Final Products

Music Video 

Ancillary Texts

Digi-pack

Magazine Advert

Evaluation Question 1: In what ways do your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

When constructing my music video, digi-pack and album poster I had to do a lot of research and planning to ensure that my final products would fit in with the Pop Punk scene and that people who enjoy listening to this genre would hopefully like the music video and would want to purchase the album by hopefully being enticed by the album poster they may have seen. In this post, I am essentially going to explain how all three of my products either use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of existing products in the Pop Punk genre. I have decided to split it into two sections where I will talk about the codes and conventions in relation to my music video under one heading and then will mention the codes and conventions in relation to my ancillary texts under another heading.

As you already know, the song I decided to use for my music video is called 'Not Enough' by Avril Lavigne. When it came to deciding what genre this song actually was it was quite complicated as Avril Lavigne herself has been known to write songs for many different genres from Punk to Pop - however, after I did more research on this specific song, I did notice that the album that this song has been taken from is considered Pop Punk and this was beneficial for me as it was the genre I wanted to work with the most. Nonetheless, below you will be able to see the three different texts I have created in relation to this song as part of my A2 Media coursework.

Music Video 

Once I had my chosen song, I then needed to think about what could occur in the music video and I was able to begin creating ideas just by listening to the lyrics of the song and in a previous post called '3 Music Video Ideas' you are able to see the three initial ideas I had for this music video which I actually called 'Runaway', 'Flash Backs' and 'Ignorance'. In the end I decided to go with the 'Runaway' idea which presents the girl in the music video running away from the issues she is having with her boyfriend, but eventually she escapes from it all and I was able to get this idea just from the meaning of the lyrics which I will explain in more detail later on. When talking about the narrative I have decided to use, you will be able to see that it conforms to essentially two of Kate Domaille's narrative types which are; Orpheus and Romeo and Juliet - this is because in the music video, the singer has essentially lost control of her life as she no longer knows what to do in her relationship and is confused which also brings the idea of the 'love story' into the narrative - however, in the end she runs away from the love rather than running towards it. On top of this, it also conforms to Tim O' Sullivan's narrative theory which states that every media text will tell the audience a story and also Tzvetan Todorov's equilibrium model about how a narrative will have a 'Cause', an 'Effect' and in the end there is always a 'Resolution' which can be seen in my own music video. 

Continuing on with the concept of narrative, through the music video we are able to see that it has conformed to Sven Carlsson's 1999 theory about 'Televised Bard' in which the artist of the song appears in the narrative of the music video which is exactly what has occurred in my music video - this will be more entertaining and will entice the audience more as they will be able to see the artist performing herself, but will also be able to see and perhaps understand what the meaning of the song is as my artists would have shown this through the use of the narrative. The narrative for my music video also conforms to the theory of an unknown theorist which is known as the 'Restricted Narration'. This theory essentially states that the narrative of a media text is kept to a minimal, where parts of the text could be unclear to the audience, which keeps them in the dark - however, the audience is still able to understand the general meaning of the text. This theory links into my music video due to the fact that throughout the majority of my video, the audience has no idea where the girl is running to and what perhaps may confuse them more is when she sees her own silhouette which makes this text more unrealistic and more appealing to the audience due to the fact that they are able to see situations that cannot occur in real life and even though it may not make complete sense in relation to the narrative, the audience will still be able to understand the main concept of the narrative and will understand what happens at the end of it.

Here is what I believe to be my final music video - however, there could possibly be a few changes I make before actually submitting my coursework:

As I believe this to be my final music video edit, I decided to do a LIIAR Analysis which meant that I would essentially just be analyzing my own music video and looking at some of the features that have been used in more detail to understand how the music video may appeal to or entice a certain audience. Below is a slideshow which includes this LIIAR analysis I have created.

Influential Cinematography 

As soon as I knew what I wanted to create for my music video, I then watched a range of different Pop Punk and Punk music videos in general to help me gain some inspiration to help me create my music video. Below I have presented the majority of the music videos I used for inspiration for my music video and below that, I have created a presentation to express how I have used each of these videos as inspiration. All of these music videos influenced me in relation to cinematography as I knew what I wanted to create, but I just didn't know how I wanted to present it on camera and when watching some of these music videos you will easily be able to see the shots that have influenced me. So all of these videos I have presented have influenced me in the way that they have enabled me to see what type of conventional shots or angles are used in a Pop Punk music video.

