Thursday, 6 December 2012

Draft evaluation question 4.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

The most used technology throughout my media creation is blogger. This is because this is the website i used to present all of more work and my research of how in the end i cam up with my final media products. Blogger has been very useful as it has been easy to use and has allowed me to put all the little things needed to decide what my final media product would look like.
Me and my partner Laura used Animoto for our pitch and this was a very useful piece of technology as it allowed us to get our pitch across effectively. it was easy to use as we could mainly use images with just a few words explaining what the images were representing.
Photoshop was also one of the main technologies used as it helped me to create my final product for my advert and digipack. Although i did not find it easy to use i did get the hang of it and there were lots of tools that were very useful with in it. An example would be that the red eye reduction helped a lot more my photos. Also the adjustments of lighting helped me to create a better looking image and helped to make both of my products look brighter. Pohotoshop did become very frustrating to me as on my account some of the main tools could not be used or were black and this made it very hard for me to create me product to the best of my ability. It also froze a few time and i had to leave it for hours and wait to see if the work i had done was save. in the end i did manage to pull it together and the tools become available to me. Once it was working i got used to it and i am happy with the product that i created.
We used final cut pro for editing our video and this piece of technology was very easy to use. It allowed us to edit easily and quickly. It was a new program so no one knew how to use it but the simplicity of it was fantastic as it never crashed and allowed our video to be at its best. It had all sorts of effects on it that helped create our story line. An example we used and effect called cold steel for our flashbacks as it helped us show that it was a cold and dark time for our story and also showed that is was a flashback as everything else was in colour. I loved this program as we did not need to worry about it crashing as it automatically save any new work put on, but also it never did crash.
Word was used for my draft advert and digipack as i only wanted it to be simple to show the outlines of what i wanted my product to look like. I was also worried about photoshop as i have bed luck with it and we were limited time and so for my draft though it would be best to do on word as i could see the outlines of what i was thinking and it was easier for me to change it around. I also used word to do some of my Research and planning on before i put it onto my blog. I did this to make sure everything was done right and so i could easily connect it for when i cam to my blag so that everything was in order.
Twitter was used for our band as we wanted to allow our audience to get to know then and view what our band was getting up to. We did frequent tweets from our band telling fans about what they had been up to. We also used twitter to research other bands like ours to see the type of thing their fans enjoyed so that i would help us to relate to our Target audience.
The camera that we used to make our video was a cannon camera and this was an effective camera as it had a good picture with it. I did both the videoing and photos with this camera as i found it easy to use and it allowed me to change effects on the camera such as lighting to suit the place in which i was videoing or taking photos. I also used a tripod for some of my shots as this help to keep a steady image as some of the outside shots were hard because of how windy it was. Some shots we were unable to use the tripod as it wouldn't move easily. As for the photos the tripod was great as it helped me set the picture to how i wanted it and kept it steady while i took the photo.
We used an ipod to help with the lip syncing for our video. We did this by taking it out with us and playing the song we had chose and sang along with it loudly. We found that the louder Laura sang the better her lip syncing looked and so decided to do this throughout all of the video. It also helped us with timing so i could look at when we did and didn't need to record certain parts.
The mac was used to do our music video on and this was a brilliant piece of kit. It was very fast and responded well. It was easy to use once we had gotten used to it. The mac allowed us to not worry about our work as it save everything that is new onto it and so if it did crash, which it didn't, we didn't have to worry too much.
The PC that we used got a bit annoying sometimes as it was slow and didn't respond to the amount of pictures and videos we needed to save in our files. this because very frustrating but for the blog and research it was brilliant. this is because it allowed us to do all the things we wanted to and came up with lots of results that helped.
Googled was used a lot to helped with our research and planning as it came up with results that i may not have thought of and gave me a wide variety of results. The only problem with it was that not everything cam up for example, magazine websites. this was because some sites were banned because of school policy. this became very frustrating when i was looking for inspiration of how a music advert looked. Other than that google was helpful and helped with my research and planning.
Movie maker was used for the making of our animatic, we had many problem with this as when we were trying to upload it, it kept on getting to 30% and then stopped. This was very annoying as we really needed it for a music video so that we could follower our storyboard. Once we had got it on it was very good and worked well to help with the planning of our music video. It also helped us to see what it might look like and we then saw what parts we maybe didn't need or were going to change slightly.
Scribed was used to help present my work from word to my blogger. this was helpful as it meant that i could do my work and check that it was ok and instead of writing it again on my blogger i could put it on from scribed as it was.
Prezi helped me to present My work in an easy way for my readers, this helped because i meant that i could plan what needed saying and make it look nice. Also it was very easy to use and was quick to upload. I found it useful as there were different effects and colours that i could use that would match up to my target audience.
My mobile phoned helped me out an awful lot as it allowed me to contact with the people in the band so that we could all arange when we were free and also for probs to bring. It helped me keep in contact with them and also remind them of things that they needed to do/bring for the music video or photos.
Facebook also helped with my organisation of the music video as it allowed me to cantact with them easily and straight the way if the were online.
The memory stick that i used helped me to convert the videos on my laptop to the macs at school and this was good as i didnt have any of the software on my laptop at home it was useful for me as i could do it all at school quickly and easily. It also helped me convert my photos onto the computer quickly so i had them on ready to use for my digipack and advert.

