Evaluation: Q4

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

Throughout the course of the A2 Media studies project, as a group, we have not only used media products which we were familiar with, but also lots of online media technologies which we familiarised ourselves with. 

                      

RESEARCH AND PLANNING

    BLOGGER       

My blogger account is a good example of how media technologies allowed for the construction and display of research, planning and evaluation stages. This blog stores everything which I have posted throughout the A2 coursework project. It also archives my posts to make it easier to search for older posts if need be, by archiving by month and year. 

The great thing about using a website such as Blogger, is that it can be found on multi-platforms, for example; I could blog a post from my iphone, or upload a photo to share on my Blogger account via my ipad. On Blogger you can also embed Web 2.0 tools, such as content from YouTube, Prezi, Wordle and eMaze. The Web 2.0 add-ons were featured throughout the whole course of the project, but were mainly used in the research and planning stages rather than the production and evaluation stages; although I did use websites such as Prezi and eMaze for some of my evaluation. 

     

     YOUTUBE                                

Another contributor to the use of Media Technologies was the internet, in particular websites such as YouTube. YouTube was great help for us throughout the whole course of the coursework, but especially in the pre-production planning stages when it was vital to be getting inspiration from other existing music videos, and  to also watch the other music videos of our chosen artist; Passion Pit. Therefore we turned to none other than YouTube. 

     GOOGLE

Google was the main search engine which we used to discover information for our project, especially in the research stages of our music video; for example for the record label research etc. When it came to the ancillary tasks I used Google images to look up existing digipak and album advert designs and so to gain inspiration from these. Google was also used to search for images of Passion Pit's existing digipaks so that I could reflect some of the existing conventions from their digipak designs onto my digipak design. 

SURVEY MONKEY

We used a website called 'Survey Monkey' to carry out our target audience research questionnaire. This website enabled us to create an online questionnaire to be shared with others via various websites, for example; we decided to post the questionnaire on Facebook as we felt the majority of people were more likely to see it and participate in it than on websites such as Twitter. 

FACEBOOK

As previously stated, we decided to post the Survey Monkey questionnaire on Facebook for our friends to fill out, thus being able to discover our target audience. Through this, we were able to pull out our target demographic from not only the feedback in the questionnaire, but also by looking at other features on Facebook, such as Passion Pit's official Facebook page and other artists in common with them, allowing us to look at other similar artists and their target audiences and generic conventions for our video. Facebook was also good in the evaluation and feedback stages of our video because we were able to post our video to Facebook for people to watch and comment on, allowing us to gain further audience feedback in the post-production stages.

  

DIPITY

We used this programme because it was shown to us by our teacher in order to create a timeline for our schedule, and if this was followed correctly then the final product would have been finished by the initial deadline stated on the timeline. However, one issue we stumbled across when using this programme was that we did not meet our initial deadline set for the final video, and therefore had not used this programme to it's full potential. The reason for this issue was that when we initially created our timeline on dipity, we didn't take into account that there could be problems, and when problems occur, we become behind schedule. For example; when our lead singer couldn't make certain dates our whole schedule fell behind, making the whole timeline out of date. Overall, the timeline proved useful to create as it helped with organisation of our video and therefore showed good organisational skills on the whole.

POST-PRODUCTION 

   PHOTOSHOP

Both my ancillary texts were completed in a programme called Adobe Photoshop. I became familiar with this programme during my AS coursework, therefore this software wasn't entirely new to me, however I needed to learn more advanced skills for the completion of my A2 ancillary texts if I wanted them to reach a more professional degree of work. By using Photoshop, I was almost agreeing with myself that new skills would be learnt, I needed to create a digipak whilst also following some of the generic conventions. I therefore, as already stated on my blog, looked at Passion Pit's existing digipak designs and tried to replicate some of the features, such as the colour scheme and the evident use of graphics rather than images of the band or artist. 

    CAMERA

For the actual filming of our video we used group member Zach's Canon 600D camera. This camera was far better than the ones we had used previously at AS level for the stills needed for our magazine production, which was most likely a FujiFilm camera, which are not as high quality as Zach's Canon camera. The picture quality was really sharp as the camera is capable of filming in 1080p HD. This camera also has features such as; Steady-cam, and Zach had a tripod which kept the camera still allowing for minimal shakiness, and therefore a smooth outcome. 

FINAL CUT PRO

For the editing stage of our video, we used a software called Final Cut Pro, which is specifically designed for Mac users. We used this software because it was relatively easy to use and manage as a group, where all our skills will be varied.  Final Cut was a good choice because it had a variety of special features and effects, one effect which was of particular help was called; 'Optical Frame Blending'. However, Zach had to look up on the internet how this effect works because he had never actually used it before,  he had managed to film some shots in 60 frames per second with his Canon camera, this then meant that when these clips were slowed down by half it's speed for our video, they then became 30 frames per second which is above the average rate of approximately 24 frames per second. Slowing down these clips meant that the frames would become visible which massively lacks professionality, therefore Zach discovered Optical Frame Blending. Overall, without this software, our video would not have had the same outcome as it had, and proved to be a fairly straight forward software to use, whilst also learning many skills at the same time. 

