Evaluation Question 4

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

Firstly, within our research and planning stage we had to conduct research specifically on target audiences for our music video and genre. For this we used a couple of websites:
UK Tribes, which is a website used to find particular information on music, such as the different kinds of audiences that listen to music genres e.g.

Another website I used to create a rough image of the suggested target audience that would listen to our music is the BBC website's Social Class test, which I used to create the target audience we are using now, which is what are known as Emergent Service workers who have a low income level but a high cultural diversity.

We used the streaming website YouTube in our research and planning in order to view different types of music videos from different genres to give us a diversifying view on other types of music in order to separate our song from other types. This website has been extremely useful to us as it enabled us to get the music we wanted for free, and without

We also used Prezi for our presentations, this website can be very helpful at times and much better to use than PowerPoint in terms of knowing where to put all of your information.
Not only was this website helpful for presentations but it is also easier to use than PowerPoint in terms of access. Prezi is easier to share on the internet as it is compatible with websites such as Blogger, which enables embed codes in order to integrate Prezi on to your blog, whereas PowerPoint requires an external website (mainly SlideShare) in order for it to be embedded on to Blogger.

SlideShare I found was of equal usefulness as Prezi, because it does the same thing but with PowerPoints, however I prefer Prezi to SlideShare as over the past couple of months we have experienced some difficulties with SlideShare and not letting us upload files, in this sense we believe that Prezi is much more reliable.
The computer that I used to post most things on to blogger, as well as put everything together via Photoshop and Vegas Pro is a Novatech PC, it is relatively high spec and was able to use and execute editing programs well, however there were some instances with Photoshop where it did not cope and crashed. However all in all the PC was reliable and great to work with.



The technology of which I recorded most of my images on was either my phone or iPod, being as they are handy devices to have around and also easy to upload photos on to they were of good use to me, although in some circumstances such as the location stills post a proper camera could have been better in order to have a better picture quality.




To start off within our construction stage we used a wide variety of technology to aid us in filming our scenes and editing for the music video, this included:

Camera (Panasonic NV GS500):

 The camera was SD and very easy to use, as of using it last year we did have some experience with it, but we also learnt a couple of new techniques with it, such as auto focus which you could enable to focus on either the foreground or background, this created some nice camera effects when shooting the scene.







Because this year we were filming a music video, there was no need for a microphone as music was going to be edited in to the video from another source, so sound was not an issue.

The editing software we used was Sony Vegas (or Movie Studio Platinum 12.0) :

This software which gave us a wide variety of special effects, transitions etc. some of which I used in my music video, One particular effect I used a lot was film grain, which I found to be of quite high quality and was just the thing I need to convey certain emotions across of what the main character was thinking e.g. confusion or fear.
One such addition to Sony Vegas that I also found of great usefulness was the ability to shorten down cuts and scenes to split seconds, of which editing method I used constantly throughout the music video, it was one of the features of the editing software that I found quite easy to use and was brilliant for cleaning up the video and smoothing the rough edges a little bit.
The particular editing effects I used most were:



Video Event FX, this tool allowed me to add in special effects over recordings such as film grain, scratches and jitters to create different interpretations of scenes within my music video.
As seen on the screenshot, there are different sliders that allow you to accurately change film effects settings. Video Event FX also adds in other effects such as colour curves to adjust the colouring in the scenes, i.e. to increase or decrease the saturation, glows, blurs, sharpening etc.

The trim tool, this tool allowed us to cut off certain parts of the scene we don't want, so this came in very handy when editing, because not only did it allow me to get rid of certain parts of filming that I didn't want, but I was also able to cut up individual scenes into smaller parts to more accurately add in the effects I wanted.
This tool comes with trim start and end, but can also be used on the timeline by sliding the ends across, the further zoomed in to the timeline means the more accurate.

The search engine I used in order to research information on the music video and other tasks was Google, which is a reliable and fast way to search for the information and websites you need.



 Of course the internet software that we used to record all information for our coursework is indeed Blogger, which is an easy and useful way of recording posts on progress and research ready to use and evaluate later and in an easily accessible place.








One other tool I used for my ancillary tasks was Photoshop. This played a major role in the creation of my digipak and magazine advert.
Initially this tool was quite hard to grasp in terms of the amount of tools and the extreme accuracy within the software, the precision of the tools I used enabled me to make what I think was some convincing super imposition.
The tools I used most were:





The quick selection tool, this tool allowed me to quickly select parts of an image with surprising accuracy based on the computer's judgement, it is able to select shapes relatively quickly up to a fairly simple composition, such as squares and triangles as well as basic outlines. However the tool also allowed me to manually select certain shapes of the image I wanted to superimpose and was extremely accurate. For example:


The example shows a white outline around the mask and is an example of the accuracy of the quick selection tool.

The adjustments tool, this enabled me to change the brightness, contrast, colour and more of particular layers, this was very useful in order to adjust a particular part of the picture superimposed to make it look like it was originally there and to make my digipak and magazine advert look more convincing.








For the evaluation stage the media technologies that I used are mostly recorded down already, websites such as YouTube, Blogger and Prezi I used to conduct more research with such as on professional albums and how mine relates to them, and record it down as well as create presentations on how differing features of artist's advertisements or music albums can relate to the one I created.


However one website that I have used particularly for my evaluation is a social media site, Facebook. I have used this in my last evaluation question to obtain feedback from the general public for my music video, as I posted a link to it as my status.

