Evaluation Part Four - New Media Technologies

"How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages of your project?"

The use of the web 2.0 provided a huge advantage for most aspects of our project. For example, throughout the research stages we were able to access thousands of music videos, album covers and websites to give us inspiration for our work. If access to the internet wasn't available, then our research would've taken much, much longer. We would've only been able to analyse CD covers by going into shops or buying them, and music videos would only have been able to be viewed by waiting for them to come on to music channels on the television or again by buying CDs with them on. So not only did the internet save us a lot of time, it also saved us money! It was also very easy to do so as we could use search engines on websites like Google and Yahoo to find websites, and then search engines on individual sites to find particular things. For example, when I used Katy Perry's website to find out information about target audience, I was able to search through the website to find certain forums where I'd be able to gain the information. The internet allows you to reach huge audiences, which enables you to find out diverse, valid results very quickly.

Music websites like Spotify and Last.fm were also very useful as they can recommend artists similar to who you are listening to, so when I wanted to look at music videos by artists similar to Katy Perry, I was able to enter Katy Perry on to Last.fm and was linked to pages of similar artists. This allowed us to find out about codes and conventions of pop music videos very easily, and meant that we could see what shots & mis en scene we should use. This is a very good example of web 2.0 as it shows the interaction between audience and the internet. For example, the way that these music sites recommend similar music to what you are looking for is by saying what other people who listen to the same thing also listen to. So if I was looking for artists similar to Katy Perry, and somebody else had listened to Katy Perry but also listened to RIhanna, this information would be on the website and would show the most popular similarities. Another website like this is Ping which is linked to user's iTunes account allows people to rate and comment on songs with their opinions. In my next evaluation blog entry, I am going to embed a slideshow of shots in our video compared to real media texts which is like a storyboard.

We used iMovie to upload our footage and edit our final video. Although I'd used the programme for my AS project, I still didn't know much about it and it was very different making a music video on it than making the opening scene to a film! We would've been able to create a better quality video if we had the time, as we would've been able to use Final Cut Express, another video editing programme. We used iMovie to sync together the shots we'd taken in different locations to fit it to the song. This was useful because it meant if we wanted to change something we could do it easily as it was all in different sections. For example, we were able to add a performance shot to our storyboard but then if we thought it didn't work well we could delete it and replace it with something else. We were also able to edit sections of our footage to fit the music and sync up the lyrics when it was on the storyboard which made the software quite straightforward. I found iMovie relatively easy to use as we got used to it, but was quite confused at first! But the help section of the programme gave us information to work out the best and easiest ways to produce our work.

When we were producing our ancillary tasks, most of the class used Photoshop to create high quality images. However, I found this programme particularly hard and struggled finding ways to use it and therefore had to use Paint Shop Pro 8 as I had a better understanding of it. This was quite a disadvantage as not only was the programme I used quite an old version, I feel that it didn't produce as high quality work as Photoshop does. Paint Shop Pro still enabled me to produce my ancillary task to quite a good standard though, and also provided help when I needed it. For example, when adding text to certain areas, sometimes I had to change the layer style but I was given warning messages when I had to do so which I found very useful. I was also able to find PSP tutorials all over the web which gave written and visual guides, which is another very useful aspect of the internet.

As mentioned in my previous post, the internet provided a huge advantage for our audience feedback, as were able to post our video on YouTube which is used by a huge amount of people and onto Facebook where we could get direct feedback. Without the internet, audience feedback would've taken much more time and effort. Sites like surveymonkey.com allow you to create questionnaires online, and share them with friends and followers on multiple social networking sites. I was going to use this, but as we'd already created a questionnaire for feedback, I thought it'd be a bit pointless. However, it is another example about how easy the internet can generate fast results, and if I was to complete this project it's something I'd definitely use.

When I have had to complete projects in the past, I've normally had to display them in a Word document, PowerPoint document or sometimes by hand. The use of blogs such as blogger.com and tumblr.com allow you to display your whole project in a small but organised place where you can access from just about anywhere. My blog has enabled me to use direct links to other websites I have used, and even show pictures and videos. Another useful aspect of this is that you can include PowerPoint presentations in a very tidy way by using sites like scribd.com and slideshare.net as they let you upload presentations just by using one window.

Overall, I'd say that the internet has had a massive impact on my project, as it's easy to use, doesn't cost very much and has access to millions of different pages and information. The use of programmes like iMovie and Paint Shop Pro helped me produce my work aswell, but I found them a lot more difficult to use! Although, I think that if I was to use the same programmes in future then I'd be a lot more comfortable with using them.

