Josh Read Evaluation

Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In our digipak we decided to use the same motif from the front cover on certain other panels. We did this to show the consumer that this is part of the artist's brand image, with this logo being established in the digipak it can then be used as a recognisable symbol synonymous with the artist. This also ties in with Goodwin's point of selling the artist as creating a brand image helps to sell the artist by making them and their products recognisable. In the front cover of the digipak we used the yellow and grey circle to contrast with the black and white picture and the colour picture but alternating to overlay the opposite.

For our magazine advert we decided to use the same picture from our digipak but without our motif, this creates a recognisable link between the two, without feeling like we just re-used the same thing. We also decided to use the same font as was used in our artist's logo because this adds to our brand recognition and as it is far bigger than any other text on the picture it stands out and is immediately recognisable as a part of our artist's brand image. I decided to use the 5-star reviews as they help to sell the album because it shows that reviewers think that the album is good and it is a common and successful marketing technique. The Spotify and iTunes logos show the customer exactly where they can buy the album and therefore they do not have to look around for it, oft-times you will see an advert but not have any idea where to get the product and you have to search for it, this eliminates the issue. 


 

In this shot you can see our character rising from between two bins in an alleyway, this is the starting shot of our music video and we decided to do this because it introduces our narrative of the homeless busker character. We focused on our narrative heavily in the video as it is a convention of folk rock to have more of a meaningful video rather than a flashy video with no real narrative, and also because it links with Goodwin's point of linking the lyrics to the visuals. In the song it says ''I knew a man with nothing in his hand'' this is talking about a homeless man with no possessions, and links well with our visuals, as our main character is homeless and his only possessions are his guitar and the clothes on his back.


We used a lot of live performance in our music video as it is a convention of folk rock music videos as well as being used heavily in the official video for Holes by Passenger, which heavily influenced our video. Performance from the artist is also one of Goodwin's points so we thought that combining this with the live aspect would meet conventions and Goodwin's analysis making our music video recognisable as a folk rock video.

Between our rough and final cuts we decided that the thing that we could use to influence our narrative the most was colour correction, as you can see in these two images. The original shot looked very warm because of the orange light in the alleyway, we wanted the shot to have a more sombre and lonely feel, as this is towards the beginning of the video when the busker is homeless and jobless. We also felt that once the colour correction was done it made the video have a lot more of a professional look to it. Giving the music video the letterbox effect makes the final cut look more professional and follow convention but it also cuts out unnecessary screen space so that the viewer's focus is on the main character more than his surroundings, even though his surroundings are important to the narrative it is more important to focus on the character and the fact that he is completely alone.


We used cutaways to the artist's guitar several times in our video, as this is convention of folk rock and it is good to couple cutaways to instruments with performance shots. In both shots we wanted it to be while our character was performing and therefore would have his gloved hand in it, as the fingerless gloves is a trademark of our busker character.
The close ups also give us a chance to show the guitar-playing aspect of the song in the visuals which links in with Goodwin's point of linking the visuals to the music.






Many close up shots were used in our music video because it helped us to show good quality lip sync in better detail. We made sure that the close ups were used during the performance shots because this is conventional of any video with performance in, and helps to more clearly link the video to the music with well edited lip sync.


We chose to end our music video with this shot as it offers nice narrative resolution to the viewer by tying up the main character's story and is a fairly conventional way of ending a performance in and out of music videos, especially for a musician. This shot also links visuals to lyrics as in Goodwin's analysis, ''we've got holes, but we carry on'', the busker is still not set for life therefore he still has holes, but he is now carrying on with his new career path and new life.



 Q2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

 



Q3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

 



Q4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?