Eval 2 - combination of texts

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

As part of our A2 texts we have combined 3 texts a music video , digi pack and mag ads. As we are producing all of these texts we have tried to target a wide variety of audiences. Our primary audience of 13-24 year olds and our secondary audience male audience. This has been a challenge due to in he media industry 3 media agencies often doing these 3 texts separately. An example of this is the Saturdays recently in the publics eyes in mags such as 

• hello 
• ok 
• Glamour 
• FHM
• bliss

Where as there cd was released by fascination and mercury records and there videos created by harvey b brown. These are all different companies so it is not often we see a link between these texts depending on the band and the context. However we are small indie video makers with small budgets this has not been possible. We have instead used the group to our advantage by covering and attracting both audiences and making the texts link and work with similar theme which fortunately for us the atomic kittens previous texts also did.

As we have targeted our music video at 13-21 year old girls due to our genre being pop this is the primary target audience for girl bands. THis is reflected through our song choice its okay by atomic kittens due to the video containing the classic girl band conventions.

Conventions 

1. The audience being able to relate to them- Our video reflects this as the video is set in normal setting which teen girls would be able to relate to. our video also reflects this as the narrative is very common amongst teens.
2. Aspiring to be them- our video reflects this as the audience is aspiring to be them as the girls are very glam and pretty. So girls younger will aspire to want to be famous and want to be like them. They may take on characteristics from them or just have them as role models.
3. Costume - the girls wearing similar clothes often linking the colour. The girls also have a range of outfits which they are wearing in all 3 texts. 
4. Male gaze- the male gaze is shone through all 3 texts by the girls wearing short dresses also objectifying body parts such as tight dresses and low cut tops. This appeals to male gaze and brings in the second audience.
5. taking on boy band characteristics. We have taken on boy band by locations used synced choreography and finally mag ads of laughing shots in all 3 texts behind the scenes shots.

      our mag add maybe distributed in magazines such as:

• ok
• glamour 
• fhm
• bliss

due to our target audience being girls ranging from 13-24 teens. And our secondary audience males. also having it in ok is targeting an audience we perhaps would not expect to view the product and targeting a slightly older audience. Atomic kittens previously being in FHM  for male gaze adds male appeal this ad is however slightly different as the girls in these adds would be more revealing and girls would be objectifying body parts for this appeal. We have taken this on board by wearing revealing clothing such as short dresses and low cut tops focusing on body parts so it is more appealing to the audience.

Digi pack would appear on amazon and in stores such as hmv. They also would also be able to download of amazon as the girls are main stream these would be the best places for products to be distributed and exhibited. Another way of distribution we have used is youtube for all our texts as we a indie company this has been useful as there was no cost. In the industry many bands also so this as it targets a wider audience as percentage of people can access the internet and use youtube. This also could target different social groups and cultures world wide which would not of necessarily of targeted.

social media has helped push all 3 texts to be popular and help with the distribution to all audiences. As networking sites such as facebook twitter and instagram are used all over the world eventually linking everyone. We have created accounts in all of these for our production so it has been very successful distributing all 3 products together and allowed people to follow us throughout the product changing and progressing.

Key features of each text:

Digi pack

album title and artist name. This can have the same, or an even better impact on the audience as an image. The audience need to know what they're buying and so providing this information is key to selling the product. On our digipak, we placed the artist name at the top in the biggest font, with the album title below in a slightly smaller font.

With colours, we have in some ways challenged the 3 colour rule that we picked up on, especially in the pop genre. Font colours, we have stuck to grey, salmon pink and blue, to match the blue colour themes seen in the photos, mag ads and video. These colours work well together, as they don't clash too much, yet they still provide visual pleasures for the audience. In the lyrics booklet, the colours of the writing aren't exactly the same as those on the outside, but they're different shades of these colours

However, in the photos in the lyrics booklet, we added another colour to add more visual variety and to break up the blue. We had 2 burgundy dresses and a cream and black lace dress, which may appear as though we are incorporating another colour scheme into the product, yet we feel we are not. These colours can in a way link to the pink fonts used on the back of the digipak, as they could be classed as different and extreme shades of pink. The cream dress can also fit in with the off-white background used throughout the digipak, and the black lace links to the grey font as some may see it as a dark shade of the grey. We felt that adding these extra colours has not completely challenged the 3 colour rule, but we have instead adapted it, so that the buyers can view a product containing variety and not just straight, common conventions.