Wednesday, 5 December 2012

Draft evaluation question 3.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

The feedback that i got was from a variety of people including, friend, family, Target audience, teachers, and class member. With these it helped me to see what improvement i needed to make on all three of my media products (video, digipack, advert). The feedback also helped me to view my products in a different and understand what might look better and think of more ideas. The feedback was helpful as it allowed me to get feedback from my target audience, and people that it also may not appeal to and get different views and understandings of what type of things different audiences like to that i could get a happy medium to allow most people to enjoy my products.
By getting regular feedback from my teachers this allowed me to slowly improve my work to my best ability and help me get towards the grade that i need. My teachers often came up to me and spoke to me and also wrote notes on the work that i had printed off. this helped as it gave me new ideas of what would works and what wouldn't. My teachers also sent me emails to help with my research so that i was able to view other people ideas that may inspire my own. this helped me as it helped to boost my ideas from other peoples work and then convert it to my own work in the way that i want to it look.
Digipack
My teachers gave me feedback on my digipack. The main things that came up were hard to take in as one teacher liked my idea when the other didnt and i had to find a way to please both teachers. Mr Ford said that he did not really understand my origonal idea of having a painted circle on the front and suggested that i should have a picture of laura as her face structure looked good in photos. He also thought that this would then connect better with my audienc. He also did not like the idea of having a saying insed of my digipack which was 'what goes around comes around'. He said it would be better to have photos as my photography was good and also this would help the audeicne to connect with the band as it let their personalities come across well. He said he did like the painted circle that i did but not for the front cover and thought it may look best on the back of the digipack so that it was surrounding the songs and also because ti was a circle to have it where the CD would go as this would look effective.
However Mrs Hammond said that she liked the idea of the circle on the front as it connected well with the name of the album 'circles', but said she also liked the idea of the circle being on the back and where the CD should be. Mrs Hammond agreed that my photos were good and that i should have more of them inside of the digipack as it allowed me to show off my band memebers personalities and this owuld then help to connect then to the audeince.
Both teacher said that ineed more colour on my digipack and this would come form having more images. Both teachers liked the font that i chose because the name of the band 'the dejected' font stood out as it was straighter. The font for the name of the album 'circles' was curly writing and this then focused with it being circular.
After these comment i dicided that i was going to change the cover of the digipack to a photo of laura as then this would allow the audience to recognise her. I was still going to keep the circle in it comewhere but made it more into a scribble to fit the font of the came of the album. I also like the idea that Mr Ford gave later on about having some information about the digigpack and band inside of the digipack, i liked this idea as it made my digipack look more profesional.
After getting both positive and negative feedback it allowed me to change alot of things and contrate more on the band rather than the theme of the album name.

