Evaulation: Question 4

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

We used many different media technologies throughout the whole of our project. Before we had even started project we used the Photoshop to make our main header for our blog. We had already used this program in year 12 when we created our music magazines, however, it was just the matter of getting used to it again. Never the less, this didn't take me long as i soon managed to grasp the idea of what tools do what.

Here is a powerpoint presentation to explain the media technologies used in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages in my project

Question 4

View more presentations from hsealy.

Evaluation: Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback is very important for the final completion of the music video and the ancillary tasks as it allows you to identify what are the good and bad factors of you product and what needs to be improved and more often that not, certain parts of your audience feedback will have suggestions in how to do so.

Video Feedback

TEACHER FEEDBACK

We first required feedback when it came to the beginning of the task with our idea for our music with we gained off our media teacher. We explained to her our idea and she immediately liked the idea and thought that it would work with our song choice, however, she thought that something was missing. Even though she liked the idea of the main male character having a day dream of him following this fantasy girl as she tries to tease and lure him to follow her along with two other girls, she felt that for the length of the song, we would not have enough of a storyline/shots to keep the viewers interesting and to actually make a good music video. She then suggested that the main male character could bump into other people that are in the woods but are dressed up in weird yet still fantasy-like clothing doing average things such as sitting having a conversation but he will only be able to see them whereas they won't be able to see him. She suggested that maybe a couple of these types of scenes included in the video will mean that we would have more shots to make a full length of the music video with and it will also make the video more weird/strange so that the viewers remain interested.

We all liked this idea that our teacher had suggested and decided to included on our storyboard to explain the story of the music video and what type of shots are going to be included.

Whilst we were filming we often gained feedback off the other female actors included in the video, suggesting different shots and ideas that we could include in our video. This was a benefit for us as it gave us a point of view from other people perspectives.

The next bit of audience feedback that we received was after we had finished editing our video to conclude with our final cut. We required some audience feedback so it could be improved, firstly from our teacher. We found that the criticism from our teacher was much greater than anyone else but that is what we expected as she is our teacher and she will be completely honest as she wants us to get the best grades possible. I also thought this to be a beneficial for us as she has the most knowledge out of all of us as she has been a media teacher for a long time and we can therefore know what isn't liked so that it can be changed to made better. Her main criticism was that some of the shots weren't the best and were to long as needed to be cut down with effects so that it would flow into each other. Adding to this, she felt that the video needed to have more effects in it to make it seem more dream like such as adding in cross dissolves. She also felt that we did too many over the shoulder shots o that we get the back of peoples head a lot which she really didn't like which meant that we had to go back and re-film certain shots again so that we have more of a wider range of shots, especially ones where we can see the main character's face. She also wanted us to re-film part of Dan, playing the role of the main male character, as he repeatedly touched the back of his head and kept 'huffing' which she said was very noticeable but only became visible to us when she pointed it out. This shows how important audience feedback is as you need to gain someone else's opinion apart from yourselves as they may notice and comment on things that you may not have even noticed.

Unfortunately, we were not able to re-film any footage for our video as the main actress, Georgia, was continuously busy and wasn't able to take part in our media anymore. Instead, we had to work with the footage that we already had in order to improve our music video.

Apart from pointing out the bad points of our video, she did pointed out a few good points about our video. She felt that the storyline was good and went well with the song choice. had a relationship with the music in a sense that the shots and parts of the storyline went with certain parts of the music, especially with the middle of the video where goes quite and dream-like and there's shots of the two other fantasy-like girls.

CLASS MEMBER FEEDBACK

We also asked a few of our fellow class mates to watch our music video then write down their comments on a piece of paper for our feedback. They were less critical than our teacher but their comments were still important to us to help try and improve our video and to establish what are the good factors about the video. It was also a benefit that the feedback that we was receiving from our class mates was also from a similar age of our target audience which meant that this would be a reliable source to follow for feedback. Our classmates also picked up on the fact that some of the editing needed working on so this just confirmed to us something we could work on for the final cut. Below are the comments from our classmates.

