Advanced Portfolio: Evaluation

IntroductionMy project is a music video for a pop-punk band in the local area called Middle Finger Salute, I worked

with two other people to make this video they were Beth Owen and Stephannie Soloniewicz. We originally started with four members in our group but due to unforeseen circumstances one of our members had to leave college, forcing us to reorganise the allocated jobs. As a group we shared the work load fairly evenly. I contributed to the locations, filming, editing, ancillary tasks and I was also responsible for finding a band to create a music video for. Our target audience are White, British males aged 16-25. Using Young and Rubicam’s approach of Cross-cultural Consumer Characteristics we are aiming at the group named ‘individual’ which is a group of people that do not want to fit in and want to be different. I also researched the UK tribes and saw the band would appeal to the group called ‘indie kids’. Here is a picture link to the UK tribes website.

I think our product will appeal to these groups as it is a pop punk band and the music is trying to be different as that is what the whole punk genre is about.

The genre of our music video is punk/rock/indie. The conventions that we used were the use of the band in the video and the use of the band performance in the video. Here is a pie chart to show the favourite genres of music from our audience feedback it is clear punk isn’t the most popular genre so we are appealing to a niche market.

We also followed the typical conventions of focusing on the lead singer with several close ups of him and many shots focusing on him singing. It was vital to use some of the typical elements in the video as the product does still need to look like a music video. I think we did do something different in the sense that we made the footage very jumpy to give the video another layer so in a sense it was not just a band performance and it entertained the viewer. As well as this used the desaturate effect to put the video into black and white as we mixed the video up with black and white and colour throughout. This was used again to give the audience something different as the audience want something that is “the same, but different” – G.Burton. We also decided against including a narrative in the video as we wanted to break the usual conventions of a music video as the punk image is about breaking conventions, we knew that if we were to create a video that was just a band performance without a narrative we would have to entertain the viewer with some other techniques and that is why we decided to use the black and white filters and create the jumpy effect to entertain the viewer.

One of my main inspirations for this video was the Arctic Monkeys video for “I bet that you look good on the dancefloor”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm69M3jtZl4

A video with a simple band performance.

We were confident that this technique would work and entertain the

viewer after being told several times that a narrative would probably be needed we stuck with our decision and in the audience feedback we got some very positive responses about the use of editing in the video and nobody commented on the lack if a narrative which shows that the video worked well without a narrative.

I felt the ancillary tasks followed the requirements of an advertisement and a CD cover in some ways. For example the CD cover had the name of the band on and the name of the album with

the track listings on the back of the CD. Here are a few slides showing how the ancillary tasks are following conventions.

Brief Analysis of ancillary tasks.

Daniel Sutton.

BAND NAME. TYPICAL CONVENTION OF CD COVERS

ALBUM NAME. A TYPICAL CONVENTION OF ALBUM/ CD COVERS

TRACKLISTINGS ARE A VERY TYPICAL FEATURE OF CD COVERS.

THE USE OF A QUIRKY CARTOON IMAGE OF A PINK GORILLA TO SHOW THE REBELION IN THE PUNK GENRE AND THE HUMOUR AS TGHE GORILLA IS WEARING SUN GLASSES. SIMILAR TO GREENDAY – AMERICAN IDIOT.

WE USED PHOTOSHOP TO CREATE A BLACK AND WHITE

BACKGROUND WITH COLOUR IN THE FOREGROUND. THIS

IS A BIG FEATURE IN THE BRAND IMAGE THAT WE

CREATED FOR THE BAND.

THE USE OF THE CARTOON IMAGE WHICH LINKS TO THE FRONT COVER OF THE CD

FRONT AND BACK COVER

INSIDE SHEETS FOR THE CDWE HAVE CREATED A PAGE FOR THE PULL OUT WHICH TELLS YOU THE NAMES OF THE BAND MEMBERS AND THEIR PARTICULAR ROLE IN THE BAND. I WAS INSPIRED BY THE STROKES ALBUM – IS THIS IT.

WE HAVE USED AN EFFECT ON PHOTOSHOP TO REDUCE THE CONTRAST TO SHOW ONLY THE BRIGHTEST COLOURS. THIS LINKS TO OUR BRAND IMAGE OF BLACK AND WHITE WITH COLOUR

WE HAVE SHOWN THE BRIGHT COLOURS AND BALCK AND WHITE HERE AGAIN TO LINK TO THE BRAND IMAGE OF BLACK AND WHITE WITH COLOUR.

BY MAKING THE BAND MEMBERS BLACK AND WHITE AND THE INSTRUMENTS COLOUR WITH LAYERING ON PHOTOSHOP WE HAVE CREATED A DEFINED BRAND IMAGE OFBLACK AND WHITE WITH COLOUR.

