Final Production

G324- Media Studies- Rihanna: Same Ol' Mistakes - 2016 - Alwyn Productions from Simran Gill on Vimeo.

Evaluation question 3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Who is my target audience? 
A typical description of my target audience would females between 15-25 years of age.

The genre of my music can be aimed at both males and females depending on the artist. As this is a female artist singing about a break up, the music video will be primarily aimed at females; however, it will undoubtedly appeal to both genders. 

On the Registrar General's social scale the person would be categorised in group B or C1. In the Value, Attitude, Lifestyle (VALs) the ideal person would be an 'experiencer', which is someone who is typically young and open to trying out new products and enjoying the latest styles. Experiencers also spend as much as they can afford on clothes, music, food and films.

What is a target audience? 

A particular group at which a product has been aimed at, they are the intended audience for that product. They could be similar in terms of gender, age, hobbies, lifestyle or many more. My audience feedback was from a group of mixed gender and a similar age to my target audience which is 15-25 years old. I kept going back to my peer feedback group because I needed to know what they liked and disliked for this genre and they fit the typical target audience so it is important for me to know what they think of the products so that I can make my products appeal to the rest of the target audience. 

My audience feedback: 

I collected audience feedback in one main way which was getting people to watch my production and first drafts so that they could tell me what they liked about it, what they didn't like and what I could improve on. Asking my audience feedback helped me understand the likes and dislikes of the ideal target audience for my product. I asked many different people within my group about the first draft of my music video and this is what they said: 

• "I like the montage at the start"
• "I like how the shots go with the song and the shots match the song as well"
• "I like the location of London because I feel like this is the type of place Rihanna would do her music video"
• "You could use more shots and more footage rather than repeating the footage"
• " I don't like how light the lighting is for this song especially with the tune of the song"

After taking all of these into consideration I changed a few things that my audience feedback group suggested and kept the things they liked. For example they didn't like how light it was therefore I made the whole video a lot darker and added an effect into it as they said it would fit a lot better with the theme and tone of the song. As well as this I went out and did some more filming after realising I was using some of the same shots, this was few more close up shots of the actress singing and a shot of the motorway which I sped up a lot. I kept the montage as my audience feedback seemed to like it.  

I also asked my peer group any feedback once I finished making the music video and here is what they said: 

• "The lighting fits a lot better with the music and the tone of the music now than it did before"
• "I like some of the other effects that you have added on as well as changing the lighting"
• "My favourite part is towards the end where the actress (Lizzie) is singing and there is a close up of her and the wind flows really nicely with that and the lip singing is really well matched in that section"
• " I like how the music video is a concept based and based around a theme rather than the typical story line music videos" 

I have really acted upon the feedback I was given after my first draft of the music video and changed them to how the audience would like it and once I showed them my final music video they really liked it because these are the conventions that appeal to this target group. 

For my digipak and magazine advertisement I did the same where I showed my peer group after a first draft then acted upon their feedback to produce a final draft. I got similar and general comments for both of these for example: 

• "I like the pictures you have chosen"
• "Change the colour/ brightness and contrast and it might look a bit better and fit with the tone of the song"
• "I like the colour scheme of red and white for the writing"
• "You can't see that piece of writing there maybe place it somewhere else"

After looking through the comments I got from my peer feedback group I changed the little things that I was told about and here is what the final piece looked like: 

Evaluation question 4

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

I have created a slideshare presentation and this is where I have uploaded my question 4 evaluation: 

http://www.slideshare.net/SimranGill41/evaluation-question-4-72009382

Evaluation question 2

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

My A2 media coursework was to create a music video to any song of my choice that didn't already have a music video along with 2 ancillary products which were a digipak and a magazine advertisement. All three of these need to fit together and be able to work well to act as an effective marketing tool for the artist and the music video.

After looking at several different magazine advertisements I found out that it has one main purpose which is to advertise the music video through the images used, name of the artist, title of the song, different colours and design. I included all of these on my one; in my magazine advert I had the title of the song in an obvious place along with images of my artist and the name of the artist. As well as this I included some other things such as where you can buy the song from, release date and the record label of the artist. 

After looking at different digipak covers I found that it has similar conventions and again one main purpose which is to advertise the music video through different images, artist's name, name of the song and social media sites. I included all of these in my digipak however I also looked at Rihanna's older album covers for inspiration and followed with her theme which was that she is almost always on the cover with her name across the cover as well. I had to follow this so I used pictures from my main production that included my actress in it because then customers would know that it is the same picture so it's linked together. As well as this I used all of the typical conventions I would need to use for a product like this to attract the idea target audience. 

One of the main things that link my production and ancillary tasks together is the name of the artist and the title of the song and album because this is on all 3 of my products. This is a highly effective aspect because then people will know that these 3 products are from the same artist and for the same song which is how they link together. 

Colour is another aspect which is the same in all 3 of the products, the main colour theme is red and white. In the digipak I used red for the title of the song and white for the track list at the back of the album cover. I used red because these are the sort of colours that have been used in the artist's previous album covers so I used similar colours and then because the red didn't show up on the green background I had to use a colour that would show clearly therefore I tried white and this colour looked good with red and fit in with the whole theme and genre. For the the magazine advertisement I used these colours (red and white) for the texts which shows that there is a link between them. I used red for the name of the artist and everything else was in white so the release date, title of the song and the name of the album. I have made all 3 of these (music video, digipak and magazine advertisement) a bit darker to represent the mood of the genre. I have changed the contrast and brightness for both the digipak cover and the magazine advertisement. 