Here are some of the music videos that influenced me when creating my own music video:

Sum 41 - With Me 

Green Day - Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

Buckcherry - Sorry

Paramore - The Only Exception 

Green Day - Stray Heart

Here is the presentation to explain how these music videos have influenced me in relation to cinematography:

In the presentation I have presented above, you are able to see that there are a range of different features that have influenced me in creating my music video and have enabled me to come out with the outcome I now have. Although I have used a lot of typical conventional features of the Pop Punk genre, I have also gone against some of these conventional features as typically in a Pop Punk music video there isn't always a happy ending - however, since my music video itself was quite dark, I wanted to break and challenge this convention and decide that I would like there to be a happy ending so the audience would be happy for the singer and perhaps would be curious as to know if this song was written about a real life situation and if she actually did decide to leave a relationship and be happy - meaning, my singer would hopefully appeal to an array of people and will gain a larger mass audience as they will want to know more about her real life situations. In a way, this conforms to Richard Dyer's theory that audiences want media products that offer them Utopian solutions to their problems - this links in with my music video because of the use of the happy ending I have included in the video. The narrative of the music video is quite realistic - meaning, audiences will easily be able to relate to what is occurring in it. Not only does the narrative of my music video state that it is okay to leave a relationship if you are uncertain on what to do, but it also illustrates that you should be happy with being on your own which in a sense, helps the audience with their issues if they are going through the same issue as the artist in my music video. So overall, the music video could help with the audiences problems if they are having the same issues that someone they may look up to is having. 

In the images below you are able to see the ending shots of my music video and in these the singer stops running, turns around to look back, smiles and then runs into the open. The metaphor of this scene is to present that when my singer is in the woods, she is enclosed by everything around her and is essentially trapped by her boyfriend, but when she gets to this ending scene, she turns around to ensure that she wants to leave the relationship she is trapped in and then runs into the distance which again is a metaphor to express that she is free as is running into the open and getting away from the relationship where she wasn't getting enough. The idea of this metaphor could link into Ferdinand de Saussure's 1974 theory about signs and signifiers in which the sign is the 'Denotation' (the physical thing) and the signifier is the 'Connotation' (the meaning behind it). This links in with the metaphor I have created throughout the music video because the sign is essentially the woods and all of the trees placed in it, but the signifier is that the woods itself represents the idea of the boyfriend that the artist is running from and she is trapped inside of it, just like she is trapped and confused about what she should do in relation to her relationship with her boyfriend. This makes the music video more interesting for the audience as they are able to find significant meanings behind everything that has been placed in the music video, but also since various individuals will interpret features in different ways, it means that the audience will be able to interpret the whole music video itself in any way they want to. On top of that, when the audience see the singer running away, the lens begins to blur and this feature has been used as it presents that the audience no longer know what is going to happen to the singer from now on, but they do know that she has decided to leave her relationship and is now satisfied. Here are the screen shots from the ending of my music video:

The shots presented above were the only real unconventional feature of a Pop Punk music video in relation to my narrative as all the rest of it is actually quite conventional of this genre and will hopefully entice a larger audience to have an interest in this music video and my artist in general. Moreover, I did get quite a lot of inspiration from music videos of the Pop Punk genre, but I also got some inspiration from different texts. I have previously gone into some detail in relation to various texts that inspired me when creating my music video, but I have just decided to briefly go over them again. My main inspiration was in relation to the woods/forest and the first text that inspired me was from a film called 'Bridge To Terabithia' - this is mainly filmed in a woods/forest and is essentially about how the woods comes to life which is really creative, interesting and takes the audience away from reality as it enables them to know that the woods is a completely new world that people can go to when they want to get away from reality. Similarly, the music video for the song 'Out Of The Woods' by 'Taylor Swift' also influenced me due to the fact that in this video, the woods again comes alive and is essentially similar to my music video in the scene that the video is about a relationship that is no longer functioning properly. Although both of these texts have nothing to do with the Pop Punk genre, they were extremely helpful in enabling me to think of how I could create my music video and what features could be included, but this just shows that this type of idea for my music video could have been used anywhere and in any text which could attract any audience, so hopefully this means that my artist will gain a large mass audience who enjoy the meaning of the music video rather than just the individuals who like Pop Punk music.

Editing 

Editing was perhaps the most important part of this whole music video process as this is what enabled me to create the dark and dull effects which would allow the audience to understand that the meaning of my music video is actually quite sad, but also there is a deeper meaning as to what the audience is seeing because if the audience think about the video in a lot of detail, then they will understand that the woods actually represents the boyfriend and the singer is trapped in it, like she is trapped and confused as what to do with her relationship. So I needed this dark lighting to reinforce this meaning, but also because of the fact that darkly lit music videos are generally conventional of the Pop Punk genre. As well as the change of colour, there were also a range of other editing features I used in my music video to make it more appealing to my target audience, but also to ensure that it conformed to the Pop Punk genre.

