Draft Evaluation Question 4 - Max

Evaluation Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Research and planning

During my research and planning the task were very dependent on the technology I had used. I used many different platforms to complete the various tasks I was set, these ranged from programmes on computers to reading through magazines to fins different images. Google was the search engine I used most as it is very reliable, I used this to find images for my creative journey which eventually led to my final advert and digipak. From Google I was able to use different websites that helped in research and planning. I used UK tribes to find what the target market was for my digipak and advert as well as my group’s music video. This helped as it allowed us to get a clear understanding on what they liked and disliked also the style of clothing they would wear. I also used YouTube to look at music videos that my group and I liked s that we could get a good understanding at how they are shot and what type of shots work well for the music video we filmed. The magazine I looked at for inspiration on my front cover of my digipak was Fader, I like the style that Fader uses by having a bold image on the front to catch the eye of readers. I used blogger to post updates on my work, for example I posted all of my research and planning on this. Blogger is very easy to use and by using tags allows someone on my blog to find a specific piece of work that either I have done or somebody in my group.

Ancillary Tasks

I used Photoshop CC and C36 to create my digipak and advert, this software was very easy to use as the layout was simple also if I could not find anything, due to it being a very well-known software I could research how to use different aspects of it. To get the template or my digipak I downloaded a 4 panel template from disk wizard, and then I imported it onto Photoshop which then allowed me to alter the size to get the correct fit. On this software I created and edited my digipak and advert, this worked very well as it enabled me to do anything to my images to make them suit the band. The research and planning stage helped my knowledge of real media products that worked, having looked at lots of different styles of advert and digipak I was able to identify trends that worked and ones that didn’t, this allowed me to create a piece of work that

Pre-production

In the pre-production of my digipak and advert I used various types of platforms to get images and information to be explained in my research and planning. I used platforms such as Google and Google Images. Using Google this allowed me to search the internet for information that could go into my research and planning; also from this I could use Blogger which is what I posted all of my work onto. During pre-production my group produced a story board which consisted of the various shots that we would use during the filming of our music video as well as an animatic which was a picture video of the story =board to show what it would look like. To create the storyboard we used hand drawn images and little text to get the bases of our music video. To create our animatic we used Final Cut Pro X on the Apple IMac as this was the best software to edit on.

Production

During the production of our media products we used a large amount of technology that enabled us to complete tasks. To begin with we used a Panasonic HC-V700, however after reviewing some of the videos we had taken, we realised that the image quality was not to a high enough standard, therefore we decided to change to a Nikon D7200 and a Canon 100D to film our music video, this proved to be the correct choice to make as the quality of the videos were far better than the Panasonic. The decision to use two cameras went down to not having enough free time together as a group and with the actors. Me being in the music video meant that I could not film any of the shots myself, however the people that did film took into account my suggestions on various shots that we took, this meant I had the same impact as them of shots. During production we set up a group chat on an app called ‘Whatsapp’ this made it easier to communicate with each other when we weren’t together, also we could get each other’s feedback on different posts which was very helpful.

Post-production

In the post-production stage as a group we sat and edited it together, this meant that if one group member was not keen on one of the shot placements they could say and suggest a replacement. We used Final Cut Pro X to edit our work as this was the best option on the school computers. In this software we used different effects and techniques to edit the video. Clipping was used the most as it allowed us to cut down different sections of the video to make it fit. This was the most important software we used as it was to edit our music video, the other option we could have used was Adobe Premiere Pro; however we chose to use Final Cut Pro X as it felt a lot easier to edit.

Other

We also used other types of technology that helped in many areas, we set up a twitter account that we posted on occasionally with updates of filming and editing process. We also used Vimeo to upload or music video due to copyright reasons on YouTube. 

Draft Evaluation Question 3 - Max

Question 3: What have you learned from audience feedback?

During the process of creating a magazine advert, digipak, and music video audience feedback has played a pivotal role in how I have designed my pieces of work. After posting a draft of a piece of work I would then get comments on parts that the audience liked and disliked.

Pitch: Feedback was first given on the pitch we as a group created to explain what style we were going to follow throughout the process. By getting feedback on this part of the course it allowed us to then edit parts that out target audience may not like, for example: 

Feedback such as the one above helped us a lot as we could get an understanding of what worked well and things that needed improvement. We also presented the pitches in class so that if anybody had any questions regarding the contents we could answer them. A benefit of getting feedback from people in our class is that due to them being in our target audience’s age this gave us more of an insight into what their likes and dislikes were.

