Evaluation Question 2 - Combination of Texts

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

Our A2 texts include a music video accompanied by a digipak and magazine advertisements.

Our promotional package 

Artists tend to release their videos, digipaks and advertisements through separate production companies and so depending on the context and theme, we sometimes cannot see a link as clear as we would if all texts were produced through the same company. Because we ourselves are indie video producers with a small budget, we haven't been able to distribute our products through various conglomerates and subsidiaries. This means that we have had to take into consideration all of our target audiences by maintaining a theme across all of the texts. We adapted various elements and aspects of our work to achieve this.

   Taking the vast difference between our target audiences into consideration was the key factor in the final development of our products. Acting as an existing example, The Saturdays have achieved what we are aiming to achieve as they have appeared in a variety of magazines like Hello, OK, FHM and Bliss. These magazines all have totally different target audiences, yet they have appeared in more than one publication to widen their audience and reach out to their mass market.

   We have used the fact that our audiences vary to our advantage as we have been able to target our primary and secondary audiences how we want to and have therefore been able to convey linked conventions throughout all 3 texts to entice a wider audience.

Distributing and Exhibiting Our Texts:

Exhibiting our videos is perhaps the most important action in promoting our work. Our preferred social networking site to achieve this was YouTube, as it provided us with a platform to add tags to reach our mass market and target audiences. If our video was to be officially released, it would be most appropriate to upload it onto a Vevo account or the official Atomic Kitten channel, as official videos uploaded by Vevo and the artist themselves tend to gain the most views.

Here are the main magazines that we would distribute our mag ads in, in relation to our primary and secondary audiences:

Primary audience:

• TEEN NOW - 11-17
• LOOK           -18-35
• GLAMOUR  - 16-34
• BLISS           - 13-17
• OK                - 25-34

Secondary audience: 

• FHM - Target audience 15-34
• NUTS -18-34

On our mag ads, we advertised the digipak as 'available on iTunes' and on the official Atomic Kitten Website. If our digipak was to be produced and distributed, our preferred way of consumption would be via the internet and online consumption websites like Amazon and Play.com would provide excellent platforms for selling our product to a wider audience. This is mainly due to digitisation, as more and more material is being streamed and purchased online and so major high street record shops' profits are falling, for example HMV.
   Social media can also play a key role in promotion, as material can be shared and passed on to other users. We set up a Twitter and Instagram account with the username @MKTPProductions for both, which we used for promoting our ongoing and final work.

Key Elements In Our Texts:
Magazine Advertisements

We researched existing examples of magazine advertisements across the pop genre and those specific to Atomic Kitten to gain an idea of what to include in ours. We created 5 teaser ads and 3 final ads:

First kitten mag ad

Teaser Adverts

For our teaser ads, there were 2 main features that we wanted to focus on the most and these were narrative enigma and the use of kittens. We featured the kitten in 2 of our 5 teaser ads, as we did not want to over use this idea. The most effective one out of the 2 was the first one that we created. This simply featured an image of the kitten with our QR code layered on to its chest. The tongue sticking out creates a more fun and relaxed appeal, which will help in attracting our younger audience. Recently across all social media sites, there has been a growing phenomena based on cats performing amusing tricks or memes of cats. We thought that because our group is called Atomic Kitten, it would create a nice link to this public cat obsession by featuring a kitten in our adverts. The second feature was narrative engima. We thought that applying this theory to the teaser mag ads would help us to build up anticipation and keep the audience intrigued. The first ad featuring narrative enigma included an image of one of the group members facing away from the camera, holding a feminine, sassy pose. We then layered a QR code onto her lower body, to subtly reflect the Male Gaze Theory. The second ad featured an image of the whole group with their back to the camera, with an image of rose petals and candles layered on top. We reduced the opacity of this image so that you could see both images. This was one of the ads that we used to convey the romantic theme seen in the digipak and music video. The final teaser included 3 individual photos of each member holding a lit candle, which had been edited to fit together in to one complete image. We then again layered the QR code onto the middle candle, to build suspense.

Group ad

Main Adverts
In total, we have 4 final mag ads. These involve one individual ad for each member and then a group one. We created this as it is common for well-known artists to include more than one advertisement in the same issue of a magazine or a double page spread, to really push their product and so that audiences will be more likely to notice the advertisements. For the individual ads, we used new images of the members to add to the visual variety, and included the artist name in the same font and colours as the digipak, as I mention later on. We also included text advertising the digipak and bonus DVD, along with a small image of the digipak so make readers aware of what to look for. 2014 tour dates were also included, which can be viewed as a reflection of the groups recent reunion. The group ad that we created includes all the same text as the individual texts, as the only thing different is the image. The image we chose was one where the group are leaning on each other to signify the unity and connection between the group.