Below I have created a video to talk about the different editing features I have used in my music video which may or may not conform or challenge the conventions of a Pop Punk music video. Here is the video:

In the video I have presented above I mentioned a range of different editing features that I included in my music video whether they conformed to the Pop Punk genre or not, so I have decided to present some music videos below from the Pop Punk/Punk genre and in these you can see some of the conventional features that I previously mentioned in the video being used like; rough effects and slow motion, but also at the same time you are able to understand how some of the features like fade edits I have used in my own music video have not been used in general Pop Punk/Punk music videos which highlights that I have challenged the forms and conventions of the Pop Punk genre.

Here are some of the Pop Punk/Punk music videos which use some of the conventional features I have mentioned:

Panic! At The Disco - LA Devotee

Switchfoot - Awakening 

Yellowcard - Only One

As well as all of the conventional features that I have mentioned above, there is also a relationship between the music and visuals (which conforms to Andrew Goodwin's theory) and this essentially means that parts of my music video will go to the beat of the song which makes the video more interesting for the audience as they are able to see visuals match with the song which can often also make the video more memorable. I have used this feature when you are able to see my actor falling on the floor as the audience are able to see my actor fall from different angles and every time a different angle appears, it changes in time with the beat of the song which could make the fall a lot more dramatic and serious due to the fact that it actually goes with the beat of the song. In relation to Pop Punk music videos in general, this is not really a conventional feature - however, I wanted to break these conventions and decided to make some of the shots go in time with the visuals as it would make it more intriguing for the audience, but again also makes it more memorable.

Below are three screenshots to present the shots in my music video which change to the beat of the song:

As I have mentioned quite a few different theorists throughout this post in relation to my music video - there is another theorists I would like to mention called 'Rick Altman'. In 1999 he came up with the 'set of pleasures' theory in which he stated that there are three different types of pleasure that can come from a genre - Emotional, Visceral and Intellectual pleasure. The main pleasures that fits into the concept of my music video is both the Emotional and Intellectual pleasures and this is due to the fact that the Emotional pleasure is presented through the fact that the audience are able to understand what the artists is going through in relation to her relationship and that she is confused and doesn't know what to do about it, which is what makes it more interesting to watch as the audience will in a sense create a bond with the artist and will want her to get her own way to ensure she is happy. Moreover, my video links in with the idea of Intellectual pleasure due to the fact that throughout the video, the audience essentially has no idea how the music video is going to end and what will happen to the artist which links with this specific pleasure as the audience will technically be trying to figure out a puzzle and find out where the artist is going and how everything is going to end for her. Even though the audience knows what happens to the artist by the end of the music video, it is still entertaining for them to watch the rest of the video as it keeps them guessing and will want them to watch until the end of the video to see what happens. 

Overall, you are able to see that there are a range of conventional features of a Pop Punk music video that I have conformed to - however, there are also some conventions which I have challenged and I believe that this is a good thing in relation to my music video because the audience will obviously be able to see that this music video is part of the Pop Punk genre due to the fact that the majority of features that have been used in it conform to the Pop Punk genre and use its type of conventions, but by seeing features that conventionally are not used in these type of music videos makes it more interesting for the audience as they may see things they have never seen before in this type of genre and it might make them enjoy this genre of music more or even just my artist in general which will be beneficial as it will mean she will gain a larger mass audience and can become more widely known.

Ancillary Texts

When it came to creating both my ancillary texts, I did have quite a strict idea on what I wanted it to look like and you are able to see this in one of the previous posts I have created where I decided to design a hand drawn digi-pack and poster to present what I initially wanted both of these texts to look like - however, I knew my final product would most likely have a few differences. My initial idea was to have my images to be taken in the same forest which I had filmed my music video and I wanted to do this as I knew it would create continuity across all of my texts. When I was creating a plan for this, I did think that it generally isn't conventional for an album to just relate to one of the music videos that has been taken from the album as usually this will occur when there is a single for a specific song and the album itself that the song appears on will usually be different - however, I wanted to challenge this convention to ensure that I created continuity across these texts, but also due to the fact that I believe the images in the woods would have a darker meaning and could relate to a lot of the other songs that appear on the album as well. 

