Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Fashion

This Hip-Hop/Rap industry is continuously rapidly growing so to compete in the genre it is not just all about the music. Fashion is a very big part of this genre, if you compare it to rock and indie music it is the complete opposite when it comes to fashion and style. 

To gain influence we took a look different artists in the same genre to C.DOT. A$AP Rocky, he is a big character in the hip-hop industry with a unique style. He is linked with other artists from the A$AP mob which also have there own clothing range which is online, this is an example how artists use there music to promote clothing and be their own style. 

As most of the music hip-hop artists write is to do with money in most videos there will be a shot of them wearing very expensive clothes this is how the hip-hop artists like to represent the music they produce and celebrate there lifestyle through clothing

Especially with our chosen song being "Nikes on my Feet" the actual song itself it all to do with fashion. With this being the song title it was vital for us that we included many shots of different nike trainers to go with the music video. 

Website

Digipak




Editing Styles

The genre we chose often chooses to focus the camera mid shot. This may be seen as unprofessional in other genres but works well with rap music. Especially as the first shot as it adds enigma to the character.

To make our video more authentic we added features to make it look as if its on MTV, this included a channel snippet in the start and I logo seen throughout which can be seen below. This is a example of how we have challenged current media products in the industry.

One of our most popular effects within the group was taken from Justin Biebers "Where R U Now" video. This was a very time consuming effect to create but we was very happy with it in the end. Rap music video's tend to not include many effects of this kind this is how as a group using the ideas from the video to input into ours. It challenges the real rap world in using these type of effects and is something that we are proud to put in our music video and challenge the real rap world.




This is the practice of the "Where R U Now" it was imported in to premier and adding a trippy background. Once Connor had exported the video, Connor opened it up in Photoshop. This allowed Connor to access individual frames. He then continued to use the 'brush tool' to draw on each frame. This was time consuming but if he was to implement onion skinning, Connor would be able to make a fluid effect. A looped version of about 30 frames is available to view below. This took around an hour to do which was time consuming but it was worth it. Below is the first use of when we first started to create the effect.




I was looking for effects for the music video and I came across replication effect. Instead of making the videos separate when they are replicated, it sews them together meaning I can zoom and rotate the video as a whole, rather than the reduplicated videos individually. This will be a running theme throughout the video. This was also an effect that is not seen a lot in the rap industry which challenges current media products.

Genre Characteristics

The genre for our chosen song "Nikes on my Feet" was Hip-Hop/Rap, to portray the character of C.DOT to our audience we would have to include the characteristics from that genre into his appearance, performance and style. For example this shot below shows C.DOT with a bottle of Bombay Sapphire which we got feedback from that they did not understand the use of Bombay Sapphire however.....

Here is an example showing Wiz Khalifa and others drinking Bombay Sapphire who is a very popular artist in our genre, this is a very popular drink therefore we will be keeping it in the video defending the different shots of C.DOT drinking it.




With particular rap artists who are extremely talented it is only about the music, using Mac Miller as an example he does not show off his lifestyle and money he is simply about the music. This is also what we want to portray with C.DOT. You can also see this in our final music video that it is all about the performance and fashion. Looking at other similar videos in rap also many of the music videos tend to go back to their original roots in parts. We also aimed to do this filming parts of sub urban area's getting many scenic shots to show represent C.DOT. We also took reference from other artists such as Mac Miller our main inspiration, Chris Webby, Asther Roth and YelaWolf. These are the 4 main white rap artists who C.DOT fits in to. With the Rap industry being dominated by black males due to their culture and brand it is very hard for a white male to break into the rap industry. Eminem was the main break through in the 90's which encouraged many white males to do so but only a small few have succeeded. Therefore placing C.DOT in the rap industry highly challenges current media products who are booming in the rap industry and highly pushes the boundaries to if C.DOT would be a success in the real world or not.

