Evaluation Question Three - What have you learnt from audience feedback?

Our audience demographic

• 16 - 25 years old
• Male
• Hetrosexual 

Likes: 

In order to find our target audience and what their demographic is I research different subcultures on www.uktribes.com
From this I discovered that our target audience would be leading edge, indie scenesters. They are lightly to be between the ages of 16 and 25, would be creative, enjoy music and live concerts and use a lot of social media. We therefore considered these things when creating our three products.

Audience Feedback

Audience feedback we collected during the production process:

Approximately half way through our production process we collected a variety of different types of feedback for our rough cuts. From this feedback we could make improvements to our products to allow them to be as successful as possible. We decided to get feedback from placing surveys for them to complete on our social media pages as well as asking our teachers for feedback.

In our group we took one product each and gathered the feedback for it. I had the digipak, Anouska had the video and Lauren had the website. Here is the feedback we gathered from our teacher when reflecting on our rough cut work:



As well as this we gathered feedback from our target audience. Due to this we decided to:

• change some of the images on our digipak so that they look more professional and de-saturating the images so that they all look the same. 
• giving each member of the band an individual profile on the website 
• make the logo of the band stand out more rather than allowing it to blend into the products
• use social networking more and make it easier to access from the website 
• make sure that the indie rock genre is clear and presented well throughout all three products 
• the lip-syncing in the video was in time and that the pace matched the audio 

Evaluation Question Two - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The three products that we created were a music video for the song 'Creepin' up the backstairs' by The Wired, a digipak for the album and a website for the band. The themes that we were aiming for were:

• The Video - an indie rock music video with manly performance based footage and random cut aways of the band. We wanted to video to be fairly upbeat and energetic and to attract the target audience of 16 - 25 year olds. 
•  The Website - a attention grabbing website that promoted the band and their products. We wanted it to be clear that it was part of the indie rock genre and its main aim was to make the products more widely available to the public as well as allowing the 'fans' to get to know the band better.
• The Digipak - the aim of this was to make the album as attractive as possible to the target audience as well as linking it to the website. We wanted the digipak to have a slightly more serious tone than the video and to represent the band as a whole. We also wanted it to replicate a professional digipak. 

Looking at professional texts and our findings?

How did we incorporate our findings into our products?

Synergy and how we have used it:

Synergy is when two or more  companies work together to create a product that will have more sucess than their own single products.

Synergy is important in the marketing campaign as it helps companies or products to promote each other as well s themselves. For example when an artists realses a new song their website will be adjusted in order to promote the song, and the acompanying digipak, as soon as you enter the website. It may allow you to stream the song for free from the website, buy the song in a physical copy / digipak or download the song straight from the website. The digipak can then promote the website and music video through using similar imagery, the digipak often includes the website address on the back cover, and often artist off exclusive content to fans who have bought the digipak. Therefore each product or media text they release are promoting the others in order to gain as much followng as possible and subsequentely improving the artists success.

We have used synergy in our products by having the music video on the front page as soon as you enter the website. We also had a merchandise page on the website allowing you to buy the bands merch directly from their website. This is a form of synergy as the music and digipak may encourage the viewer to visit the website which could consequently lead them to purchasing some merchandise. Furthermore the merchandise would make the bands name more publicised and could increase views on the music video.

Another example of how we have used synergy is through placing the soundcloud box on the front page, allowing the audience to listen to the song while browsing the website. This is synergy with another company (soundcloud) as having their soundcloud box on our website allows us to promote our song through the soundcloud website as well as us promoting soundcloud on our site, improving their views and popularity as well.

The use of social media

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

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

Genre's form and conventions and comparison. 

Andrew Goodwin theory.

Representation:

In our video we tried to represent our band as young males who were care free, enjoyed their music and had very little cares. We tried to achieve this through their body language, their actions and the way they performed. We also tried to represent them as indie with rock influences through their costume choice. We chose for them to wear jeans, with vans or trainers and leather jackets. This is because we decided this would mainly connote the indie genre but the leather jacket would hint at the rock influence. We also wanted to represent them as quite quirky and not the 'perfect boy band' that is more associated with the pop genre. In our cut aways we had them 'messing around' in different locations and almost teasing each other which connoted their youth and casual personalities. The location also helped with their representation as we filmed them in an urban area suggesting they are from a city/ town which is often linked to indie/rock genres as many artist will do the pub circuit and busk. Furthermore less urban and more rural locations are usually associated with country and folk music, so we wanted to stay away from this.

Representation through costume:

Black skinny jeans, vans and trainers that are often linked to 'indie' fashion

Leather jackets almost aways associated with rock and roll genres 

Leather jackets, beanies and a t-shirt with an influential artist in associated musical genres.

Dark costume and colours as bright costume and mise - en - scene is more associated with the pop genre.

Some issues of representation that we encountered were; we didn't want the band to seem reckless as these kind of associations are made with the pure rock genre - we wanted them to seem more cheeky than reckless, we also had the issue of making them seem older than they are but still youthful, the bands target audience would be around late teens early twenties so we wanted them to seem mature but good fun as well. This was particularly useful when creating the digipak and website as we wanted them to seem serious about the music, but laid back and quirky in personality. 

Final Products

 Website

http://elliewilliams245.wix.com/thewired

Digipak

Video

Creepin' Up The Back Stairs - The Wired from Anouska on Vimeo.

Construction of digipak

When finishing off the digipak, we decided to insert a CD cover first, the original is shown above where it blends into the background of the ripped paper with the black text on the cover. After gaining some teacher feedback, saying that it would look better in black and white for the CD, we decided to change it and the results looked a lot better. This is because it doesn't blend into the cover and instead stands out against the white. This also suits the colour scheme of the rest of the digipak as it runs in black, white and red.

