his characters wear in his music videos and I noticed they were duller colours not bright. As well as this being confirmed when I watched more videos of the same genre that they too use dull colours- this was a good way of clarifying the genre through the use of colour. The song I chose gives a good representation of Example as although he has a wide veriety of songs, this is one of his most well known songs, and it has wide range of elements in it which i was able to in some way, 'experiment' with.

I decided to use a variety of shot types to make it easier and create enigma. I used a mixture of common ones to the genre but also a range of shot sizes and camera positions to create variety within the music video as well as creating juxtaposition between them for example having a close up next to a long shot to create a pace within the layout of my shots in the sequence. I found using a variety of locations mde it easier piecing together. I also created juxtaposition within the locations- indoor and outdoor locations, creating both warm and cold feelings to the audience, and the juxtapose of lighting supporting this. The natural, harsh lighting of the outdoor scenes with the warm ambient lighting of the indoor scenes.

Due to the overlays in my music video and the effects in the pictures on my ancillary takes I feel is another way the products link well together. Similarly to the pieces by people like Katy Perry, who with her ‘California Girls’ video created consistency through her digipak for it by using the cartoon effects throughout.

I included pictures of my actors in all three products, this too created cohesion similar to the cohesion Example uses in his products. Again they were photographed in locations I used for filming as well as wearing the same costumes, all factors that contribute to effectively combining my main products and my ancillary products successfully.

Evaluation Question Three

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Example is a large fan based, well known chart artist his audience ranges from a wide age group. This is mainly because of his songs being multi genre and usually chart topping, so they’re heard by a wide variety of people including a wide age range. He tours a lot as well as headlining and preforming on main stages at festivals such as V Festival this too is a way his music gets promoted to people who may not usually listen to him.

Not only did attend one of Examples concerts in the MEN Arena, Manchester, where I could see a clear variety of ages as well as a mixed sex audience. I found here it ranged from about 12 year olds who came with parents to late 20’s. I also google searched Example concert audiences so I could find out approximate age of the audiences, where he plays and how big the actual audiences are etc this too allowed me to clarify the variety of the age group, to support this I also searched YouTube for his live songs to see what the audience looked like there and how they were reacting to the songs in the videos. From this I found several videos which helped, him preforming at V Fest with a high camera filming to show the audience, towards the stage we could see lively young teens and standing at the back people as old as 30. I also watched one from his arena tour which was a slightly different mix of people purely because they chose to go and see him rather than it being a mix of artists with him like a festival. Although again the age range wasn’t to dis similar, with the younger section of the audience standing, and the older seated, most of his venues a mix of standing at the stage or sitting in the arena, this could be an indication of the variety od ages. The tone of Examples preformances are quite lively and fun but they do range in some of his songs where the pace changes- you see the audience swaying rather than dancing

Social networking sites such as Instagram, twitter and facebook allowed me to look at his fanbase again clarifying that it was quite young/ teenage due to the large following he gets on these which is usually used by a younger audience. This is a good source of promotion for Example as an artist, on twitter he posts tweets about upcoming singles, albums etc and retweets allow more people to see them.

From my initial audience research I found that everyone had heard of Example, he is a common artist that even people that weren’t into his genre enjoyed at least three of his songs. I made a questionnaire before starting my A2 coursework but after I had chosen the song ‘Wont Go Quietly’ by example. I included the questions:

1.Have you heard of Example?

2. Can you name 3 songs he sings?

3 Who would you say is his main audience/fanbase?

4.What other artist's do you like?

5. Have you seen Example live?

I asked these on social networking sites such as facebook, as well as this I recorded me asking these to get a variety.From these questions I was able to get sufficient feedback to start planning my products.

During the process of making my music video I got feedback throughout, which made the overall changes made a little less, as I was changing it during the production and post-production, rather than having a 'finished product'. I got feedback from a range of different ages, including parent's friends, teachers and students (media and non-media students). This ensured that I got a vast amount of feedback on every aspect of my music video. I managed to collect this feedback on Facebook, Twitter, imessage and Skype as I had a vast amount of positive replies via different methods from different age groups, gender and ethnicity. This made the feedback a lot more beneficial as they were able to see it from different points of views.

Prior to getting this feedback from a variety of audiences I then started on my ancillary tasks and started to change what needed to be changed or what was suggested to be changed on my video. Whilst I was planning them I got spoken feedback from people throughout -to make sure that every aspect of what I was designing fit the genre. This was beneficial as sometimes what I was thinking to make some people didn't necessarily fit with the rest of the design, so having this progressive feedback helped when I had my finished products, as not much then needed afterwards.

