Monday 6 April 2015

Question Three: Part One/Two

I created a Instagram page for the artist so that they can build up an audience. I particularly picked Instagram as apposed to any other social networking site or application as Instagram is known for receiving heavy traffic as it is relatively a new application as in comparison to other applications and social networking sites.

This is the page that I created for the artist. I included a lot of information in the section which is called the 'Bio' section. I stated that the album was available, the website of the music company and the email address for any bookings and enquiries. 

The email is very vital in building up an audience because if Clubs or event companies or festivals would like to include them to the event, this allows people who are not familiar with the artist to get familiar with their music. I also added images of the album and posters of the artist. It is also a way to get feedback from the audience on the ancillary text and the main product. This can be viewed from the comment section where people place their opinions on what is uploaded.

Survey
Survey

I used a survey creator to gain feedback from my audience on what they think about the music video that I had created. When thinking about what questions I should feature on the survey, I had to make sure that the questions where closely related to the conventions of the music video and wether they are linked to the hip-hop genre. I used survey monkey.com as it offers a user friendly platform which makes it incredibly easy to create surveys and then share them to social networking sites which would allow more people to respond to the questions of a larger scaled. Some of the questions that where included are:

  • What genre of music do you think this music video belongs to and why?
  • What intrigued you about this music video
  • What led you to watch the music video
  • After Watching the music video, what do you think could be improved?
  • What do you think worked well in the Video?
Survey monkey is very beneficial because I allows be to view the statistics, the age range, the areas at which these questions are being answered, and allows me to compare the data with the questions from the survey.




Evaluation Question Two

How Effective Is The Combination Of your Main Products And Ancillary Texts?



Saturday 4 April 2015

Evaluation Question One

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


The use of branding and affiliation is very key in hip-hop music videos. In all of hip-hop branding is probably one of the most fundamental things as it sets the artists trend and image. For example, the image to the left shows one of the artists from a hip-hop group called 'Rae Sremmurd' is wearing a t-shirt that has the groups logo on it. The reason I chose this as an example is because the screenshot I used is from a music video that was their debut song. As they grew a bigger audience their logo and image became more individual and recognisable. This example shows how important branding and affiliation is in hip-hop music videos. I have demonstrated this in my hip-hop music video; the logo used in the music video is a brand of skateboarding clothing, which is affiliated with the artists. 


The mise-en-scene that I used swell was urbanised which is a direct link to the genre and sub-gene of music that my artist performs in,especially how some of the scenes have symbols and signs which may add meaning to the song (as seen in the right image above). The lighting that I have used also is quiet effect. I decided to use low-key lighting in order to focus the view on the artist but to also add mystery to the rise-en-scene.


The body language of the artist has an effect on the song depending what the song is about, but typically, as hip-hop is a genre of mainly 'hype' music, body language is key in emphasising the lyrical content of the song as seen in the example on the left and in my own hip-hop music video on the right. Most of the time the actions used allow the viewer to notice certain lyrics more which makes the song more memorable. I have clearly demonstrated this in my own piece. However, with this being said, it is not easily done. In the test shots which are on this blog, the body language is very subtle, which was analysed and improved in our actual filming. As the director and filmed of the music video, it is my duty to make sure the artist understands what type of action and body language they should have. 





Artist/Album Magazine Advert


How I Made The Poster


Firstly I cut the artist out from the background using the pen tool by outlining the artist and then converting it into a selection. I then copied and pasted it onto a new layer and named the layer JACE.


I then duplicated the layer twice. On the original layer I changed the colour of the image by using the Hue and Saturation option. I did this with the other layers but changing them to different and contrasting colours.


I then changed the blending mode of all of the layers to multiply. I then changed the position of the duplicated layer and this made a distorted effect which matched the effect which is on the album cover. This carries on the theme from the album cover on to the poster.


I then made a new document and copied and pasted the image of the artist onto the new document. I then increased the scale of the image and then moved half of the face off of the canvas. This makes the artist the main topic of the poster and allows the audience to get familiar with the image of the artist so it becomes more noticeable.  


To add bit of finesse on the cut-out of the image of the artist, I applied a gradient on the artist so that the canvas fades into the artist. I did this by applying a layer mask and using the gradient tool to apply the fade.


I then got an image of the galaxy (which was originally purple). To match the colour of the artists image, I used the hue and saturation option to change the colour of the image to a lime/green colour.


I then applied it to the posters canvas as the background to add a nice effect.


Finally I added the information of the album and the artist. Firstly I copied and pasted the artists album to the poster; I made it fairly large as people should be aware that the album is now available and they should be able to recognise the album. I then added the text and used a combination of white and yellow to contrast the colours used in the background and on the artist. I made sure to add the main single of the album which is 'Christ Conscious', I also added the artists logo.