This crumpled paper effect was also created in photoshop using the x tutorial and the ripped paper added to this effect with y tutorial. We decided to do this as it subtly links to the music video because in one of the cutaways, the lead singer crumples a lyrics page and throws it away, we thought this would add to a recurring theme. Originally, we were going to have lyrics carrying out onto the CD, but we decided it wouldn't fit the conventions of a digipak, so instead we'll have them running on the bottom left panel of the digipak.

On the top right of the digipak, originally we had this image, although it looked slightly out of place and we were recommended by the teacher feedback to desaturate the image as the green and orange of the leaves outside were quite overpowering in the image and it made the models look out of place.

Creating our website

Throughout the website there is a continuous colour scheme which connotes our indie rock genre. Each page fits with the others and follows a theme. Our main colour scheme was grey, red and white. We felt that this was the best colour scheme to use because on our digipak the logo for the band is black and white and the track list on the back cover is the dark red / burgundy colour. Therefore both our digipak and website fit together and are clearly identifiable as the bands.

For all the images on our website we tried to keep them fairly casual to connote the genre. They were taken in basic locations with plain and basic mise-en-scene. 

The home page contains a smaller version of our gallery as well as the headlines from our news page. We decided to do this because it helped to fill the website with content that may attract the audience. Each of the news headlines is linked to the news page so thatthe viewers can go directly to the page that they are looking for.

The masthead is the logo for the band and the socail networking links, that when clicked on all take you to The Wired's networking page. The menu has a roll over effect and the Bio includes a drop down box for each individual band member.

We included interactive features such as the music player and the bands music video to try and make it as professional as possible. 

Facebook, Twitter & Instagram

In order to make the website more professional and authentic we decided to make real social networking pages that we could link the website to:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Wired/642651849177622

https://twitter.com/TheWiredMusic

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDmAxAwn2sDFY5yYTWXNnDQ

Digipak survey and feedback

In order to gain audience feedback we created a survey, which i then posted out to our target audience in order to gain constructive criticism:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KPSL2BX


Here are some of our responses:

1. What genre do you think the album is?

The general response was correct in that it was indie rock. However some did think it was indie, pop or rock. Therefore we could maybe consider trying to incorporate some more of the typical indie rock conventions such as visual effects used on the cover, some more professional looking pictures of the band - however making sure they do not look like a boy band, and maybe editing the font of the titles.

2. We asked whether they agreed / disagreed with statements about the digipak.

From this we found that we need to work on the continuity and theme of the digipak making sure it all fits together and looks complete. We also found out that we need to make it more eye-catching and subsequently make the audience want to buy it.

3. Is there any obvious improvements you would make to the digipak?

The main feedback was that we need to make sure all the photos match by having the same effect and making sure they all look equally professional.  Most people also mentioned that we should changed the font of the band name and album title as it was difficult to see so therefore we should make it brighter and stand out more to make the whole thing more eye-catching.

4. What would be your overall rating of the digipak? 1being terrible and 5 being fantastic.

Over half of the collective that gave us feedback gave a rating of 4 out of 5. This suggests that we are on the right lines to creating a high quality digipak. However three people rated it 3 and three people rated it 2. Therefore it is clear that we need to keep making improvements.


5. Is there anything you strongly dislike about the digipak?

Overall the least liked things about the digipak were the pictures without effects and the title of the font. Therefore we should focus on editing the pictures that haven't yet been edited and we should change the font and colour of the title in order to make it clearer and stand out more.

6. What is your favourite thing about the digipak?

The most liked thing was the photos and the type of shots. Others liked the colour scheme, the effects on the photos, the layout and the font of the title.

Overall it is clear that we need to focus on making the photos more professional and making sure they follow the same theme, having the same effects placed on them and making sure they fit together. We should also change the font of the title, making it so much clearer. If the font is more clear it will be more eye catching and attract our target audience. We should also think about what type of shot we are using and whether they fit into the indie rock genre.

Video - rough cut & comparison

Rough Cut from Ellie Williams on Vimeo.

Digipack - rough cut & comparison

Here is our rough cut for our digipak. We decided to have the band members as a key part of the digipak however after looking back at professional digipak we realised that indie band do not always have such a direct mode of address so therefore when we develop our digipack further we may add less pictures of the band. We decided that the back cover will be of the band, however to add a bit of a twist to it we made the lead singer face the back. However we wanted to have the pictures on the outside link into the pictures on the inside, so we used the same picture but reversed who was facing the camera.

Both the kooks and coldplay have used more casual photos for their digipak which we have also used. However their photos are edited and have effects added to them which we should take into consideration when we improve our digipak, as at the moment we have just place the raw photos straight into it. Furthermore they have all used some sort of graphic effect which we make them look a little more impressive and eye catching. Therefore we should also try to incorporate some sort of graphic effect, possibly on the very front cover of the amp. We could maybe have the logo made out of wired placed on the front of the amp and have electricity sparks coming off it. Another idea we had was to make "The Wired" logo as realistic and lifelike to the fender logo usually found on an amp. We would have to create this on photo shop. We could also just use a simple effect like the fish eye effect when taking our pictures to try and make them stand out more. 

After looking back at our rough cut we also decided that we would change the picture of Tom holding the lyrics as it didn't fit well with the genre and the rest of the digipak. Instead we could replace it with a picture of the band playing their instrument in a casual environment such as the ones on the kooks and coldplay digipaks. We might also replace it with just a picture of their instruments alone, instead of them with the band. 

Another reflection we had was our colour scheme. At the moment its quite random with no real sense of continuity. Therefore we could change it so that it is all in black and white, therefore all fitting together. Furthermore this may help the digipak and website link in together as the website's colour scheme is quite dark and simple.