Here is my final digi-pack and album poster which again I may change slightly before I submit all of my A2 Media coursework:

Before talking about the conventions involved in my ancillary texts, I again decided to do a LIIAR analysis in relation to my ancillary texts just like I did when I was talking about my music video. I decided to do this analysis as I wanted to see how my work has been presented and how other people would perhaps understand the texts. Again I decided to create this analysis on a slideshow which can be found below: 

To talk about my ancillary texts in more detail in relation to typical conventions that would be used in a Pop Punk genre, I decided to create a presentation where I have included annotated versions of my digi-pack and poster, but also I have annotated some existing digi-packs and posters. Here is the presentation I have created:

I previously mentioned that it isn't a conventional feature for the album by a specific artist to have continuity with one of their music videos from the same album because this could often mean that some audiences would only remember the artist for that one song, but most artists would rather be known for their whole album rather than just one song on it. This is the reason I said when a song is made into a single, the packaging for that specific single will then use the same features that have been used in the music video for that same song as it creates continuity across the two texts and will ensure that when the audience see one of the texts they will think of the other. Below I have decided to demonstrate what I mean when I say it isn't conventional to use features on an album that have been used in a music video. Here is the example I have decided to use:

             

In the example I have presented above I decided to select a single by the Alternative Rock band 'Angels and Airwaves' which is called 'Anxiety'. Above I have presented the music video and front cover for the single 'Anxiety', but I have also presented the front cover of the album that this single appears on which is called 'Love Part Two'. After watching this music video you are able to see that the cover of the single looks extremely similar to the music video and this is mainly due to the fact that one of the shots that are used in the music video has been used as the front cover which creates continuity between the two texts, but at the same time when you look at the general album cover for 'Love Part 2' you are able to see that there isn't really much similarity except from the artists logo - however, in the music video you do see some of the band members wearing tops which have the man sitting on the moon which has been presented on the front cover of the main album - this again helps create continuity between the two texts, but there is obviously more of a similarity between the single front cover and the music video, than the album cover and the music video. So this is one of the ways I have challenged the conventions of my digi-pack as I have used a range of similar features that have been used in my music video rather than just using some to create continuity - nonetheless, the audience are able to know that all of the texts relate to each other which is a beneficial thing.

Overall, you are again able to see that the majority of features that appear on my digi-pack and album poster are conventional features of the Pop Punk genre and this is beneficial as it ensures that I should hopefully appeal to the audience that these texts have intentionally been aimed at. Although the majority of the features I have used in my texts were conventional features, there were occasionally the odd features that were not conventional of the genre and I think the use of these was a good thing due to the fact that it makes the texts themselves more unique and different compared to existing texts which will make it more memorable and will make audiences want to purchase the album because of how it may be presented in a different way. All in all, I enjoyed the process of creating my ancillary texts and I believe that it will appeal to quite a large audience - meaning my artist will gain a large mass audience. 

Evaluation Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

When creating my music video, digi-pack and album poster I knew that continuity would have to be created across all three of the products to ensure that the audience would know they all link with each other which helps create the idea of synergy where essentially the same product has been constructed in different forms to appeal to the intended target audience more to ensure that they are able to purchase more of the same thing if they like it. When commencing with my coursework, I decided to begin with creating the music video as this was the text that would take the longest to create and that I needed to do the most research and planning for. When I created a storyboard and other planning features for my music video, I knew what I essentially wanted to create and the locations in which my music video was going to be filmed in, but I just needed to figure out what type of shots I wanted to do. At the same time I was doing this, I also briefly thought about what I could do for my digi-pack and album poster to ensure that I would be able to create continuity between all of the texts - however, I only really thought about how I wanted the digi-pack and album poster to look once I had completed the majority of my music video as by this time I had began to do some research and had also created a storyboard as to how I wanted my ancillary texts to look. Nonetheless, I believe the outcome turned out well and that all of my products have continuity between them all.

To go into more detail about how continuity has been created between all of my products, I decided to create a presentation to enable you to see how all of my texts relate to each other. Here is the presentation I have created:

Underneath you will be able to see that I have presented an example of an existing album cover and album poster by a band called 'You Me At Six'. As well as this, I decided to present one of the music videos from one of the songs that appears on this album. I wanted to do this to enable you to see how products from the Pop Punk genre all relate to each other and use similar features to create continuity.

Here is the example I decided to use:

             

All in all, I believe that the combination of all three of my products has turned out well and that they all compliment each other. For me, the creation of the ancillary texts was the easiest part and this was partly due to the fact that I had already created the music video and that I knew what I wanted to occur in it, but also because I have had more practice with designing print products rather than video products because I had used Adobe Photoshop the previous year to create my music magazine for my AS Media coursework. Other than having that practice, I just also generally preferred creating the ancillary texts as for me I was able to be creative in my ideas as I just had certain images to work with rather than a whole video, but also 'a picture is worth a thousand words', so I was essentially able to put a lot of meaning just into an image. Overall, I think that the products all work well together due to the continuity that can be seen across all of them and again this will hopefully make my intended target audience want to purchase all of the products that are available to them because through the use of synergy, they are all essentially just the same product, but are just in different forms. Moreover, I have received feedback in relation to whether other people think all three of my products work effectively - however, I decided to show this in my post for 'Evaluation Question 3' as this is where I will mention all of the feedback I have received for my coursework. 

