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

Our three media products, music video, website and album, all use, develop and challenge the forms and conventions of real media products. We have used forms and conventions to create realistic media products but have also developed and challenged some elements to achieve our creative vision. In regards to our music video I will analyse the genre conventions, Simon Frith's theory (and our use of it), intertexutality and identity. I will then analyse how we have used, developed and challenged in our website and album cover.

Music Video

Our music video follows the main the conventions of the pop music videos. We have challenged the stereotypical representation of women in music video with our key theme being female empowerment to appeal and attract our target audience demographics of teenagers (primary), younger girls (secondary) and older
women (tertiary).

Genre

Simon Frith's Theory

Our music video follows the conventions outlined in Simon Frith's Theory of  music videos by having a combination of performance and narrative. However, we have developed this convention by having a conceptual narrative interspersed with performance- we have created a realm of fantasy which satisfies the audience element of Blumler & Katz Uses & Gratification Theory of diversion.

Below is a table outlining the general forms and conventions of music videos:

Forms and Conventions of Music Videos

Performance

In the performance element of our music video we followed conventions of Carol Vernallis' The Kindest- Functions and meanings of Music Video Editing Theory through ideas of the video being a visual response to the music, and having a discontinuous structure. For example, our video began solely with performance (seen below) and then it was inter-cut throughout the different set-ups.

Performance at the start of our music video

Heart Attack- Demi Lovato

We took inspiration for GiGi's personality and performance from Demi Lovato- (an example of which can be seen on the right). 'Heart Attack' is an example of a performance music video and we used ideas from it such as showing strong artist identity and hand gestures.

Within performance we also focused on key lines to emphasise the overall message of our song and music video which was female empowerment. In the lyric below we used Goodwin's theory of a link between the lyrics and visuals by using a crown gesture to illustrate the lyric (in a very literal manner). For example:

"This Queen don't need a King!"

Emphasised lyrics in Performance

Another key convention that we used in performance were Beauty shots. These are present in most music videos and especially ones involving a solo artist such as the one below:

Hailee Steinfeld- Love Myself

It was important for us to use Beauty shots as it would help all three of our target audience demographics to clearly see GiGi's characteristics and her star identity so they can began to build a relationship with her as a 'star' and an artist.

Conceptual Narrative

This was an element of music video conventions that we developed by our video not being narrative or conceptual but by combining the two to create a realm of fantasy for our target audience (mainly primary and secondary) to escape into. A key existing music video that we used for inspiration was Dear Future Husband by Meghan Trainor which can be seen below:

From studying this example of a conceptual narrative we planned to include different set-ups, a performance set-up that was inter-cut throughout the video and the main conceptual narrative thread of the Doll's House. The mixture of performance and the Doll's House conceptual narrative can be seen below:

Doll's House and Performance

To ensure we had an interesting and engaging main conceptual narrative thread we incorporated elements of film theory such as Todorov's Narrative Theory through ideas of an equilibrium that is disrupted by GiGi which gets resolved into a new equilibrium.

Todorov's Narrative Theory and Our Doll's House Story-line

Another element of Vernallis' Theory that we used in the conceptual narrative was discontinuous editing as we did not have to follow the continuity rules of film editing. An example of our use of discontinuous editing is in our rapid inter-cutting section in the final chorus:

Example of our use of discontinuous editing

Intertextuality

WWII Intertextuality

1950's Intertextuality

A key convention of music videos that we used was intertextuality. We decided we wanted to make reference to different time periods such as World War Two Land Girls and a stereotypical 1950's Housewife-which would mostly appeal to our tertiary target audience. Within this we had direct reference to existing media texts in the form of posters and adverts. In doing so we used a convention of incorporating intertextuality but we developed it because in music videos the most common type of intertextual references are to film and tv whereas we have used actual posters and adverts.

We took inspiration for using intertextual references from music videos such as Stupid Girls and Raise Your Glass by P!nk:

Stupid Girls Intertextuality

Raise Your Glass Intertextuality

Both of these music videos promote the idea of strong women defying restrictions which helped us develop our main theme of female empowerment.