Advert
As For my advert again the same thing was rised about the front image of the painted circle. Mr Ford said that it was too plain and didnt really match with what i was trying to get acorss. He said that the font was good put maybe didnt stand out as much as it could. He said the boxes around the text looked cheap and that it didnt make the words stand out it just made then look as thought they were in an odd place. Also my slanted peice of text made it loked messy and so should be straight, He said that for the advert i should ahve a picture of all the band memebers as thius would to show who the band is and connect the audeicne to the band. Mrs Hmmond said the same in that i should not have boxes around text and also that there need to be more on adverta dn it need to be set out in a different way. It looked messy and needed tidying and more colour added to it. Mrs Hammond agreed that i should have a picture of the badn together as this would show who they and then people are more likely to recognise it.
After this feedback i decided to completly restart on how both my advert and digipack would look as i wanted them to connect but then listening to what my teacher said i need it to connect with the video too. I then dicided i was going to have more images and crate a different look but keep some of my origonal ideas with it the also then keep with the theme of the name of the album.

Music video
Once we had produced our first draft of our video we allowed both our teacher and people in our class to view it and give us feedback on what they thought. we got them to sit down and watch it and wrtie down any comment on a peice of peper that they could then give back to us to read. We aimed to get both constructive critisism and for people to tell us the things they liked about our vide. with this we would then know what we might need more or less of and how we can make it better to fit our target audeince. The feedback that we got back was that we needed for close ups on lauras face as it showed good emotion and the structure of her face presented well on camera. We also found out that people liked the band shots and said that we needed more of them in the start of the video. They said that they liked our story line and how we flicked to flashback in black and white as it connected well with the lyrics of the song. Another thing that e got told to change from our draft was the jaket as the white on did not go well with what we were trying to portray and said that a black jacket would be more suited. WE were akso told to change the band room as it looked run down and not very profesional and also the lighting in that room was bad and both band members seemed to be crushed up as it was a small space. We were also told that our original pianoist did not fit what the band was trying to look like and did not have a grungy look. this is then when we diciede to put james, who was original on the guitar, we put him on the piano, and then got a new boy, josh, to put on the guitar. we did this as josh's face was for of the look of gruny and how he dressed was more suitable to show, whereas james looked much better on the piano as his hair was not as messy at the back and sat well.
All of this feedbak was very useful as it allowed us to change just minor things that would make the whole video look even better and also to fit our audience even better. it also helped us view things in a different as some things that we thought worked and looked well only had we noticed were bad when someone pointed it out and this allowed us to view our video in a different way. After this feedback on the video i felt as though our final peice would be successful.

Draft evaluation question 2.

How Effective is the Combination of Your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?
The combination of my main product and ancillary texts work well together as there is a colour scheme which is black, white and grey. This is used throughout both my advert and digipack. they also connect with my video as some of the photos i used in my digipack were from some of the shots in my video for example the band shots in my video, that room was also where one of my photos in my digipack was taken.I also used all of the people in my video on the digipack and the advert as i think this was a good way of connecting all three products together to create an audeince recognition of the star image.
My digipack changed a lot as my original idea, although worked for a grungy band, did not connect to my main product at all. this is then why i started changing things around. As for the name of the album 'Circles', this was chose as i wanted to link it to the song of our music video. It linked as the song she is singing about that she cant get out of what she is stuck in and so it is like she is going round in circles. this is where the idea came from.
The advert also changed around a lot as i wanted the audience to see it and understand which band it was advertising. My first idea did not have a picture of any of the band members at all, nor did it connect with my video. This is then why i decided to take out an image from the digipack of all the band so that the audience reading it could relate to it.
The fonts of my main band name is on both of the digipack and the advert. i did this so that my band name could be recognised. The text inside my digipack is also the same font as what i used for my band name and i did this so that the audience became used to they type of font they were looking for when wanting something so do with my band. Another [art that i made connect with the digipack and advert was the record label. I made sure it was big enough for people to see and recognise and also that record label works with lots of other grungy band and so people that listen to my bands music would recognise the record label. The record label was placed in around the same place on both my advert and digipak which was at the bottom left. I did tbhis as i thought it would stand out more and also people would know were to look.
The outfits that my band where in my main media product and the photos on the advert and digipack are the same. i did this because i thought that it would be easier for the audience to connect and recognise my band. I had the boys in the group wear simple clothing so that they did not stand out to much but also to follow with the style that i wanted to give to my band. As for laura She is also wearing the same jacket in the video and photos in my digipack, on My front cover, and also on the advert. i did this as i thought the jacket made her recognisable and stand out from the boys in the band who just had t shirts on.
The eye makeup was made heavy so that lauras eye stand out, this would give off a vibe of emotion and understand of the style of the band too. I wanted quite i strong lookinglead singer and i think that the makeup helps her to achieve this as it allows her to really connect with the camera which then allows her to connect with the audience.

