Macy Todd A2 Media Studies

Tuesday, 3 April 2018

Note to Examiner -

This is my A2 Media Studies Blog.

My brief was...

To create A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

• a website homepage for the band;

• a digipak for the album’s release;

• a magazine advertisement for the digipak.

My products are based on the indie genre.

Please use the labels to navigate my blog.

Thank you,

Macy Todd 6156

Thursday, 15 March 2018

Evaluation Question 1 -

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

First Draft -

Second Draft -

Evaluation Question 2 -

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

First Draft -

Transcript -

My brief was to create a promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with a digipak for the albums release and a magazine advertisement for the digipak.

In order for the promotional package to succeed my products needed to have synergy. This is the coming together of two or more products to create a combined effect, greater than that of their individual effects.

I tried to create synergy between all three of my products in some way. Firstly, there is a large similarity between my digipak and magazine advert. This is because for the most part they are the same. The front cover of the digipak uses pink and yellow circles to represent the album name 'Pink Lemonade'. These circles also feature as the main part of the magazine advert creating a direct link between the two. This means that the album cover is easily recognisable to the audience. I used the same font across both ancillary tasks as it creates a strong brand and band identity.

This font was carried through to my music promo swell to create synergy between the music video and ancillary tasks. This helps make the music video more recognisable to the audience and reinforces the sense of band identity. The colours used for the text in the music video correspond to the colours used in the ancillary tasks which creates a strong link between all three products.

Overall, the combination of the music promo and the two ancillary tasks was effective in the promotion of the album. The use of synergy ensure the products came together to produce one promotional package.

Evidence of synergy used -

Second Draft -

Transcript -

In order for the promotional package to succeed my products needed to have synergy. This is the coming together of two or more products to create a combined effect, greater than that of their individual effects.

I tried to create synergy between all three of my products in some way. Firstly, there is a large similarity between my digipak and magazine advert. This is because for the most part they are the same. The front cover of the digipak uses pink and yellow circles to represent the album name 'Pink Lemonade'. These circles also feature as the main part of the magazine advert creating a direct link between the two. This means that the album cover is easily recognisable to the audience.

The colours pink and yellow are bright and bold which is not common of the indie genre. They colours have positive connotations which reflects the tone of the music but subverts the meaning of the song. The colour pink has connotations of love linking to the relationship between the two characters in the video, the colour yellow has connotations of happiness. These connotations contrast to the true meaning of the song and therefore create irony.

The font I used was carried through to my music promo as well to create synergy between the music video and ancillary tasks. This helps make the music video more recognisable to the audience. The colours used for the text in the music video correspond to the colours used in the ancillary tasks which creates a strong link between all three products.

The font used is a basic square shaped font in bold lettering. The use of this font suggests the band has a low budget as it is simple and easy to create. Fonts like these are common of the indie genre as they often have low budgets for promotion.

Overall, the combination of the music promo and the two ancillary tasks was effective in the promotion of the album. The use of synergy ensure the products came together to produce one promotional package.

Evaluation Question 3 -

What have you learned from audience feedback?

Create your own user feedback survey

Q1) What did you like about my music promo?

Q2) Is there anything you disliked or would change about my music promo?

Q3) What do you like about my ancillary tasks?

Q4) Is there anything I can improve on regarding my ancillary tasks?

Stuart Hall Reception Theory -

The Stuart Hall Reception Theory suggests that media texts are encoded by the producer. This means that the producer fills the text with values and messages. The audience decode the text when viewing it, not always in the way the producer had intended.

The text can be received in more than one way:

Dominant / Preferred Reading - the 'reader' share's the text's code and accepts its preferred reading.

Negotiated Reading - understands the text's code, generally accepts the preferred reading but modifies it according to their social position and experiences.

Oppositional Reading - understands the code but rejects the preferred reading. The audience member will be reading the text from an oppositional position.

From my feedback I can conclude that overall, the audience shared the products codes and accepted the preferred 'reading'. This means as a producer I have created an effective product that is suitable for its target audience and therefore will fulfil its role as a promotional package.