Identity/Representation

We followed the convention of creating a star identity illustrated in Richard Dyer's 'Star' Identity. Despite stars being a construct we wanted GiGi to represent shared cultural values, attitudes and promote a certain ideology- female empowerment. We wanted to make GiGi a role-model, especially for our primary and secondary target audiences and promote women being strong and independent. Voyeurism and female sexual objectification is prevalent in music videos and we have challenged this convention by not including it in our music video.


We predominantly followed conventions for our music video and used Dyer's 'star' identity, Frith's performance, narrative and concept and Vernallis' discontinuous editing; and the table below shows these and sums up the conventions we used, developed and challenged in our music video:

The forms and conventions that we used, developed and challenged

Website

Below is a prezi illustrating the forms and conventions of our artist website. Please feel free to use the full screen version and to double click on the images to enlarge them:

We predominantly followed the conventions when we created our artist website and the table below sums up when we used, developed or challenged forms and conventions:

The forms and conventions that we used, developed and challenged

Album

Below is a slideshow that illustrates the forms and conventions of album covers and how we used, developed and/or challenged, (please feel free to enlarge the screen):



We predominantly followed conventions for an album cover and the table below illustrates the forms and conventions that we used, developed and/or challenged:

The forms and conventions that we used, developed and challenged

Conclusion

In conclusion, our different media products use, develop and challenge forms and conventions. Overall, by mainly using/following conventions we have created products that look 'genuine' and 'real' but by subtly developing and challenging some conventions we have been able to make a creative and interesting group of media texts.

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

It was our intention when creating our main product and two ancillary tasks to have them work together to promote GiGi in both a synergistic and independent way. We would use them as a marketing strategy to successfully reach and appeal to our three target audience demographics and portray GiGi's brand/'star' identity. I will analyse and compare an existing artist marketing campaign and the approach we took, star identity, connectivity and the website.

Marketing Campaign

Below is a flowchart that illustrates the marketing campaign of Dua Lipa:

Dua Lipa's Marketing Campaign

Studying how Dua Lipa was marketed was very helpful as she directly related to GiGi through the idea of her being a new, emerging, British female solo artist within the pop and synth-pop genre.

The aim of a marketing campaign is to reach and then appeal to the audience and encourage people to part with their money. It is also important to understand how the different elements work in the campaign- the website acts as the 'hub', the music video promotes the single, the single promotes the album and the album and tour work together and promote each other. Another aim is to launch the brand of an artist, for example, we wanted to promote GiGi as a strong female role-model. A key element of a marketing campaign for a new artist is to raise awareness of them. We used this idea in how we marketed GiGi which can be seen below.

Please feel free to use the full screen option, zoom in and drag/move around the screen:



Marketing theory illustrates the marketing mix formed of the 4 P's:

1. Product= we created three separate products that the audience will use for diversion and enjoyment
2. Place= to ensure that we reached all our target audience demographics we placed our music video on YouTube to reach a global audience and the album can be purchased on the 'hub' of the marketing campaign, the website. The proloferation of David Gauntlett's idea of Web 2.0 means that audience members can share GiGi's music video-further increasing her audience base.
3. Price= the price of the deluxe album is £7.99 and tour tickets are £30 which are very affordable and cheaper than existing products which should attract a greater following for GiGi
4. Promotion= we reached our audience through the website, YouTube, social media platforms and live events such as an album signing at HMV Westfield.

The music video on YouTube

The signing event advertised on the website news page

Star Identity

Richard Dyer's 'Star' Theory  illustrates a "true pop star has a lasting significance" which can be achieved through them "conveying beliefs, ideas and thoughts outside music" that help to create their clear and strong artist/star identity.