Visual References

We gained our inspiration from this location from the Shutdown video by Skepta. I like this video mostly due to the setting and outfits which are used in the video. Barbican is a very busy area which is also the home of media so we thought this could be a very good landmark to film at which also has many great locations to film. My favourite shots are taken in the Barbican where we also shot from many high angles to get the best effects. I very much enjoyed filming in the Barbican due to the very chilled out atmosphere with hardly any noise which was perfect for Connor to perform. Also there was many other people filming around so Connor felt more comfortable filming in this location. This challenges usual conventions of rap music as when the artist visits their original roots it is usually a very rough are when the artist has come from nothing and become very successful. However in this case the Barbican is a very expensive high class area, this reflects the recent changes in Rap and Hip-Hop where the artist is more keen to show off his money than anything else. However C.DOT would struggle to do this due to him being a up and coming artist.





Here is some images of the Barbican below in the actual part we filmed our video which you will be able to see in our final video .

Interview

With SBTV a very popular fast growing channel on YouTube created by Jamal Edwards OBE, this is where many people are interviewed and grow as an artist on this channel. Therefor after contemplating this we thought it was very important to get C.DOT onto SBTV to promote himself and get him infront of million of viewers. Many popular artists are always interviewed so it was vital that we included a interview so we could relate to a real media product. The questions were wrote by ourselves but C.DOT was un aware what questions we would ask before so it would come across as a very natural interview and not prepared.




Performance Based Video

For our music video we chose to do the majority of our video all performance with some natural shots of C.DOT in public and of scenery. We chose to go with the performance style due to the genre of our chosen genre. In the rap industry the majority of the videos are all performance this is due to the artist wanting to express himself and show the audience that he is a complete talent. Especially of the low budget rap videos tend to me performance based. Below is "Say So" by Wiz Khalifa he is predominantly on his own throughout the video just performing on his own which we were highly criticized about as the comments were he shouldn't be on his own for most of the video, but here below is a great example of how it is normal for an artist in our genre to be on his own throughout although it is not as common this is how we challenge the real media products that are currently in the industry

Q2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

What is the purpose of a digipak?

Our digipak was created in order to do the following things:

To promote the album

To list the content of the album

To make the CD catch the consumers attention

To tell us something about the musician and the music behind it

To create a message about the artist

To attract a wide target audience

The digipak below was intended to fit our genre like our music video and our website. We did this by researching various different digipak examples. Below is shown where we got our front cover idea from. Schoolboy Q's Oxymoron album is black and white, and it has him in the centre of the shot, although it does not show his face. Therefore we felt as though we could do this throughout our digipak as Connors face is never completely clear, he has his hands on his face to hide this aswell.

Therefore we felt as though we could do this throughout our digipak as Connors face is never completely clear, he has his hands on his face to hide this aswell.

What is the purpose of a website?

We created a website for a variety
of reasons: 

To advertise the latest album 

To give more of an insight into the artist himself

To give up to date news to fans

To sell merchandise 

To market songs which our artist has recorded

The website also goes along with the digipak at which throughout each individual page there is no clear face. The magazine article also does this, C.DOT has his hand over his face in the article. We felt as though this would be effective as C.DOT is not shown until the music video 20 seconds in, we wanted to create a feeling as though who is this person.

What is the purpose of a music video?

The purpose of creating our music video was to:

To make the audience remember the track and look to buy the music

To give the listener a better understanding of the song 

To entertain the audience
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes.

In our music video we used various examples which we would fit our genre throughout each individual task. Our music video similar to our digipak and website starts off in black and white and gradually goes to colour. This opening links this towards our digipak at which the front cover states the album cover. This is the opening 2 seconds of the music video, the website first page has a countdown towards the album release date. The digipak also has the album name on the front cover, the front cover is the first thing which the audience will see.

As shown below after carrying our our research we found that gold chains an teeth are often used in a variety of music videos such as ASAP Rocky's Peso music video, therefore in our music video we felt as though this would fit well with our artist C.DOT.