Research is something I did into each product before making it.This  allowed me to have all of the correct conventions of fully functioning products for example  having the barcode and copyright information on the digipak and having website address and photograph of the digipak on my magazine advert. These things benefited me as others I had seen when looking at previous designs did not include these elements and therefore lost out on marks. This then meant that when it came to the feedback people said that all of my products looked like they could have been used for a real artist if needed. Which I found very positive as  I had everything where they had to be and the right way round - such as having the pictures on my digipak work when it was folded.

When I thought my video was near to being finished I shared it with a group of people who all gave constructive criticism, which helped me gain insight on what people thought of the video, and what could be fixed/changed, which I then took on board and did. For example I got told the lyrics to the song are about the girl so have a few shots of just her rather than always focusing on the couple.

All of the feedback I got at this time was hugely beneficial, although a lot of the things that were suggested I had already noted for things to change to my video, which was good to know they felt the same about the way my video needed to be tweaked.

Furthermore I then got feedback after all my products were complete. This ranged from getting feedback online (mainly via Facebook) and then getting people to record them giving feedback just like I did prior to starting my coursework. I posted the links, I noticed I got more views on them, which showed that people were watching my music video and looking at the three links, although I didn't get as much feedback as I really wanted in terms of a wider audience that came from youtube.

Comments included

 ‘The way you changed the pace of the music video works really well’

‘The locations support the look of the video really well I love it!’

‘I really like how you’ve kept the artist separate to the actors in the video, it works perfectly!’

All the comments were positive which was really nice to have and read as a lot of the people that fed back I wasn’t that close to and were honest about how they felt about it.

I feel the majority of people enjoyed my products, and they all seemed to agree that they worked well together. This was from a large range of age groups, ranging from mid teens, to the older generation of .This shows that the audience is of a wide range, which is what I found out during my audience research.

Evaluation Question Four

Nearly all my work was produced on new media technology throughout my research, planning production and valuation work was produced and recorded on my macbook pro whether it was hardware, software or internet base.

My starting point was the internet, the main search engine- google. Not only did I use it as a research platform for looking up the artist social networking sites- for example twitter, facebook and instagram. Google was also a good starting point for me I could research the artist genre and target audience on websites such as wikipedia as well as researching the artist image on google images.

I planned my music video by firstly annotating the lyrics, then storyboarding it and then scanning it onto the macbook and then importing it into final cut to make into an animatic, and importing the song from itunes which I made into a .WAV format to make sure it was compatible, this then made sure that I had enough cuts for the length of my song.

I also used the internet for free software hosting facilities-for example slide share

Youtube and vimeo allowed me to research bands and artists linked to my artist in order to inspired me and influence the final outcome of the video.

When filming I used a Canon EOS50D to film all my footage that you can see in the music video and on the ancillary tarks- being my digipak and digipak magazine advert. Although when filming with my previous actors (the footage that was out of focus) I used a Nikon D5200. Although when taking location shots and evidence of shooting shots I used my iPhone 5 camera.


On the day of greenscreening Chris who was doing the lipsynching for me I used a mini portable speaker so he was able to hear the song that i played whilst he was lip syncing and in case he forgot the lyrics I had them on my Iphone 4s so he could look at them quickly.

When having people feedback my work half way through the process I used my iPhone to record them and uploaded the footage to soundcloud to allow me to embed it onto my blog.

I used photoshop to create both my digipak, where I uploaded a template I found on google and layered with my own photographs I took with the Canon camera. I also used photoshop to clean up my images, crop and resize them and recolour them by creating overlays.



I also used Da Font to find a font that matched Example's signature one for my digipak and magazine advert:

I used final cut pro to create my whole music video enabling me to edit it to a high standard. Here I used screenr to allow me to show you how I used it:

For my evaluation questions I used a combination of new technologies, I used powerpoint for question one where I uploaded it to slideshare- then allowing me to embed it onto my blog. And for question two I used final cut too show the visuals of what I was explaining and using a voiceover to explain.

Finally I used blogger to present my whole work, having the advantage of being continuous and allowing me to log my thoughts and ideas as well as letting me embed images,videos, sound and hyperlinks to online resources.

Evaluation Question One

Evaluation q1 from Sophie Moore

Final Cut

Rough Cut

Final Magazine Advert

When creating my two final digipak magazine adverts I wanted to keep it simplistic and create continuity with my other pieces. When carrying out my research into magazine adverts I felt the more simplistic ones worked a lot better. Although it is simple I feel it works well as it is clear what it is advertising and I have included all the key forms and conventions of a digipak magazine advert

Below is my second design for an advert that is an eigth of a page, again it is simplistic but the advertising for the digipak is clear and consise. I feel they are both very effective and meet the needs of a digipak advert.