Overall, all of these new media technologies were proven to be very useful to both myself, and to the group as a whole. All of these media technologies were free to use which was good for us as it made our pre and post-production stages far easier than if we had needed to purchase any forms of media technology. All of the different websites or software which have been identified in this post have all helped with the construction and research for my music video and ancillary texts. By using digital media technologies I have used technological convergence to ensure that we have produced the ancillary texts and final music video to the best of their ability.

The use of websites such as YouTube, Google and Facebook enabled faster research and planning for the video and ancillary texts, as there was such a variety of sources which could be referred to if needed. Final Cut Pro taught me how to create a music video to the best of it's ability in this specific piece of software which I was previously unfamiliar with. The likes of Photoshop also helped in enhancing my overall skills, especially in relation to my skills at AS now compared with my A2 Photoshop skills. 

Evaluation: Q3

What have you learnt from audience feedback?

Audience feedback is an important requirement in any task since it allows for improvement and alterations to your existing product. It is also important to collect audience feedback from your specific target audience in order to find ways in which improvement can be seen in your product, especially as these are the people who would be the potential viewers/buyers of your product(s).

Evaluation: Q2

How Effective is the Combination of your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?

Evaluation: Q1

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

ANCILLIARY TASKS:

For question 1 we needed to be able to evaluate how the product(s) we created utilise the codes and conventions of real media products. In order to evaluate my products to the best of their ability I would need to look back on the products which I created for the coursework and then compared them to some real products. I started off with my ancillary products; the digipak and the album advert. 

FINAL PRODUCT:

Final version

Although at times, rather stressful and hectic, this coursework hasn't been half as bad as I had assumed it to be, and I can actually say, I did learn a lot about the editing of a music video and the importance of certain conventions of a music video, and on the whole it was (at times) fun!

It has been a great learning curve for myself and my fellow group members, in the sense that we stumbled across many obstacles which the other groups had not encountered; such as the lip synching, the darkness, the location, the constant postponing of the re-film of the lip synching and the anxiousness that we may not reach the final deadline (but we did!) etc. But we got there eventually in the end,  and I therefore think we can safely say that all these mistakes paid off and that the we are exceptionally proud of our final edit of the music video. 

For the schedule of our production, we stuck to the Dipity timeline which we had created, apart from the last few weeks where we went off schedule and decided to spend more time on the first draft to perfect it as much as possible, as opposed to making several drafts and editing each one - we preferred the idea of putting in more hard work for the first draft and resulting in very little editing to do once feedback was received, which I think paid off. 

There were times in the music video when the acting can be perceived as a little 'over dramatic', although during the editing process, I actually felt that this was indirectly a genre convention, in the sense that many music videos within the indietronica genre are almost mocking either themselves, the genre or other genres - therefore this over dramatic acting can indirectly be seen as a genre convention - working out in our favour. It is also important to note that we are a bunch of sixth form students which practically no money or high - tech equipment, so obviously our music video wasn't going to turn out like a Beyonce music video would. however, for a student effort, we think that we did a pretty good job overall, and made it as professional looking as we possibly could.

Here is our last and FINAL version of our music video - Constant Conversations: 

Enjoy!

Feedback from teenagers

Since the first draft it is important to gain even more extensive feedback so that we can make sure the video is to the best of it's ability, therefore Zach went round and asked some teenagers (The lower end of our target audience) for some more feedback, which can be viewed below:




It seems that most people who have given us feedback for our music video say the same things, both adults and teenagers. They both comment on the cinematography and professionalism of the footage and understanding of the narrative which are the most important things which we tried to get across in our video. There was however, repetition on how the acting could've been better in certain scenes of the video and that it looked very staged and almost fake at times. This was the only strong criticism throughout the audience feedback and the majority seemed content with the video.

Second lot of feedback

Since the feedback from our first draft, we have obviously changed things about our music video. Therefore it is important that we are able to gather some more feedback in regard to the latest (and hopefully final) version of our music video. 

Therefore we asked our fellow peers in our form to comment on what they thought of our music video, and also our form tutor:




The main thing which we picked up from this feedback was that the cinematography, colour grading and the style is very strong, especially the 'haziness' of the scenes. They felt that the narrative was relatively easy to understand, although there was the odd comment about there being too many characters at the start, making it slightly confusing; however at a later stage it is mentioned that actually the more the video progresses, the easier it is to distinguish the characters and its meaning.