Our Music Video Locations

To decide the best locations for us to film our music video, we came up with a list of places that were easily accessible but still applicable to our genre.

Location ideas

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From this, we thought of how we could incorporate our ideas into the locations we had picked, for example we thought that a performance scene would work well in the bedroom whilst narrative scenes would be better suited to inside school or outside in the garden.


As a lot of music we looked at uses romantic storylines in their videos, with a much smaller focus on friendships so I mainly thought about films from the "chick flick" genre to come up with locations that would reflect our target audience. For example "Mean Girls" has a big emphasis on different friendship groups in a canteen so i thought that using the school canteen would be a really good way of reflecting the age and theme of our storyline.


The above picture shows the cafeteria scene from the film Mean Girls, it emphasises the age of the audience we are aiming the video at and also links in well with the storyline of our music video.

Initial Video Ideas

Andrew Goodwin suggested that music videos are 'just an extension of the lyrics.' For our music video, we want our narrative scenes to reflect what is being sang as I think it's pretty difficult not to! The lyrics and music include a range of emotions, from being kind of impatient and annoyed, upset and angry to eventually feeling happy and fun again, and we would like to portray these emotions in our video. We've decided to use quite simple settings, for example, inside a house, in & around the school, in fields, in shops. Not only will this be easy to do, it also reflects the areas that our target audience spend a lot of time in which will make the video more relatable. We will be putting most of the focus onto one character who will be in all of the performance and narrative shots, and we may include a few friends and some other background characters to make it seem more realistic. I think a performance scene where the lead character is singing on stage will work well as its seen in quite a few pop music videos and is a good way of entertaining the audience. Mis en scene will be based on our target audience, for example, if we film a scene in a bedroom, then we will make sure that cosmetics and girly things are on show. I also think it's important to use a range of different shots to express different emotions, if there is part of the song where the lyrics or music is quite vulnerable or sad, then a high angled shot will be useful for making the main character look quite small.

Album Promo Posters

As part of our ancillary task, we have to create a poster for our song. Using panicposters.com I looked at some posters that have been used for other artist's singles. As the song we have picked is in the pop genre, I clicked on the pop category of the website so I could look at similar artist's work. One that stood out for me was the promo poster for Lily Allen's single, Littlest Things.

The poster is split into two sections, the bigger section is a picture of Lily Allen dressed in quite a 50's style outfit but with cartoon tall buildings behind her which is quite modern. At the bottom of the picture of her is a box with the title of the song in it, again in quite 50's style writing which is quite tall and thin. The logo she uses on her album is in the top corner of the picture which just says her name in quite bold writing, which stands out even though its quite small. The bottom section of the poster is probably half the size of the other part but contains a lot more writing and information. Again, the title of the song is used again in the same font, but this time much bigger. Below is the release date of the single, which the actual day is red compared to the majority of black writing on the rest of the page. Again, this stands out on the page but also fits in with the colour scheme of the poster. Underneath this is a short message about how you can preorder the single using your mobile phone, this is wrote in white writing with a red background which is different from the rest of the poster, the red background also indicates to the reader that its important to read. Underneath the border, right at the bottom of the poster, is the record label logo which is in quite big, bold writing which again stands out.

Again, Susan analysed work by Lily Allen and Lady Gaga, to see the poster analysis, click here.

Rihanna - Loud Album Cover

Unlike the Katy Perry album cover I analysed, Rihanna's cover for her album Loud uses a close up of her face rather than showing her whole body. In fact, the album cover is completely of her face and only part of her hair & shoulder is visible. She has her eyes closed which limits the interaction with the audience but gives a sense of mystery which intrigues the audience to find out more as nothing is revealed. Her face is quite plain, with minimal make up used and dark eyelashes, but her lips and hair are both very bright red which indicates some degree of sexiness, which correlates with many of her songs. Although some aspects of traditional representations view women as sexual objects, which to a certain extent is shown by this album cover, the way that Rihanna's face dominates the whole cover shows a more modern representation of females too.



The back of the cover, in contrast with the front, has used much softer colours making Rihanna seem a lot more vulnerable and soft than she does on the front. The angelic image will appeal to young girls in our target audience as its very feminine and pretty but still has an edge with the use of the red tint and the red writing. The writing used is fairly plain and simple, just using capital letters for each song and keeps to one side of the cd, leaving space for another picture of Rihanna.

