My media product largely conforms to conventions of the genre. After researching the music industry and my target audience I settled on the emerging artist Marina and the Diamonds. Her music appeals to a young indie/pop audience, a strong group according to my research. The genres of music and music video have evolved and branched out in to many different genres including punk, pop and RnB. The music video is not only an expression of art and creativity but also a promotional tool, allowing the viewer to see how the artist performs and their talent. Artist like Michael Jackson and Madonna created stylish music videos with exciting narratives and dance routines. The Beatles know for their revolutionary revolution within the music industry also contributed to the developing music video. They creates films and experimented with the formula for a successful music video. Programs like ‘Countdown’ where the next step allowing artist to appear on screen, as a result videos were made or artist unable to attend due to touring. With the development as such channels as MTV seeing music videos became a popular marketing tool or artist and video became more creative, story lines and narratives were a common convention as well as dance sequences and the artist performing.
Conforming is vital or the music industry to create revenue. The record label after signing their artist will be looking to appeal to their market; they will use adverts, websites and magazines though most importantly they will produce a music video. To finance the video they will have to approached distributors and investors who will be looking to seek a financial return. To assure this return they will be looking to see that the video has a winning formula, the industry is high risk and often a lot of money is invested. The video must conform to the genre which it belongs to and have a strong audience. The genre creates an assured audience and therefore a return may be predicted.
My audience is not gender or class specific, the age range for my video will be primarily young people, perhaps students or young professionals, were pop music tends to be aimed at. The age and style of my artist also attracts a younger audience. My target group has is popular with record labels, they have a lot of leisure income, consisting of young working adults, some have no bills or responsibilities such have no children and a mortgage. I researched my audience expectations by doing a paper and online Facebook questionnaire. My results indicated that indie/pop was a strong market positions and that people liked a narrative, the performance shots and an opportunity to watch the band as they perform. I also asked what they thought about stop motion, I noticed videos form my category used creative elements to help them stand out from the rest. Stop motion is a developing yet popular idea, I had noticed similar artist like Kate Nash and Natasha Bedingfield using stop motion.
I decided on that artist Marina and the Diamonds who has been hinted as someone to watch for 2010 and indie solo female artist are very contemporary. Marina already has a record label and other videos, her debut reached number 12 in the charts and she has an established Internet following due to her blogging. After carrying out research on different music indie/pop music videos I came up with the following conventions to which my video conforms to such as telling a story that corresponds with the lyrics. I also found traveling and pace a popular theme as well as a creative element, my video has walking shots which gain in pace until the end when the camera turns around and sees my main character. For a creative twist I used stop motion and had board game pieces moving on their own and lyrics scrawl out across a piece of musical paper. I know from my historical research promoting the artist name and image is very important and I did this by having my artist name spelled out in scrabble pieces, a link to the lyrics 'board games are underrated'. I had my main actress miming to give the effect she way singing. I also noticed establishing shots, close/mid shots, and traveling, zooming, panning, stationary and reaction shots were all common cinematography and I tried to use as much of these as possible in my video. Lighting I noticed could be used to create an atmospheres and relay emotions, I used the sun in my video and waited till the evening so I capture it in my main characters final walk up to the house symbolising the end of her journey.
I think I very closely adhered to the conventions to create a music video that it the genre well and at the same time, due to using stop motion, stands out as an individual and intriguing music video.
My DVD cover also largely conforms with the same image and font used again, this time I looked at music video and live DVD covers. I noticed a stand alone bubble or sticker on the front was common and a rating on the front. All the examples I looked at had strong colour and style themes and I did this with pink, green and white and flowers.
How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary text? Marketing is very important to the success of a business as people need to know you are there and have come to expect some form of marketing. The record labels operate under umbrella cooperation and most are huge conglomerates and own subsidiary labels, Marina and the Diamonds label ‘679’ focuses on Indie/pop music. They are part of the Warner Music Group. It is the promotion department in the record label that ensures that the artist is played on the radio and music channels. Ideally the best type of advertising is television with channels such as 4music and MTV specifically for music.
I looked at marketing tools such as Ansofs Matrix, a method of product placement, my product is a new artist in an existing industry and genre so it comes under product development. I will uses direct marketing and synergy, by using horizontal integrations I will cover all areas of marketing and will be able to directly target a wide audience.
My research indicates that music magazines and website pages are popular and good ways of marketing. Music channels are also very popular and a significant marketing tool, however even more popular is the video streaming site YouTube, my audience feed back shows it was even more popular than industry giant MTV.
Music magazines that would be likely to take on my magazine advert include NME and Q, NME is a British magazine that focuses on contemporary indie/pop/rock music and aims to bring to light smaller artist who may struggle to make their way in to main stream pop music. Marina has already appeared in the magazine and as a British artist would suit their target audience very well. Q is a similar magazine though it is produced monthly and looks at a wider selection of he music industry throughout time. It has a more mature feels than NME which appeals more to my teenage audience. However it has featured Marian before and by placing the advert in Q it will reach a wider audience and perhaps an older readership.
Breaking in to mainstream pop is hard, as hard as it is to break in to America and it would be far easier for Marina to be played on a British indie/rock channel such as QTV or MTV2. These channels still cater to predominantly teenage market and look more at smaller, developing British artist, aiming to broadcast music that would otherwise struggle to find its way in to mainstream pop. Although my working your way in to the charts you are guaranteed to be played on mainstream pop channels such as VIVA channels such as QTV would play the video more often.