Evaluation Question 3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

I have previously gone into some detail about who my target audience is, but again to give a brief overview, when looking at the demographic table, I would place my audience between C1 and C2 which is the Lower Middle Class and Skilled Working Class. As well as this, in relation to psychographics, my audience would mainly relate to the 'Explorers' category, but perhaps may also appeal to people in the 'Reformers' category. This would be my intended target audience due to the fact that my products have been aimed at teenagers and young adults and at these ages, some people may only have part time jobs or may just be commencing with a full time job - meaning, they won't just have spare money to be spending, so I want to ensure that people will be able to afford the products, but also that my artist will actually earn money from it because if I aimed my products at the lower classes then my artist wouldn't earn a lot of money unless thousands of people were wanting to buy her products, but also if her products were really expensive then people will be less willing to purchase them due to the fact that they are so expensive, so this is why I decided to go in between and aim at the social classes in between, so people in the upper classes will easily be able to purchase the products and people from the lower classes will also be able to afford the products, but may only buy specific things as they may not be able to afford everything all at the same time. On top of that, I believe that my target audience will be quite adventurous and will want to explore the world due to the fact that they are reaching adolescence, so will want to try out new things which I think is generally reinforced through the use of the lyrics in songs that are seen in my chosen genre.

Below I have decided to present both the demographic and psychographic tables to enable you to see where my audience is placed in relation to social classes:

Demographic Table:

Psychographic Table:

As I have officially decided on what my intended target audience is, I now need to decide on what I will price my products as again I need to make sure that people in the C1 (Lower Middle Class) and C2 (Skilled Working Class) categories will be the main audience that will need to be enticed and will want to purchase my products. Below you will be able to see the prices ranges I have come up with for my products:

Now that I have spoken about who my audience is in more detail, I will now go into more detail in relation to the feedback I have received throughout the whole of my coursework process as a lot of the feedback I have acquired has enabled me to improve my work, but also understand what I could do to improve when completing certain parts of my work. Before creating anything in relation to all of my own products, I firstly had to do a lot of research on music videos to help me understand what type of things I could include in my music video or on my ancillary texts. One of the very first pieces of feedback I received from people was just about music videos in general and what type of things people like to see in them. Underneath you will be able to see that I have created a slideshow which includes eight of the questions that I asked in my very first survey, as well as the answers I received for them and as you can see, I haven't presented all ten of the questions - this is due to the fact that two of them received a range of different comments which I will later go into more detail about rather than presenting them all now. Also, you will be able to see the multiple ways I promoted this survey to get people to do it in this slideshow. Here is the slideshow I created:

Once I had looked at all of the feedback I had received, I then decided to only look at the ones in relation to the genre I was doing and since my chosen genre relates to Punk, I decided to get all of the respondents that said their favourite genre was Punk and then I decided to look at all of their others answers as this would have helped me in seeing what people like to see in Punk music videos as it is their favourite genre. As well as this, I decided to create my own feedback sheet on paper in relation to the Pop Punk genre and get a few people to answer the questions on them. Below you will be able to find two presentation - one which will include all of the Punk responses from the very first survey I created and the second which will include the different responses I got for the Pop Punk feedback sheet I created.

Here is the slideshow which includes all of the Punk responses I got for the very first survey I created about music videos:

Here is the second slideshow which includes the different responses I got for the Pop Punk audience research I had created on a piece of paper:

Creating this first survey and questionnaire was extremely useful to me as it enabled me to find out more about what people from a range of different audiences thought about music videos. The survey was actually quite general and didn't really appeal to any audience specifically as I just wanted to know what certain people from various genres like, but more importantly, what the people who like the Punk genre like to see in music videos. Moreover, this survey also helped me recognize who my intended target audience would be as I was able to see what type of age range would listen to this genre and what type of things they would like to see in a music video for this specific genre. In relation to music videos, I asked a lot of questions about the type of things that people who like the Pop Punk genre would like to see in a music video and I got various different responses in relation to clothing, editing, shots, lighting and much more. All of this was really helpful to me as again it all enabled me to see what type of things I would be able to include in my own music video to make it appeal to the intended target audience, but also to be able to make them want to watch the video over and over again as they will hopefully enjoy it that much. Overall, from this previous audience feedback, I was able to see that the majority of people that like this genre are teenagers and young adults and the majority of them would associate dark features with my chosen genre, which is where I was able to get inspiration to begin creating my music video as I knew what the audience wanted to see.

