Evaluation Question 4

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





Different Media Technologies

For Evaluation Question 4 we explained how we used different media technologies in the process of creating our music video from the beginning to the end of the making of the music video. These technologies also aided us in some parts of creating the music video. By using technological convergence we have merged different technologies together such as our smart phones and the computer to transfer images between them by bluetooth for example, we have used this for our benefit throughout the process of research, planning, construction and evaluation. These are all explained in the video. I also created a video using a website called 'Animoto', and this website allows you to make a 30 second video which including pictures and text. The video that I created shows the different equipment that we have used in all stages of our music video and also gives information about how we used them to our advantage for our project.

Some of the technologies that we used in the process of making our music video were;

• Camcorder
• Tripod
• Smartphones (iPhones)
• Photoshop
• Final cut Express
• Social Network (Twitter,Facebook)
• iMac
• Blogger
• Bluetooth
• Facebook
• Animoto
• Wordle
• X-Mini Speaker

Research

In the research stage in the beginning of our music video, we used a few different media technologies and social networks website to gain research for our project;

• Youtube 
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Survey Monkey

The most important website here was Youtube, as Youtube is a website where all music videos are uploaded for everyone to see. Because of this we could watch multiple music videos to get inspiration for what ideas we could incorporate into our music video. This allowed us to also see music video from a variety of different music video directors how will all have different ideas and visions. We studied the top 100 greatest music videos, this gained us a good insight into different music video allowing us to get ideas for what we wanted to do for our music video. In particular, we listening watched music videos from artists in the indie genre that we have chosen to do. By studying these videos, we could see how the music videos in this genre as made in terms of style and themes.

We also carried out a focus group and a vox pop to gain research from different people to what their opinions were on music videos. This was the best research we did as they could give us a honest opinion on their views on music videos. This is the most effective way to get ideas for our video by seeing what other people prefer in a music video it terms of ideas and styles.

Planning


When planning for our music video, we only used some of the technologies out of the ones that I listed above. The main ones were;

• Youtube
• iMac
• Smart phones

The most useful technology that we used through the planning stage was the iMacs. We used the iMacs for many different planning tasks. To prepare for our music video, we had to complete many planning sheets so that when we came to the construction part of the project, were completely clear on what we were doing so that we could efficiently record our music video. We also created an animatic, to do this we took pictures of each of the scenes on the storyboard that we had drawn and then used Bluetooth to transfer the images from our Smart phones to our the iMac. We then used Final Cut Express to edit the images together so that the animatic demonstrates the structure of our music video.

Construction

The construction of the video was the main part of the project as this was the part that involved making our music video. This is also the section of the project where we used the new media technologies as we incorporated them together for our benefit throughout the construction of the project. To record all off our music video the main piece of technology that we used was the digital camcorder, the tripod and a monopod. The digital camcorder that we used was not of the best quality but there were good features about it such as; it is very light so that when filming for hold periods of time it does not become tiring. It is also very easy to use so that when getting out the camera to record there was minimum preparation that was to undertake to begin recording. We used the tripod as much as possible throughout the filming of our video to try and obtain the steadiest shot possible. We also used it because we did not have a fourth member of our group so we used the tripod to hold itself up. However many shots we did we also used a monopod so that we could do moving shots, especially in some of the narrative sections of the music video.

Once we had recorded all the footage that we needed, we had to upload our footage from the camcorder onto the iMac that we were using. We imported the footage straight into the program, 'Final Cut Express, so that we could begin editing as soon as possible. Final Cut Express is a very advanced software program but with experience that we have gained over the last two years we had many ideas of things that we wanted to do with tour footage.