The font we picked is a simple yet effective font that we downloaded off Dafont.com. We didn't want to use a font which was too fancy, as this could have come across as immature and unprofessional, and therefore wouldn't give the impact we hope for. We took inspiration from the Atomic Kitten digipaks for this font, as it again fits in with the professional look which we're aiming for. For the fonts in general, we have used more than one to add more variety. We have downloaded the fonts off the internet and have then installed them into the font book on mac, so we could use them on any software we needed. We chose our fonts carefully, as we wanted to make sure they were effective enough. We used the same font throughout in the lyrics booklet, as we didn't want it to come across as too 'clumsy', but on the back we used a variety, making sure they worked well together. The fonts all compliment each other, still providing a mature yet fun element to the digipak. 

An image helps the audience to identify the artist and a connection between the artist and the fans can be made, consequently encouraging more people to buy the album. We chose to follow this convention, and use a variety of images throughout the digipak. We placed an image on both the front and back of the group together, despite some existing texts using an image which flows from the front onto the back. Although we're going for a more 'professional' look, we used a slightly blurry image on the front where we are mid-laughter, rather than falsely posing.We thought this image worked well as it adds a sense of realism to the idea, and the laughing/smiling aspect enables the younger spectrum of the primary audience to feel a connection to the group, and makes it more fun and appealing for them. The image on the back isn't an accurate reverse of the front, but we are facing away from the camera, which adds variety to the style of images, and the holding of hands signifies the theme of 'girl power' and the closeness of the group. The lyrics booklet includes more images, which are exclusive to the booklet.

There will always be a bar code placed next to the production company logo and product information, such as the record label, on the back of a digipak. We added the record company logo, a barcode, the CD symbol, the DVD symbol and the 'available on iTunes' symbol, as well as our QR code. On the spine, we have followed common conventions, by adding the artist and album title again, and the record company logo with a distribution number. 

We added the QR code to the digipak too as well as the magazine advertisements, to promote the viral element of the 3 products. QR codes are becoming more frequently used and widely recognised, with more people buying and using smart phones, so we thought that by adding the QR code, we could widen our audience. Because Atomic Kitten split up in 2004, and re-united in 2012, leading up to the 'Big Reunion' between Liberty X, Five, Honeyz, 911, B*Witched and themselves, we felt that adding a sticker on both the front and back of the digipak promoting a live DVD of their tour further promoted the album as their 'new comeback album'. The iTunes logo also promotes the album to a wider audience by making it digitally available too, again linking into the reunion and comeback material.

Mag ads 

We started by looking at what magazines our girl band has been in. The main mag we had found the atomic kittens to feature in was ok magazine. They had all features separately in here telling life stories or being gossip. They have been in here as well for the latest singles and advertising there new album and dvd.

We didnt find many mag ads specifically by them as when the band came out digitisation and social media wasnt as big as it is today. They have mainly had mag ads advertising them getting back together and there reunion which was also featured on tv. The last thing i noticed they had articles on was the different band members leaving and changing. They were also in magazines for hobbies on the side such as big brother and personal live stories.



we wanted to look at what colour scheme they have used and how there style reflects there digi packs and videos. We looked at things such as the album covers linking with the theme of the poster such as picture on the left advertising the dvd. This reflects the album cover as it contains same text and same disco effects. On the right the picture reflects there first album that they made where they were the typical girly girls genre of music . Where they were very feminine taking on little inspiration from boy groups . The left is them later on changing and adding more of these features to attract different audiences.

 We also wanted to look at what sort of things featured on mag ads such as OR code and small text that we would need to make sure we included. As the band are not as modern as girl bands today they have no mag ads like these. However we did find mag ads releasing tour dates. The main reason we wanted to look at atomic kitten anything was so we can get an idea of how subtle they link the texts as this is not common in other bands and usually all 3 texts are completely different where as theres match.

we found some mag ads of them in FHM boys mag. This is bringing in our secondary audience of the male audience. Linking with the male gaze theory. The fact the girls body parts are objectified and the girls are dressed in short clothing and having low cut tops on brings in this audience. We are going to try to follow this by wearing short dresses that link together via colour and try wear short dresses with low cut elements.

 we have also looked at boy bands mag ads . These are very simple and often just contain them on a plain background wearing synchronised clothing and following the same style. We are going to reflect this by having the girl band against a white backdrop. This works for boy bands are they are a big statement . it cannot be as effective for girl bands as they are more glitsy and take on more of a womens audience then male. However as the industry is changing more and more girl bands are doing this and taking on these characteristics.

