Evaluation Question 4: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation Question 3- How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Evaluation Question 2- How did you use technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

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

In order to answer this question I have first worked out which technology I have used then decided to write out a script detailing all of the technology I used, why I used it and what was good or bad about it. I will next record myself reading this aloud and then put a video showing a picture of each piece of technology as I mention it.

Below I have included my video. 


After finishing my video and reviewing it I have realised that I didn't talk about my experience with Livetype which, as the program used to create my title sequences, is very important. When I was using livetype I found it to be difficult to work out and manage at first, it was quite confusing, but after a little while of working it out it was very effective. Though the time taken to work out how to use the program could have been better utilised if we had prior understanding of the program it still didn't take too long to work out and did create an interesting title that did what I needed it to.  

Evaluation Question 1- What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Since creating my questionnaire several days ago I have managed to collect 7 responses, whilst this is not as big a sample as I may have wanted it is still a sample and therefore very useful to me. The results can be seen below.

A decision that I made whilst creating my survey was that I would use the same starting questions as I used in my audience research. I am doing this as it will make it easier to make comparisons between the audience research and the audience feedback therefore making it easier for me to know whether my group did all that the audience wanted us to do in the music video. Therefore I have asked for the gender of the people answering my questionnaires as this is something important. Our initial audience research told us that the majority of our audience members would be young females. Though this is a fairly even sample it is still clear that a majority of our viewers(sample) are female. This is good as it shows us we have managed to attract the same audience that the initial research told us we would need. 

I have also alked all participants for their ages, For this I selected to use the same ranges as my first survey because this would mean that the sample is fair and accurate. The responses that we gained were all from people within the age range of 15-19, this is what we wanted as we found in our audience that we should be aiming the music video particularly at teenagers within the age range of 15-19 though other age ranges (typically 15-30) would also find the video enjoyable and interesting. That all of our responses are from people withing the range of 15-19 is still very useful as it means all of our repsonses are from those directly within our Target audience.

I felt that asking whether the Target audience was able to tell which genre this music video was, would be a good judgement as to whether we were successful in sticking to the general conventions of an indie music video. 71.43% said it was an indie video, while 28.57% thought it was a rock music video. This means that we have been quite successful as a majority of people surveyed recognised the genre while the rest recognised it as a genre that overlaps closely with our one and this song could also be considered an indie-rock song. therefore we have successfully represented our genre and our band.

I then went on to ask the participants why they felt that the video was the genre that they chose, In general the responses stated that they felt the music video had a very 'indie feel' to it and that it also had 'elements' of both the indie and rock genres. Again this shows that we have been quite succesful on the whole with our initial research and planning as we have managed to produce a music video that our target audience is able to recognise as part of the genre and appreciate for it's individual elements and suggestions.
  The responses on what worked well all suggest that the use of effects and transitions in our music video was particularly successful. and that they most interesting/successful sections of video were the last two sections of narrative with the bassist and the lead guitarist. This I know to be a  result of the array of effects that we used in order to separate the narrative section from the performance. Generally it would seem that the feedback shows that the narrative is the more appreciated/interesting part fr the audience members. This does suit our needs as the initial research suggested that the split between preference of narrative and performance was very even with narrative marginally preferred. As such it is good that the narrative can be considered successful and well put together as well as very indicative of the genre.  

Generally responses suggest that the "Narrative wasn't 100% clear" so while they did enjoy it they were not always sure of the relevance of particular things 'pirate hat' and also were not entirely sure what all of the narrative was attempting to show or suggest. Other responses have suggested that a wider variety of locations might make the video more successful (perhaps in terms of the performance) and that the performance might have needed more 'prevalence'. As such I know that we have not managed to fully satisfy our target audience in all aspects but they were generally quite happy with what we managed. This feedback will help us in the future in that it will let us know where we have failed or gone wrong and we will be able to fix this in future projects.