Once we had completed all the editing of our music video we then had to create a digipak and magazine advert. The digipak would be the 6-panel album which would include our CD as well as information and artwork by the band. The magazine advert would be a one-picture poster which would include reviews by a range of different prestigious music magazines and newspapers. To take the pictures for the digipak we simply used our Smartphones, and then used the Bluetooth features on both the Smartphone and iMac to transfer the images from our phones to the iMac to then begin editing. To make both the digipak and the magazine advert we used Adobe Photoshop on the iMac's. We used different effects for both the album digipak and the magazine advert so that they are not the exact same, however both the main album cover picture and the advert picture are the same.

Evaluation

For the evaluation section of the music video project, we did not use too many different media technologies as most of the evaluation stage involved writing on our blogs. However we did use some media websites which were beneficial to the evaluation of our music video project. We created images in Photoshop which explained the different conventions of our music video by also comparing them to other popular music videos, mostly videos in similar genres of music as ours. We also created a prezi using a website called 'prezi.com', were we showed how we used made the combination between our main project and our ancillary tasks. `

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from audience feedback?

This is a image that I created using a website called Wordle. To create this image we watched old research videos that we had created such as our ancillary tasks, vox pops and focus group. By watching them we picked out words that had been used in our videos and them imported them into the website. Words that had been used more frequently appear bigger on the image, as they are more popular. this allowed us to see what the people we used for our ancillary tasks preferring in music videos. So by using this picture we could include certain aspects and conventions from the image so that it could appeal to the widest demographic, which is what most artists would aim for and we have done that same.

These are screenshots from the vox pop we made back in October, for this vox pop we asked different people about their opinions on music videos. From this we got ideas on what type of ideas we should use when brainstorming trying to create an idea for our music video. By asking a variety of different people who all have different opinions, we were able to create a music video that would hopefully appeal to the widest audience possible. This is effective because it allowed us to see what different audience members prefer in a music video which affected the ideas that we came up with. 

Once we had filmed the vox pop, we were able to come up with possible music video ideas that we could then ask a focus group to find our their opinions on our ideas. 

This was our focus group where we asked these two students about their opinions on our music video ideas. In this video we demonstrated three ideas to them explaining the ideas, then would discuss on what their opinions were on our ideas. After demonstrating our ideas it was clear that the two students preferred our third idea which was the idea about creating a spin on Little Red Riding Hood. From this focus group we were clear on the final idea we were going to use for our music video. Although we tweaked the idea slightly after this focus group, the focus group was still useful to see what idea the students warmed to the most which gave us confidence in our idea. 

This was the audience feedback to the rough cut of our music video which we showed to a group of media students applying for higher level media studies. All the students had different capabilities and different ideas and views on our music video rough cut and this was the feedback that we got from that day. This feedback was the most useful as they criticised our music video by identifying the faults in our video so that we could correct them before creating a final cut of our video. By analysing this feedback we then knew what we had to do to improve our music video. 

Evaluation Question 2

How Effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks(DVD Digipak, magazine advert)?



There are distinct connections between our music video and our digipak and magazine advert, especially between our album digipak and album advert. This is because we have used the same image for both of them to gain brand recognition for our album. We have manipulated the album cover image using an effect on Photoshop so that although it is that same image as the album advert, it is a manipulated image. By doing this we created an image that will be recognised at being our particular brand. An artist that has recently done this is Pharrell, for his album cover and all his marketing adverts  he has used the same image to create a memorable album cover that people recognise because they see it in all types of media and the image becomes memorable in an audiences head. This was what we tried to aim for when designing our album cover.

Another similarity between the digipak and the advert is that the text colour scheme on both images are very similar and distinct. We did this to catch the attention of someone in a shop who sees our album cover or someone reading a newspaper or magazine who might be interested in our album due to the design of the album cover, this is what we hoped to achieve with our album cover.

We also filming much of our music video and took pictures for our digipak in the same location. This keeps the general theme of our digipak and music video the same so that they are both linked to each other so that someone who sees the digipak can see a constant theme throughout our digipak, advert and music video.

