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

Before I began the planning process of my ancillary tasks, I undertook research to identify the conventions of the type of products I intended to create.

Website
For my website I created four web pages; Home, The Band, Gallery and News. From my previous research I identified the common pages within a band website. From here I could recognise the content and layout of each of the pages I planned to create. By undertaking this research I was able to create a website which consisted of elements that challenged and developed conventions of existing websites.

I identified that the home page of a alternative rock band website consists of the features of what can be found on each of the pages. Therefore I included featured such as news articles, upcoming tour dates and a hyperlink and hotspot to the image gallery.

In addition, I included a flash slideshow which includes advertising banners about their new merchandise, a radio interview and their new special album collection. I challenged this convention as this feature has been used in some existing websites, however I also developed it because mine automatically changes instead of ones that I recognised from existing websites which are controlled by the user by selecting the slide. I used this element to improve the attraction because the animation of the images catches the user's attention.

Here are some of the images that are a part of the slideshow:

Since the discovery of Twitter, a common convention of professional websites is social feeds from fans to the artist/band. I used this feature and included hyperlinks from each tweet display on the home page to the official Twitter website.

The majority of the websites that I analysed had the navigation menu located at the top of the page, in addition they consisted of rollover buttons to improve the interactivity that the user has with the website. I therefore challenged this convention and located my menu at the top and each of the buttons change background and text colour when they are rolled over. However, I developed this convention by included the menu at the bottom of the page as well as the top. This ensured extra navigation for the user as they did not need to relocate to the top of the page to navigate to a different page.

Navigation bar with rollover buttons:

Navigation bar at bottom of page:

In addition, I included a video of behind the scenes of their newest video which is a common convention of all website of our chosen genre. This improved the variety of multimedia features that my website had, therefore improving its interactivity.

My website consists of a professional layout as my image gallery contains images of identical sizes and are laid out in an effective way. I have also developed this convention by making each thumbnail a hyperlink which navigates to a larger view of the image. This improved the usability of the image gallery and enables the user to see two different views of each photo.

I developed the convention of including an image gallery by inserting an image slideshow to the page. This meant that the user had two different methods to view the images which also improved the usability of my website.

The image slideshow changes on a timer and loops six images:

For the news page of my website I alternated the colour of the boxes to distinguish between the headings and the article so that the content was clearly laid out. This makes it easy to read and understand because the users can understand what the different colours of boxes and fonts have been used for. In addition, to make the page look professional I have aligned all of the boxes and text appropriately so that it all matches and nothing is out of place.

I have also developed this convention by including images which link to the topic of the article. This improves the user's understanding and breaks up the large blocks of text.

For the header of the website I have used the font style from my groups style guide to display the name of the band and for the rest of the text I have used Ariall. This convention differentiates the text and establishes it as the band name. This was a common convention of real media texts as they have used logos or different font styles to distinguish the title of the band.

Here is the font I have used for the header which is located at the top of each of the web pages:

Bus Stop Advert

I learned that bus stop adverts contain little information and achieve advertising by stating the key details. Therefore I used a minimal amount of information to develop this convention by stating the key details which is the band name, the event and contact details.

I also identified that they use large text to make the key information to stand out the name of the business or brand is shown smaller. Therefore for my advert I have put the band name smaller than the text stating the festival that they are headlining at.

They also use the colours that are associated with the business or the topic of the advert. Therefore I used the

colours associated to the band and the colour scheme that me and the rest of my group established for our ancillary tasks. I used an effect that had colours similar to the dark grey/blue we have all used, in addition I used red and white for the text.

For realism I have included the reading festival logo, in addition I have used short tag lines to make the information clear and stand out.

This layout of information makes it easier for the user to quickly read because for this type of advert it needs to be short and to the point because if they are simply walking past they do not have time to read lengthy pieces of information.

EVALUATION - How effective is the combination of my main and ancillary texts?

To combine the main and ancillary texts within my group, the most important factor we had to think about was the genre of the music we were undertaking. By identifying the conventions of alternative rock we were able to establish the likely structure and mise-en-scene of the video which could then be implemented into our ancillary texts.

At the start of our project, myself and my group identifed a style for which the ancillary texts should follow which included colours and font styles. The colour scheme consisted of a dark blue/grey, black and white and the fonts we chose to use was Skins & Bones from dafont.com and Arial.

Using this dark colour scheme matches the dark locations used throughout the video i.e. the studio where the band is playing which shows a link between the two texts. Here is where this colour scheme has been used in the ancillary texts:

Dark locations of band within the video:

 Dark locations of narrative within the video:

In addition we undertook a photoshoot at the studio to collect the band photos for the ancillary texts. This ensured that the costumes, instruments and location in the photos are incorporated within the music video.We took a large number of photos and decided that these were the only photos that we would use to ensure this is kept consistent throughout the texts. For our individual products we have edited the images, however they still have the same content.

