Skeleton Layout for Ancillary Tasks

Skeleton Layout 1:

This is my first template in making a website. The theme is bland due to me using a grey background, which matches the grey background in my company logo, giving the website an anaesthetically pleasing look due to it looking like a business website rather than a music website. This is due to the lack of graphics and bold colours which are conventions of the indie genre due to the hippie culture having bright and bold colours, symbolising the 'flower power' and conventions of nature. The subheadings are set out similar to the subheadings, the text is yellow to symbolise the light beam in the company logo in the top corner of the website. Also, the rest of the text are grey and black due to symbolising the colours within the logo. The subheadings give easy access for the audience to research for their specific interests.

Skeleton Layout 2:

Secondly, the second skeleton layout for a websitemeets more conventions of the Indie genre. For example, the variety of colours such as blue, green and pale orange and baby pink, connoting love, purity, growth and peace. The logo for Light Beams Productions has changed due to the grey background in the original logo design not blending in with the rest of the theme of the website. Therefore, I photoshopped the grey background to make a transparent background and the 'L' from black to pink, so the new logo will blend in as look professional on the website, and the pink 'L' will match the colour of the subheadings. Both, the background and logo, are aesthetically pleasing to the target audience (16-20 year olds) due to younger people liking brighter colours which persuades them to look at a media source.

Furthermore, have included subheadings which link to different pages of the website such as home, about, news, gallery and contacts. This will make the audience have easy access to the parts of the website which they want to access. It is also a simple and modern layout due to old websites having a lack of graphics and one main page of heavy text with simple links, which lead to other websites. Therefore, my audience will be intrigued with going through other parts of my website due to there being a lack of heavy text.

Final design of digipak

Final design of website

https://rebeccaharris990.wixsite.com/lightbeamsproduction

Audience Feedback for Digipak

Results from digipak:

Part of my primary research in designing a digipak was to create two different designs for a digipak front cover, and send out a questionnaire to a small sample of my audience for feedback. Before starting my questionnaire, I included a small introduction about what the research is for (my A-Level practical task) and a brief insight of the plot of the narrative of the music video to Jeff Buckley's 'Hallelujah'. This helps the audience understand the plot and therefore find the questions easier to answer, which gives me accurate, reliable and valid.

Firstly, within the results, I found that over 90% of my respondents were aged 15-20, which are my target audience that the music video is aimed at. Also, the results show that majority of the audience were females. Females are the majority of the audience when it comes to romantic narratives due to it having 'attractive' actors and actresses creating a fantasising narrative. This will be shown within the video, however, they will only be seen as flashbacks due to our narrative being about a woman who broke a mans heart and passes away, therefore the male looks back on the happy memories.

Furthermore, 7 out of 11 respondents preferred my first digipak design due to the large image standing out, as well as the colours used. For example, the pastel colours and the large portrait images of the male and female.However, form a rating of 1-5 (5 being great) 54.55% of the audience rated the front cover 3 out of 5 due to the text being difficult to see as well as the design being too simplistic with a small font, as well as wanting to see an image that will be easily recognised as part of the story and have some conventions of the indie genre. Therefore, I will do this by having pastel colours and have images of nature.

In addition, the respondents mentioned that they would like the digipak to include links to social media and images from the music video within it. Therefore, when designing the inside of the digipak, I will include these aspects to make the digipak look professional, modern and sell easier to the target market. Also, it will meet the needs of a modern digipak.

In conclusion, I will redesign my digipak and use more conventions of the indie genre such as bright colours and the use of nature, with characters wearing casual costume and natural hair and makeup. Also, I will have a bold title to let the audience know the name of the digipak and be aesthetically pleasing, which persuades the audience to purchase the product.

Audience Feedback for Websites

Results from questionnaire:

Firstly, the main age range of my respondents were ages 16-20, which is ideal due to my target audience being within that age range, therefore their feedback will benefit me for making any changes. This age range are more likely to be interested in modern websites with graphics and bold colours, which my website uses.

Secondly, 10 out of 13 respondents were female. Stereotypically, females are interested in the colours pink, purple, yellow and baby blue, which I have used within my website layout. These colours are also conventions of the indie genre due to being natural colours, which are normally found within flowers and the colours in the sky for sunrises and sunsets. Also, females are the majority of the audience for romance genre films and music videos due to it being a fantasy and helping them escape from reality (Young and Rubicam - the struggler). 

Furthermore, all of my respondents chose website one as the preferred layout and the average rating was 4 out of 5. This therefore helps me with understanding what the target audience expect within a website and the layout.

On average, majority of my audience said that the image and colour stood out on my website layout. This shows that the young generation are into bold colours and graphics within a website as it's eye-catching and gives a website a professional and modern style.

