Question 4

Peter by Liberty Richardson

Question 3

Audience Feedback

Throughout the creation of my music video, digipak, and poster it was important to talk directly to my audience, and find out what they liked, and what they didn’t like. The main way that I was able to communicate with them was with Google Forms. On Google Forms, my audience were able to select which song they wanted out of the two I had chosen; this is when I found out my target audience, people aged between 15 - 20 were the select group who did not choose the romantic song because it was a romantic song. Some of them said it was ‘cliché’ or ‘overused.’ Therefore, after the forums I turned to a group of my target audience that I could talk to face to face, and they all wrote down their ideas that could feature in the storyline for the song that they had selected in forum. After they were all written down, they crossed out the ones they’d rather not see, and yet again it was the romance storylines. Having the feedback from my audience as I was planning my music video helped me create a storyline that they wanted, and would be able to connect with; I also made sure elements they disliked were not in the video.

I didn’t, but I should have gotten more audience feedback for my digipak and poster as separate products.  Instead, I made them through the feedback I received on the making of my music video, and the conventions of other indie pop albums. I should have invested more time in getting audience feedback whilst I was creating my ancillary products.

Question 2

Question 1

Discuss how your products have borrowed/developed/challenged conventions from existing products and how you have used your research to help you

Borrowed/Developed Conventions

My cover includes a picture of the artist, the name of the artist and the album - these are the usual conventions of all CD covers. I made sure that the text was legible, and centered on the left-hand side so that audience could see the name and the artist could be identified when it is displayed in a shop. The photo is taken from my music video, I did this because I wanted continuity between the music video, poster, and music video. The frame used, originally had lampposts, plants and a shed in the background, which I edited out with the use of the clone tool in Photoshop. I moved the artist onto the right side of the frame and changed it to black and white. 

I chose black and white because of my research into over CD covers. For example Adele and Cash. In Adele's cover, she is not looking at the camera which connotes sadness, which does link the songs on her album, which
are all about heartbreak and loss. By having her look away from the camera we also get the sense of mystery around her album, and around her as her first album was a hit, and she rose to fame quickly meaning the second album will bring in a new audience, but it was needed to entice the same audience as the first album. I decided to borrow these conventions from this CD cover because I wanted to draw my audience into my artist by making her mysterious, but she needed to also have the connotation of sadness as this is the type of music my artist would supply her audience with. 

I developed what I learned from Adele and Cash’s album cover by having my next in line with my singer instead of having it as a huge title at the top, this was so the artists is the main thing on the cover. I  also developed the idea of black and white because it doesn’t only convey the sense of mystery of the artist, but also the mystery of her music. 

Similarly, on Cash’s album cover he is looking away from the camera and takes up a third over the cover; his cover also connotes sadness and mystery, which is what I wanted my cover to connote to the audience. I decided to develop the positioning away from Cash’s album to further surround my artist with mystery and a sense of sadness and/or loneliness.

I was inspired by many different ideas from similar music videos, and popular TV shows (which coincide with my target audience.) 

My Music Video

I Could Use A Love Song

Notably, I was heavily inspired by Maren Morris’s I Could Use A Long Song, where a female character is sad, and lonely because her boyfriend doesn’t want her to pursue her dream.  In an attempt to release this sadness, she dances her through her problem and pain. In my music video, one of my characters also channels her pain through the medium of dance, as she is reeling from the loss of her missing best friend, and she dances in order to get rid of this feeling. 

Also, in I Could Use A Love Song the female character is already a dancer and talks about it many times within the video - e.g she watches a clip of her dancing when she was younger and talks about it with her boyfriend. In my music video, my character is seen reading a note from a parent that says “don’t forget to fit dance practice in later,” and we also see her Instagram name which is “dance-is-my-therapy.”

My Music Video

Originally, when planning my music video my characters were not going to reunite because the song does not have a revolution and is still on a battlefield, and a broken world. I was inspired by TV shows popular within my target audience to have reunions because of the emotional impact that they have on an audience. 

Teen Wolf

For example, in MTV’s Teen Wolf, the two main character, Scott and Stiles reunited after three months apart which results in a beautiful moment between the pair; this hug, for one, helped inspire having reunion scenes, but it also helped me decide to have a brother-like relationship in my music video between the two main boys.

Doctor Who

Also, Doctor who further inspired me to have a reunion scene when the Doctor hugs his companion Clara after she went missing and came back to him, which is emotional for the character and the audience, so I knew this was the response I wanted when people watched my music video.

Wizard Of Oz

In my music video, like my digipak, the majority of it is in black and white. This was to connote sadness and loss. For example, in Wizard Of Oz, Dorothy's normal life is presented in “sepia” to show the lack of colour and excitement in her life, and also the pain she is in because her evil next door neighbour wants to take her dog away. When she is in OZ, everything is presented in colour because she has found somewhere she thinks is better than home, somewhere magical and somewhere where her dog is safe. I used this convention to show that my characters are sad in black and white, but are fulfilled in colour

Supergirl

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Also, in Supergirl, when two characters kiss the colour goes from being dull to being bright. It is dull to start because they were apart, but is in colour again when they have found each other again. I decided to have my colour fade back in when the characters in my video found each other to connote that they have found what was missing in their lives.

Wide Awake

My Music Video

In Katy Perry’s Wide Awake, 

she is seen picking a Strawberry from a vine and then carrying it around for the rest of the music video. The fruit itself has different connotations like it is the forbidden fruit from the bible. However, the one I picked up on is that the fruit is the only living thing in the maze that Katy is stuck in, and when she picks it, she is led into a more bright and living place which we find out is her past. The strawberry is a key to the time she felt most happy. In my music video, the letters the vocalist gives to the characters are my version of the “strawberry” as the letters led them to the people missing from their lives.

 Challenged Conventions

According to Andrew Goodwin, it is typical in a music video and another products from a singer or band, women will be gratuitously sexualised. For example in Katy Perry's Roar, the more independent she seems to come, the more clothes she loses which goes against the idea that she is strong on her own, she seems to only be strong the more sexualised she is. This is further backed up by the posters and CD cover for Roar where she is also wearing hardly any clothes.

In my music video, digipak and poster my artist is fully clothes, and is never presented in a sexual way. This challenges the usual stereotypes behind female artist as across most genres and music video woman are presented as objects instead of people.

Follow-up:

Music Video

How I made my poster

1: I opened Photoshop and made a transparent base the size of an A4 size of paper.



2: I filled the background with black, which matches the house style of my digipak, and music video.



3: I picked a picture that fit best for the poster, which matches the photo from the digipak cover. I pasted it on the document, and moved in down to the corner of the page. I changed the brightness and contast so that it blended in with the black background.



4: I used the rubber tool to erase the lights from the lamposts in the background and changed the photo to black and white this, once again, matches my digipak.



5:  I brought in my CD cover, and added a white stroke around the frame so that it would stand out on the poster. I added the CD because it shows the audience what is being sold.

Poster Animated Version

Now that the world is stepping into a more digital age, I knew that adverts for Album's would appear online, and to draw the attention of my audience I thought that having something moving would attract their attention. Also, the snow connotes loneliness and sadness which are two big themes within the album, and music video. I was able to archive this by purchasing a stock video of snow on a black ground, I was able to then concert it into a gif, I placed it on top of the poster, and made the layer "screen" which takes away the black background and leaves it floating on the poster.