Digipak

Final digipak

In our digipak, we used various shades of grey, pink and blue, as we did in the mag ads too. We used a relaxed image on the front of the image, to convey the boy band conventions which we followed, wearing the same dresses as those seen in the video and in a couple of magazine ads. On the front we included the artist name and album name, as well as a sticker that we created separately on Photoshop. This sticker was essential as it highlighted the bonus DVD and new tracks included. The back image also links to one of the teaser mag ads, as it is of the groups back, and it can also be viewed as an opposite of the front image. On the back we included another sticker, offering more detail about the bonus DVD, and a central track list, to balance the layout out. In the bottom right corner, we included all the features that you would typically expect to see on the back of a digipak from any genre. We added a bar code, which we create ourselves, a DVD sticker, a CD sticker, the iTunes logo, our QR code and the record label, which was also included again on the spine. On the inside, we used 2 layered images of petals and tealights, and then added an image of a large church candle on top. The opacity of the rose petals was reduced to make the church candle more visible. On the CD itself, we included another image of the group. We used this as an opportunity to add an image with alternative framing, as our heads are all in the middle as we are laying down. Finally, our lyrics booklet features more exclusive images of the group, and some romantic themed images are also included, again creating a deeper link between the 3 texts.

Music Video

Clicking and lip syncing

Music videos can be split into 3 sections - a narrative, a concept and a performance. Our video only featured a narrative and performance footage:

Black and white narrative

   Our performance section involved 3 shots, 2 shots and individual shots of ourselves lip syncing in multiple locations. We did not have choreographed dance moves, however we added some clicking and impromptu shoulder movements into our performances to make them appear more realistic. There were 3 locations an 3 outfits used in total, to provide variety.

   Our narrative section was based on a couple. This section was black & white, so that audiences could differentiate between the performance and narrative, and this element proved to work very effectively. The narrative is linear, and the romantic theme has been carried across to be included in the other 2 ancillary texts.

How are the three texts linked?

Throughout all 3 texts, we conveyed a professional and sleek theme. This is portrayed through many different aspects:

Blue dresses on the digipak

Blue dresses in the video

The first aspect is the colour scheme which can be seen in all of our texts. For one of our outfits in the video, we each wore a blue dress. This decision was mostly due to convenience, as we all already had blue dresses, meaning we did not need to spend any extra money on new outfits. However, we did also notice that Atomic Kitten digipaks tended to feature blue colours frequently, and so we decided it would be appropriate to use a blue colour theme to link to existing texts too. Therefore this decision made out of convenience actually turned out to be a major advantage for us. Because we recognised this blue colour theme, and had already incorporated it into our video, we decided to incorporate it into our digipak and magazine advertisements too. We wore the same dresses on the front and back of our digipak as the blue dresses featured in the video and in some of our magazine ads too. This creates an instant link between the texts, as these dresses will be instantly recognisable to the audience and fans. As well as the dresses, we also used a blue font in the digipak and magazine ads. This creates a further obvious link between the texts, as when looking at the images the audience will notice the blue dresses and blue fonts and will be instantly able to create a link. On the mag ads and digipaks, we also incorporated 2 other colours into our fonts. We followed the 3 colour rule, which is a common convention seen in most texts within the pop genre, and we felt that by following this convention, we were providing the opportunity for more visual excitement. We added pink and grey to our font colours, as these colours worked effectively with the blue without clashing too much and appearing amateur.

Mag Ad - various font colours and blue dresses

   The fonts that we used can link together in other ways than just the colours. We downloaded various appropriate fonts offDafont.com and used them for both the magazine ads and the digipak. These fonts were considered greatly before we finally decided upon which ones to use for our final products, as it was important that these fonts worked well together and gave off a professional impression to the audience. Our final products display how well these fonts compliment each other and how they work together to be aesthetically pleasing for the audience.

Studio location

   The style and theme of the 3 texts was a main focus point when creating and editing the texts. Despite our young primary audience being 13-18 year olds, we still had to take into consideration our secondary audiences. This meant that the style of our products needed to entice people of all genders and ages, and so we had to stick to a relatively simple theme and construct our texts based on a certain style. The style that we opted for was a more professional approach towards all 3 texts. We conveyed this style through the use of locations and the standards that our products were completed to. One of the locations featured across all 3 texts was the studio. We used the studio for performance footage in our video and also for taking photos for our digipak and magazine adverts. Although it could be argued that this location was 'boring' to include in our digipak and mag ads, we feel that this was the most suitable and best possible location for these ancillary texts, as it simply and effectively conveys the simplistic and professional look that we were aiming for. Less can be more, and we feel that this is certainly the case with these texts, as a busy background accompanied with a substantial amount of text can easily make a product look unprofessional and may even deter audiences from consuming the products.

