Welcome to my blog!

Hello moderator. I hope you enjoy reading my blog, in which I have documented my journey through my A2 media course up to my final product- a music video for the song 'I Never Told You What I Do For A Living' by My Chemical Romance.

Final Product - Music Video

Below is the music video that I have spent this year putting together. It was equal parts fun and challenging to create, and I hope you will enjoy it.

Ancillary Text - DVD Cover

To create my DVD cover I looked through google to find other examples of films featuring kidnapping/murder/stalking to determine what kinds of conventions were featured. The main covers I looked at were Taken and Play Misty For Me.

Some key similarities I noticed between the two covers were:

• The frequent use of the colour red. This heavily suggests danger.
• As well as red, both covers use a lot of black shades. This palette of minimal colours highlights the mood and atmosphere the film will create.
• On the spine is a miniature image of the DVD cover. This is to help easily identify the film when it is on a shelf.
• The placement of the title is unlike the regular centered title that is found on many books and other DVDs. The font size varies, and the placement means the title 'becomes' a part of the cover.

For my own DVD cover I have used a similar palette to the conventional horror themes- shades of grey, black, and red. I used posterize on each photo to make it more tonal. This also means the knife on the cover becomes an ominous black shape, leaving the audience guessing. It also made a good background for the band title, again in red to highlight the danger. The font is from the original My Chemical Romance logo, so fans of the band will recognize it easily. The age rating is clearly displayed to warn underage viewers, as well as a small information box to inform them of what mature content to expect. The audience statement on the back is there to advertise and persuade the audience to buy it.

Ancillary Text - Website

My first ancillary text is a website, created using wix.com, for the band whose music I have created a music video for. You can see it here.
The initial homepage has a slideshow of the band during the different albums they have made, so the audience can view their progress throughout their career and perhaps recognize them from certain albums. Below that is a title declaring my music video, which will prompt my audience to scroll down and see the linked Youtube video. Below that is a button which links to their album on iTunes.

Alongside their logo and band title at the top of the page is a bar to show various other pages that can be accessed. 'Meet The Band' will take them to a page where photos of the four band members (whose outfits correspond with the album that I've used in my video) and quotes can be found. The quotes inform the audience about what each band member is like.

The next tab is a gallery of photos of the band throughout the years to show how they and their music has changed and developed. You can click to enlarge each one.

Under 'More' is the sub tab 'What's Happening Now?' which will take the viewer to a quick paragraph and collection of photos of what each band member is doing after the split of My Chemical Romance. There are then links to each of the member's new work, along with links to their social networking sites to make it easy for the audience to discover more if they're interested.

Evaluation Question 1

In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop, Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

I have made a director's cut of my music video to answer this question, discussing my influences and reasoning behind some of the decisions I made.

Evaluation Question 2

How Effective Is The Combination Of Your Main Product And Ancillary Texts?

For question two, I have recorded a podcast that you can view on my Youtube channel by clicking this link.

Evaluation Question 3

What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?

I created a survey using Typeform to gather feedback from my audience, which I will use to make a critical analysis of my music video, and note down what conventions succeeded in engaging my audience.

The questions I asked were:

• How old are you?
• Did you understand the plot of my music video?
• Do you think the video complimented the music track?
• Do you think the DVD cover complimented the music video?
• Do you think the artist website complimented the music video?
• How did the music video make you feel?
• Would you watch my music video again?

I feel I reached my target audience as all respondents were within the ideal age range that I had made the music video for. All of my audience understood the plot also, which is important in getting my message across. However, there was a variation in responses about whether the music track and video fitted together, and I suspect this is because the track is quite fast all the way through, whereas my video starts rather slow. 

The audience believed my ancillary texts complimented my music video. One respondent said the website only fitted 'to a degree', but the majority of the response was positive. 

Two audience members refused to comment on how the video made them feel, and I am unsure whether this is a positive or negative response. The fact that I got the response from others of it being 'sad' and 'thought provoking' indicated to me that I got my message across, and because people said that they felt 'engaged' and 'amused', and that it was 'weird' means that I managed to keep a hint of comedy and disbelief that keeps younger audiences entertained.

The majority of respondents said they would watch it again, with only two deciding 'maybe'. Because of the mostly positive response I deem my music video a success in engaging with my audience and achieving the responses I hoped to get.