Little mix are one of the new latest most successful girl band of 4. They have been such a success this magazine is aimed at teens up to 24. Which is our target audience. We can take characteristics from this such as them being silly having fun and applying it in our own. The girls are also on a plain background and there colour scheme doesnt match they have the same style but colours are very different this also picking up from boy band ads.

 

Summary of my findings :

Magazines specific to our genre:

• 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

Summary of conventions:

• The release date
• Album/song title
• Image of album cover/image of artist
• Artist name
• Brief information on the artist/album
• Record label logo
• Girly colours 
• Male gaze 

Music Video

From past research i have looked at what is most common in girl vid these are some of the key features that make the music videos so successful.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VISUALS + LYRICS:
There is a strong relations ship between the lyrics and visuals especially with the narrative.the lyrics link like 'on the phone all night long'. This part of the narrative all reflects this part of the lyrics.

MALE GAZE:
The male gaze is a big part of our video. As the girls are wearing short dresses and also are very glamourous. They reflect the male gaze as they have also reflected the body parts being objectified and having revealing clothing that appeals to the male audience.


PERFORMANCE, NARRATIVE AND/OR CONCEPT:
There is performance and narrative as this is a romantic vid. These both are cross cut. The performance is lip synching and some footage of classic girl dancing. The narrative is also linear as it follows the path of the pairs break up and there past together. Performance is also in time with the beat which we have picked out specifically to match with instrumental parts. 

LOOKING/MODE OF ADDRESS: 
The girls when they lip synch are looking directly into the camera making a connection with the audience . This makes me more believable as the audience can believe what you are saying. They also look at variety of angles past he camera looking at the different things making it distance and also believe able for the audience to watch as they can feel what the lyrics and the story line is saying. 
The narrative however ever looks into the camera unless a point of view shot. As this is for the audience to watch and understand the story that is going on. We can make the video more emotional as it is more serious and not comical which could be seen if the characters were looking into the camera.

SHOT VARIETY + NO. OF SETUPS:
There is a wide scope of shot variety , to show emotions and to set the scene. We have also looked at what shots could be framed to create different affects on reader. The set ups we have used are several to make the video more exciting however we haven't used the typical ones that we would expect to see from a girl bad like this we have instead taken on the characteristics from a boy band such as having them on the moor and on white back drop. 

FX
we have used effects for our narrative such as the black and white effect to show the past and then the present. For the performance we have used effects such as layering and transformation tool to have us in the same shot lip syncing and to make the video more exciting.

LOCATION/S + MISE-EN-SCENE:
we followed girl band characteristics such as them being girly , where we used rose petals and candles in pink and red to give this effect. Also as it is a romantic we set mise en scene such as a meal , memory boxes and petals. this is also in all 3 texts.  The locations we used were the moor, the woods, river, white backdrop.

1. The audience being able to relate to them- Our video reflects this as the video is set in normal setting which teen girls would be able to relate to. our video also reflects this as the narrative is very common amongst teens.
2. Aspiring to be them- our video reflects this as the audience is aspiring to be them as the girls are very glam and pretty. So girls younger will aspire to want to be famous and want to be like them. They may take on characteristics from them or just have them as role models.
3. Costume - the girls wearing similar clothes often linking the colour. The girls also have a range of outfits which they are wearing in all 3 texts. 
4. Male gaze- the male gaze is shone through all 3 texts by the girls wearing short dresses also objectifying body parts such as tight dresses and low cut tops. This appeals to male gaze and brings in the second audience.
5. taking on boy band characteristics. We have taken on boy band by locations used synced choreography and finally mag ads of laughing shots in all 3 texts behind the scenes shots.

How our texts link together 
summary 
- colours
-style 
-font 
-boy band characteristic
-theme
-girly

How our texts dont link 

-narrative isnt shown across all 3
-little link to video as is sad and mag ad and digi pack funny happy and light hearted

Improvement s what we could change 
- time managed better
-video featuring more locations and outfits 
-steadier camera work
-more research into similar products 
-more professional equipment 

if the brief was different what other approaches would you have taken ?

we would of made it a lot more simplistic due to the atomic kittens past adds and work being simple however if we did this it wouldn't be affective so we would have to change this. Also if the brief was different we would of chosen a different track doing previous research so we could use this the best to our ability to use a wide range of tools and techniques which would work better to meet the brief fully.