In the second questionnaire that I created I asked participants mainly about the success of my digipak and webpage. The responses can be seen here:

Of my 7 respondants all of them said that they found my digipak to be appealing which is good as the target audience need to find it appealing so that they might buy it were it to actually be sold. That they find the digipak appealing means that I have successfully managed to stick within the typical conventions of an indie bands digipak design.

The responses to my webpage are a little bit more mixed. With the majority saying that they do find my design appealing whilst one other person did not as they felt that there was "too much writing" as such if I were to continue with this website I would choose to include slightly less writing so that it will appeal to more of my intended audience.

The responses here are all stating that I have managed to create successful synergy across the platforms that I have created/used. The participants all appear to feel that I have managed to match the colours and effects cross all of the different platforms quite well and that the effect of all of them is as a result very synergisitc and 'fun'. with the written responses stating that the 'colours' are a major factor in this synergy as are the 'effects' used.  

This point is reaffiremed here where a majority of the participants are stating that the colours appear tobe the most significant link between the different products with 85.71% of people choosing that option. The next biggest link is through the images used. This all shows that links between colour which was actually a major cnsideration of mine throughout the whole project is counted almost more highly than the others in the eyes of my sample.  

I chose to round off my questionnaire by asking the participants if they had any additional comments to make. this has been useful to me in that I can see what other comments the audience may have had but not had the oppourtunity to make in other questions. Generally the responses here are very complementary with all of the comments expressing that the Target audience generally found my product to be very enjoyable and well made as well as matching.

 

Social Networking

I have also posted my questionnaires to Facebook so that they might get more responses as people will be more likely to see it. This should give me a much wider range of responses and therefore be a much more representative sample, as such improving the quality of my feedback overall. 

Evaluation question- What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Today I created a questionnaire on survey monkey in order to gain some audience feedback on my Music video. The link is attached here:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DP9XWB2
I have also created a second survey for people to answer about my digipak and webpage designs. This is also attached below:
Click here to take survey

In addition to this I intend to hold a focus group of 2-3 people and ask them their opinions of my music video and digipack/webpage designs.
The questions I intend to ask are;

• Did you enjoy the music video?
• Do you know what the narrative was showing?
• Do you think that the narrative links to the lyrics?
• How do you think we could improve the music video?
• What did you enjoy about the video?

And for the webpage/Digipak;

• Do you think that the webpage looks interesting? Why?
• Does the digipak appeal to you? Why?
• Do they relate to eachother and to the music video?
• What do you think I could do to make the webpage/digipak more interesting and appealing to a target audience?

Final Video

We managed to finish and finally upload our final completed version of the music video and as we have different album names we've uploaded the video twice with different logos and album titles.

During the upload process we had a lot of trouble with actually getting our video to go onto youtube we even tried uploading straight to blogger and this is the result.
Even when we first attempted to upload it to youtube the result was the same as this.  

Final- Digipak

Here I have a copy of my final Digipak design. 

Final-Webpage

Here I am including a screenshot of my webpage final design. 

editing

Today we were looking at more effects in order to see whether or not there might be others that we could add to the narrative sequence to separate it further and make it look more interesting and effective. 

When we were looking through the effects we found one called line art which we felt looked really interesting and was very effective in that it created an almost cartoon effect Which we felt helped to further separate the narrative from the performance aspect of the video. Below I have screenshots of a moment from every narrative sequence showing the colours we chose and the effect that they can achieve. 

Here I am showing the sequence as it is all in order and finished in order to show the many different tracks that we used and the difficulty of arranging everything. 

Editing update

For todays lesson we were looking at the different effects to use on the narrative sequence in order to make these shots look better and more interesting as well as separating the narrative further from the performance and adding to the dreamy effect we were intending to create through use of fade transitions. One thing that we decided on was that our narrative sequences would all have slight colour tints and each narrative would be assigned a separate colour, with the first being red, the second being blue and the final purple. We chose these colours in particular as we wanted to relate to the patriotism of the band and we chose to use purple as a symbolic representation of the band as a unit since when blue and red combine it makes the colour purple. 