Monday, 3 December 2012

Draft evaluation question 1

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

Music video
My music video has used forms and conventions of other media products for example the costume i have used is very popular in music videos at the moment. The use of a pretty dress with grungy boots on a female artist is used in many music videos for example Christina Perri's video, Jar of Hearts. In her video it shows her to be wearing a pretty dress with a grunge twist to it. Also her makeup inspired how our main singer would look with the smokey eyes. We liked this as it made the eyes stand out. The same for the boys in the band, they had eyeliner on to go with the theme of the eyes standing out to give emotion.
As for the mise en scene the use of a field was used because of the deserted feel, we got this from the music video by Paramore, brick by boring brick. This was because she was in a field and the way she used the trees and layout of the field looked effective. this is one reason of why we chose to use a field for our video and main singing parts. It gave us a variety of things to use for example, a gate, or a forest of trees, or even just the plain background of a deserted field. The idea for the mise en scene for the band was taken from Evanescence, my immortal (3:16) band part. this gave us the idea of our band being on their own without the main singer for the first part of our video as we thought it looked effective. We also liked the use of an empty room, this was because it made the instruments and band members to stand out. This was important to use as in most band the main singer is the centre of attention, but for ours we wanted all band members to be a big part of the video.
Another thing that our Media products uses from forms and conventions of real media products is that it shows a story that matches with the lyrics. WE did this by listening to the lyrics and then looking at how different shots would fit in the the pace and words of the song. An example or this would be in our song when our lead singer in writing the letter, she write the lyrics of the songs down as it matches well together.

Digipack
My digipack has used forms and conventions of real media products as the main thing i used was having the main singer artist on the front of the digipack. We did this as we thought that the main singer is well recognised, as this is one reason why many real media products do that. An example of a media product that i used was Christina Perri's album cover. this was because i liked the used of the camera centralising her as many people would recognise her if they were to buy her CD. I developed this by changing the angle of the shot and also changed the way the artist would look, i decided to go for a more serious approach as this would match better with our video. I also used the same costume for the photos as were used in the video, this is because i wanted it to connect with the audience and also this would show the type of music it is as Laura was dressed in a grunge costume, this then matched well with our genre of soft rock.

Advert
My advert has also used forms and conventions of real media products by have a photo of the whole band together it shows the audience who they are. Also the picture i used shows of the personalities of each band member and i have used this from many adverts for example the vaccines. I used this really media product as i wanted my band to come across both serious but also allow the audience to connect with them. I also used forms and conventions from real media products by putting on a record label at the bottom to show who supports this band and i did this so that whoever looked at it would recognise this label and view what type of music they do. The record label that i used was wind up and the type of genre of music they produce is mainly soft rock. this then connected with the type of band i had and also connected with the type of music they produced. I used saying on the advert for example, 'out now' and also songs that the new album would include. I used this as it worked well with the type of advertising i was going for as i wanted to promote the new music video as well as the digipack an this is why i put that it included the song save me as this was our video that we did. Another form and convention that i used was putting the bands website on the bottom of the advert. i have seen many adverts do this and thought i looked effective and also allows the audience to view what the band gets up to. I used the QRcode that is now very popular on all phones so that people are able to download songs. I used this as many real media products have this nor because of how popular phone apps have become.