Roses and candles in the digipak

Roses in the video

   We have also displayed the romantic theme in all of our texts. It is perhaps most clear in the video, as there is a clear romantic narrative, and our narrative cut clearly denotes this. The use of mise-en-scene to convey the romantic aspect was thoroughly thought through and portrayed, and the way in which we have carried this aspect across to the ancillary texts is through the use of the same mise-en-scene. We used the same rose petals and layered them with other images such as candles and kittens for some of the teaser mag ads, and used the roses and candles again in the inside of our digipak. Despite the differences between our target audiences, the romantic narrative is clearly demonstrated in each of the texts, making it easy for anyone, whether included in our target audiences or not, to establish a link. Roses and candles are stereo-typically associated with romance across the majority of cultures, and so this aspect allows us to reach our mass market too, as the theme can be recognised by people from various cultures.

Smiling/laughing image in the lyrics booklet

   Another key feature of our texts is the boy band conventions conveyed. By this, I am referring to the 'behind the scenes' footage and the simple and basic movements such as the clicking when lip syncing in the video, and the relaxed images used on the front cover of the digipak and in some mag ads. These are conventions that are typically associated and seen in boy band productions, and so by incorporating these features in our own work we are also challenging typical girl group conventions and instead opting to feature boy band conventions. We decided to do this, as the relaxed vibe of all 3 products makes the viewings more appealing and inviting, and so we are more likely to increase our views from our secondary 'tween' audience. Children and teenagers are particularly 
attracted to colourful and happy texts as it stimulates their brains and this then keeps them engaged for longer. Because of this, we used the relaxed shots in the video to make them feel more comfortable when watching the video, and we again used various font colours as well as appealing photos in our digipak and mag ads to make more eye catching products to keep them interested and more inclined into remembering the information provided.

Laughing shot in the video

In What Ways Are They Different?
As much as we have tried to make our texts link together, there were some elements that we could not portray across all 3 texts:
   The main feature that readers will not be able to link together is the narrative. Although we have carried the romantic theme of the video across to the ancillary texts, we found it difficult to find an effective way of linking the narrative into the ancillary texts. Although the music video is effectively promoting the digipak, it is only promoting one single on the album and so we felt it would not completely work if we included the narrative in our digipak, as readers may become confused if they are unaware of the video. For this reason, we decided it was perhaps better to keep the narrative conveyed in the music video only. Because the mag ads are also promoting the digipak, it would have again not totally linked together and flowed if we included the narrative in the ads and not the digipak. It could be argued however that by incorporating the romantic theme into all 3 texts, we have in some subtle way portrayed the narrative, as those who have seen the video may be able to see the link. This links in to Halls preferred reading and the Uses and Gratifications theory, as the audience who have seen all 3 texts combined will be able to choose how they want to read and interpret the petals and candles used throughout, and so they can decide whether there is a link there or not.

Smiling and appealing image on the lyrics booklet

Crying shot in the video - conveys a sad narrative

   The narrative of the video may also be viewed by some viewers as sad, again an example of preferred reading and interpretation on the audiences behalf. The narrative is a linear narrative which follows the break up of a couple, and because this is a relatively normal situation that most people will experience in their lifetimes, the audience may feel more emotion when watching the video. Emotions can be easily induced in moving texts such as videos through the use of carefully chosen editing techniques and effects, yet it can be difficult to create still texts which can emotionally stimulate an audience. Because of this, we decided to create more 'light hearted' ancillary texts in contrast to the relatively sad narrative. This means that we could not link the texts in relation to the emotional pleasures that may be denoted from the texts. As mentioned before, we wanted the younger audience to feel comfortable and happy viewing all our texts, however they are more likely to feel this happiness when viewing the ancillary texts, as they feature fun images, which are more likely to catch their attention. However, we do feel that by creating this contrast there was no major disadvantage of any kind and that it was easier for us to manage in the time scale we were given and the resources we had. Perhaps if we had longer and better resources, then we could have had an attempt at creating strong emotional ancillary texts too.

   We didn't include the narrative characters in each of the texts either as we again didn't want to confuse the readers if they were unfamiliar with the video. This was also because, as mentioned earlier, the video is only promoting one track on the digipak and so the characters would be irrelevant to every other song.
   