Viral Vid and QR Code
On my evaluation question 4 (technologies) I have in detail talked about  how we used a the virial video and also QR codes to help create more of a promotional package and link our texts together. The viral video in particular helped us to encourage user generated content which helps make the  work we are doing popular and exciting for the audience. Here is a link to the evaluation question where this is detailed. EVAL 4.

Eval 3 - audience feedback

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. 


Viral Vid and QR Code
On my evaluation question 4 (technologies) I have in detail talked about  how we used a the virial video and also QR codes to help create more of a promotional package and link our texts together. The viral video in particular helped us to encourage user generated content which helps make the  work we are doing popular and exciting for the audience. Here is a link to the evaluation question where this is detailed. EVAL 4.

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 a MASS 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.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.

Video Feedback

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 in a podcast. 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. 

Class feedback

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. 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 very critical feedback positive and negative. 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 as the project went on.

Original idea

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 meet the professional criteria. We were also told that the cast in the video were not convincing or 'sassy' enough to look like a genuine girl band that isn't innocent like atomic kitten they are more sexy.however we made an attempt to try and improve our 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 had changed our track we needed to start this feedback again.

New idea

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.  

Fan Forums

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.

Feedback

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'  this also gave our video a less serious 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. 

Negative Feedback

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 the editing 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. 

Video Editing

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 then we could make a decision.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 effects on final cut.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. 

Ancillary Texts

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 professional. We thought that by over complicating the image it would start to look messy.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. 

Uses and Gratification's 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 reading.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. 

Digitisation

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. 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.

Eval 4- technologies

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

 

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 also targets our audience as this technology is used more and more within the younger generation being brought up with the idea.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 for them to explore.

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 could visit the other pages as a link and whole 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 is scanning the code using her smartphone, and it instantly comes up with a link to the MKTP Productions Twitter page. As mentioned previously, the increase in digitisation has allowed smartphones to cope with this kind of technology, and in our increasingly materialistic society, a wide number of people are using smart phones, making our QR code available to a mass market.

QR Code and Viral Video

Viral Video

For our original production track 'When I Grow Up by The Pussycat Dolls', we developed the idea of a viral video, to increase and improve our audience interaction. 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) to get fans to perform and dance there woen dance or ours to the song. The fans could send there vids in from social media making it global. It was also an idea to get them to send in videos of themselves singing to the song. This idea gave us a platform for creating a fan-based video using the footage which fans could send in this meant we needed to keep it simple to fans could copy an effective dance and aspire to be us the pussycat dolls.

   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. Tim O’Reilly coined the term web 2.0 to denote the interactive nature of the web, after its early years as a traditional platform for publishers of content. The likes of David Gauntlett and Dan Gillmor have proclaimed “the end of audience” and “the former audience”, arguing that the traditional divide between audience and producer is disappearing, due to what Henry Jenkins labelled convergence. Jenkins also wrote about the shift to a ‘participatory culture’, and we sought to reflect and exploit such thinking with the inclusion of a QR code in our ad campaign. We had created a viral-style video for our PCD production, and our company Twitter invited fans to replicate this and send in their own filmed efforts for sharing with other fans. Brigid Cherry has written about how the web has enabled fan communities to expand upon official releases with their own creations, what have been dubbed ‘user-generated content’ or fan-made videos, and we sought to develop a relationship with, and excitement within, our audience through encouraging and promoting such material. 

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 engaged , particularly with the primary audience, makes them want to watch other videos and listen to other Pussycat Dolls tracks this also meant we could target the younger age group of our audience stronger as social media is being used more and more this was very important.

  
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, and got an over all video which we could see would work if it had gone global and worked. 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 makes it a lot more popular which is what we want as well as everyone getting involved.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 in the production and what this has lead on our final idea to be .

Research and Planning

Blogger

To display our research, planning and development we used the website blogger to create a blog, to then upload posts displaying this progression. Blogger can be used to embed videos, audio and images, making it very interactive along side our text and a great way of visually representing our ideas and research.