First Draft to Final Website and Digipak: The construction:

Synergy

C.DOT identity

As a new artist it was important that once we picked our song, Nikes on my feet, that we immediately began to create the star image of C.DOT. We felt as though it was imperative that we made sure that the way he performed, spoke in his interview and they way he looked matched our genre. The interview was a small marketing tool which is used in an everyday artist's life, to try and increase popularity by giving fans more in depth information to the artist behind the microphone. As you can see below there is a voice over of the interview at which C.DOT came across as though he was a rapstar.



The rapstar that we wanted to portray was a confident new artist who had only one sight which was to get to the very top. The interview is shown also on our website. The parallax which we created also supports the idea that C.DOT is star which loves the limelight. With his back to the audience, screaming his name with his arms out it creates a superstar image. The parallax is the background of our website aswell as the front cover of our digipak. C.DOT is in the centre of the shot, which resembles his image which shows he thinks he is best.

This the the Parralax which is the background for our website and the front cover of  the digipak.

Most rappers believe that they are the best with Kanye West calling himself, the biggest rockstar in the world as shown below.



The image of a rap star is heavily linked through the clothes that they wear. However each individual artist have there own trend. In the majority of music videos we research there was a variety of outfits in different locations. Therefore we wanted to make C.DOT have a range of clothing items which fitted towards the genre.

Q3: What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?

Who are our audience?

We decided to create a target audience for C.DOT as an artist in relation to his image aswell as his genre Hip hop/Rap. We created a primary, secondary and tertiary audience. Throughout each task, the music video, digipak and the digipak we attempted to reach these segmented audience. Below is our targeted audience at which also include some audience examples specifically.

Primary
Our primary audience is our main target and the most likely to enjoy our music. Therefore we segmented this through the use of age. We feel as though the genre hip hop, is youth based in the sense that it is a relatively new genre at which has only developed in the last 15-20 years. It is becoming increasingly popular however as there is a very competitive market out there due to the wind range of rap there is. Our primary target audience is between 16-24. This is a wide target audience as rap can attract many younger people and with the increasing ageing population, it is seen as anything up to 30 is still young. We think this because rap is quite personal to each individual and normally when you are slightly younger you listen to the main steam top 50 chart songs. When you are slightly older your music taste develops and therefore by targeting this audience you could find some people who are waiting for the next artist to agree with their taste buds. The internet these days are also heavily consumed by the younger generation as they have been brought up knowing nothing other than the internet. This makes younger people be able to find out more about new artists like C.DOT. We feel as though our main target audience between 16-24 is likely to be males as females most notably prefer pop music. The genre rap is also heavily dominated by male singers there are very little famous female rappers.

Secondary

Our secondary target audience is male's aged 12-15 years old. This is a young audience for the genre rap however with children using the internet from a young age and the genre itself becoming more popular in the charts, in time this age group could become an important fan base for many rap artists. The internet is a source of information and this could persuade the younger generation to become more interested in rap at an earlier age rather than listening to the charts. Female's at this young age are normally still heavily into pop music.

Tertiary

Our tertiary audience is male's aged from 25-30 years old. This is a small target audience as by this stage in their life's they know what type of music that they like and they have a job so they have limited time to become heavily into the genre. However due to rap being popular over the last 15-20 years people at that age may like that music.

First Draft Feedbacks

First Draft music video:

After showing our first draft to fellow peers we received a wide range of feedback although it was only our first draft which meant a lot would change from then, this was a good indicator to see whether certain things worked well with the genre or whether anything that may as a group we liked did not work to the rest of our fellow peers at which are all in our target audience ages 17 and 18 years old.  We had many comments about C.DOT drinking Bombay Sapphire not understanding the point of it. We justified the use of these shots through the famous rap artist Wiz Khalifa drinking Bombay Sapphire.