What Would We Change Given More Time/Resources?

Effects in Photoshop during the editing process
of the digipak

As mentioned earlier, if we were provided with more time and better resources, then we may have found it easier to create ancillary texts which emotionally engaged the audience, as we could have experimented with more effects and could have spent more time taking the initial photos. We could have also spent more time location scouting, and these location could have been included in the music video too, as well as both ancillary texts. More locations would have provided us with more shot variety and scope during editing, however w
e simply could not include any more locations due to access issues and our limited time scale.
   Time management could have been improved throughout the production processes. Although we have finished everything in a relatively short period of time after re-pitching our idea, we still could have improved our time management by updating our blogs on a daily basis and blogging on things as they happen, for example after creating new rough cuts and drafts uploading them and blogging on them straight away.

   Research into similar products could have also been more extensively carried out. We tended to research one aspect, blog on it then leave it, yet instead we should have maybe researched it more than once so that we could gain a broader knowledge, therefore making writing our evaluation questions less time consuming and we could have used these materials more in our vodcasts too. We feel that we have improved our knowledge on the pop genre majorly since starting our research and construction, however there are undoubtedly still aspects of the genre that we are unfamiliar with, and so extra research would have maybe allowed us to fill this gap of knowledge.

Evaluation Question 3 - Audience

Q3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Our audience feedback gives us a direct insight into our target and secondary audiences and their views and critique on our texts, especially our music video. Through the production process of our texts we gathered constant audience feedback, gradually collecting this indicated exactly what we needed to achieve. We noticed that everyone had very different views and a combination of the target and secondary audiences ideas and feedback gave the best end result. 

When creating our products we had two target audiences in mind:

CORE AUDIENCE:

Our core audience is female 13-18 year olds. Mainly looking at the teen audience as popular music tends to most popular with this age range. As Atomic Kitten had a reunion 2013, this target audience also covers their band from when they were popular in the 90s and this audience will be interested in the 'new bonus tracks' we advertised on our digipak and magazine ads. This age dominates the people listening and buying chart music, and as we would hope there new songs would be in the charts we would want to target this audience. 

SECONDARY AUDIENCES:

Our secondary target audiences is the 'tween' audience, 8-12 year olds. When creating our video we made sure that our characters and artist stayed quite innocent in order to appeal to this secondary audience. This is also the age that the core audience would have been when Atomic Kitten was originally popular, so we know that they appealed to this age range in the past, and should still now. Another secondary audience we have is 19-24+, Atomic Kitten have been on TV spots like 'Loose Women', the demographic for this TV show being anchored clearly as middle aged women, definitely not our target audience. Our final secondary audience is men as we still are trying to appeal to aMASS MARKET. We did this by using aspects of the 'male gaze' theory, to try and get interest from a male demographic. Atomic Kitten also appealed to a mass market in the past, objectifying themselves in their videos. 

When researching the audience for Atomic Kitten and pop artists in general we found that they mostly target the female audience, usually teens. To promote their music they either appeared on radio spots or TV spots. They had a clear secondary audience as a lot of them also appeared in men's magazines such as 'Nuts' and 'FHM'. Compared to a lot of girl groups Atomic Kitten did seem to convey a certain amount innocence and stayed mostly true to the teen audience. However, there was definite uses of the male gaze theory in their videos.

The most successful way we found of gathering audience feedback was to show the individual or group our video or ancillary text and then proceed to film their reaction and ask them questions regarding this. This kind of feedback is good to look back on as from re-watching the video we can quickly remember the age, gender, and some of the other interests they may have through watching the video. Here is an example of audience feedback we gathered in this way.

As some people didn't want to be on video we just recorded their voices giving us feedback. As we wanted to gather as much audience feedback as possible, any kind of feedback, whatever form we were  given it in we were grateful for. 

One of the main ways we got constant audience feedback was through getting feedback from our media class. They are all in our primary target audience age range, and there are also a lot of boys in the class, making it easier for us to see if our texts apply to a mass market like we have hoped they would. Also by asking the media class we know they are very knowledgeable about the technology specifics that go into making our video, and therefore their feedback is very useful as it is direct and can be particular to an effect or tool we used when creating the texts. With them being accessible in every media class just to spare a few minutes to give feedback, although it wasn't all formally recorded like other feedback was from non class members, we could tweek certain aspects there and then making our texts always be improving and receiving constructive criticism.