As well as these questionnaires, I also decided to create a poll on my blog, so if anyone went onto my blog, then they would be able answer the questions I have presented on the side which again would help me as it would inform me about what people would like - especially in relation to the Pop Punk genre. Here are the answers to all of the questions I had put on my poll:

When looking at the responses I acquired, you are able to see that the people that actually answered my poll were part of my intended target audience as they were all aged between 16 to 20, but also there was around about an equal amount of males and females that filled in the poll - meaning, I have received answers from both genders and will know what is best when creating something that needs to appeal to both genders at the same time. On top of that, I was also able to see that the majority of people watched music videos everyday and said they enjoyed watching them. Also, a lot of the participants knew of all of the artists/bands that had been mentioned - meaning, the majority of these people must listen to the Pop Punk genre due to the fact that they know most of the artists that have been mentioned because some of the ones that I have mentioned aren't that well known, so only someone that likes the genre would really know them. Lastly, a lot of people said that they preferred a music video that included a narrative and performance which did help me when creating my music video as from this feedback I was able to see that people who like the Pop Punk genre would prefer a video which includes both, so this is why I decided to include both into my own music video.

Once I had actually began to start creating my products, I then decided to get feedback from a range of different people, even if they weren't part of the Pop Punk audience. When I had finished my music video, I then posted it onto YouTube where anyone who wanted to watch it would be able to, but instead of leaving it for people to find, I wanted to promote both my music video and ancillary texts as I wanted feedback to make sure that I would be able to improve my products to ensure they were to the best standard they could possibly be and would appeal to my intended target audience. So to promote my work I decided to use social media and in the slideshow I have presented below you are able to see the different social media's that I have promoted my work on.

Here is the slideshow I created:

In the slideshow above you are able to see that I had posted all three of my products on Facebook and Twitter which meant that it would appeal to a wide range of different people who would be able to give me feedback on my work. On Facebook I have over 500 friends from various countries who all like different genres of music and are all into different things in general, which means that I would hopefully be able to get numerous different views on my work whether it is good or bad, but either way it would be feedback which I would be able to use to improve my work with. In addition, on Twitter I have over 4,600 followers, a lot of which actually listen to the Pop Punk genre and this was extremely beneficial to me as it meant that I would be able to get people who specifically like this genre to complete my survey to see what they think and what I could possibly do to improve, but as well as just people that like this genre of music, I will also be able to get a range of other people that like different genres to watch my video and hopefully give me some feedback on all of my products. At the end of the slideshow you are able to see that there are two comments and once I had posted my video on YouTube, these are the two comments I received. I think they were both very positive and enabled me to see what type of things I could change in my music video to improve them and make them appeal more to the intended target audience. Out of all of the followers I have on Twitter, I have some that follow me which are in Punk bands, so if I got lucky then hopefully I would be able to get some of these artists to see my work and perhaps comment on them which would be hugely beneficial to me as existing artists themselves would know everything about the genre and what they often do to appeal to their intended target audience. Even though this is a long shot, if it was possible for someone already in an existing Punk band that followed me on Twitter to tweet me about what they thought about my products, then I would be essentially looking at how my products would realistically fit into the real world as these band members would know exactly what is needed to appeal to a specific audience. I have decided to present two band members from the Punk genre that follow me, I was originally going to show all of them - however, they were not all from the Punk genre, so I decided not to. In the screenshots I have presented, you are able to see that 'Ryan Key' from the band 'Yellowcard' follows me on Twitter and also 'James Bourne' from the band 'Busted' follows me, so hopefully due to me having these follows (as well as follows from other band members), my tweet could possibly be seen by these band members and if I am lucky I may get a tweet with them giving me feedback on my work as they are extremely familiar with trying to appeal to a specific audience.

Before I go into detail about the survey I created for my final products, I wanted to just mention some of the feedback I received elsewhere. When asking for feedback there were two people who actually wrote some feedback down on their phones and then sent me the feedback to enable me to look at them - the beneficial thing about these two pieces of feedback is that I do not actually know the people and they just sent me it on Twitter due to the fact that I asked my followers for feedback and it was a good thing that I didn't know these people as it meant they would be truthful about everything instead of perhaps just saying it looks good because they are my friend. Underneath you will be able to see the two pieces of feedback I received from these two people, both individuals are female and between the ages 16-25 which is the age range that my intended target audience are. In this feedback you are able to see that the ancillary texts were extremely appealing and both individuals used words like 'grunge', 'punk', 'intriguing' and 'mysterious vibes' which is exactly the outcome I wanted for my ancillary texts. However, both individuals said that the music video did often get boring at some parts due to the fact that there are a lot of running scenes and since I have received this feedback I have made some changes to my music video and got rid of some running scenes and included more performance scenes to hopefully make the music video more interesting to watch, but other than that, both females said that the music video was done very well, including how the video itself was shot and they were able to understand the meaning behind it which is extremely beneficial to me as it means that the audience do understand the meaning behind the video and were entertained by it. Overall, this feedback was mainly positive and any things that the individuals suggested that I could improve, I have now done, so hopefully my music video is now less repetitive and more fascinating.