We wanted GiGi to be strong and independent, someone who would be a role-model for her target audience (mainly the primary and secondary target audience). To further illustrate GiGi's star identity I created the word cloud below:

To further illustrate how we constructed GiGi's star identity through the music video and website I created the padlet below. Please feel free to click on the gifs and images to enlarge them and watch the video:

Connectivity

Below is a mind-map that shows the connectivity between the album cover and the music video:

Connectivity between the he album and music video

Website

Below is a prezi that illustrates connectivity within GiGi's website:

Conclusion

Overall, I believe that the combination of our main and ancillary tasks is very effective. They work efficiently together to create a successful marketing campaign. They also work well individually to promote GiGi as a 'star' and an artist ti successfully reach and appeal to our three target audience demographics

Evaluation Q3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback has been extremely helpful throughout the entirety of our creative process. I will analyse our target audience and their feedback during construction and results from our surveys and to do this I will use my knowledge of the Uses and Gratifications Theory,

Our target audience can be broken down into three different groups and we received feedback from all the different groups.

1. Primary Target Audience = Teenage girls
2. Secondary Target Audience = Younger girls
3. Tertiary Target Audience = Older Women (mums)

An invented audience member

A typical (invented) primary target audience member would be Sarah who is 16, who lives in London, enjoys dance and netball, has a medium spending power and listens to music through streaming websites such as Spotify. She may purchase a song on iTunes but is unlikely to go to a store to buy an album. She is likely to listening to music by Dua Lipa, Meghan Trainor, Daya and Selena Gomez for example.

Artists similar to GiGi

GiGi is likely to appeal to our secondary target audience of younger girls through the catchy tune of her debut single and her persona of a cool (rebellious) teenager who would be an aspirational role model for them. Our tertiary audience is likely to hear it on the radio and the catchy may get into their heads and they may go and buy the song/album for their children.

Another element of our target audience is fans of the pop genre. When we were creating our three media products we always kept in mind the different demographics of our target audience and if our products would appeal to them in order to make them buy into GiGi's brand through buying into it literally and becoming a fan. To achieve this we used the techniques illustrated by Blumler and Katz's Uses and Gratifications Theory.

1) Personal Identity

We created GiGi to have a strong identity with clear motivations and beliefs that our target audience (especially our primary and secondary audience) could identify with and see as an inspirational role model.

GiGi is presented as sassy and strong:

This would inspire girls to be who they want to be and be confident.

She is also shown standing up to male dominance and patriarchy :

Our music video's main theme is empowering women and we wanted GiGi to be a strong role model as she stands up for herself and the Girl doll. Despite the popular culture of strong women only a few music videos show women in a power role.

By having our music video in all elements of our marketing campaign and on YouTube it has allowed GiGi to have global reach which has allowed her to hopefully inspire more members of the target audience and widen GiGi's fan base.

The music video on YouTube

For example, the music video has been watched in the UK, Algeria, Morocco, Philippines, Germany, Panama and Italy. The graph below shows where the greatest amount of views have come from:

Global viewing

2) Surveillance (inform)

Our website plays the biggest role in gratifying our targets audience through surveillance and informing the audience, more than our music video and album cover. The proliferation of technologically converged devices such as smartphones and Web 2.0 allows an audience (mostly our primary and secondary audience) to gratify their interest in GiGi through information about GiGi on our website which is very easily accessible (which would appeal to our tertiary audience):

Surveillance on the website

3)  Personal Relationships

The main way to gratify a personal relationship with the audience on the website is through interaction, which the video below illustrates:

In our music video a personal relationship is mainly built up between GiGi and the audience as GiGi is shown as quite independent. However, a relationship/friendship is built up between GiGi and the Girl doll:

4) Diversion/Entertainment

We gratified an audience's want for entertainment in our video through the mixture of performance and conceptual narrative. We used dis-continuous editing and cutting to the beat effectively to help keep our audience engaged and interested. Key moments that target audience members have said that they find entertaining, the parody of the 1950's housewife and the fainting Snow White:

1950's

Snow White Faint

Within our wider audience base there is likely to be a niche audience of people who are interested in women's rights. For example, women's right are an element of popular culture seen in music videos such as Meghan Trainor's Dear Future Husband which promote strong women and activists such as Emma Watson (and is a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador). We understood the nottion that GiGi was not representing something bradn new in the music industry but instead tapping into themes that artists such as Meghan Trainor and P!nk represent:

Meghan promotes strong women in her music video

Emma Watson hiding feminist books in the Underground

Audience Feedback during Construction

We made sure that we got target audience feedback throughout the creative period but it was most useful to get it during construction as we could then change and adapt the products in regards to the feedback we received.