Monday, 12 November 2012

Band change.

We have changed the poelpe in our band around, we have now decided to put james on the piano as his body type suits well with the piano and how it looks on camera. As for the guitar we now have Josh as we felt that his look matched how we wanted our band to look more than charlie and so chose him for the guitar.
Below is james and he will be playing the piano in our band an music video.
Josh is on the right side of this photo and he will be playing the guitar in our band and music video.

Cover photos.


 

Wednesday, 7 November 2012

Dress change.

We have decided to change the look of our main singer as the qhite flowy dress didnt really rekate with what our songs says or what our band is aabout. We have changed to a little black dress so that it is still girly with a lether jacket and mustarrd yellow doc martens. This look then gives off the grungy girly look that we want but also fits our character and genre of music better.


Monday, 29 October 2012

Advert feedback.

The feedback for my advert was quite short in that i only had small things that needed to be changed. These were the boxes in that i now agree do not look good and also to make sure that the record label on the bottom is well know and to have more revies on it. They liked the use of the image that is on the front cover of my digipack and that it ties together well.

Digipack feedback.

My feedback from my digipack was that it was too plain and so to overcome this i could still have a plain front cover but foe the inside i need to add images of the band and lyrics from our songs to make it be more attractive and not look boring. the teachers said that they liked my font and to try and have the use of paint throughout out as it looked effective. I also had parts on the digipack that didn't really relate to anything for example the words saying 'what goes around comes around' it links to the name circles but doesn't Link to anything else so i am going to put lyrics from our song 'Save me' there instead.

However Miss hammond did not like my front cover and said that it was too plain and said the oppsite to Mr Ford. I personally prefere to have a plainer front cover and for it to be more exciting inside and so think i willl go with what Mr Ford said but Agree with miss that i need to make the advert more exciting and by doing this i am going to add more colours.

For the design of my front cover i am going to create my own paint patterens with different material to see which looks better for example, water colour paint or wall paint. i will need to test what colours and thicknesses look better.
I will also be taking some different types of band shots for the inside of my digipack and will try out different designs such as them all being together, or individual shots and then editing themtogether.

Week plan.

Me and Laura have struggled to meet up as we live so far away from eachother and timings have clashed and so this week we have decided to make a plan. Tonight (Monday) we will be staying after school to shoot the bands part in our video. we will be using a plain room in the music department and have sorted out the instrument that we needed. On Thursday we are going to be shooting the main parts that laura does and we are going to try out the look of heavy makup and short hair and see how we like it and what our teachers think for the dratft version.

Wig problem.

The wig that we have ordered says that it will not be arriving until the middle of November and so this may be too late for us for when we need to shoot our video. We have two options for this and they are listed below:
  1. Our first option is to look for another wig that will come before we need to shoot and hope that the quality is as good as the first one we picked.

   2. Our second option is to re-design how we want our main character in the video to come across. For example, if we were to have the wig with big hair then we would keep the face quite plain as the hair would be the main attraction. However, because of the wig problem and Laura having short hair we thought to go with an opposite approach. this approach would be to have the face made up more with stronger makeup as the hair will not attract our attention to it and also we could still keep with the grungy look.



For my final digipack and advert.

For my final digipack and advert i need to create my own paint designs that will go on to the digipack and advert. I will be doing this at the weekend and will do different designs and take photos to then decide which ones i think will work best.

Tuesday, 23 October 2012

The hair style.

As Laura is featuring in our video and has short hair we have resulted to getting a well made wig. We wanted to keep the look of long flowing hair and so to achieve this agreed on a wig that we thought would suit. Below is the wig that we have chosen as it looks in good condition and is the style we want.