The most important thing we gained from audience feedback was that original idea wasn't working. We were told from various different people, of different age ranges and gender that the narrative in our original rough cuts was not believable and it looked like a very 'student made' video and didn't have the professional feel that our video needed in order to be successful. We were also told that the cast in the video were not convincing or 'sassy' enough to look like a genuine girl band. From taking note from this feedback we made an attempt to try and salvage the video, however it just seemed to continue not to work, even after multiple reshoots. We had a big group discussion and decided that instead we should change to a british girl group, instead of the original 'Pussycat Dolls'. We did this because compared to the American girl groups, the British ones tend to be a lot less provocative therefore it would make it a lot easier for our performance sections convincing. We chose the group Atomic Kitten as they reunited in 2013 making them very relevant and had the fan support to help us with gathering audience feedback. As we chose an upbeat ballad style song as our new idea we had to do fresh audience research to develop the conventions and style that we would need to portray.

When pitching our new idea we got a lot of feedback on how to develop our ideas and they gave us some additional good narrative ideas, as well as helping us to anchor our idea so we could start to plan in depth our new idea, as we were at this point getting close to deadlines and needed to work fast and efficiently to get everything done. Luckily, this track is the same genre (pop) as our first idea so we could use a lot of the audience research we already had and some of the audience feedback that were telling us what works effectively for a pop girl group. 

We used Fan Forums and Websites to get audience feedback, as well as to research our artist, genre and audience. On these fan forums such as 'fanpop' we would ask the fans questions and also display our rough cuts here. This was very useful as we knew that the people who were responding to this feedback genuinely cared about the outcome of our video and wanted Atomic Kitten to be portrayed in a positive light. However, on a lot of fan forums we didn't get very much response so we tended to opt to get feedback from social networking sites, as they are more widely used.

The theory of Web 2.0 and websites and the internet becoming interactive and user generated reflects the way we gathered audience feedback. Websites such as YouTube and Blogger have very active comment sections, helping us gather instant feedback and it being very easy to screenshot and evidence when displaying the feedback we get and also sharing it with the rest of our group. Other social networking websites such as Twitter and Instagram also were very useful in this aspect, especially twitter as we can instantly get messages out to our audience as well as them giving us instant feedback also. It also helped us to know our audience on a more personal level and recognise the people that consistently give us feedback and comment on the progress we are making with constructive points or praise. However, social networking sites are very vast and this means that it is difficult to target a niche market on them. To overcome this problem we added tags to our work to make sure that the audience that are interested in what we are producing can easily find us.

Here are some examples of the audience feedback we received and how we acted on this feedback. One piece of feedback we gathered that was one of the most useful was that the shots of us laughing could work very effectively. Even though this is a common convention with boy bands, showing them 'messing about' and having a laugh, this also gave our video a more lighthearted feel. We also had a lot of this footage already from outtakes of our shoots, and this was a great and effective way of utilising this footage. This feedback also really helped with our ancillary texts as well as our music video. Due to this positive feedback of a one off shot of us laughing in our main video we chose to use a similar image of us laughing and smiling as the front cover of our digipak. We also got good feedback from this saying it worked effectively here also. 

We have also had a lot of negative feedback that has really helped us improve our work. An example of this is that we hadn't edited out any shaky shots that had accidentally been left in our video. Due to us being so deep in editing we often failed to notice them and had been concentrating on the cutting and effects rather than basic features that make a music video look unprofessional such as shaky shots. As soon as we were informed about this from various different people we extensively went through our video, noting down any shaky shots shown and either replacing them with alternative footage shots, stabilising them using tools on final cut pro or doing our best to cross cut away from them. This made a big impact on how professional our video came across and how neat it looked. When having to carefully cut the video to avoid this we also took the opportunity to cut more to the beat as this was also some feedback that we received. By gathering a number of different peoples feedback at once, by asking a large group we could look at our video and evaluate which of these points were useful and edit in all their points accordingly. This saved a lot of time doing it this way and also meant that each of our rough cuts significantly had changed. 

An example of how we used  and really utilised our audience feedback was when we were undecided about the ending of our video. We had two alternative endings, which we were very undecided about so we made a short vodcast showing both endings. We then showed this video to our target audience, gathering feedback on which they thought was the better ending. Eventually we decided on ending the video with the three members of the girl group, as this was the more popular choice when asking audience members. This audience feedback ended up being very valuable to the success and end result of our video.

Our first rough cut had significantly less effects than our final cut. When delivering our first rough cut to our audience, mainly our media class, they said that we needed to experiment more with the vast range of effects that final cut pro has to offer. After doing this we realised that transitions and additional effects didn't clutter our work like we presumed they would but instead improved them, making our video flow better and show a good contrast between the narrative and performance sections specifically. 