Music Video Feedback:

Feedback on the music video

An example of coming back to the performance set-up

The video below illustrates the original narrative ending that we improved after receiving target audience feedback:

Website Feedback:

Feedback on the website

The video below illustrates what our original website background was:

The image below shows what a subsection of the gallery looked like after we implemented target audience feedback:

The back to gallery button

Album Cover Feedback:

Feedback on the album cover

The image below shows the final track listing colours:

Track listings

Survey Feedback

We were able to get target audience feedback about our finished products through surveys I created on Survey Monkey. This was very useful as we were able to get quantitative and qualitative results and spot trends.

The padlet below shows videos of our surveys for our music video, album cover and website and results. Please feel free to press the top right hand button to open it in full screen:

Target Audience Feedback Video:

I interviewed a member of our target audience to get her feedback on our three finished media products, (please watch the below video with the subtitles which are my comments and analysis turned on):

Conclusion

Overall, I have learnt a lot from the audience feedback we received at all stages of production. It was useful to have a very clear idea of our target audience so we could tailor our media products to meet and gratify their demands. Audience feedback during construction allowed us to change and develop our project to enable our products to have the greatest appeal possible to our target audience. Feedback in the survey on our finished products was very pleasing as it showed how our target audience members understood and appreciated what we were trying to portray through GiGi, her music video, album cover and website.

Evaluation Q4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

We used a range of new media technologies in all elements of our process from research & planning, to production (and post-production) to evaluation. New media technologies greatly benefited the project and I have been on a great learning curve through learning how to use many technologies which I had no previous experience of.

The mind-map below shows all the different technologies used in Research & Planning, Production/Post-Production and Evaluation. Please press the play button:

Research & Planning

The padlet below illustrates the technologies we used in Research & Planning and their pros and cons:

Construction = Production/Post-Production

The prezi below illustrated the new media technology we used in both production and post-production:

Evaluation

The slides below illustrates the new media technology I used in the evaluation (please click the blue arrow to move through the slides):

Conclusion 

In conclusion, I have used new media technologies in research & planning, construction (production and post-production) and evaluation. New media technologies have allowed me to progress quickly and effectively through the creative process and project. I have been able to improve my knowledge in some technologies (such as Premier Pro) as well as learning how to use new technologies (Photo-Shop). I have been very fortunate in this project to have had such a wide array of technologies available to me which I have been able to use creatively to create the best products possible and Web 2.0 has been of crucial importance as it has allowed for easy communication through social media between group members at all stages and has meant that we were able to be effective prosumers. 

Construction Post 6: Website post-production

To create our artist website we used Wix. I enjoyed learning how to use Wix as I had never done anything (apart from blogging) like making a website before.

The tool bar

Our Pages Breakdown

In Wix we used tool bar on the right to create our website.

• Top button = Background
• Add = different elements such as text, images, store, slideshow
• Wix App Market = from where we added the Wix Music App
• My uploads = such as our photo-shopped promo shots
• Blog manager = which we used as the format of our news page
• Store manager = where we worked on our GiGi merchandise

Above left is a breakdown of the different pages of our website and their subsections. The eye emoticon illustrates that pages are hidden. For example, the Terms and Conditions page is linked to the Home page but it hidden until someone clicks on the link to it.

The image below illustrates some of the early work we did on the home page:

Early work and breakdown of  reasoning

From talking to a member of our target audience they said that our contact page looked a bit simplistic, therefore we adapted was the page to make it more informative. One of the changes we made was having Google maps to show where our record company is based. We also changed the font type and colour to match with the other website pages.