Digipak: The next piece of work we had our classmates give feedback on was our first draft of the digipak and in-slip. These were the first pieces of work that we had done individually therefore feedback was very important. I got comments on a blog post from the people in my class this helped as it meant that I could look upon these regularly to remember what they had said, also I got feedback from my media studies teacher on a printed out version of my digipak. This was very helpful as it also meant that I could look at this if I am stuck. My media teacher, however he does not fit into the target market of this project, due to his knowledge of the subject I took his feedback the most seriously.

This comment from Millie was one of the most helpful as she told me what she liked for example the colour scheme, also she has told me that could do with improving such as the inside left panel explaining that it could do with something on it. As well as doing that Millie has also suggested to me what she would do if it were her work. This helped a lot as being in my target market Millie’s opinion was valuable. All of the comments I got on my digipak helped as they each influenced my decision of what to create. All other comments can be found on my blog with the heading of ‘Feedback on Digipak’.

Advert: The same as my digipak I got feedback from classmates who commented on my blog post as well as the feedback from my media teacher. This comment from a person in my class stood out to me as the most helpful, this was mainly due to the clear things he liked and what could do with improving. Comments like Nathan’s were very useful as it meant that the changes I could make will make my work more professional. All other comments can be found on a previous blog post named 'Feedback on Advert'.

Music Video: This was the final piece of this project. For this piece of work my group was given personal feedback from our teacher along the process of filming and editing our music video, this was very helpful as it meant that if we had shot a scene poorly we had time to rethink and re-film parts of it. We did not receive any feedback from people in our class however I feel that the comments made by our teacher had enough influence on us.

Draft Evaluation Question 2 - Max

I believe that the combination between our music video and my ancillary texts is well done. When creating my digipak and advert I thought about the music video and how they would link together.

As when we took the photos for my digipak and advert we had already created our storyboard, this meant I could take ideas form the storyboard and recreate similar effects in a photo. An example of this is when the actor in the music video is sat on a bed with a grey background; I replicated this to a degree as on my front cover I have the band members stood in front of a dirty white backdrop, as well as on the background of my advert I attempted to get the closest colour to the back ground of the image.

 Also on the inside panels of my digipak I had an image of a blurry fire which went very well with style of the music video as it is very similar to images on the video. I used the same image for the front of my digipak and on my advert as I felt that having that link between them will make it easier for someone looking to associate the two pieces ancillary texts.

The overall style I went for in my ancillary texts was very similar to our music video as the main theme of the video was dark and depressing however there were little segments of happiness. I tried to make my ancillary texts very dark to match the video, I did this by editing the images to make them look a little darker however was still easy to see the image, also the inside panels are from the music video.

Draft Evaluation Question 1 - Max

Question 1

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

When creating my groups music video and my own digipak and advert, research and planning had a huge influence on the design I would go with. I would take inspiration from professional music videos, album adverts and digipaks.

Digipak: My first insight into the design I wanted my digipak to look like was one of the Pet Shop Boys albums from 1987 ‘Actually’. I liked this album cover as it was very simple, this was the design I went with throughout the project. In the Pet Shop Boys album they’re dressed in suits, this was the only difference between mine and their album cover. I chose to use different clothes as I wanted the album to have a modern look to it. The positioning of the text was actually an idea one of my classmates had, they commented on my draft post with ideas of improvement. I have altered the text on my front cover compared to the Pet Shop Boy’s album as I felt that this looked better as above the head of the artists there was not much space therefore it looked squashed in. I chose to have one member of the band slightly in front of the other as he is the lead singer in the music video; I wanted to make it clear that he was the lead.

Advert: When creating my advert I analysed a wide variety of adverts for albums as well as music magazine covers. Whilst researching the already existing album adverts I found that a common theme between them was that they would use the front cover of the digipak as the main image and then have the text around, after looking around for more inspiration I found that this looked the most professional and therefore went for this style. Also I chose to look at music magazine covers as well due to me wanting to widen the genres of music I would look at. Looking at music magazine helped me as I looked into best-selling music magazine such as NME and Q magazine; these showed me what caught readers eyes and therefore what would stand out. As well as this they further developed my knowledge of where to position the text depending on different front covers. I went for a very simplistic style as after looking at many advert I found that these, in a way, stood out the most.

Music Video: When doing research into the type of music video we would create my group and I looked at many videos in the genre that we were going for; this meant that we could see how different bands would style themselves and the type of shots that worked during different emotional parts of the song. We looked at the original song music video by Amber Run as this gave us more of an insight into the emotion behind the song and the underlying message. We decided to shoot a sad music video as, after watching many of Amber Run’s music videos for other songs, we found that they created music videos that were very heavyhearted. We also looked at songs that were classed as the same genre as ‘Spark’, this helped as we found how many other music videos were shot and the style.