Digipack Feedback

Below is an image of our first draft of our digipak

TEACHER FEEDBACK

CLASS MEMBER FEEDBACK

After taking the feedback from both teacher and class members into consideration, we changed the digipak and this is what the final draft looks like.

Website feedback

The feedback for the website worked slightly differently compared to the other feedback given for the other tasks. The feedback was given after the first draft of the task at hand, where as, with the website the feedback was given throughout. Here are the different types of feedback and the type of things that they said along the making of the website.

TEACHER FEEDBACK

• likes the roll over images for the main navigational links on the page - however doesn't like them being pink, would prefer them to be blue
• doesn't like the pink used for some of the font - too many colours on the page, makes it look prodominately for girls
• likes the idea of a user form
• like the rollover image of the album cover
• doesn't like the picture used for Gerogia as it isn't cut out properly

CLASS MATE FEEDBACK

• likes the header for the homepage
• likes the picture of the main male character in the top left corner of the page
• likes the idea of the user form
• doesn't like the main navigational links being pink

After receiving all of the different feedback comments whilst making the website, we quickly changed the faults and this is what was produced.

Homepage
Video Page

Evalutaion: Question 2

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

For our project we have been asked by our brief to produce a music video and two ancillary tasks. In our case these other two tasks were the website homepage to promote the artist and a digipak for the artist's latest album. Here are all of my tasks put together

Music Video

'American Dream' Final cut from Daniel Jeffery on Vimeo.

Webpages

HOMEPAGE

VIDEO PAGE

Digipak

As an artist one thing you hope to achieve is that your products are easily recognised as yours and audiences can relate to each product that you produce. In our three products the male actor is the predominant feature. We have done this so the audience feel like they have a clearer representation of the artist they like and who they are buying music from.

Our digipak consists of pictures that relate to our music video. The setting of the woods in the music video is represented through the images on the digipak as you can see from the background of the images. As the album is called the title of the song in the music video, it seemed appropriate to use pictures based on the theme of the video. This also forms continuity throughout our media products. The faint image of the fantasy girls on the front cover also relate to the music video as they starred in it and the faint opacity of the image gives it that dream-like affect, also relating which the music video.

Our website contains an image of Jakatta, who is also the main character in the video. It contains our music video (recent Jakatta video) to try and promote it out to the public. The user form is used to draw the attention of the public, making them want to sign up to receive information about any upcoming news with Jakatta. This user login is a key to their promotion and to identify how many fans of Jakatta there are actually our there. Another form is used to set up a competition so the public have the chance to get involved with something and to win Jakatta tickets which will further promote the artist.

Evaluation: Question 1

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

Music Video
Below is an image of the theroy behind forms and conventions of a music video with the gerneral and Andrew Goodwin's theroy.

For our media product we chose to use the song 'American Dream' by Jakatta. This song is a dance/house song and the main reason why we chose this song choice. This is because the genre for dance/house music has a variety of music videos with no particaulr trend followed as you can see from exising music videos below.

For our video we wanted to combine a range of conventions we have seen being used in existing dance videos and try to bring them across in our video. We decided that our video would tell a story. We researched existing music videos that were run in this way and we thought that our song could tell a certain story. Songs such as '9PM till i come' by ATB and 'You don't know me' by Arman Van Helden have videos that are a series of events that run in a sequence like a story. When it came to our video we didn't want our story to be too serious we wanted to add a playful twist to it. To explain how we did this, i am now going to analysis the general theory behind the forms and conventions of a music video and compare them with our music video.

Lyrics

isn't many lyrics to our song choice, only of a couple of lines, however, they are still a main part of why we choice the storyline for our music video. You cannot here them very well in the song, only the hushed voice of woman whispering in a seductive, inviting tone. However, there is one word that you can here quite clearly which is 'Overdirve' which is used to pick up the paste of the music as well. We often use this word 'Overdirve' in our video to exaggerate the existance of the main fantsy girl as she is who puts him 'into overdrive'. I believe that this introduction to the main fantasy girl this way makes it obvious to the audience that she is a sexual fantasy for him and the feeling he gets from the general vibe off her. There is a constant dream like feel to the song from the contant sighing and humming in the background which makes it work with the storyline of our music video.