We were able to easily link other websites and by creating links lists it makes the blog dynamic and simple to use and search. The tools to change the layout are straight forward as well as creating a text post, which takes seconds to do. The website blogger reflects the concept of Web 2.0 as it really helps the user collaborate and interact, this is interaction is displayed directly through the comment section on the website, which can give us instant feedback and constructive criticism on our work. As it is a blog we created it  ourselves it is completely user generated, and we can display work to  our target audience exactly what we want 
them to see. We also used other blogs for research purposes as they are so easily accessible such as igs media studies and previous work.

YouTube 

Throughout our research and planning we used YouTube in a number of different ways. We used it to upload rough cuts, sample footage and vodcasts also to edit .which we can then embed straight to our blogs. YouTube is also very useful for research, especially music videos and their conventions as well as the past videos from our artist. As it is such a big website it is likely to have video content for whatever you are looking for, making it useful for a large proportion of people which people are now depending on. Again this in an interactive website, with an active comment section creating another opportunity for audience feedback. 

Divshare

Divshare is a website used for uploading files online so it is in the right format to be used and presented online. We found this website very useful as we can then embed the documents we uploaded onto Divshare directly to our blogs. It can be used for audio, word documents, images, videos and many other kinds of document, but we specifically used it for audio and word documents. The way the final effect looks on blogger is neat and professional. It isn't overcomplicated and is easy to use on blogger, however we found the uploading process onto Divshare can be more difficult for audio documents in particular so often we opted to use a website called podomatic instead.

Podomatic 

We used podomatic to upload our weekly podcasts to our blogs. Podomatic. but as it is specific to podcasts and audio it's uploading is much simpler for the user to understand. By having podcasts on our blog adds a different way to update our audience rather than just boring text to be read as well as vodcasts. This helps us keep the blog interesting to anyone viewing it and also allows the relationship between us creating the blog and the audience to seem more personal as it gives the impression we are directly talking to them about our updates and ideas and makes them feel more involved in the development and following our ideas.

Fan forums and websites

We used fan forums and websites to further research our artist and their fan base. From this we learnt exactly what the audience want and how they like the band to be portrayed. We also used these fan forums to display rough cuts and any ideas we have. This is very useful to us as we get feedback direct from out target audience and from people we know inspire to be like the atomic kittens and the success of our video for that band. Websites such as fan pop, allow you to search a band and then see every fan profile created on the website. There are also specific fan forum sites for atomic kitten with an active comment system for us to post ideas, links and videos for feedback. 

Gmail

 We used it for contacting the record label to ask for rights to use the audio of their track in the video. We also used it as for contacting our cast in a professional and direct way. Gmail is also connected to our google account, and as blogger is owned by the conglomerate google, these websites being connected meant 1 simple account could be used throughout the research and planning process.We also used it to send some files within our group.

Facebook 

To contact and talk amongst our production group we used the social networking site Facebook. We only used Facebook to communicate through the production group as we felt it would be too unprofessional to contact cast in this way. 

Instagram 

We used Instagram as a way of posting pictures and updating people on our progress. Again this is a very interactive website as you are able to like a comment on pictures, hopefully expanding our target audience and the people interested in following our progress. We have posted pictures of us editing and behind the scenes of filming. You Can also add tags to the pictures, making them easier to find when searching in general. By posting teaser pictures of our work we are also building up the audience for the expected release of the video. Instagram is a good way of keeping the fan base always connected to our progress as Instagram is constantly used globally and used more and more by many everyday.

Twitter 

Twitter is a social networking website which we found useful when getting audience feedback and promoting our production company. By writing short tweets we can quickly get messages out and add tags to our work, making us easier to find and track. 

Magazine websites 

We used magazine websites to search for previous magazine ads that atomic kitten had had and to research the type of publishers we would want our magazine ad to be in, such as teen magazines like now and look. We also searched the publication website for figures of their sales to certain ages to help anchor the audiences that they mostly have to make sure we choose the right publications for the audience that ad is trying to grab the attention of. 

Construction and Exhibition

HD camera 

To film our music video and to take pictures for our magazine and digipak we used an HD camera. We used the canon LEGRIA HF R36. We used an 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 than previous technology would have allowed before digitisation. 

USBs and HD cards 

We USBs to transfer work from our home computers the ones which we edit on at school. We used a 32Gb one to ensure we had the maximum amount of storage necessary. We used am SD card to Save the footage from the camera instead of using the inbuilt memory. We did this to make the process of moving the footage to the editing software much simpler and quicker. 