The inside of the cd uses a picture similar to the one on the front cover, but its a bit softer, as the colours aren't as bright. Again, an extreme close up of Rihanna's face is used but this time one of her eyes are open whilst the other is hidden under her hair. This gives off the impression that she's quite mysterious like on the front cover, but also gives a bit more interaction between her and the audience. Her lips aren't red in this photo, making her seem more innocent than on the front cover, but she is holding a red rose close to her mouth which again indicates sexiness, but also femininity at the same time.

Overall, I think that the pictures used in Rihanna's cd case really give the audience an idea about her and her music. I think the Loud cd gives the impression that her music, and Rihanna herself, is quite sexy but feminine and powerful at the same time. Rihanna's fan base probably is a bit older than Katy Perry's but probably is largely female dominated, but I think this cd case has helped as I think that we should reflect the type of music and meanings behind the songs when we produce our ancillary task.

Katy Perry - Teenage Dream Album Cover

Using www.allcdcovers.com, I was able to analyse the album over, the track listing on the back cover and the cd insert of different cd's. This is the original CD cover for Katy Perry's most recent album.

The colours in the background are very soft, for example the pastel pink cloud/candyfloss that Katy Perry is pictured lying on, and the pale blue sky. The main focus is on Katy herself, who is right in the centre of the picture. Another reason she stands out is because her dark hair contrasts with the paler colours. There are two titles on the cover, one is just her name in shiny pink and blue writing and the other is the name of the album, "Teenage Dream" which is in white and pink stripy writing, made to look like candy canes. The CD cover is very similar to the video of the first single released from the album, "California Girls". In the video, she is seen sitting on clouds and waking around with big sweets everywhere, for example walking gummy bears. The writing on the cover reflects the sweet theme whilst the picture of Katy is taken from the exact same setting as the video. This style also reflects her personal image which is kind of 1950s, for example, dresses with bold colours and pictures of fruit on them.



This is the back cover of the cd which shows all the songs on the album. The same picture from the front cover is used on the back, but without the picture of Katy Perry on the front, just the list of songs. Again, like the front cover, pink and blue writing is used and the letter 'O' in different words has been replaced with round shaped white & pink sweets. The pale colour scheme and use of sweets used throughout the cd case indicates that Katy Perry is quite feminine and would appeal to young, 'girly' females, as we found in our target audience.



Finally, I looked at the picture inside the cd case and on first impressions it looks very different to the front & back covers. It looks formal and quite royal with the way her hair has been styled and the crown and jewellery that she is wearing, which contrasts with the fun images that I looked at before. However, when you look closer at the picture you can see that the crown and jewellery is actually made up from sweets which again follow the theme from the front and back covers. This picture really conveys a humorous side of Katy Perry which is often seen in her personal life from the media, which I think enables the audience to relate with her & her music.

To see Susan's analysis of Lily Allen's and Lady Gaga's album covers, click here.

Performance vs Narrative

As mentioned in my previous post, Jamie T separates narrative and performance shots in his video for If You Got The Money. To show this, I decided to screenshot every shot that is shown in the first 40 seconds of the music video and put them onto Power Point. I placed each shot onto a different slide, and made two different presentations, one showing the original order of shots as seen in the video, and the other separating the performance shots from narrative shots.

Original Order of Shots

Jamie t – if you got the money original shots

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These are the shots in the order they would've been filmed in.

Jamie t if you got the money ordered shots

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Jamie T - If You Got The Money

Jamie T fits into the indie/alternative genre which also includes bands like The Maccabees and Bombay Bicycle Club. I decided to look at his music video to see how it differs from the other videos I've looked at from the pop genre and found that there was a split between performance and narrative shots. In the Katy Perry and Kesha videos I looked at, the narrative shots were combined with performance so this If You Got The Money was very different. Jamie T's video is fairly simple, using only three settings for the narrative shots and one for the performance shots. The video uses quite a few close ups that are slowed down as the song first starts which not only fits in with the slower paced start to the song, but also introduces the different characters of the video to the audience. Most of the narrative shots throughout the video are close ups or mid shots, they show different guys dancing badly which uses mid shots, whilst the girls' reactions are shown by using close ups. All of the shots have been put into slow motion whilst the performance shots aren't in slow motion, making them appear much more faster. Close ups are used again for the performance shots, but more extreme close ups are used especially for musical objects like the microphone, symbals and guitar. The lighting is a lot darker than the other videos I looked at, both the narrative and performance shots have been filmed in a club, with narrative on the dark dancefloor and the performance on the stage which uses red lighting.