Here are some of the photos, some of them I have edited to use for the image gallery page on my website.

The guitar matches the one that is used and featured in the music video.

Here is where similar images have been used on each of the ancillary texts:

Here the same image has been used on the front cover of the calendar and the tour poster.

Similar images have been used for album poster and magazine front cover.

The calendar and poster use very similar photos, in addition this image has also been used inside the digipak.

The colours from the images within the slideshow on the home page match the colour scheme:

The colour scheme has been reinforced on each web page with the blue/grey border, black background and white text. In addition, I used red text and borders to link to the girl's red coat in the video, plus this improved the overall appearance of the pages as without the red it may have come across dull.

EVALUATION - Analysis of Ancillary Texts

Here is the home page of my website and Kate's magazine cover. Each product uses the same colour scheme of the dark blue/grey, red, black and white. For my home page I have used the dark blue/grey colour for the border of each of the web pages and the background colour of some of the boxes. I have used black as the background colour and overlapped this with boxes and layers of text and images. The colour grey is used as background colour on the magazine front cover with a black border.  Both products use the colours red and white for all of the text including the headings. The main images on each of the products are very similar as the band are set out in the same positions with the lead singer in the foreground and the other two members in the background.

Both products use white strokes, the magazine uses them on the rectangular shapes that contain the coverlines which reinforces the shape on top of the background and this technique has also been used on the website to highlight the social feeds section at the bottom of the page.

The alignment on the home page of the website is good, each of the boxes and features on the page are aligned with each other. This is a similar feature on the magazine cover as each of the coverlines on the left hand side are lined up together. The bar code at the bottom is also lined up with the cover lines. By including these elements ensures both products look professional and follow the conventions of real media texts.

The only negative element between both of the products is that the website uses Skins & Bones for the heading which is the font we established in the style guide, however the magazine cover uses Impact and therefore these do not match. Other than this slight feature, the colour scheme, layout and content link together well and therefore both of these products work together professionally.

EVALUATION - Completed Promotional Package

IN THIS PICTURE: Printscreens of website, bus advert, calendar, two posters, magazine front cover, DVD cover, bus stop advert and a digipak.

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1. Printscreens of website/Bus Stop Advert/Bus Advert (My ancillary texts)
2. Poster/DVD Cover
3. Magazine Front Cover/Website Home Page
4. Bus Stop Advert/Poster/ Magazine Front Cover
5. Poster/Bus Advert

EVALUATION - Audience Feedback

During this project I have obtained regular feedback from my peers and target audience to identify the strengths and weaknesses of my ancillary tasks and my music video. By identifying the weaknesses I could recognise what could be undertaken  to improve them.  

On one occassion that I received feedback, my peers provided me with advice on how to improve the cutting between shots, for example the use of a fade to white transition between each band shot to narrative or vice versa to demonstrate to the audience that the video is interlinking between the two.

They were also able to identify ways in which the narrative could be shown in the video to made the aspect of it much clearer to the audience. This involved footage of Facebook to explain that the girl in the video had come out of a relationship and so had the boy. This helped to demonstrate that each character was lonely and needed somebody which is the concept of our narrative.

In addition, I also used this technique during the development of my website and bus adverts. For my bus advert I initially sketched a design by using the results I found from researching into the typical conventions of a bus advert. I constructed this using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator and then seeked feedback from my peers to recognise how it could be improved.

Here was my original bus advert:

My peer said they thought it was essential for the name of the band to be included in the advert and gave me feedback on what they thought was the best way to lay all of the content out.

I took this advice on board and made the changes. Here is my developed bus advert:

Feedback for completed music video

I also obtained feedback from members of our target group which is 16-40. I showed a number of members aged 17/18 our completed music video and asked them to give me their feedback.

Here is the feedback from one of the members:

They said that they enjoyed the video due to the wide variety of band shots and footage to show the narrative which are typical conventions of an alternative rock music video. In addition they thought that this narrative represented the meaning of the song which allowed them to relate to the video and lyrics.

I also interviewed another member of my target group. I asked them what they liked about the video, what they thought of the editing and mise-en-scene and if they thought there was any ways that it could be improved.

Here is what they answered:

From this feedback I have learned that our video uses the conventions of alternative rock very well  i.e. the costumes of the band and the studio location for band shots which consists of all the instruments that would be expected. In addition, the structure of the video uses narrative and band shots which is commonly found in videos of this music genre.

The facebook aspect of the video enables the target audience to relate to this social networking, therefore making it suitable for the youngest end of the age group we intended to target the video at.

Additionally the costumes of our two characters in the narrative portray the concept of the video well as the girl is wearing a red coat which makes her stand out in crowds and the boy is wearing grey which makes him part of the crowd and shows why the girl does not notice him until the end of the video.

The improvements that could be made are more close ups such as of guitar picks or the drum stick in order to give the band shots more variety.