Evaluation questions 2 & 4

By Shanti Chingen

Vampire Weekend- Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa

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

This is our poster. I think it is successful at reflecting the

style of the Indie genre and the concept of the music video.
The actress from the music video is featured on the poster
because we thought people would see the video and relate
the image of the girl to the release of the song “Cape cod…”,
the new album and therefore, the band- vampire weekend. I
believe it is evident that the actress is not the band, so there
should not be any confusion and besides there has been a
number of Indie artists who don’t use their own image on
their album artwork. The mise-en-scene of the poster is
engaging. It is appealing to people who want to rebel and
people who crave originality and individuality.

I think by using the actress, instead of the band, people get more involved in the enigma of
the band- why is their music video dealing with the concept of women being exploited by the
media? What was the inspiration of the song? And what do the actual band look like? These
are all questions which I think the TA would ask. If anything, they would probably be more
interested in the band themselves. Moreover, I think it portrays the band in a positive light;
they are more about the music and the message than promoting their image to gain fame
and recognition. Referring back to the poster, it is eye-catching and conveys a fun theme to
the TA- the use of the burger is a nice addition to making the poster seem young and
playful. This is a significant contrast to the more serious undertones of the concept the
music video.
The CD cover carries on the theme, visually, that the poster has. This is so it is clear that
these two products are interchangeable. When people see the poster and then want to
buy the album we want the album to stand out just as much, and kind of be identical to the
poster, so it’s easy to find and equally as eye-catching. I think it is important to carry on a
similar visual theme, which we have done, with the promotional artwork because it makes
sense and is conventional of CD marketing. The CD cover is a close-up of the poster,
making it seem more intense, visually. It also has an effect. A posterized/contrasted colour
effect to compliment the brightness and fake physical appearance of the actress. This
relates to the concept of the music video whereby the actress is influenced to become a
product of society’s expectations. The imagery also expresses the tone of the song, which
is upbeat and playful, by the use of the bright colours piercing through the picture. The
inclusion of the burger, again, is a random element. Indie music artists usually entitle
themselves…

…to enigmatic features of artwork, etc, to

promote themselves in an original way. Of
course the irony of this is that every Indie band
is doing a similar thing…and we conformed to
this because we had already, in my opinion,
subverted the genre enough with our concept
driven montage-like music video, which criticises
other music videos and society in general.
 The inside double page spread is
of the band. We have chosen an
image of the real band, Vampire
Weekend, and superimposed it
onto the background. It is important
that we include the band in the
inside of the digipak because their
image needs to be introduced to
the TA. Also, it is an image that
portrays them being natural, and a
bit quirky, hopefully promoting them
I think the inside of the digipak is effective, in a positive way.
however, I would have liked some writing to go with
it as well. I think the inclusion of other random
items such as the plant, carries on the unusual
visual element that the poster and CD cover
introduced. The back cover contains the relevant
information- track listings, bonus material, to
make it believable as an actual product people
would want to buy. It is visually successful at
being very edgy. The formatting of the visuals
are excellent- they compliment each other and
therefore help to make it look professional. The
back ground pattern has changed slightly, and
this is because the back cover is different,
rather than promoting the band, or the
actress/character, it gives the TA information.
 Effectiveness?
Overall, I think the digipak is successful. It is a product
which looks professional. It is playful and eye-catching
and has a resemblance and connection with the music
video itself.
The combination of the digipak and music video enable a serious message to be conveyed
but promoted in a more playful way for the sake of advertising and making money. The band’s
participation to the music video is minimal, they are the vocals. And so we have had to use
the actress in the promotional work so people can recognise the music video and song. In the
music video, the girl is being oppressed and manipulated, and she rebels in the end. We
wanted the digipak to suggest the theme of rebellion and originality, which it does through the
carefree attitude of the band and the actress and the random inclusion of the burger
phone/plants.
The main product, the music video, is not exactly how we planned it to be, but is still good.
The problem was with the green screen, and not being able to change the background colour
to alternating bright bold colours to reflect the energy of the video. Instead, the video is now
sharply contrasted to give it an interesting visual tone. In my opinion, the music video is
extremely effective at conveying a message, which was the point of our music video. The
scene at the end, when she shouts “Stop!” and storms off the set of the actual music video, I
feel is very poignant. It brings back the reality to the music video and should hopefully make
the audience consider the acting and emotion being portrayed in that last scene. To conclude,
there is a reasonably close connection between the ancillary products and the music video
which is necessary for the overall effectiveness of the combination.
Q4) How did you use new media technologies in the construction and
research, planning and evaluation stages?

