Through the use of digital technology and technological convergence, I have created three products as a part of my music media campaign, namely a Music Video, CD Digipak, and Website. By using equipment such as the Black Magic Camera, I was able t become a prosumer, which is a creator of media texts close to a professional level. AS the Black Magic Camera shot on 4k, I was able to heighten the quality of my music video and therefore make it look more professional. The use of Adobe Premiere Pro, which is an editing software, helped me to organise, name, and sort my shots, as well as edit at a high level and become very efficient in compiling the different shots.
The use of digital technology has allowed me to upload, share, and distribute my products to a global audience; This has been done through the help of YouTube, allowing me to show my work to people around the world. Wix.com has allowed us to be interactive with our audience, as well as us asking for audience feedback in general, for them to comment on my product was well as other features which I have included in my campaign.
The skills which I have obtained on this course enable me to learn more and experience digital technology, not only as an audience member, but also as a creative producer, which allows me how important digital technology has become for the online age of media.
Digital technology has also allowed me to become part of the "participatory culture" (theorised by Henry Jenkins) and has taught me how the internet brings digital technology to the audience, offering many opportunities for anyone to produce and upload their own products and ideas to the internet, and share them with the world. This is something that I was able to indulge in.
Overall, I was able to demonstrate that I was successfully and creatively able to use media/digital technologies through research, planning, production and evaluation stages of my music publicity campaign. This is reflected through my three pieces of work; the Music Video, CD Digipak, and Website.
Digital Technology was very vital to our production work, as without it, we wouldn't have been able to create our music video. We used a large variety of digital technology within, and outside of, our production work, with hardware such as a Black Magic Camera (to film), online technology such as Slideshare to convey our ideas and organise what we were planning to do, and software such as Adobe Premiere Pro to edit and compile our music video.
In our research and planning stages we used technology such as:
- Pinterest
- Slideshare
- Prezi
- Blogger
- Windows 10
- HitFilm
- YouTube
- VideoScribe
- Sims
In our production stage we used technology such as:
- Black Magic Camera
- Wix.com
- Giphy
- HitFilm
- YouTube
- Blogger
- Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge
And in our evaluation stages we used technology such as:
- YouTube
- Slideshare
- Prezi
- Blogger
Many of these components overlapped as research and planning, as well as production or evaluation tools and therefore were multi-purposeful. YouTube, for example, was not only a tool to help us create research, but also allowed us to plan out our music video with the use of an animatic, and then even upload the final music video, and afterwards as a tool to create audience feedback.
Overall, what I have learnt from my audience feedback has been very helpful to me due to the fact that we were able to improve on our campaign (music video, website, and CD digipak), and that we were able to get positive feedback on that what we had already created and what was good, and took the criticism to heart.
Most of the feedback which we had received for the music video was post-creation and editing, so we couldn't really improve on it in accordance with that feedback. However, the feedback which we had received before creating the music video, such as that when we pitched to Luke for the second time, including our new idea; he helped us a lot when it came down to creating the transition for the music video, which was really needed to smooth the change between the 1920's and futuristic element. With his suggestions, we were able to come up with the tap element which we then added into the music video, making the transition seamless and a little bit more quirky and surreal.
A lot of the feedback which we had received from the students wasn't necessarily criticism, which made it difficult to improve upon the music video. However, when we did the feedback on the animatic, it was very helpful for us to see that the audience didn't understand wat was going on, and therefore we knew that unless we explained our animatic to those involved in the creation of the music video, they wouldn't understand what was going on. Therefore we added comments to the slides, making it clearer.
The feedback which we received for the website was very helpful as there were many things that we needed to improve on, and that Chris wasn't quite sure what to do with. Therefore it helped him a lot when creating the newer copy of the website. We added in things such as a tracklist, and also helped to make the website fit in with the campaign better.
Version 1
Version after the feedback
For the digipak, the main comment was that it was good, and looked alright, however that we may need a picture of the band on it. However, we always declined this feedback and argued that this would be unconventional for the music genre, and would therefore make the campaign less retro like we wanted it to be. The other comment was that the name of the band had to be bigger than that of the album, which we then improved on. Thanks to this we were able to make our campaign better.
Stuart Hall argues that an audience will decode media messages in intelligent and engaging ways. There are three different decoding processes; a preferred reading, which is what you want the audience to read, a negotiated reading, which is what you want as well as what the audinence wants to see, and the oppositional reading, which is based on the input of the audience and what they would like to see. I believe that through the use of audience feedback which we have received in the early stages of the music video, as well as afterwards, and also throughout the creation of the ancillary texts (website and digipak) we were able to create a piece of work that combines what we want and what the audience wants as well.