In addition, the images above show the respondents feedback on how to improve my website. Most respondents said that the text needs to be larger to be read easier and needs to match the image and have more of a italic font. Another respondent mentioned that the layout is too overcrowded, and the background colour should have a lower opacity so both the image and text are easier to see as it strains over the text. This shows that colour and style are key for my target audience as they still want to see the text and image, just at a lower saturation to be seen and read easier.

Therefore, I will make a few changes such as the size of the font as well as the opacity of the background image of the flowers. Also, I will try to change the layout of where the subheadings and the social media links are and try not to make it clash with the background. 

 Finally, my audience said that they expect to see social media links and a about page to give a summary about the production company and cast. I have already included these aspects within my website, therefore no changes are needed. However, two of my respondents mentioned that they expect to see all of the conventions listed. My website includes all of these aspects apart from a search bar, therefore I will include one so it gives the audience easier access to find their interests within my website.

In conclusion, I will slightly change the layout of my website. For example, the colour and size of the text and image to make it easier for the audience to see and read. To do this, I will change the opacity of the background image and change the colour of the font for the headlines and search bar. Also, I will change how some parts of my website is set out to make it look less overcrowded, therefore making it more aesthetically pleasing to the target audience. 

Website 1: My opinion

Firstly, the first website is the main website which I am using due to it meeting more conventions of the Indie genre. For example, the variety of colours such as blue, green and pale orange and baby pink, connoting love, purity, growth and peace. The logo for Light Beams Productions has changed due to the grey background in the original logo design not blending in with the rest of the theme of the website. Therefore, I photoshopped the grey background to make a transparent background and the 'L' from black to pink, so the new logo will blend in as look professional on the website, and the pink 'L' will match the colour of the subheadings. Both, the background and logo, are aesthetically pleasing to the target audience (16-20 year olds) due to younger people liking brighter colours which persuades them to look at a media source.
Furthermore, have included subheadings which link to different pages of the website such as home, about, news, gallery and contacts. This will make the audience have easy access to the parts of the website which they want to access. It is also a simple and modern layout due to old websites having a lack of graphics and one main page of heavy text with simple links, which lead to other websites. Therefore, my audience will be intrigued with going through other parts of my website due to there being a lack of heavy text.

Website 2: My opinion

The second website was my first template in making a website. The theme is bland due to me using a grey background, which matches the grey background in my company logo, giving the website an anaesthetically pleasing look due to it looking like a business website rather than a music website. This is due to the lack of graphics and bold colours which are conventions of the indie genre due to the hippie culture having bright and bold colours, symbolising the 'flower power' and conventions of nature. The subheadings are set out similar to the subheadings on website 1, the text is yellow to symbolise the light beam in the company logo in the top corner of the website. Also, the rest of the text are grey and black due to symbolising the colours within the logo.

Textual Analysis- Website

Ancillary Task - Website research from RebeccaIH

Primary Research

Audience Evaluation

From these results, our audience are mainly female. This is very stereotypical as females tend to prefer romantic genres. In our music video, we will include young female characters within our video, which will help to sell our music video easier to the target audience. 

Majority of our target audience were aged between 16-25, whilst the least were aged 45 or older. Due to our music video being aimed at such a young target audience, we will have to include characters of similar age to help the audience watching connect with them and sympathise. Also, many music videos nowadays include young actors as it's easier to attract the younger audience as they're more likely to watch and get involved with promoting the video.

In addition, most of our target audience prefer to listen to the pop genre, as well as some listening to rap and other music. This shows that nowadays, majority of youth listen to pop music as it is the most trendy and popular music genre. However, my groups music video is based on a more on an alternative rock/pop genre. Our song is called 'Hallelujah' by Jeff Buckley.

From these results above, it was a very close result of whether it is important to send a clear moral message in a music video. 18 people said yes whilst 17 said no. Therefore, we will include a very small moral message, which will be more based on not taking drugs. 

In contrast, original music videos use to just show the artist/ band performing, and no moral messages were given. However, today, many music videos include moral messages to engage the audience to watch it and spread awareness.

Most of our audience expect to see lots of emotion within a romantic genre music video. Others have mentioned slow music, which links well to emotion. Also, a storyline and happy ending was mentioned. Stereotypically, a romantic video would include two people falling in love and have a 'happily ever after'. However, in my groups video, we will include a storyline which is tense at times with lots of emotions shown throughout the video, as well as there not being a happy ending as the main narrative is about heartbreak.

Furthermore, most of our young target audience prefer a hybrid music video. A hybrid music video is when two or more different types of music videos are merged into one. This links well to my groups music video as we are creating a hybrid music video, which includes a narrative and performance. A narrative music video is where a story is being told to the audience. A performance however, includes a performance from the artist/band which could be live in front of an audience or in a studio.

36 out of the 42 people whom answered our survey said that they didn't feel uncomfortable with sexual themes being included in a music video. This will help our group with filming our video as there will be a little sexual scene included due to it being a romantic genre, but it will not be graphical therefore it is still suitable to watch.