We also got extensive feedback on our ancillary texts. It was very easy and useful to get feedback on our ancillary texts as they are just one image being shown rather than a video, and we could display multiple images on a page and ask the audience to pick out their favourite or give feedback on them all. From this feedback we changed a number of image chosen for our magazine ads. Originally we had a image of half of one of the band members faces. Our audience research revealed that they didn't think this was effecting and an extreme long shot with that member of the band in a feminine pose was much more effective and professional looking. Some of the feedback we received on the digipak we also rejected though. Looking at past Atomic Kitten videos we noticed on their digipaks they tended to for a very simplistic look. We also wanted to do this, as it also made the digipak look very clean cut and professional. We thought that by over complicating the image it would start to look messy and when viewing it it would be hard to concentrate on the main features we wanted to draw attention to, for example the main image and artists name. Our audience feedback suggested that we layer more complex images and make the image, on the inside especially, a lot more dynamic and have a lot more going on. We disagreed with this and thought that the multiple layering of the petals and candles were effective enough and anything more may ruin the aesthetics of the digipak and the simple theme we carried across all our ancillary texts. 

The Uses and Gratifications theory (mainly Blumler and Katz) states that the power lies with the audience, not the producers. This theory helps to emphasise what audiences do with media texts, whether they choose to reject or use them. As the audience are in control of how they consume it helps people with issues such as relaxation, emotional satisfaction and other issues such as personal and social identity. By getting constant feedback throughout the production of our texts we can learn about how the audience are responding to our text and whether it deals with any of the issues above and whether they reject or use it. By knowing the audiences reaction we can help to improve parts of our video to for example create emotional satisfaction. This also links into Stuart Hall's theory of how the audience read a text and whether they understand the preferred reading which the producers hopes comes across. As we used little intertextuality in our video, we think that the audience is likely to get the preferred reading of our video and easily follow the narrative that runs throughout it. This is one of the questions that we specifically asked our audience when getting feedback and all of the people we asked said they completely understood what was going on and took on our preferred reading. I think this is mainly due to when we first started editing we initially made a linear cut of the narrative to make sure it had continuity and would work as a continuous story line being watched. 

Despite getting feedback from people in person being an effective way of gathering feedback, the growing impact of digitisation helps us to gain feedback on a much larger scale. Due to all the feedback we gathered it helped us to improve our products to the standard we were eventually happy with and that become our eventual final products. Audience feedback helps blur the line between audience and producer, making our products more user generated as the audience influenced the outcome of the video and ancillary texts. Without our audience feedback the view we had of our products would have been very biased and we may have struggled to have the level of self criticism necessary to make the texts as effective as possible. Also as we are all female in the group it was very important to get a constant male perspective to make sure the mass market was always being considered and targeted. When creating a product you can often get very into it and zone out. Because of this deep concentration there may be key aspects wrong with the text that you are overlooking in order to finish the part you are working on. By asking people for audience feedback it also allowed us to stand back and look at our work whilst other people were and gave us more of an opportunity to be self critical and evaluate how successful certain parts were and the audiences reaction to the video. 

Evaluation Question 4 - Technologies

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

QR Code and Viral Video
Viral Video
For our original production track 'When I Grow Up by The Pussycat Dolls', we came up with the idea of a viral video, to increase interaction with our audience. Here is our promotional viral video below:

Us choreographing a dance routine for the PCD video

The viral video idea was to use the basic dance (choreographed by ourselves) and get fans to send in clips of themselves performing the dance in the video or a dance of their choice to the chorus of the song. It was also an idea to get them to send in videos of themselves singing along with the song. This idea gave us a platform for creating a fan-based video using the footage which fans could send in, and meant that the whole video and production was more user-generated, involving willing fans in the success of the production.
   In relation to the user generated content, we can argue that we reflected the web 2.0 theory by doing this. This theory states that the web is increasingly becoming user-generated as audiences can now easily contribute to the production of texts as a result of digitisation. We feel that the idea of getting fans to send in videos of themselves dancing to the same song allowed our target audiences to become involved and, particularly with the primary audience, makes them want to watch other videos and listen to other Pussycat Dolls tracks.
   Although we didn't actually carry this through into our new and final production for 'It's OK - Atomic Kitten', we still feel that by initially doing this, we have added to the audience interaction element of our production as a whole. On our target audiences, it has the effect of intriguing them and making them feel as though they want to watch the video repeatedly, perhaps to learn the dance, and become involved in the process of production. This is important as it creates a connection and relationship between the audience and ourselves, and so it makes them feel as though they have a say, and can easily influence our decisions.
   By doing this, we have increased our use of technology by creating extra videos on Final Cut Pro X, whilst also nicely linking the 3 texts together. If the video intrigues and involves the audience, then they will be more likely to want to research our production to discover more information about the viral video and to enjoy the digipak and mag ads, as well as learning about how we have progressed and the stages at which we're at.