We have also looked at using the effect above which is a combination of several different effects. It uses a mixture of colour balance, dazzle, solarise and a slight brightness adjustment. We liked this effect overall but realised that when we tried to use it on other shots the effects were not working and didn't look as good or give the same effect. As such we decided that this effect would be one that we use only on the elevator/lift shots as this would mean that the lift shots are slightly different and also remain consistent with each other. 

We also added in a trails effect on the lift shots in order to add some extra movement and further enforce the dreamy effect that we have attempted to create within this sequence.

Editing update

Today I managed to mostly finish the sequence for the chessboard narrative;

One issue that arose when editing today was that there may not be enough time left in the song to complete this section of narrative, as such I've now adjusted the opacity of a few shots to make narrative progress faster. this also adds in another dimension to the footage and relates back to the bass sequence within this music video. I also needed to do this as I needed to show the guitar solo at the same time as showing the narrative sequence and really this was the only way for me to do both.

I have also adjusted the opacity of this clip as I liked both angles and thought that it might be overall more effective if I were to show them both. 

This has so far been the most difficult section to edit, as a result of the lack of time and difficulty with showing the guitar solo.

Editing progress so far...

During this lesson we needed to create a montage sequence showing our bassist as they were moving about an art room and adding to a picture he was creating. However as we were thinking about this Teni and I decided that we wanted to use the whole shot when we were walking around the table and looking at the mess of images he had on the table. Therefore we thought that the best way in which to show this shot while still showing Perry and also fitting in to a suitable amount of time, was to speed up the shot of him arranging his work and making the other shot an overlay so that they would both run at once. We also sped up the rotating shot so that the shot of Perry didn't look odd or out of place. 

We then realised that we needed to fix a problem with our fade effects, as they were starting after they needed to meaning that the bottom shot was showing before the overlay began which was quite a noticeable issue. As such we removed the fade and extended the clip so that they would fit in better. 

We also added in a fade between every shot for a smoother transition, however upon reviewing what we had we realised that they were very unnecessary and the transitions worked well without them. As such we opted to remove all of the fade effects after the overlay stopped before that section of narrative was ending. 

We  have now completed the first 2 minutes of our video leaving us another 2 minutes for the final narrative section and 2 more performance clips.

Digipack and Website Progress

I decided that while I'll not include a background I will be including coloured boxes behind the subheadings to break up the page a bit and make it easier to read etc. Originally I was going to use the same font for the whole page as it is the font I use on the digipak back cover. However having discussed this with my teacher and some members of my group I've decided to use the font from my digipak on the subheadings while the main body of text will have a different font in order to fit in with the simplicity of these webpages in the examples I have researched and also to make it easier to read.  

I am now finished with my webpage design. I feel that the design is quite effective and clearly does all that it needs to do in order to fit with the wants and expectations of fans of the band/the genre. I have included links to pages that will tell them more about the band, about news, about tour dates and the best ways in which to contact them. I have also included several means of social networking involving the band and information so that the fans will feel more connected.

I have also finished my Digipak design for which I have used several tones of blue, red and sepia/white. I have done this to once more enforce the suggestion of patriotism and also add in some synergy between this and the music video which also uses a variety of tones of red and blue. 

Filming Bass sequence

Today my group managed to finish filming the last section of  the narrative, after yet another setback with the location. 

As we were unable to film in valentines mansion we thought that we'd then ask for eastbury manor house, however they were at the time going under a renovation and as such we couldn't use  Eastbury either. Thankfully we had yet another alternative which was to use one of the schools art rooms and either make it look like a gallery or make it appear as a juxtaposing symbol of art in it's stereotypes, we would do this through having the band member in a suit and therefore presenting the status connected with art appreciators and the(stereotypically) refined nature of those considered to be critics or appreciators, and also having the room itself appearing as very chaotic and messy to suggest the artistic process itself.
We decided based on the room that we were able to use, that the second option was the best one for us to go with. We then filmed everything that we could think of and anything that might be in some way relevant. Overall I'm very pleased with what we were able to achieve today.  