Kesha - Tik Tok

Kesha was listed as one of the most similar artists to Katy Perry on the last.fm website, so I decided to analyse the video for her song "Tik Tok" and compare it to "Hot n Cold". Like Katy Perry's video, the narrative and performance parts of the video were linked in together, but Kesha's video used a much more basic storyline. The video was pretty much about going out, having fun and partying, there wasn't really a straightforward beginning and ending. Similarly, the video for "Tik Tok" also used very bright colours, and the outdoor scenes were sunny once again. However, this video used black and white editing in some parts, for example on extreme close ups of objects and body parts. Both of the songs are upbeat, so the colours and weather almost reflect the feeling of the music. One very noticeable comparison between the two videos, is that both main characters were seen riding bikes. This could perhaps be seen as a deviation from tradition female representation, as physical activity and sport are stereotypically more associated with males.
The shots are mainly made up of close ups, mostly of Kesha's face but sometimes focusing on other objects. In parts, the video completely follows Andrew Goodwin's theory about videos being an extension of the lyrics, for example when the line "I'm talking pedicure on our toes, toes" is sang, a close up of her feet is shown, and at the end of the video, when the line "Now the party don't start til' I walk in" is sang, she is shown walking through a door into a room full of people. The camera is quite shaky which goes along with the lyrics of the song, as its about partying which gives a slightly jumpy effect to the video. Some of the cuts between shots are quite jittery which again goes with the theme of the lyrics but also matches the music of the song.

Katy Perry - Hot n Cold (Music Video)

To see what conventions were used, I decided to analyse the original Katy Perry video to help us decide if we should use the same for our video. The video combines narrative with performance all the way through, and follows the theme of the lyrics. Four or five different settings are used throughout, the first starts in a church which is very stereotypical 'girly' and fairytale. The next scenes however are very different from traditional representations of females. Katy Perry is seen in the video riding a bike and chasing after a male character, and the scenes at the end of the video use very urban settings and costumes. Although the costumes change throughout the video, each one uses very bright colours. The lighting is also very bright and the outdoor scenes all have sunny weather.
At the beginning of the video, when the church setting is used, a lot of over the shoulder shots are used between Katy Perry and her love interest to show where the words are coming from and who they're aimed at. A mixture of close ups and mid shots are used throughout the video, the mid shots are mainly for showing Katy and the guy, as they are the two main characters in the story. Some extreme close ups are used particularly on clothing, for example in the stage scene, there is a big emphasis on Katy's sunglasses and belt.

Susan analysed one of Lily Allen's videos, to see her analysis please click here :)!

Target Audience

I used different articles found on Google to find out what the target audience for Katy Perry was. The majority of the pages I found said that her music appeals mostly to teenagers but didn't give a specific age.
An article on the Telegraph site, reviewing Katy Perry's album said "this is pure teen melodrama, a kind of 'deflowered' college sequel to High School Musical." This opinion suggests her music appeals more to older teens in college, for example between the ages of 16 and 18.
However, www.gracecentered.com, a Christian forum, held very different views. The site talked about how Katy Perry used to be a Christian singer when she was younger, and criticises her newer lyrics as she is "promoting things that are totally against God and His Word". It says later on in the post, "Her target audience is girls around 9 years of age."
As the two target audiences found on these websites are very different, I decided to look on the actual Katy Perry website to find information from there. I found the fan forum, and looked through three topics to find out the ages of the fans writing on the forums.
I picked three topics and clicked on the first 30 names on each thread to look at their full profile. I then put them into one of four categories depending on their age.

1. Topic: Word Vomit - Messages to Katy Perry
13-16 Years: 5
17 - 20 Years: 16
21 - 24 Years: 10
25 + Years: 2

2. Topic: You Know When You're A Katy Fan When...
13 - 16 Years: 7
17 - 20 Years: 11
21 - 24 Years: 10
25+ Years: 2

3. Make Katy Smile
13 - 16 Years: 8
17 - 20 Years: 12
21 - 24 Years: 7
25+ Years: 4

I then put all the results together to see what the biggest age group was overall.

Overall Results
13 - 16 Years: 20
17 - 20 Years: 39
21 - 24 Years: 24
25+ Years: 6

The biggest category is quite obviously the 17 - 20 age range, however there are also a lot of people in the 13 - 16 and 21 - 24 categories too. From these findings, I think the target audience for Katy Perry's music is somewhere between 15 and 21 years. Around 90 - 95% of the people writing on the fan forum were female.

Susan's research into target audience can be seen here, here and here.