QR Code

Our QR code

One of the major features which we used on our digipak and mag ads was a QR code. We used it on our teaser mag ads especially, as we wanted to anchor the use of Barthes' concept of narrative enigma. The use of the QR code and the lack of writing intrigues the audience more, making them more likely to want to scan the code to discover what the ad is actually advertising. It provides an interactive link to our groups Twitter page, which was achievable through the development of digitisation. Having it link straight to our Twitter page keeps our fans and target audiences updated on our progress, whilst also proving links to our other texts.

our twitter page

We also used it on our digipak, for some of the same purposes. Narrative enigma wasn't used in our digipak, as it needed to advertise the groups comeback, but we still included it so that the fans who but the digipak can also have access to a quick and easy link to our Twitter, to find out about the groups comeback and to see what else may have been happening.



   Here is a short clip demonstrating how our QR code works. Poppy scanned the code using her smartphone, and it instantly comes up with a link to the MKTP Productions Twitter page. The increase in digitisation has allowed smartphones to cope with this kind of technology, and in society today a huge number of people are using smart phones, making our QR code available to a mass market.




BLOGGER

We used the website blogger to create a blog and show our research, planning and development. We uploaded posts fairly consistently throughout the production of our music video, digi-pak and magazine adverts, showing drafts and out progression. We embedded video, audio and images alongside these text posts to make it more interactive and interseting. It is easy to link to other websites using Blogger, as well as creating links lists to previous posts, which was extremely helpful when we needed to refer back to our research. Blogger uses the concept of Web 2.0 as it helps not only the user but the reader to interact by posting comments on posts. The comment section on Blogger is extremely helpful as it gives us instant feedback and constructive criticism. As we create and produce posts ourselves we are able to display exactly what we want our target audience to see. we also used other blogs from around the world for research purposes as they are so easily accessible.

YOUTUBE

We used YouTube in a number of different ways throughout our research and planning. We uploaded rough cuts, sample footage and vodcasts which we can the embed them straight to our blogs. YouTube is also very useful for research as we can watch artists' previous music videos and get an idea of the conventions of certain acts and genres, As it is such a vast website it is more than likely to have video content for whatever you are looking for. YouTube, like blogger, is and interactive website with an active comment section, which is another opportunity for audience feedback. 

DIVSHARE

Divshare is a website used for uploading files online. We found this website useful as we can upload audio, word documents, images, videos and then embed them onto our blogs. We used Divshare predominantly to embed audio and word documents, and the final effect on Blogger looks neat and professional. It isn't over complicated and is easy to use on Blogger. However we found the uploading process onto Divshare is more difficult for audio documents in particular so often we opted to use a website called PodOmatic instead.

PODOMATIC

Podomatic is very similar to Divshare however it is specific to podcasts and audio files, and uploading files is much simpler with PodOmatic. Adding podcasts to our blog gives our audience a different way to view information. This helps keep the blog interesting instead of just being simple boring text. We mainly used podcasts to talk about our idea development and keep our audience updated. 

FAN FORUMS AND WEBSITES

We used fan forums and websites to further research our artist and their fan base. We learnt exactly what the audience want and how they like the band to be portrayed. We also shared links to rough cuts and any ideas we had about the video, the mag ads or digipak to receive feedback and constructive critcism. 

INSTAGRAM

We used the very popular social networking site Instagram to keep our audience updated on our progress. Instagram is extremely interactive platform as you are able to like, share, and repost pictures as well as commenting. this large platform allows us to expand our audience. You can also add tags to pictures making them easier to find by posting teaser pictures of our work. We are also building up the audience for the expected release of the video. 

GMAIL

We used gmail for two main reasons in our research and planning. Through Gmail, we contacted the record label to ask for rights to use the audio of their track in the video. We also used it for contacting our cast in a professional way. Gmail is connected to our Blogger and YouTube accounts, which means our audience can find us easily. 

FACEBOOK

We used arguably the most popular social networking site Facebook to contact and talk amongst our production group. However we felt it would be unprofessional to contact the cast in this way.