Final cut pro: Having used final cut pro last

year, I found this year (being one of the editors for
the music video) it was easier to use and I had much
more confidence with the technology. It was difficult
making the visuals go with the music, but using the
scaling tools, I could cut accurately where I wanted
to take a certain clip so that the visuals would Photoshop (for the digipak):
change and become more like a montage when the We also experienced the use of
music demanded. Also, there were implications with photoshop in the digipak production;
the green screen when filming, so to overcome this, this allowed us to play around with
we used the effects on final cut pro, such as the colours, themes, positioning of the
three way colour corrector (which allows the mise-en-scene so that the album
adjustment of contrast) to ensure that we could still artwork looks believable.
make the visuals colourful and eye-catching even
though we couldn’t, for technical reasons, change
the colour of the green screen as we had planned to
do. Adjusting the contrast gave the visuals a
posterized effect that can be linked to the overall
theme of our digipak and poster.
Screencaps of Editing…

Here we used a colour corrector

to manipulate the contrast of our
shots, this is to make the shots
seem more lively and vivid. We
had to replicate the exact colour
dimensions onto every shot so
that it would be visually relatable.
The end effect is successful and
works well with the overall theme
of the music video.

For certain shots, such as this

one, we wanted to use the
movement of the actress’s hand
to initiate the changing of the
music. Sometimes this meant
slowing down or speeding up the
shots to ensure it indicates a
poignant moment in the audio.
Facebook/myspace/twitter: Social networking sites (stemming from the concept
of more interactive programs, web 2.0) have allowed me to carry out in depth research for
the blog and for my own personal understanding of the Indie genre. Furthermore, it makes
interacting with the TA quicker and easier than approaching them personally. I used
facebook chat to conduct interviews and I used myspace to search how indie artists
promote themselves and their music and I used twitter to identify forms of fandom and
word-of-mouth publicity that indie artists are conventionally recognised by. These sites
have allowed me to interact with many different people all at once. And sites such as
Twitter, with people’s status’s constantly being updated, provides a community feel of
people sharing knowledge, just at a more rapid pace- which is useful for research.

Slideshare: Slideshare has not only allowed me to

view other people’s documents, for example, to gain a
greater understanding of how the music industry works
or understand the values of feminism, but to post my
own work up and then share it on the blog. I am able to
post powerpoints and word documents to the blog
using Slideshare.

Youtube: Watching other indie music videos has been a fundamental element to being
able to produce one of my own. Youtube acts as an archive to viewing these indie videos
through time therefore I was able to watch how the conventions have evolved. Also,
youtube was very useful for understanding fandom as it is a place where anybody can
express their feelings online. I managed to find two good videos that I posted onto the
blog as evidence for fandom and digipak consumption. Youtube is very accessible and so
I used it throughout the planning phase of this course.
Message boards: I spent some time on message boards
to catch people’s reactions to a number of topics I felt
necessary to explore in the process of making my music video.
For example, when I was wondering who the consumers are of
digipaks and what they want from this product, I found a thread
in a message board about it and referenced the comments as
evidence for my conclusions- and this helped with planning
what should be included in the digipak for optimum success of
the digipak and other products.

PowerPoint: I used powerpoint for this

! evaluation because I find it is an easy software
to use. It is also a clear way of presenting
information. There is also a chance to be
creative with powerpoint, for example, I have
used a notebook template for the design of
this powerpoint.

Camera: When filming our evaluation for question 3 (audience feedback) I

went to London to interview people. The camera used was small and light-
weight, it was also a HD camera so the quality of the footage is good.
Obviously, when filming we used a camera, albeit an older version. We also
used the green screen hoping we could technically manipulate it later on in
editing, however, this did not work because of implication when filming (such as
getting too close to the green screen).
THE END