Our music video links well with our digipak and advert, there are many shots in our music video that are very similar to the framing on images within our digipak. In particular in the shots where the wolf is lip synching, in many of these shots they are shot as mid shot, which is how the album cover image is framed. Another link between the digipak and the video is the constant reappearing figure of Little Red Riding Hood throughout the digipak and video. This is another memorable aspects that is featured throughout our music video which allows an audience to relate the music video to the digipak.

Our digipak has a simple design and follows many conventions of album covers and digipaks within the same genre of indie music that our music fits into. Album covers of indie artists are normally quite plain, featuring single images of the band members, especially in the case of a debut album like ours. Our digipak includes pictures which introduce the members of the band with tags showing their names. Our digipak also features some information about the band such as Twitter and Facebook tags allowing people who like our music to follow us on social media websites.

Evaluation Question 1

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

For this evaluation question we constructed a comparison between still shots of scenes from our music video 'Green Eyed Monster' and stills from popular music videos that we thought would have similar cinematography within them. In these comparisons we also compared the genre conventions of our music video compared to the conventions of the example music video we have used such as props e.g. guitars and microphones.

This is a more close up shot of the main band member/front man performing in a music video. Including the wide shot of the whole band, this shot is used to focus on a particular member of the band. These shots can be still or moving shots. This type of shot shows the band members playing their instruments. This shot is used a lot in many genres of music as it allows the viewer to get a closer look at the band members so that the visual connection to the band members them is greater than wide angles shots.

This is a shot that we used regularly in our music video which is a guitar close up with is used very frequently as a convention of music videos. It shows the band members using instruments so it is not used in as many pop videos as they do not include a band with using instruments instead of computers and other technologies. This convention of band members using live instruments is predominantly seen in then indie and rock genre of music videos. With this shot, we synced up the guitar playing to the music to seem as the guitar player was really playing to the song.

This is a shot type which shows the entire band also normally predominantly used in music where there is a live band. This shot shows them as they are all performing together normally as quite a wide shot. The main man of the band, most likely the main singer, is always standing in the middle of the shot as the other band members stand behind them, usually symmetrically. The drummer normally features behind the lead singer, however in our music video we did not use a drummer.
This type of shot is not only just used in music video as well as in TV and Film. This type of shot of two characters walking towards each other is normally used in narrative including two characters, who are in a relationship or about to show affection to each other but hugging or kissing etc used in romantic context. This is the case in our music video as the two characters are starting a relationship and this shot is where they meet up and hug.
This extreme close up angle shows the phone being used which is a convention seen in many different types of music videos for many reasons. One of the main reason this close up angle is used in music video is that is it normally specifically placed there for product placement.  In the comparison screenshot the phone is used to advertise the brand of a Windows phone. We placed this shot in our music video as in shows an important part of the narrative as it introduces the Wolfs girlfriend 'Little Red' seen at the top of the phone.

This is a very intimate shot type as is shows a close up of only the main band member. This shot is a very popular convention used in all types of genres of music video, as is allows the viewer to connect to the main member of the band as they are looking directly into the camera while lip syncing to the music. In shot types like these,the viewer focuses more on the words and content of the song as there is less on the screen to focus on thus diverting their attention to the song instead of the visuals. 

This is one halfd  digipak design and when comparing it to other digipak designs from artists within the same music genre as ours we saw that our digipak follows many of the popular digipak designs from other artists. The digipak includes many features seen on popular digipaks designs, such as Twitter and Facebook images, advertising fan pages. The middle panel on the digipak is an image of the main member of the band and the narrative, The Wolf. On either side of that image are too images which are very similar so that the digipak is symmetrical.

This is the outside of our album which includes three main images. The front cover is the image of the Wolf in the forest which we chose as the front cover because the image is a juxtaposition between the bright light on the Wolf and the dark woods behind his showing him as a 'Lone Wolf' The middle image is the back cover and it has the song list on it same as all popular album covers. The picture on the left is a picture of the full band including tags showing the band members names. Many of the pictures on the digipak are connected including similar themes from locations that we also using for the filming of the video.