I’m a part of a great tragedy led by my fellow team mates. My Team member Maria took expected grade, Got an A* in Media Studies thus left the team with incomplete tasks, and then Leena my other team member did not complete the Final Music video at given time, lost all the data for the video due to file corruption and Dropped the subject during October without informing (When My CAIEs Started).

Its quite unexpected and unprofessional on behalf of my Friends/ Team for leaving me alone with nothing but a poor impression, regardless of that i have pulled up on whatever i can to present my blog alone. Thankyou.

Q.1 How do your products use or challenge conventions and how do the represent social groups or issues?

The genre me and my team picked for our final products was: Folk Pop, a genre in general that somewhat breaks tones of conventions and creates new ones mostly due to the freedom allotted to the artists. Rather than having set conventions the contemporary scene works in trends which emerge with time, which is what we’ve based certain aspects of our products off and what we’ve gone against to showcase some of our own artistic ability. In a country like Pakistan, which is mostly over run with remastered coke studio versions of old songs, releasing an Folk pop album and music video is conventional as it is. Similarly, due to the creative freedom the genre allowed us, to represent social issues which we may not have been able to if we were to be policed by commercialism. Keeping up with the conventions, our music video is Conceptual narrative and performance based ( a mix of three) with bright lighting at some areas and dim in other, features the concept of Longing for love. Furthermore, we used Match on action and jump cuts often to match the tempo and catchy beat of the song to create a smooth effect. Also, our music video featured conventional outfits to match the theme of the track.

Website

For the Website, we mostly kept to the conventions and opted to use a multiple page website for. This allows audiences quicker and easier access and they can view all the content by having header which shows tabs on go. Additionally, in the header, we added navigation links along with the logo and band name of the left to immediately catch the audience’s attention. Also, we embedded our music video and digipak onto the page and used the artist’s repeatedly throughout the website so that audiences would immediately recognize him from the music video and digipak and hence would feel a sense of familiarity and personal connection with the band.

Digipak

For our Digipak front cover, we followed conventions by including a tri-coloured borders overall. Additionally, we had set a specific colour palette and had stuck to it for a more professionally finish. The front cover, CD, and the back cover included the logo, Artist name and album name for the sake of branding and to make our audience familiar through repetition. Furthermore, the back cover included the copyright details at the bottom alongside the bar-code so that it could easily be scanned for purchase while keeping with production house formalities. Also our Inlay also included the logo to familiarize audiences with our icons.

Q2. How do the element of your production work together to create a sense of branding?

A successful brand can create and sustain a strong, positive, and lasting impression in the mind of a consumer. Brands provide external cues to taste, design, performance, quality, value and prestige if they are developed and managed properly and can convey positive or negative messages about a product, along with indicating the company or service to the consumer bring a direct result of past advertising, promotion, and product reputation.

In order for to create our artist identity and star image, we started out by making the Artist logo which would be featured on not only the website and digipak but also on further merchandise which would familiarize the audience with the band and create an association or image in their minds that would immediately remind them of the our Logo ‘ZA’ whenever and wherever they would see the logo.

Q3. How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as real media text?

To get an idea of what our audiences wanted and their expectations, we conducted a survey that we made on Google Docs. By including targeted questions like, “What would you like the music video to be influenced by” and ‘ What style of music video do you like?’, we could better engage our audiences/target market i.e, young adults. While reviewing the results of the survey, we decide to incorporate certain aspects into our final products while choosing to ignore others e.g., in ‘ What style of music video do you like?’ our the majority of our audience voted for Vintage we decided to stick with the conventions of Folk Fusion M/V and opted for A Mixture of three based music video, as we believed that it would appeal best if we highlighted every aspect individually.

How My Products Would Be Distributed

The survey we conducted also questioned our target market on how they discover new music and consume music. The results showed YouTube and Online as the most preferred answers, respectively, leading us to believe that we should primarily focus on online distribution. The music video would be put up on YouTube and Vimeo along with official audios of each track, The album would also be put up on online streaming services like Deezer and Patari, the latter a particularly popular choice in Pakistan. For digital purchase, the album would be available on the artist’s website along with Bandcamp, a platform for indie artists in particular. The latter also allows artists to ship physical copies of the album, also available on the shop on the artist’s website. Physical copies of the album will also be provided to music stores in Pakistan such as ‘Radio City’.

Q.4 How did you integrate technologies- software, hardware and online tools- in this project?

We used Photoshop for multiple purposes throughout the project. It was used to design the logo for the artist, the record label and the production house. We used it once more to create the Merch that was later be featured on the website and finally for designing the entirety of our digipak. Another software that was excessively used was Adobe Premiere Pro used to edit our music video from start to end. The Snipping Tool was also used to capture our progress through snips and Microsoft Word was used for writing out our synopses. We Used Google Docs for Surveys and many Slide making apps to create presentations. We also used iMovie to edit and make the behind the scenes of our shoot.

For the shoot itself we used a Canon 70D Camera and an assortment of accessories such as SD cards, chargers and data cables to handle and transfer data. I used my own personal laptop and the computers provided by our School’s Media and IT Lab. The Natural Daylight complimented and as well as Ring Lights and Reflectors to adjust warmth.

An assortment of online tools were used throughout the project, the most prominent being the WiFi provided by our school. We used Emaze and Other online sites to create presentations of music video theories, music video analyses and star image. I also Used Excel for the shot list for our project. I chose WordPress again as the platform to create my blog, where I recorded all my progress. Using Google Docs for survey to gauge the preferences of our target audience. Google was used to research and Applications like Whatsapp were used to communicate between the team mates. Social Media networks such as, YouTube and Facebook were used to make profiles for the artist. Mobirise was used to construct our promotional website.