ADVERTISEMENT FOR A MAGAZINE SHORTEND VERSION OF THE BANDS NAME. TO LET THE RERADER SEE WHAT IT IS ABOUT.

THE USE OF THE BLACK AND WHITE WITH COLOUR BRAND IMAGE.

THE USE OF A PICTURE OF THE ALBUM COVER IS A GENERIC CONVENTION OF CD ADVERTISEMENTS

ANOTHER GENERIC CONVENTION OF CD ADVERTISEMENTS IS THE USE OF A SHOPS NAME WHERE THE CD WILL BE ON SALE. IF THE AUDIENCE KNOW WHERE TO BUY IT FROM THE SALES WILL BE HIGHER

TELLING THE READER THAT THE ALBUM IS AVAILABLE TO BUY NOW. TO HOPEFULLY INCREASE SALES.

THE NAME OF THE ALBUM IS SHOWN TO MAKE PEOPLE AWARE OF IT.

CARTOON BRAND IMAGE IS CONTINUED FROM THE ALBUM COVER.

The music that we were making products for is pop- punk so we had to create an image that linked to punk bands for example The Sex Pistols and The Clash. We researched the bands and we decided we wanted to use bright cartoon like colours with contrasting black and white to show the punk brand image that we wanted to portray for this band. This was used to try and show that the band is rebelling against society and they are not taking their music very seriously.

Our logo is a ‘pop art’ pink gorilla that I drew the outline of then scanned it into photo shop until we found the most suitable colours that fitted into our

brand image

I think that the gorilla fitted into our brand image because it is rebelling against usual album covers and we have used the bright colours on a contrasting background. The humour off the gorilla wearing sunglasses to show the band does not take the music really seriously and they just enjoy the music and have fun.

We maintained a brand image throughout the products by

using the black and white with colour theme our music video consistently switched from being in colour to black and white

and vice versa.

Throughout the products we maintained the brand image by using the same font which was called VARSITY from dafont.com with all of the products giving fun and exciting connotations which links in with the branding that the band just enjoy the music and don’t take it too seriously. The images were edited on photo shop with a consistent use of the layering technique to pick out certain things in the image to make them show colour in particular places for example on the inner sheet one of the images just picks out the colours of the instruments.

• A record label that could but their money behind a band like ours could range from a major label to an independent label for example Sony BMG have bands like AC/DC and Franz Ferdinand. Our band is pop punk so they are liable to be signed by a major company. In contrast they could be signed by an independent label for example Domino Records who have bands like the Arctic Monkeys signed to them.

They may believe that the product could make a profit because the band has a similar sound to several successful bands for example Rancid although it is different in ways which could attract a large audience.

• Our target audience are White, British males aged 16-25. Using Young and Rubicam’s approach of Cross-cultural Consumer Characteristics we are aiming at the group named ‘individual’ which is a group of people that do not want to fit in and want to be different. I also researched the UK tribes and saw the band would appeal to the group called ‘indie kids’.

• They are a good audience to target as they are a loyal niche audience that will stay faithful to the band they are financially right for our band as they are not a big popular band and would be playing only small venues for cheap ticket prices which will please the loyal fans.

• The band is likely to have a secondary target audience of white, working class males aged 40-50 as in the 1970’s when these men where teenager it was the beginning of the punk genre and the uprising of punk with bands like The Stiff Little Fingers and The Ramones being the most popular bands at the time

• We used audience feedback throughout our product by giving out questionnaires to our target audience (16-25) and showing them our products so they can comment on the things they like/ dislike in our products. This gave us the chance to change or product for the better for example someone would comment on a part of the lip syncing being out of time and this prompted us to edit that part here is a video of some audience feedback and a scanned in example of our questionnaire.

• The use of technology in this project was very extensive the researching part of the task I found very easy as internet is something i use on a daily basis and researching is something I found very familiar. The use of blogger had its advantages as I could upload work quickly onto the site and not worry about the loss of paper and it looked a lot more aesthetically pleasing. The use of final cut express for the editing was totally new to me as I had only used iMovie in the past but i found it was an excellent package that was much more difficult than iMovie but a lot more sophisticated. As I was a novice on the software I found some aspects challenging for example the use effects but we eventually got past those problems and used effects to change the speed and desaturate the video.

To conclude I think the research and planning aspect of the product was very successful and we reached the deadlines and did everything possible to make it the best work we could do.

I feel the ancillary tasks were a success as they defined a clear brand image for the band and they also work well on an aesthetic level. I would not change any of those products given the chance.

The video was a struggle to produce and it was a difficult piece first of all to film as the band was not co-operating fully with our plans but we worked around this to produce the video.

I think I have struggled on this piece of coursework and in hindsight I would have set aside more time for the filming and editing of this piece this would have help me meet the deadlines much more efficiently. But i believe the products that we produced were well made and I thoroughly enjoyed producing them.