Editing update

We finally managed to finish syncing all of our videos today and then progressed onto actually editing together the first part of the sequence. 

We decided after syncing the footage to the audio that really we wanted to have the first shot be silent and then start the song gradually as though it had started when he entered the lift. I feel that doing this means that the music video is then introduced nicely, links to the lyrics which is something that our focus group wanted us to try to do, and can be perceived as somewhat ambiguous   

So far we have managed to complete the first 20 or so seconds of our music video and have also decided for definite what the main transitions/difference will be between the narrative and the performance. We are going to have the narrative appear more dreamlike and use a few effects to change the way that it looks, while the performance shots will be left as they are for the most part, they will be much clearer in general (other than the first few shots which will be intentionally blurred and out of focus in order to add to and create a sense of mystery.)

Progress and Peer Assessment

Today the rest of our group members watched our music video at its current state and gave us some advice on how to progress next. They suggested that we; 

Firstly do more of the editing and add in the blur effect to the other part of the performance to match with the second part that we cut to. This can be seen above, we looked at every blur effect before we finally decided that this was the best one and looked more effective and like the other shots.
Also consider adding effects to any narrative sections and creating synergy with the digipak through the effects that we use and through colour etc.

Editing planning

Here I am including an image showing some of the planning me and my partner Teni have done so that we can be sure of the main parts of the music video. We have written out the main parts of our narrative and detailed exactly what needs to happen in that sequence as well as including some very loose timings that would be useful to stick with if we can though this is not essential. We have also included some types of shot we may want to use and some transitions that could fit in well. 

Editing Day 2

Today we spent most of the lesson cutting down the footage from the HD camera into the individual takes as when first imported to the computed the footage is uploaded as one long take rather than (in our case 9) individual takes.
When we were finished with separating the footage into the individual takes we chose to save them as several different takes in a new folder before putting them into the edit with the sound. The rest of the lesson was spent reviewing the footage that we had and selecting the few that we wanted to use for our performance shots and would use in a skyline style editing technique, wherein all footage that we intend to refer back to is put into their own tracks and will be cut away as and when we want a different one to be visible.

Editing

Today my group paired off so that we could work in two smaller groups in order to have two music videos where we would have a bit more editing time each and a bit more creative freedom as to the way in which we would be constructing the video and putting everything together. 

Here I have included some images showing when we imported the footage to iMovie so that it would be simpler to transfer over to final cut. So far we have put all of the footage at we have and have put in the song track to final cut.
We are so far still finalising the details but we will be filming the final section of footage within the next few weeks, until then we will be syncing our audio tracks with our footage and completing the rush cuts.

Webpage development

Here I have started to plan out my bands webpage, I'm using grey boxes in order to work out the positioning of the different elements I am intending to use.  this means that I am clear as to what I want to do with the layout and where each element might look best in order to remain complimentary. I've decided that my webpage design will have a splash page, homepage, about, tour page, gallery FAQ's and a contact page. 

I was initially going to have the writing colour change between red and white (maybe blue as well) in order to establish  the patriotic theme and create a link between my music video, digipak and my website.  

I decided part way through the development of my work that, while I'd keep it simple in style in order to fit with the typical conventions of a website for a band of this genre, I would also look at doing some things to challenge conventions and make the band seem more interesting, unique and stand out. As such I decided that I would see how the website looked with a background. This one I chose particularly because of the spotlight effect that I created in the top corner which related to the music video.

However, I have ultimately decided against this use of background as I felt that overall the plain background looked sleeker and created a much more elegant/sophisticated image. I have also decided that I will, instead of using 3 colours, only use a light red that matches the one seen in my bands logo. This helps to create a synergy across the platforms and enforces the bands sense of identity.

I have also been creating hyper links on the homepage that will lead to other pages upon their completion, I've done this in order to make the webpage design appear more authentic and professional.