C.DOT Bombay Sapphire use:

The overall scores that we received from our feedback for our first draft was 30+ which is high level 3 and level 4. Below is overall scores:

30 marks - 1 person gave us this score

31 marks - 1 person gave us this score

34 marks - 4 people gave us this score

35 marks - 2 people gave us this score

37 marks - 2 people gave us this score

38 marks - 3 people gave us this score

39 marks - 1 person gave us this score

From these overall scores it shows us that the majority of our fellow peers who watched our latest music video draft felt as though we were a strong level 4. This shows us that our music video was liked by a wide range of people. 

We were given a set of positive feedback which was said by more than one person:

• Close ups of Connor work very well and shots link well with the speed of the video itself.
• Good use of the different variety of shots
• Good appropriate locations and costumes
• Performance is very good
• Good transitions and different techniques keep your entertained in the video

Negative feedback on the music video:

• The scene next to the card does not work, the cloth on Connors head was not a good choice of clothing
• Less shots inside the room 
• Less shots inside the dome
• Some lip syncing could be adjusted towards the end of the video
• Shots inside different rooms are of poorer quality, cereal killer cafe
• The gin doesn't work

From this wide range of feedback, we noticed that there was constraining views between different sets of people. For example the Bombay sapphire was judged however we have recently stated as to why we have the gin in the music video. However after looking at this feedback we know that maybe we need to change the quality of the image inside cereal killer cafe at which after looking at it again it is significantly weaker than our other footage.

First Draft Digipak:

We received our Digipak research on our first draft. Below is 10 peoples results from our fellow peers. They had to give positives and negatives on the Digipak and then say a score out of 10 from 1 - being poor to 10- excellent. At this first draft stage as a group we all scored this as 7 each, there was some of the quality of shots of connor which we didnt like. However after recieving our feedback we realised that the majority of people gave this an 8, which is higher than what we was expecting. From this we realised that we did not need to change to much of the digipak. After taking a couple more photoshoots we found a shot which we felt would boost our digipak.

Our overall scores were:

First Draft Website Feedback:

Below is feedback which was received after showing fellow media peers and our teachers our website. There was no guidelines as to what people would comment on, this was mainly based upon peoples own view and there own opinion. They had to give positives and negatives of the website and then say a score out of 10 from 1 - being poor to 10- excellent. From this feedback we realised that we needed to change a lot of our website as there was a very mixed response at which people liked some bits but the website was let down by the first layout. Therefore we decided that our website needed to look more professional aswell as fitting our genre which in the first draft it was pointed out that it did not match this.

Final video feedback:

Audience Feedback : Music video questionnaire

Below is 5 male and female audience members at which answered the questions above, in a honest fashion. I felt as though this was a very good method of obtaining good feedback, as i made them watch the video individually and then asked them questions. This allowed them to give their first opinion aswell as what instantly popped into there head. I asked a variety of questions which gave us a good insight as to what our audience thought about the video aswell as whether they actually watch music videos. The majority said that the do watch music videos.



Below is small 4 people focus group with two females and males split evenly to get different views and opinions. I found a focus group quite a difficult method of gaining good audience feedback as people do not always give honest views they are sometimes influenced by other peoples decisions. The best information I gained from the focus group was that three out of the four thought that there was too many cuts in shots and that there should have been more locations if there is more cuts.






Online Survey:

Above was our online survey at which we gave to a wide target audience which 8 people answered from different ages and gender. Our primary target audience had a limited response with only 12% being in that 18-24 section. Therefore this survey mainly targeted our tertiary and secondary target audiences. This survey therefore gives a good example whether or not it appeals to different audiences than shown above, where our primary target audience is situated.

The majority of our respondents were female which can give us an insight into whether it may be popular to the female audience who are mainly into pop music. 

Our respondents all but one person clearly identified the genre of our music video. This shows us that the music video fitted the genre as our other feedback also agreed that people knew that C.DOT is a rap artist. 

Below shows us that C.DOT was liked as a performer in the music video. This lets us know that as an artist he has the ability to impress the crowd. With the majority of our respondents being female this shows us that there could be a target audience for women with C.DOT as if you like the way an artist performs you are likely to enjoy the music itself.