Another aspect that links all of the products together well is the actress. She is in all of them which shows they link well together. She is constantly singing in the music video with a lot of close ups and a montage. For the digipak she is on 3 out of 4 pages, 2 of these pictures are a close up and the third picture is a wide shot. In the magazine advertisement she is in the middle of the page taking up a lot of the space on the A4 page which means that she is the focus and what people should look at when they see the advertisement. I have chosen to do this so that all of the products link together and the ancillaries act as a marketing tool for the music video. As well as this looking at Rihanna's older advertisements and album covers, she is the focus on all of them therefore I wanted to follow this and do the same. 

To conclude, the audience can see that these products link together through the same use of text, colour of text, name of the artist, name of the song and pictures of the artist being in all 3 of these. My products meet most of the conventions that would be used in a typical slow R&B song and ancillaries, this means that the stereotypical audience would like this content. 

This is the magazine advertisement 

This is the Digipak 

Evaluation Question 1

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

Here is the link to my prezi presentation for this evaluation question:

https://prezi.com/d0qxzpxves0m/evaluation-question-1/

Editing Journal- Magazine advertisement 2

In the second hour of my editing I asked my peer feedback group what they thought of the pictures that I picked out and they liked them because it kept within Rihanna's theme of using pictures of herself in her advertisements therefore I kept those and they liked how they were positioned as well.
In this hour I did the texts and positioned everything and then at the end of the hour I asked my peer feedback group what they thought of it and they suggested a few things.
The main thing I did this hour was the text and logos. With the text I added all of them and then decided where to place them. I added the text with the colour and font that I would like. As you can see in the picture below the only thing that was a different colour was the name of the artist and I did this because when I was looking at Rihanna's older advertisements they had her name in a different font and colour so I decided to follow that and do the same. I had the artist's name in red because then it would stand out with all of the other text in white  because of the background. This is the colour theme that I wanted to have originally because this is what I had with the digipak as well. I used the same picture as my digipak because then it all links together and customers won't get confused because they would have seen that picture and know that these ancillaries go together.  I placed the name of the artist in the middle picture because this is where the picture of the artist is and where it stands out the most. The name of the album is just underneath in a different colour and font so you can tell it's not all of the same thing. I wanted the artist's name to be a lot bigger than everything else because consumers need to see who the artist is and then they look for the name of the album which is underneath the artist's name.
I also had to include the hit single which is in a smaller font just above the name of the artist and the picture. This is written in white because it stands out on a green background. At the end of the hour I showed my peer feedback group the advertisement and they said to change the positioning of the name of the song and the release date so I changed it and this is where I placed it (look at the picture below) which they preferred a lot more than where it was before. Before it was on the background image just above the image of my actress and the writing was in the middle above that picture however I changed it so that the name of the song is on the left hand side top and the release date is on the bottom right hand side.
As well as all of this I had to include her social media and any other information relating to her social media. I decided to put the bigger social media sites on there such as her Facebook and twitter along with her website. I placed this along the bottom of the A4 page because this doesn't take up too much space but still looks good placed there. 
I also included the 'ROCNATION' logo which is her record label company, I did this by saving the image and then clicking on a new layer with just the image and then right click on it so that I could duplicate the layer which means that it would create the same image but on the first A4 template that I want it on. Once it was on the new A4 layer I could then delete the previous layer with just the image on it, however I then had to resize it because the image was too small when it got duplicated. to be able to do this I had to go on 'edit' then 'transform' and then 'scale' once I got to this point, I had to hold the shift button down while I changed the size of the image I wanted to. Furthermore the bottom of the page is where you usually see the social media on advertisements.  I also had to include the logo for iTunes, I repeated this process for the iTunes logo and then placed it on the right hand side of the page in the top corner.

Editing Journal - Magazine advertisement 1

Creating the magazine advertisement took me 2 hours to complete. After the first hour I showed my peer feedback group and asked them what they thought of it and where I should put the different pieces of information. In the first hour I managed to find a template of A4 paper and use that for the dimensions of the advert. Once I had that I had to pick the pictures that I wanted to use and open them with Photoshop, they opened on a different layer compared to the A4 template layer. I picked a picture of the actress because when looking at Rihanna's older magazine adverts I noticed that most of them had her there on it as well so I decided to follow that theme. I had to click on the new layer with just the image and then right click on it so that I could duplicate the layer which means it would create the same image into the first layer with the A4 template. Once it was on that layer I could delete the previous layer with just the image on it and then I had to resize the image because it was too small once it had been duplicated so I had to go in to 'edit' then 'transform' and then 'scale' once I go to this point I had to hold the shift button down while I changed the size of both of the images to what I wanted. After I had the images sized how I wanted and positioned where I wanted I had to change the colour of them as they were too light. I wanted them to be dark so it could represent the mood of the song which is about breaking up and the genre which is slow R&B therefore I wanted darker colours but still something that would stand out. I had to click on the picture that I wanted on the side by clicking on the layer and then changing the brightness and contrast of it to make it look darker but natural at the same time. Here is what this step looked like:

By the end of the first hour I had the template along with the pictures that I picked out with the right size, as well as this I changed the brightness and contrast of these pictures to make the mood a bit darker but still natural. In the next lesson I plan on adding all of the texts in along with the logo for her record label and the iTunes logo.