Music

The music of the video definitely determines in most cases what shots are used and how the editing should be done. We have constantly tried to fit the differnt shots and scences to the right parts of the music. An example of this is shown when the main male charcter begins to follow the main fatasy girl in his dream. At this point the music quieten ands it becomes more surreal and dream like as he wonders off to find her. I feel that this works with part of the storyline line works well with this part of the song and also does with the next part of the video where the two other fatacy girls are introduced to the video. They are dancing very seducatively around trees, going from one girl to the other, with the everything seemed to be following together with the use of cross dissolves. This added to the dream-like effect as the shots of the two differnt girls seemed the follow together which is also encouraged by the tone of the music at that point in the song.

Editing

Editing is what makes the video, without it there would be no video. In the general therory, the most common form of ediditng is fast-cut montage, rendering many of the images impossible to grasp on first viewing, so ensuring multiple viewing. However, we do not have any of this in our video as it wouldn't have gone with the storyline or even the song of our music video. We have usd effects such as cross disolves to make it follow together in a dream-like way. We have also used dissolves with the change of scene and location. We also used blur effects for the going into and waking up from the dream, this is so the audience cant identify that the the scene in the forest is actually in a dream. Without it, then the video may not even make sense to some people. Throughout the video we have continuity editing so everything looks like it follows together even with all the differnt shots. This is so the audeince that the music video is based on a story.

Exhibitionism

The story of the music video is that there is a attractive, fantasy-like girl who is trying to seduce that main male charcter by making him ofllow her. She is seductive and is a sexual figure of his imagination. Throughout the video there are close ups of this main fantasy girl, giving off a seductive look, drawing in the attention of the main male character and the audience. In Andrew Goodwin's theroy, it says that the female character is shown often through a combination of camerawork and editing with fragmented body shots emphasising a sexualised treatment of the star. We have tried to show this throught the shots and editing of our own video.

Close up shots are also used in exisitng music videos to show expression and emotion on the actors faces. This is vital in music videos because it shows the audience wat emotions the vieo is trying to portray and how the song is meant to be percieved. Below are the differnt shots of Gerogia within our music music video.

Digipak

With our researched digipaks, we noticed that most of the digipaks had the artist on the front coverof it. This encouraged us to follow similar conventions and do something similar. We felt that by putting an image of the atrist on the front cover will make the album seem more appealing for customer to by, especially if they are a great fan of their music. Most of the images are either close ups or medium close ups of the artist, looking straight at the camera, drawing in the attention of the public. This is what we aimed to achieve.

When it came to the back of the researched digipaks, we followed similart trends by placing the record label on the back and also placing a barcode on the back alon with obviously the list of the songs that are on the album. We did this because it addded a sense of proffesionalism to our work. When looking at current albums I realised that the inside panels links with the outside of the album and there should be a good continuity. I think that this is strong point about our Digipak as there is a good visual link between each panel. This can be seen from the image of our digipak below.

Website

When it came to designing a webpage for our ancillay task we researched many existing artist webpages. Below is a link to the research that i have carried out.

I noticed from looking at existing websites that somewhere on the page there is a reasonable size image of the artist, either as a close up or medium close up. This is so the viewers are once again drawn in, just like the idea is with he images on the front cover of the digipak. We also often found that the websites had a user login in and an option to sing up for one. We immediately liked the idea of including this on our website and decided on doing it. This wasn't a problem for us to include this as we have had to create a website for our ict coursework and we have included a similar feature in that website, still using the form feature. We wanted to include this user login in our website because if our product was real to life this would encourage the audience to sign up to the artist homepage so they can view more of the things he is involved with. By doing this it might result in the artist receiving a small fee or the audience being constantly alerted with information about the artist and this would keep them interested in him.

Every website had their main navigational links on different places on the page. We decided that we liked where the links were on the artist Taio Cruz' website which are across the top of the page. Because our task was only do the homwpage of your atist's site, we didn't make a page for every naviagtional link to go to, However, we did make a seperate page for the video as there wasn't enough room to fit it on the homepage so i chnaged it to the 'Videos' navigational link goes to that page and that the 'Home' link goes to the homepage.