Half of our respondents said that they don't mind if the music video is long or short. However, two-thirds mentioned that they prefer shorter music videos, which is because they would rather listen to the song rather than having different scenes in-between interfering with the song. Therefore, our group will film a shorter music video with a short introduction to keep our audience watching and interested.

In addition, most of our target audience rated a 3 for wanting to see a introduction, whilst others mainly rated either 1 star or 4. Therefore, my group will include an introduction at the beginning to give the audience an understanding of the storyline, as well as introducing them to characters and engage them to watch the music video.

In conclusion, my group and I intend to include young characters to help our young audience engage with the characters and sympathise with them, which will make the audience watching enjoy the music video. We will try our best to make the video look realistic as much as possible to make the audience believe whats happening (Barthes Enigma Theory). This links to Barthes Enigma Theory due to us using the Enigma, Symbolic and Action code to keep the audience question on what may happen next, making them want to watch more.

Also, an introduction will be included, but it will be a short one to make sure our target audience do not get bored of watching the video. Our story will focus on a variety of emotions as we will include flashbacks, as well as giving a dramatic storyline.

For our primary research we are going to be making a video with 6-8 people from the target audience that we would like our final music video to appeal to. in our focus group we will ask a questions on a variety of topics regarding audience and the style of music video that they would like to see.

1. Do you prefer the message of a music video to be clear or more ambiguous ?
2. Do you think that the use of black and white will add to or take away from the meaning of the song?
3.  Is it important to you that the lyrics within the song relate to the narrative of the video?
4. Would you prefer a romantic music video to be centred around the relationship or the loss of that relationship (a breakup)?
5. Do you prefer fast or slow paced videos?
6. which clip is more visually appealing to you? A or B 
7. What props do you think would best represent a breakup within a music video?
8. Would you prefer a music video to be from the perspective of one person or multiple? 
9. When you think of romance what is the first thing that comes to mind
10. What songs do you know of that are about romance? now what are the music videos like for these songs 
11. Do you find music videos about romance to be a realistic representation of real life? 
12. Can you provide an example of something you saw in a music video that particularly stood out to you?
13. What features in a music video do you consider to render it 'good'?

Essay 
By Ryan Griffiths

For our primary research we are going to be making a focus group with 6-8 people from the target audience that we would like our final music video to appeal to. In our focus group we will ask a questions on a variety of topics regarding audience and the style of music video that they would like to see.

However we did face some difficulties as  our focus group was slightly larger than expected and only a select few members of those involved actually participated in the discussion, therefore we did not receive the broadest range of answers since as expected some participants were more actively involved in the answering of questions than others.

Upon viewing the resultant footage of our focus group video we are able to find that our audience would prefer if our final music video was to be ambiguous and have an open ended narrative as those who we interviewed said that they would like to explore their own different interpretations of the video as they would feel like they could engage with the video and its narrative more as it feels more personal if they can apply their own perspective to it.

Those who we interviewed in our focus group also agreed that the use of black and white will add ambience to the video as they feel that it would make the video clearer as they will be able to distinguish which scenes are set in the past or present depending on whether they are in black and white or colour. This then relates to Barthes semantic code as the audience would have associated black and white with the past as music videos, when they first started to become popular would have been in black and white.

The audience also felt that it would be important for the lyrics of the song to relate to the narrative of the music video as they feel the lyrics relating to the narrative would add to the meaning of the song and is more likely to have a lasting impact on the audience as they will have both the visual and aural meanings from the video that are cohesive. The focus group also stated that they would prefer a romance music video to be slow paced as it would reflect the relationship blossoming and the connection between the two people growing, which they would prefer the music video to focus on over the breakup of the relationship.

Those who participated in our focus group listed some examples of props that they felt would symbolise romance these included

• Love Letters
• Photos of the couple together
• Roses
• Teddy Bears
• Places the couple have been together
• Text messages between the couple

This then relates to Barthes semantic code as the audience associate these items with romance and therefore we will include these props within our final music video so that it will conform to what the target audience considers to be genre conventions of a romantic music video.

Most of our audience expect to see lots of emotion within a romantic music video. Others mentioned the lyrics of the song being linked to emotion. Also, a storyline and happy ending was mentioned. Stereotypically, a romantic video would include two people falling in love and have a 'happily ever after'. However, in my groups video, we will include a storyline which shows a mixture of ups and downs within a relations and the emotions the characters are feeling shown, However we do would wish to subvert the stereotype of  a happy ending as the central theme of the song we have chosen for our music video is heartbreak.

Finally, the members of our focus group felt that the features of a music video that would render it to be good are a focus on emotion and the relationship growing between two people and if it was to be about a breakup to be about the happy times the couple had instead of it being about heartbreak. We also found that our audience are mainly female. This is very stereotypical as females tend to prefer romantic genres. In our music video, we will include young female characters within our video, which will help to sell our music video easier to the target audience.