TWITTER
Twitter was extremely useful during the production of our video, magazine ads and digipak. We received audience feedback through Twitter as well as promoting our production company. By writing short tweets, we can quickly get messages out and add hashtags to our work, making our production company easy to find.

MAGAZINE WEBSITES
We used magazine websites to search for previous magazine adverts that Atomic Kitten had featured. We researched the types of publications we would want our magazine ads in. We also searched these websites for figures of their sales to anchor our target audience.

CONSTRUCTION AND EXHIBITION

HD CAMERA
To film our music video and take pictures for the digipak we used a HD camera. The camera we used was a Canon Legria HF R36. we used a HD camera to get the best quality footage possible. A lot of HD cameras are reasonably priced, making them accessible to a wide range of people.

USB and SD cards
Usb sticks are extremely useful to transfer the work to and from home and school.

Final Cut Pro x

Final Cut Pro X was the software that we used for creating our video. It has a wide range of effects, titles and editing tools which we used to shape our video into almost exactly how we wanted it. One of the main effects that we used throughout the video was layering, which was one of the more complicated techniques to complete, as we had to make sure that the opacity of the shots were just right, and that the layering blended well with the underlying shot, so as to maintain the continuity of the editing. Another effect which we used on more than one occasion was the split screen, as it offered an alternative to layering whilst still showing more than one shot at a time, and also helped to portray the characters' emotion and thoughts effectively. Because we have used this software before, our skills and knowledge have been greatly enhanced and we have been able to use more effects and tools than we have done previously, because we have become more familiar with its navigation and the outcomes of all the possible choices. However, there were still some tools that required outside help from classmates and online tutorials as we couldn't work them ourselves or they weren't achieving what we wanted. In some cases, we had to re-think sections of the video and edit them according to what we could carry out rather than what we wanted to achieve at the end. This software is becoming more frequently used by major film producers, as it offers a massive variety of effects and alternative transitions, to make videos more interesting and fun to watch.

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop was used for creating our Digipak and Magazine Advertisements. I had previously used Photoshop and so I was relatively familiar with the software, however I did need reminding on how to carry out the more complicated techniques. Once I has re-familiarised myself with the different tools and effects, I was able to begin editing our products and putting them all together, and our final products were completed to a high standard because of the capabilities of this software. Because I was already fairly familiar with this software, I didn't take me long to get started, however some members of our group were confused and overwhelmed by the tools available and so it took them longer to get used to navigating it. For this reason only, it may not be the most appropriate software to use for such major products if it is the users first time using it, as it can take a while to get used to.

YouTube 

As well as for research and planning, we used YouTube for production and exhibition. The website provided us with a platform to upload rough cuts, sample footage, audience feedback and vodcasts, which we could then embed onto our blogs. YouTube also links to Final Cut Pro, as we could export our videos off of Final Cut Pro straight onto our YouTube profiles, which proved very time efficient. John McMuria analysed content on YouTube and discovered that the most frequently watched videos involved white middle class and that minorities do not tend to be recognised as much. After researching his findings, we decided to promote our work on other platforms as well as YouTube, to make sure that our video was reaching people of all ages, gender, ethnicities and religions.

Evaluation

Blogger 

We used Blogger for our evaluations as well as research and planning. The use of links lists made finding previous research to anchor points made in our answers much more convenient and less time consuming. We have also created our evaluation questions on Blogger, using both text form and embedding videos and other types of files, which ties in all of our work completed over the past few months.

Final Cut Pro 

Final Cut Pro was used again for vodcasts to be included in our evaluation questions. We recorded ourselves speaking and then dropped this into a new project, before adding screenshots and titles, so that viewers can easily follow the points being made. Because there is an inbuilt record tool, it made it easier for us to establish these videos and we have been using it for many other video that we have created and so it was simple and quick to put together.

VLC Media Player

To include short clips in our evaluation vodcasts, we used the VLC Media Player. This software was pre-installed into the macs that we work on so all we needed to do was to open it up and press record. This proved to be very useful as it added an extra visual element into the vodcast rather than straight images and it can visually demonstrate points being made, making it easier to follow for the viewer.

Screen Capture

Screen capture has been an essential tool for our evaluation questions. You can download it off one of many sites online and as soon as it has downloaded it is ready for use. You open up the screen or image that you want to screenshot, then you simply open up the application and capture the region of the screen that you need. Screenshots have been essential for all the vodcasts that we have created, but for the evaluation questions they're even more important as we needed to be able to clear back up our points. Taking screenshots as we developed our products proved to be very useful and less time consuming, as we already had them when it came to needing them.