How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluate stages? (Music Video)

Research and Planning-

The research and planning of my music video was a key aspect of creating it. This was mainly focusing on gaining ideas and conventions of a general and indie music video and decide which parts we would use and which parts we would develop. Within the research we looked at websites such as YouTube and Wikipedia to find out this information. Through research this is how we discussed creating our artists as a cross between Lady Gaga and Florence and the machine! This gave us ideas for mise en scene; many of these ideas came from Florence and the Machine but the mask was a prop and costume taken from the Lady Gaga. Within the planning of our music video we completed many different forms and planning sheets such as shooting schedule, storyboards and mood boards to collect all our ideas together and organise ourselves for our music video. By doing this we were able to know completely what our orginal ideas were but also had room to add a few more details that we decided whilst shooting and taking photos for our music videos.

Construction -

For the first part of our construction was to take photos of locations and props and different ideas we came across when planning our music video to give us ideas of what we wanted to place in our music video; we done this by using still cameras to take photos beforehand and then upload to the Macs. After planning we then took the digital cameras to locations such as nonsuch park and Siani's house where we filmed the different scenes on the camera. Whilst doing this we found it was easier for us to film the scene a few times, so that once we had uploaded the footage to the Macs we were able to use different transitions to cut from different scenes and choose which scene looked better after a few shots. Lastly, once the footage is uploaded on to the Macs we were able to use Final Cut to edit the music video. Myself, Luciie and Siani divided the lyrics into three parts and edited each section individually to how we saw the music video to be finalised. I was able to use lots of overlapping of shots and different effects to brighten the shot and use effects such as Dazzle to gain a sparkly effect on the shot to fit our genre.

Evaluating-

To evalute our music video we set up a meeting with six different students to show them the music video and ask for their opinions on what they thought went well and what they thought could have been improved. This helped a lot becuase when we has showen them the music video they spotted a major flaw in the music video which was that in part of the song it wasn't lip synced correctly which meant we needed change this before it was finalised! Our music video was also placed on YouTube to gain feedback from people in the general public; however not many people have seen it so they have not given us much feedback.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluate stages? (Ancillary Task)

Research and Planning -

When researching my ancillary task, I used a lot of different websites to find out what was needed to go with the conventions of a Indie concert poster and cd digi pack. Websites such as band wesites for artists such as Florence and the Machine, to find out which places she would play for her concerts and what sort of designs she would go for on her concerts posters and cd digi packs. Me and Siani divided the work together and took 3 slides of the cd digi pack each. Once looking at what we both had planned and tested on photoshop we found that we had both taken a different effect and brightness on our look of our covers; once we put this together we found this looked a lot better as a contrast and developed on the typical conventions of the indie poster and cd digi packs.

Construction -

Within the construstion of my ancillary task I mainly used photo shop to create the different layers of my poster and cd cover. Photo shop helped me to separate my creation into different layers for each part or design that I added. This made it easier because I was always experimenting with different effects and pictures to find out which looked better and would suit my genre and the conventions of a concert poster and a cd digi pack. So by creating different layers on photoshop I was able to create a layer to see what it looked like then if it wasn't what I wanted I was able to delete the layer without deleting every other part of my task that I already wanted.

Evaluate -

When evaluating my ancillary tasks I produced a questionaire on microsoft word to find with mainly tick boxes and lines for written answers (found in the audience feedback post). I then gave this out to people within my class and showed then both my ancillary tasks so they could give contrustive feedback from them to find out what went well about my ancillary tasks and what they thought could be imporved. I also got feedback from teachers to find out their opinions on what theythought went well and could be improved. After this feedback I used this to edit my ancillary tasks as a final with the critisims in mind to improve my tasks.

What have you learned from you audience feedback? (Music Video)

To find feedback on our music video we aim to get a group of people to watch the music video and give us a written feedback of what they thought about the music video and what they felt could be improved. After this I aim to collect the information together and collate a summarised statement on what the target audience believed were the good points of the music video and what they thought we could improve if we were playing on re-creating the music video.

Helen:

WWW- The shots were good and I liked the way they faded into each other.

EBI - Sometimes it was slightly out of sync.

Alice

WWW- The effects looked good throughout; and it flowed with throughout.