Here are the two pieces of feedback I received:

The majority of the feedback I received once I had completed all of my products was again through the use of another survey. I think that creating a survey was extremely beneficial for both me and the person completing the survey as for me, I am able to get feedback from people to see what they think about the products and how I could improve, but in relation to the person doing the survey, they are anonymous, so they will be able to say whatever they want in relation to my work without me knowing, which just enables them to be more truthful about my work - meaning, I will actually be told what I could do to improve and make my work appeal more to the different audiences, but especially my intended target audience. Underneath I have presented the ten questions that I created for this survey and have also presented the answers I received for them to enable you to see what type of feedback I received and how it has helped me complete my final products.

Here is a slideshow which includes the ten different questions that were presented in my survey which also includes all of the answers I received for them:

After looking at the answers I received for this survey, you are able to see that I actually only got 8 responses and when promoting my work I did try to get a range of people to complete my survey so that I would be able to make some changes - however, not everyone completed my survey, so I didn't actually receive as many responses as I was hoping to - nonetheless, I did get quite a few good responses in relation to my questions which I will explain in more detail in the presentation I have presented below. Here is the presentation I created:

Overall, throughout the whole process of my coursework, all of the feedback that I have received has been extremely helpful to me and has enabled me to improve my work to ensure that it will appeal and entice my intended target audience. If I didn't receive any feedback from people then I wouldn't have been able to see how my products would appeal to people in the real world, but also I wouldn't have been able to see what people liked and didn't like in relation to my products, so I wouldn't have been able to make any improvements to ensure that my products were as good as they could be. I think that all of the feedback I acquired has been positive and nothing I received has told me that my coursework has been done badly or doesn't conform to my chosen genre at all, so all in all, my coursework has turned out quite well and I have listened to the advice other people have given me and made any changes that they feel will make my products better. 

Evaluation Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

During the whole process of my coursework I had to use an array of different technologies so I was able to get the outcome I wanted with my final pieces, but also with the research and planning I did beforehand. I would say that the majority of the technology used was during the research and construction stages due to the fact that I had to research how to do certain things and then I actually was able to do those things by using certain technology during the construction stage. In this post I am going to split the idea of technology into two different parts, I will firstly go into detail about the type of hardware and hard drives I used during this whole process and then for the second part I will go into detail about the different software's and programs I used during this process. Nonetheless, all of the different technologies that I did use were extremely beneficial to me and enabled me to create everything I wanted, in the way I wanted it.

Hardware/Hard Drives

The majority of the hardware and hard drives I used throughout my coursework were used during the construction stage as this was the time that I needed to be about to go to my locations and shoot all of the material I needed to ensure I had everything for my music video, but also for my ancillary texts. All of the different hardware's and hard drives that were used during the construction stage were needed to ensure that I got all of the footage for my products which I would later be able to edit by using the different software's and programs which I will later talk about. Below I have decided to create a slideshow which presents all of the different hardware and hard drives I used throughout my whole coursework process and below that I have then explained why I used each of these and when and how each of them helped me. Here is the slideshow I have created:

To go into more detail about all of the different hardware's and hard drives I used throughout the whole of my coursework, I decided to created a presentation which explains when and where I needed to use these specific technologies. Here is the presentation I have created:

After looking at this presentation you will be able to see that all of the hardware and hard drives I used have been extremely useful to me and have enabled me to create everything I needed in relation to the research, planning, construction and evaluation stages. If I didn't have any of these technologies available to me then I wouldn't have been able to create any of the features I have previously created on my blog as I wouldn't even had a device to use to get onto my blog. Nonetheless, I had all of these devices available to me and was easily able to create everything I wanted whether it was in relation to my final products or just research and planning.

Software's/Programs

All of the software's and programs I will talk about have all been used throughout the whole of my coursework as I have used them for the research, planning, construction and evaluation stages. The use of all of the different software's and programs were extremely important as they enabled me to find out things I may not have known, but also they enabled me to create all three of my products. I was actually quite familiar with the majority of the software's and programs I used as I have used them in my other A level subjects, but also used some of them during my AS Media coursework and this was beneficial because it meant that I didn't have to learn how to use some of the software's and programs and was able to start using them straight away which saved me a lot of time. Underneath, I have presented the logos for all of the different software's and programs I have used throughout my whole coursework process and below these logos, I have gone into more detail about some of the software's and programs I have used. I have not gone into detail about all of the software's and programs due to the fact that there as so many of them and some of them I only used for a short period of time - meaning, they weren't really that important in relation to creating my coursework. 

