1. Advanced Portfolio: Evaluation.
My project is a music video for a pop-punk band in the local area called
Middle Finger Salute, I worked with two other people to make this video they
were Beth Owen and Stephannie Soloniewicz. We originally started with four
members in our group but due to unforeseen circumstances one of our
members had to leave college, forcing us to reorganise the allocated jobs. As
a group we shared the work load fairly evenly. I contributed to the locations,
filming, editing, ancillary tasks and I was also responsible for finding a band to
create a music video for. Our target audience are White, British males aged
16-25. Using Young and Rubicam’s approach of Cross-cultural Consumer
Characteristics we are aiming at the group named ‘individual’ which is a group
of people that do not want to fit in and want to be different. I also researched
the UK tribes and saw the band would appeal to the group called ‘indie kids’.
Here is a picture link to the UK tribes website.
I think our product will appeal to these groups as it is a pop punk band
and the music is trying to be different as that is what the whole punk genre is
about.
The genre of our music video is punk/rock/indie. The conventions that
we used were the use of the band in the video and the use of the band
performance in the video. Here is a pie chart to show the favourite genres of
music it is clear punk isn’t the most popular genre so we are appealing to a
niche market. [SLAP PIE CHART HERE] . We also followed the typical
conventions of focusing on the lead singer with several close ups of him and
many shots focusing on him singing. It was vital to use some of the typical
elements in the video as the product does still need to look like a music video.
I think we did do something different in the sense that we made the footage
very jumpy to give the video another layer so in a sense it was not just a band
performance and it entertained the viewer. As well as this used the desaturate
effect to put the video into black and white as we mixed the video up with
black and white and colour throughout. This was used again to give the
audience something different as the audience want something that is “the
2. same, but different” – G.Burton. We also decided against including a narrative
in the video as we wanted to break the usual conventions of a music video as
the punk image is about breaking conventions, we knew that if we were to
create a video that was just a band performance without a narrative we would
have to entertain the viewer with some other techniques and that is why we
decided to use the black and white filters and create the jumpy effect to
entertain the viewer. One of my main inspirations for this video was the Arctic
Monkeys video for “I bet that you look good on the dancefloor”
[SLAP VIDEO HERE]
We were confident that this technique would work and entertain the
viewer after being told several times that a narrative would probably be
needed we stuck with our decision and in the audience feedback we got some
very positive responses about the use of editing in the video and nobody
commented on the lack if a narrative which shows that the video worked well
without a narrative.
[SHOW SOME FEEDBACK HERE]
I felt the ancillary tasks followed the requirements of an advertisement
and a CD cover in some ways. For example the CD cover had the name of
the band on and the name of the album with the track listings on the back of
the CD. Here is a slide show showing how the ancillary tasks are following
conventions.
The music that we were making products for is pop- punk so we had to
create an image that linked to punk bands for example The Sex Pistols and
The Clash. We researched the bands and we decided we wanted to use
bright cartoon like colours with contrasting black and white to show the punk
brand image that we wanted to portray for this band. This was used to try and
3. show that the band is rebelling against society and they are not taking their
music very seriously.
[SEX PISTOLS AND CLASH PICTURES]
Our logo is a ‘pop art’ pink gorilla that I drew the outline of then
scanned it into photo shop until we found the most suitable colours that fitted
into our brand image
[SHOW GORRILA ALBUM COVER]
I think that the gorilla fitted into our brand image because it is rebelling
against usual album covers and we have used the bright colours on a
contrasting background. The humour of the gorilla wearing sunglasses to
show the band does not take the music really seriously and they just enjoy the
music and have fun.
We maintained a brand image throughout the products by using the
black and white with colour theme our music video consistently switched from
being in colour to black and white and vice versa.
[SHOW ALL PRODUCTS]
Throughout the products we maintained the brand image by using the
same font which was called VARSITY from dafont.com with all of the
products giving fun and exciting connotations which links in with the branding
that the band just enjoy the music and don’t take it too seriously. The images
were edited on photo shop with a consistent use of the layering technique to
pick out certain things in the image to make them show colour in particular
places for example on the inner sheet one of the images just picks out the
colours of the instruments.
[SHOW IMAGE]
A record label that could but their money behind a band like ours could
range from a major label to an independent label for example Sony BMG
have bands like AC/DC and Franz Ferdinand. Our band is pop punk so they
are liable to be signed by a major company. In contrast they could be signed
by an independent label for example Domino Records who have bands like
the Arctic Monkeys signed to them.
4. [SHOW IMAGES OD RECORD LABELS]
They may believe that the product could make a profit because the
band has a similar sound to several successful bands for example Rancid
although it is different in ways which could attract a large audience.
[RANCID PICTURE]
Our target audience are White, British males aged 16-25. Using Young
and Rubicam’s approach of Cross-cultural Consumer Characteristics we are
aiming at the group named ‘individual’ which is a group of people that do not
want to fit in and want to be different. I also researched the UK tribes and saw
the band would appeal to the group called ‘indie kids’.
They are a good audience to target as they are a loyal niche audience
that will stay faithful to the band they are financially right for our band as they
are not a big popular band and would be playing only small venues for cheap
ticket prices which will please the loyal fans.
The band is likely to have a secondary target audience of white,
working class males aged 40-50 as in the 1970’s when these men where
teenager it was the beginning of the punk genre and the uprising of punk with
bands like The Stiff Little Fingers and The Ramones being the most popular
bands at the time
[BAND LOGOS]
We used audience feedback throughout our product by giving out
questionnaires to our target audience (16-25) and showing them our products
so they can comment on the things they like/ dislike in our products. This gave
us the chance to change or product for the better for example someone would
comment on a part of the lip syncing being out of time and this prompted us to
edit that part here is a video of some audience feedback and a scanned in
example of our questionnaire.