Our original contact page

Our improved contact page

Another part of the website we developed and improved was the gallery. To begin with we only had behind the scene photos which can be seen below:

Our original behind the scenes photos style

After completing our promo shots and other photo shoots we were able to add more sub sections to the gallery which are now:

1. Sit Still, Look Pretty: Behind the scenes 
2. Official Photoshoot
3. Social Media

Our sub section gallery

We also changed the behind the scenes photos from being in a carousel (as seen above) to making them look like Polaroids and also allowed us to see the captions of the pictures (seen below):

The  new Polaroid style behind the scenes photos

Another element of the website which we worked on was the tour page. This is arguably the most important part of an artist's website as it is where the most revenue is made and is one of the main purchasing opportunities. Therefore we worked on making it clear and precise so as to make it easily accessible for our audience. Below is an image of our tour page containing our photo-shopped tour poster and tour dates:

Our tour page

In order to make our website seem genuine and informative we added Google maps, directions, parking information and the ability to buy tickets direct from the website using Pay-Pal.

Tickets for the O2 page

A vital part of our artist website that increases audience enjoyment and allows an audience to learn more about GiGi is the Bio page which can be seen below:

Our Bio Page

I really enjoyed writing and answering the questions as GiGi to allow an audience to further understand what she is like, which we have established in our music video. I photo-shopped the promo shots for this page and the use of a scroll bar of pictures allows for more audience interaction.

A key way to create fun and enjoyment for an audience on an artist website is to have something such as a quiz which allows for audience interaction. We took inspiration by Little Mix's quiz on their website and created our own:

Little Mix's quiz

The bottom of the Bio page with the entrance to the quiz and the opportunity to subscribe

Our quiz with the chance to win a meet and greet with GiGi

Another way for our audience to keep up to date with GiGi is the use of blog posts on the News Page. By having a snapshot and the opportunity to "read more" it does not bombard the audience with too much information and lets them chose what they want to look at.

Our News page

A Significant Change

Towards the end of the production period and after some target audience and teacher feedback about the background being a bit overpowering, we decided to change the background and included pictures of GiGi on most of the pages:

The new layout

Key reference points were the websites of Carly Rae Jepsen, Selena Gomez and Dua Lipa.

Existing artist websites = reference points

An addition to our Bio page was baby pictures of GiGi inspired by Taylor Swift's website which has a section of home videos.

Taylor Swift's Hone Video part of her website

Target Audience Feedback

During construction of the website I spoke to Biri and she gave me some feedback which can be seen below:

• Liked how the footer looked realistic and that it could convince someone into thinking it was an actual website
• Clear purple and white colour theme
• Liked all the details of items in the shop and how the basket linked to Pay-Pal (and small details like the "No Animal Testing" in the description of the perfume)
• Liked how you could actually 'buy' tickets
• Loved the quiz and commented on how it was good audience interaction

• Can't go back a step you have to go back through the different pages in the gallery to get to where you were - so we added back to the gallery buttons

Also during construction I got feedback from our secondary target audience which can be seen below:

Secondary target audience feedback

I spoke to a member of our tertiary audience to see what she thought of our website:

Tertiary Target Audience Feedback:

• Commented that maybe it was because of her age, but she was totally convinced as to the authenticity of the website
• Liked the clear landing page- the fact that the video is hidden behind the GiGi logo encourages people to want to go into the website
• Loves the homepage scroll bar as it is very eye-catching and also all the homepage gadgets
• Thought that the quiz was amazing
• Recognised the synergy of the GiGi logo and tour picture on all the merchandise
• Did actually try to buy tickets
• Liked the baby photos as it gave the bio page a human touch
• Ease at which you can move around the website, especially the gallery, as it is important for an older audience who don't want to be challenged by technology
• Felt that the use of recognisable logos such as PayPal, Twitter and Facebook gave the whole website it's air of total authenticity

Teacher feedback has also been very useful in our creation of our artist website. For example, they suggested that we changed our original background that was overpowering.

Overall, I am very pleased with our artist website as we have followed website conventions as well as using our ideas and imagination to create a unique, eye-catching website that appeals to and gratifies our audience.