EBI - The lip syncing around 2.10 was out of sync.

Danielle

WWW- Good editing and miming throughout the music video.

EBI - the lip syncing was out of time at one point.

I also plan to upload my music video to youtube and get feedback from others whom I may not know but it could be a good insight into what I could have done to improve if I was to recreate the music video again.

(youtube link)

What have you learned from you audience feedback? (Ancillary task)

To gain feedback from my potential audience I planned to create a questionaire and showing both the tour poster and the digi-pack for Madelyn Faith to a group of people and find out what there personal opinion of my ancillary tasks. This would gain me a lot of knowledge of what the targte audience think of the ancillary task and whether it fits the conventions of the genre and the result is what we aimed to achieve. Results For question one I found that all those who completed my questionaire could tell that the genre was alternative indie which is what my genre for my artist was meant to be. This in turn shows that my ancillary task were a success in helping to communite the genre to the target audience. Overall; by looking at the questionaire people found that the strengths within my ancillary tasks were that both tasks used the bright colours effectively with the contrast of light and dark within the digi pack were effective. However there were a few improvements that were suggested to improve the poster and digi pack. For the digi pack it was commented that the font on the tracklist needed to be a little clearer because it was had to see from a distance; which could be improved with the adjustment of the colour brightness. It was also suggested that we could have used the peacock feather that was used as a mask within the video to be placed on the digi pack as another symbol for the artist. A few improvements for the poster that were suggested were that the font wasnt so clear from a distance but looked a good piece of advertisement when seen close. There was also a shadow on the font that looked strange to one person which was questioned in whether it was needed or not.

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

There are many similarites when we created our music video, our poster and our cd cover. Within the lesson we looked at what the 'rules' were for our genre of 'indie pop', music videos and all ancillary tasks.

These sheets showed the links between the music video and the poster; such as the colours; picture, what makes the artist recongnisable through both their music video and their tour posters , as well as their own CD digi-pack.

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

Within my ancillary task, Me and Siani divided up the advertising between us and I was given the task of advertising the group tour.

The main features of a tour date poster such as the websites and different tour dates around the country. For this poster I was able to use the main conventions rather then challenge and develop these conventions. This tasks was a contrast from Siani's poster, I used the brightness to contrast with Siani's dim lighting within her poster.

Another ancillary task we created was the digipack. We developed on a normal indie CD digipack with the creation of the colour contrast. Whereas if you look at the different CD covers such as Lady Hawk's CD cover or Ellie Goulding they are pretty similar with contrasting colours. For my half of the CD cover i used quite dimmed bright colours where as for Siani she used the dark or white colours. This was a development on the 'normal' CD covers by using one colour and choosing either bright or dark colours. This would give a good effect on the audience as it would be an easy way for the audience to recognise Maydelyn Faith as an artist. This also challenges the conventional indie typical CD covers in which Maydelyn Faith can be seen as a new artist who will go against the 'normal' Cd digi packs'.

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

When creating our music video there were many different conventions of a music video that my group needed to consider; these conventions would also be linked with the conventions of our genre to our artist which was 'pop indie'.

Develop Challenge Use

Within a original music video of our genre is there are many different techniques that my group used, challenged and develop throughout the creation of our music video. When looking at similar artists such as Florence and the Machine who are main artist was based upon we found that there was a lot of meaning behind the song lyrics; however there wasn't always a clear narrative to go alongside the lyrics; as the music video was quite abstract. We used this within our music video as many of the shots we used were abstract of Madielyn Faith dancing on a bench or singing in the bath. We also used the convention of nature and calm environments such as park and forest; which we continued throughout the music video with the mise en scene. This wasn't always the setting that used the nature, in some of the scenes the artist was wearing a flowery piece in the background or a feather covering her face.

Both these scenes were developed with the focus of using the mise en scene; for example by setting the scene within a normal setting such as the bath or park/forest in which the artists was still wearing her day clothes within the bath and instead of her make up being perfect, it was smudged. By doing this we developed on the fact that her lyrics were quite twisted and bitter; by taking an ordinary situation and adding something unusual to it, the audience get a feeling that she is quite bitter without having to use a narrative for the lyrics.