How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Throughout the research, planning and construction stage I have been seeing how I can make a progression in Scala's images through these products, and I recognised early on that the products I have made will have to have strong links with one another.
I linked the website and CD digipak in two ways. Firstly, was featuring the cover of the digipak on the website (which was also for a promotional technique too). Secondly was the choice of font I used for both which was similar and allowed consumers to make a link.
As you can see I used a handwriting type font on the album cover and a similar handwriting style on the title of the website this is the link I wanted consumers of these product's I have created to make. Also below you can see the cover of the Digipak next to the title this was consciously put there to reinforce the link.
The combination of the Digipak and Music Video is subtle, I used the same girl on the cover of the CD Digipak within the video, but changed her appearance by applying different make-up and straightening her hair rather than her wearing it curly. I was hoping this would be a subconscious link that would make the audiences associate the Digipak with the music video.
The website works as a promotional tool for the Music Video as it is on the homepage of the website and this will hopefully make people view it relate it with the Digipak which is featured above the music video on the website and this will consequently initiate sales of the album or alternatively views of the music video on Youtube. The link to YouTube is ideal for audiences because if they enjoy the song they'll search for more of Scala's song on the video sharing site and this may lead them to go out and buy the album or to purchase some of Scala's songs from I tunes.
The combination of the three media products I have created for Scala allows people to view the video for free and receive information about Scala hopefully all leading to the sale of the Digipak I have created. The issue with this is why would they buy the album if they can view the video for free on the internet. There has been a massive decline in sales of CD's since media technologies such as Youtube have been produced. But instead of working on profit the Digipak will work as a promotional tool also so people view the songs for free, and if they decided they like Scala enough they'll buy concert tickets which them turns over a profit for them.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
For my audience feedback I used YouTube for people to view on there and give comments. I displayed posters around school in the hope that a large range of people would comment on my video and give me constructive and relevant feedback.
This wasn't my first collection of audience feedback in the production of my products, as I felt it was crucial to involve a wider group of people than just yourself to give their perspective and opinions on the product. I felt this would make my products more universally successful.
I first used audience feedback in the production of my CD Digipak, after the photoshoot I picked out the best 6 photo's then I created a focus group which was shown to a number of different classes throughout school and college to enable a varied result. The people participating had to rate the photo's out of 5 in terms of these 3 features I wanted her to portray. First was how good she looked, second was how natural she looked. Finally it was how innocent she looked. I created a powerpoint for the people taking part to view and inserted the results into an excel document to calculate which two photo's they rated highest in these features. This left me with two options in which I edited to then decided myself which one portrays what I wanted the CD Digipak to show the most.
My second use of audience feedback was Initial feedback from the music video. I did this with a focus group of non-media background participants. With this focus group I wanted to concentrate on if they understood the narrative and how the overall video looked. I got a BTEC media student from the local college to view the piece as a person who can look at the editing and think of ideas and improvements.
The non-media focus group gave me confidence in the narrative as they all understood the basic idea of it being a group of girls and a boy longing for the same boy. Some of the participants recognised that it was based upon the seven deadly sins.
The BTEC student was a more technical with him pointing out slight faults in continuity and this allowed me to fix them before uploading it on to youtube. But overall he also felt that the product was a sound piece.
My final audience feedback is less critical and more praising of the final product, although there are some comments which people have made about the fast editing and cutting at the beginning of the film but I tried to address this but the narrative failed to make sense if I kept clipping parts of the footage out to have longer shots.
My audience feedback allowed me to fix and problems that the Music Video had and allowed me to sample to video to a group of people to see how it was going to be received. With the CD Digipak the focus group gave me piece of mind as there was a group of people not just me making decisions about the cover of the album cover and as I said before this meant that the product is more likely to be accepted and praised by a bigger group of people.
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