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Target Audience Interviews:


We did two interviews on the rock genre of which our key findings were that:

• Both people find the fast and upbeat pace most appealing about the Rock genre.
• Pace of editing should match the pace of the song, if it is fast, editing should connote power, happy/fast paced should have lots of cuts etc.
• George cannot find any other video ideas for 'Ain't No Rest For The Wicked' whereas James thinks the video should always include the band doing something, in order to attract appeal and to advertise themselves.
• James says some certain songs will work with different types of media instead of just music, and those should be used accordingly.
• Both people found a feeble or weak atmosphere unappealing about the Rock genre, is it was mellow and not very loud, "It just drags on, a slow narrative and slow music, it makes you very bored".
• Unique editing techniques would increase interest in the music video and make it better to watch.

The significant aspects were the factors what both people expected to see in a rock video, such as the pace of the video must be fast and upbeat instead of a slower and more mellow atmosphere which "drags on" and what we learnt from this is that a faster video with more things happening in them would increase the interest of the audience due to the faster pace of the song which means the video would match that pace.

Target Audience Questionnaires:



We have done a questionnaire which asks the basic questions i.e. what music genre do you prefer, how much music do you listen to, how often etc. and we found out that:

• Our target audience that enjoy listening to rock and watch rock music videos range between 15-20 mostly.
• They have no genre preference
• On average, our target audience spend 5-10 hours listening to rock music out of 10-15 hours listening to music per week.
• Overall, our audience prefers a mixture of performance and narrative based videos, with elements of disjuncture featured within them, and prefer any story to be experienced by the lead singer as the main character.

The significant aspects that we gathered from the questionnaire results is that our target audience prefer a mix of band performance and narrative in the music video, however we did not do this mainly because of complications in trying to get actors to star in our music video, as well as wanting to keep the filming crew quite small, so we ended up doing a narrative for the music video throughout.
What I learnt from this is that the narrative for the music video has to be very good in order to make up for no band performance and because of this the editing process is lengthened quit significantly in order to create good effects and put plenty of time and effort into the work.

Formative Feedback:

During the process of putting the entire music video together we gathered as a whole class and watched each other's videos then giving constructive feedback on what was good and what could be improved in the music video:

The feedback that I received from the rest of the class is to try and reinforce the entire picture of the upper class/lower class tempter idea by using more scenes where they offer Simon (the main character) luxury goods of richer and poorer quality, unfortunately due to lack of time and arrangement we were unable to complete these scenes and I used what footage we had in an attempt to reinforce that image.
This helped me because at the time I was unsure of what to put in next, so the feedback helped me plan the next scene a little easier and what it would contain, yet again with the tempters offering Simon something.

Feedback from the general public:

My music video is currently on YouTube and yet to be posted onto Facebook, but right now on YouTube the video has 111 views and 2 likes, but no comments:






On Facebook however I am hoping to get some constructive feedback from the general public on my video, as I have posted the link to the video up and have recieved some comments:

The feedback I have gotten from some of the general public suggests:

Pros:
Use of diverse effects.
Use of fast and frequent cuts.
Use of effects to distort images.
Good varied shot length.

Cons:
Starting sequence was a little drawn out and could have been shortened to give a better effect and not bore the audience.

The significant aspects that I gathered from this data is that my use of editing has ended with positive feedback, however the introduction to the music video could have been shortened down to less than what it currently is, as some audiences may believe it is too long or can get quite boring for the introduction to a song.

In conclusion what I have learnt from my audience feedback is that the editing techniques I have used in my music video have benefitted it due to effects such as film grain and colour tint to give off the varying atmospheres and effects for the scenes, what I could have improved was shortening the introduction and possibly included a band performance which is what our target audience initially was looking for.

Evaluation Question 2

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

 

Evaluation Question 1

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

My Music video:

First off, the conventions of real media products include a range of topics to take in when evaluating, these include:

• The band performance - Where there are scenes of the actual band playing the song within the music video.
• Narrative? - Is there an act playing along i.e. an alternative storyline in the music video instead of just band performances?
• Concept - What the general idea of the video is, does it play along to a typical storyline or is it more complex?
• Mixture - typically a mix of band performance and storyline.
• Animation - Is the video based on drawings and animated characters instead of real life?

Music Video Prezi:

Magazine Advert Finished Version

This is the final version of my magazine advert.
What I am most happy about is the broken glass background, as that took a lot of time and effort to perfect and enable me to see the masks through the broken glass, as well as still getting the good quality of the picture.
What I feel could require some improvement is the way the masks are set out behind the broken glass, originally the two tempters were going to be presented behind it, but due to the lack of time and costume we could not take the picture, so instead I opted for the two masks which I believe wouldn't give off as good an effect as the two tempters would.

Magazine Advert Editing Update

This is what I have done for my magazine advert so far, which is the background and the masks in the broken glass, as well as part of the title.
The hardest part of editing so far has been creating a hole in the broken glass foreground in order to see the masks in the background, this is because I had to use a polygon tool in order to erase the black foreground which took a lot of time, effort and accuracy in order to do right and still preserve the good quality of the broken glass.
What I like so far is the way the two masks are portrayed behind the broken glass with the shadow effects which make them appear sinister.

Final Choice

After some thought to what I am going to do for my magazine advert I have decided to use idea number 2, or the picture with the two tempters in a broken glass pane of some sort, as my final choice to do.
I chose this because I believe it will give off a good effect either to entice audiences or creep them out a little and cause some encouragement within the advertising.
I believe that this will also take some editing to acquire because of the superimposition that will have to be done in order to integrate the masks into the broken glass window, which will take time and effort to complete to a satisfying standard.