Final Cut Pro x

The editing software Final Cut Pro x has a huge range of effects and editing tools to make our video look as professional and effective as possible. We used a range of these effects, especially basic tools such as blade yet also more complicate techniques such as layering. From lighting to cropping Final Cut Pro is very good software and that's why a lot of big film makers are starting to use this.it is also very professional and used widely in the industry by film makers. We have been using final cut for 2 years now, and over this time our skills have really developed and we are now pretty knowledgable on the main tools. However, as final cut pro is such vast software we often came across techniques we wanted to achieve but didn't know how. To over come this we googled and searched on YouTube as a lot of final cut experts post videos and help blogs about how to work simple and much more difficult effects.

Adobe Photoshop
We used adobe photoshop when creating our Digipak and Magazine Advertisements. As adobe is very professional software I struggled to use and understand it and the amount of tools I used was quite limited compared to the vast things adobe can help you create. i had some knowledge from working on it previously however this was still a big challenge.Through searching the internet and asking more knowledgeable class mates I slowely learnt how to use it more effectively and edit pictures effectively adding text, layering and effects to a good standard.

YouTube 

We again used YouTube in the production and exhibition part of our coursework. We displayed our videos her and uploaded them to blogger. You can also export videos on to YouTube straight from Final Cut Pro to YouTube, saving a lot of time. YouTube also has an extremely large demographic, and a large population of people frequently watch and upload it, this broadens are potential audience and feedback we may get.  The theorist John McMuria did analysis of content on YouTube and revealed that minorities were grossly under-represented and that the most heavily viewed videos on YouTube tend to be white middle class males. Because of this information, this is why we chose to also display our rough cuts on twitter and fan forums and websites, to make sure that our demographic was definitely being targeted.this allowed us to target more social groups and audiences. 

Evaluation 

Blogger 

Not only in the research, planning, production and exhibition, we also used blogger in the evaluation. We used it to find the previous research we have done, to help anchor the points we make in the evaluation questions. We also will post our evaluation to be presented on blogger, along with all our other work making our blogs represent everything we have done. 

Final Cut Pro 

We again used Final Cut Pro to edit our evaluation videos to make them look professional and to add clear titles and pictures and videos to anchor our points. Final Cut Pro has an in built audio record tool, making it very simple to record the voice over to our evaluation this was very easy to use and very quick.

VLC Media Player

When making our evaluation videos we wanted to include short clips from our rough cuts and final cuts, especially to show any progression or things we have changed due to audience feedback. VLC became very useful for this as when viewing a video on this media player you can record small parts of this and it will become exported as a separate clip for us to then drop into final cut when editing all the visual examples and audio.

Screen Capture

Screen capture is a downloadable device making it extremely easy to screenshot your computer screen, or a particular region open on it. This was vital in the evaluation stage of our coursework as we needed to extensively back up the points we are making on our video and research. As we developed our research we took screenshots along the way so when it came to the evaluation we could use these screenshots to save a lot of time.

Prezi
To add an alternative visual element to our evaluation questions, we used the online presentation website 'Prezi'. This website allows you to create an interactive presentation, set out in a way which you choose, with as many points as you like. You can then create a path, which follows the text in a chronological order. Once you have created an account, you can create as many presentations as you wish, and they are relatively simple to navigate. We only used this website for a section in Question 1 however, as it can be fairly time consuming, and if there is too much text in one presentation, creating the presentation can become complicated. Despite this, it provided an extra technology for us to use which overall proved to work very well.it was hard to understand at first but it got easier as we became more comfortable with it.

web 2.0

Tim O’Reilly coined the term web 2.0 to denote the interactive nature of the web, after its early years as a traditional platform for publishers of content. The likes of David Gauntlett and Dan Gillmor have proclaimed “the end of audience” and “the former audience”, arguing that the traditional divide between audience and producer is disappearing, due to what Henry Jenkins labelled convergence. Jenkins also wrote about the shift to a ‘participatory culture’, and we sought to reflect and exploit such thinking with the inclusion of a QR code in our ad campaign. We had created a viral-style video for our PCD production, and our company Twitter invited fans to replicate this and send in their own filmed efforts for sharing with other fans. Brigid Cherry has written about how the web has enabled fan communities to expand upon official releases with their own creations, what have been dubbed ‘user-generated content’ or fan-made videos, and we sought to develop a relationship with, and excitement within, our audience through encouraging and promoting such material.