Over 70% of respondents said that they do watch music videos this shows us that there is still a market for this and that they still market the video. Therefore this is a method at which C.DOT as an artist can continue to exploit. C.DOT can create music videos in order to create publicity.





There are a variety of answers to this question with the two highest being iTunes and YouTube. This shows us that people are still willing to pay for CD's aswell with over 60% of respondents still buying them. YouTube is a huge source and is the place where we published C.DOT's new song and video, Nikes on my feet. This is a free website for consumers and if many people listen to music on YouTube they are likely to watch the music videos. Therefore this has shown us that music videos could become increasingly popular especially as people can listen to music free on YouTube.

Short Questionnaire for music video

Below is a short questionnaire at which we received feedback on this small questionnaire from 15 different viewers at all which were aged from 14-22 years old which is our primary target audience aswell as mixing into our secondary target audience. Below this questionnaire is the feedback shown from each of the four questions asked. 

Created with Padlet

Website and Digipak Feedback

Website

Below is the outline of the questionnaire which had 6 categories. From this we wanted to get a small indicator as to what people liked the most from the layout to the information provided on the website.

After receiving our feedback from 9 individuals the results can be shown on the graph below. As you can see throughout each the 6 individual categories we did not receive less than a rating of 3 stars from any of our respondents. The star rating on our questionnaire was from 0-5 with 0 being very poor to 5 being excellent. Our accessibility and information on the website has 5 out of the 9 respondents that gave us an excellent rating of 5. This shows us that the majority of people thought the website was easy to use aswell as the information on the website being really helpful to the consumer. Throughout each category there was a variation in opinion although the scores mainly were 4 and 5's for each topic. This suggest that the website, is a good website however it may appeal to certain people who like the genre and who would use the website itself. This feedback shows a constant pattern that the website was too a reasonable standard to good standard through out all of our 9 respondents. The overall opinion, 7 of the respondents gave it a score of 4 and 5. This shows us that the website would be a success to our target audience.

I picked 2 examples as shown below. From the 1st feedback it showed us that this person found our website exceptionally good with giving four, 5 out of 5's out of the 6 categories. This could be someone who fits our target audience.  Whereas the second feedback gives us a good score with five, 4 out 5's given out of the 6 categories. This shows us that although they thought the website was good there are some improvements in most sections which could make our website excellent.

Digipak

After receiving our feedback from 9 individuals the results can be shown on the graph below. As you can see throughout each the 6 individual categories we did not receive less than a rating of 3 stars from any of our respondents. The star rating on our questionnaire was from 0-5 with 0 being very poor to 5 being excellent. The layout of our digipak was highlighted as an area of strength, with 4 out of 9 respondents rating this 5 out of 5, this lets us know that the right images are in the correct place and that it all works well in order. Throughout each category there was a variation in opinion although the scores mainly were given 4 out of 5 from the majority of respondents. This feedback therefore is very difficult to analyse in this form as there is such a variety of views and opinions, that there may be a certain image one person likes, but another person dislikes. Although the overall feedback shows us that the digipak was a success with 7 out of the 9 respondents giving a score of 4 and 5. 

I picked 2 examples as shown below. From the 1st feedback it showed us that apart from the colour scheme which was given a reasonable score of 3 out of 5, that the rest of the categories were given high levels of 4 and 5. The overall score this person gave our digipak was 5 out of 5. This suggests to us that the digipak itself works really well together however there are certain bits which can be improved in order to be of even higher quality. The colour scheme is something at which this person wants us to focus our attention on. The 2nd feedback gave us an overall score of 4 out of 5 which is a good score. The thing that this person didnt like was the layout which we got given a score of 3 out of 5. Therefore this could in terms of images in the wrong position within the digipak pages. However on the other hand this person highlighted the font as excellent this suggests that this font matches the genre very well.

Q4: How did you use new media technologies in the Construction and Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?