Here are all of the different logos I previously mentioned: 

Since you may not know what all of the logos I have presented above are, I decided to make a list of all of the names of the software's and programs that these logos are associated with. I haven't put these names in the order I have presented the logos - however, you should hopefully be able to figure out which name relates to which logo. Here is the list:

• Blogger

• Haiku Deck

• PowerPoint

• Publisher

• Movie Maker

• Adobe Premiere Pro CC

• Adobe Photoshop CS6

• Powtoon

• YouTube

• Prezi

• SlideShare

• Microsoft Expression Encoder 4 Screen Capture

• iTunes

• QuickTime Player

• iMessage/Text Message

• Google

• Twitter

• Facebook

• Apple App Store

• Survey Monkey

• Microsoft Hotmail

• Windows Photo Viewer

As I said before, I am going to go into more detail about some of the software's and programs I have mentioned above and below you will be able to see that I have created a presentation which is where I have explained some of these in more detail. I decided to only talk about the software's and programs that I felt were the most important during my coursework process and that helped me the most. The software's and programs I decided to talk about in more detail include; Blogger, Adobe Premiere Pro CC, Adobe Photoshop CS6, Haiku Deck, SlideShare, YouTube, Microsoft Expression Encoder 4 Screen Capture, Twitter, Facebook, Survey Monkey, Prezi and Powtoon. To me all of these were the most important software's and programs I used and which I would like to go into more detail about. 

Here is the presentation I have created: 

As you can see in the presentation above, I have only looked at ten of the software's and programs I used in more detail and this is because these are the ones that I believe were the most important throughout the process of creating my A2 coursework. The ones I have not gone into so much detail about include; PowerPoint, Publisher, Movie Maker, iTunes, QuickTime Player, iMessage/Text Message, Google, Apple App Store, Microsoft Hotmail and Windows Photo Viewer. I believe that I don't need to go into much detail about these software's and programs due to the fact that it is quite obvious as to why they would have been used throughout this process as they have just essentially enabled me to watch or look at certain things that I needed to in relation to my work. PowerPoint, Publisher and Movie Maker were obviously used to enable me to construct my work in a creative way which I was then able to put onto my blog to allow viewers to see. QuickTime and Windows Photo Viewer enabled me to watch videos I had created or look at images I had taken which was beneficial as throughout this whole process I was always creating my own videos and images and I needed to be able to see them to see what they were like. In addition, I also used Google and the Apple App Store to research certain things or to be able to download plug-ins or applications that I need for my coursework or that were useful for the planning and construction stages. iTunes was used to enable me to keep the music I needed for my music video, but also to add music to my work in general. iMessage/Text Message was used to allow me to communicate with other people when I needed them and lastly, Microsoft Hotmail enabled me to again contact people to enable me to communicate with them, but also I used it to send people my surveys so I would be able to get feedback on my work.

As I said in the Hardware/Hard Drive section, when doing my Media coursework I would often move from different computers while working at college, but when at home I would always be working on my laptop and because of this, it meant that I had to be able to take my work away with me rather than saving it on a computer because if I saved my work onto my laptop (for example) then I wouldn't be able to access the work when I get to college as it would all be on my laptop, so to solve this issue I decided to save my work onto my memory stick - meaning, I would be able to continue working no matter what computer I am using. On top of that, I also decided to save a copy of all of my work onto both my 'F Drive' at college, but also on my 'F Drive' on my laptop to ensure that I always had a copy of my work in case anything happened to it on my memory stick. As well as this, I always created folders for my work to ensure that it was always organised and that I would easily be able to find the work I was looking for when I wanted it.

Below I have presented a screenshot of the files on my memory stick while it was plugged into a college computer:

As Adobe Premiere Pro CC and Adobe Photoshop CS6 were the main two programs I used throughout the construction stage and are what enabled me to actually create all three of my products, you will be able to see on previous posts called 'Techniques Used In Adobe Premiere Pro CC' and 'Making Of The Ancillary Texts' how I actually used these programs to get the outcomes I wanted for all of the products I have created. I was originally going to go through the process' I went through when using certain tools on these programs on this post - however, I have already previously posted them and gone into quite a lot of detail about them, so you will be able to find out more about how I used the tools and certain techniques on the posts I have mentioned above. Overall, you are able to see that I have used a wide range of different technologies throughout the whole of my A2 Media coursework and it was all useful to me as it enabled me to create all of my products, but also enabled me to do all the research, planning and even the evaluation - also, the various use of technologies allowed me to present my work in a range of different and interesting ways which hopefully appeal to the viewers of my work.