Another institution through which my music video may be marketed is the internet which has become one of the fastest, easiest ways to watch music videos on demand, it is very popular with an audience of under 35 and therefore appeals to my audience. My research confirms this with many people saying the watched music videos on such sites as YouTube, daily motion and even the bands home pages. The internet has large catchment area, I think that using the internet as a marketing tool would easily and effectively cover all of these areas, relatively cheaply, this would appeal to young people especially and the ever growing internet social network. Many young bands have been able to grow and develop thanks to websites such as Myspace. Knowing my audience tends to be young people this method of distribution will reach my target audience
When producing my music video I was careful that there wasn’t anything depicted in the video that could be considered distasteful, discriminating or harmful to the audience. Although in the past this has generated controversy and therefore an audience such as Lady GaGa’s banned video for Telephone this is not the image I want for my artist. As a new developing artist Marina does not have the power artist like lady Gaga has to be able to take such a financial risk and it would be unlikely to be requested by any institution. By making the video a PG it will reach a much larger audience and will receive no objections.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Before I made the video I carried out a paper questionnaire and a questionnaire via the online social networks Facebook, the results helped me hone in on my ideas and showed me what my audience wanted to see and what the expected as a convention. This was very useful as it confirmed my initial ideas and helped me refine the genre. It was important I made sure there was an audience for my video before I made and that a financial return could be predicted. By using Facebook and paper questionnaires I could reach a wide audience, Facebook is predominantly used by my audience so it was an excellent method of research.
I made the finished product shorter than the original story board and had to cut two of the last as i struggled to fit the video in the two and a half minutes, I didn't want to over complicate the video. I think my response shows i did the right thing as some of my audience still felt there was too much going on.
After I had finished filming my video I put the video on YouTube and on blog on the website blogger. I played the video to a focus group of my target audience and then showed them the ancillary pieces, I then got them to fill out a questionnaire asking or their opinions. The feedback was mainly positive although the video had its problems. Using a paper questionnaire allowed me to ask for more detailed feed back. The son went down well and nearly everyone said they would buy the single therefore making the video a success. I did have feed back about how the video could be improved and not everyone understood the message though the majority did, the think my audience picked up most on was that the miming could be better and if I were to do the video again this would be something I would work on. The stop motion went down very well and my audience enjoyed the way ‘it mixed elements like real-time with stop animation’.
The magazine and DVD cover also received good feedback and fits well with the message and the video ‘related to video’, ‘shows that something simple can be beautiful’.
By putting the video on YouTube I got more comments and feedback from my audience. The feedback was very positive with comments remarking on the ‘very strong and powerfull elements in the video with the news papers, and the shrine, did have a touching element’. The stop motion received a god response as well ‘I also love the stop motion part, really adds a good element and makes it look really professional’. The video received good ratings and received 120 views in its first week.
Completing this research and using a focus group gave me an early indication of the reception my video would receive. It also gives me a chance to improve on certain aspects my audience may have struggles with.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research planning and evaluation stages?
I used several types of new media technology to create my music video. In the first stage, my research, it allowed by to quickly and easily view music videos online by using the internet, particularly the website YouTube. Thanks to video streaming I could also look at the bands websites and find interviews and music videos there. I also used the internet to research the music video history, the industry and how it developed. I also used the internet to search for other music videos using the same conventions as me. Another great use of the internet was social networking, it allowed me to carry out research over Facebook, Seeing as my target market are the predominant users of the website it gave me an excellent insight as to what they expected and wanted form a music video.
I used the website blogger to present my work, the website has neat, presentable formats and is easy to organise work with. The main advantage of using blogger is that I could access my work anywhere as long as I had internet connection. This meant that with my URL address so could other people which made sharing work easy. This was particularly useful when I was showing people my music video as I could just send them the link as blogger also allows you to upload video and pictures. Other advantages of Blogger where that I could follow other bloggers and artist so I could get an even better incite in to the industry. One of the ways Mariana and the Diamonds has gained an audience is by regularly writing an online log updating and communicating with her fans. Blogger also allows you to use blog on your mobile phone so you can blog and update your work anywhere. I also used the internet to contact the management from the band by finding the email address of their management and using yahoo email service to contact them.
I used Adobe Premier Elements to put my finished work together, although I was going for simple editing this allowed me to use all kinds of special effects and provided the tools to create a professional music video. It also allowed me to cut and paste my clips easily so any problems I had during filming I could fix. It allowed me to work with levels of sounds as well and I could delete the sound I had from the video. I kept the sound of the children's park when the memorial played to give a feel of the background. Although at first I struggles to grasp the software is soon grew confident and tutorials were easily accessed online via YouTube or the Adobe website.
I also Adobe photoshop which I was much more confident with after doing my AS coursework. This allowed me to get a professional look and blur and sharpened images. It was also useful for layering and I used websites such as DeviantArt, an online art community, to source pictures from and require permissions from the artist.
I filmed the video using a Video camera and mobile phone for taking pictures with. The cameras were small light and versatile making filming easy. It was also easy to transfer my video and pictures on the the computer. The only problem was the picture quality and if I were to film again I would experiment with different higher megapixel cameras to get a higher quality of picture.
Finally at the feedback stage I used the popular website YouTube to distribute my film where I could send it to friends and the could rate and comment.
New media technologies allowed me to create my video much quicker and efficiently, most importantly it allowed me to pinpoint an target my audience with precision.
