finished video :)

Aimees Evaluation part

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

As we know technology has improved vastly, there is know way that we couldn't take advantage of the benefits that technology would have to our project. Our whole media coursework was to be presented on a website called blogger.com This website allowed us to upload each stage of our project onto individual blogs. We constructed a page where we uploaded blogs,videos, pictures and plans on what are ideas were towards the making and foundations of our music video. Blogger.com worked very much in our favor. I think it allowed us to keep a good track on what work we had done, we could look at our work in stages and it allowed us to see what needed to be completed. Blogger.com also let us share the work out equally, each person could concentrate on one specific blog, therefore know one was doing more work than anyone else. We were in a group and completing the work as a group too. 

One of the main technologies we used, and wouldn't have been able to complete the project without is the internet and the use of a computer. In our generation these things are taken for granted, but realistically we wouldn't have been able to create a good music video without them.

As soon as we were given the project, we went straight on the internet and started to research into bands and what song we could potentially use. The internet was the foundation of our research, with it, we were able to analyse peoples music. We wanted to find a band that was local, and more importantly a band that we could get in touch with to ask permission to use their song. 

Luckily, being involved with music we new a local band called Mk Zero, who are close friends. We got in contact with them via e-mail, again the use of internet was hugely important. They then said that we could use 15,000 feet as our song for our A2 media coursework. 

After a lot of research we planned our storyboard and beat sheet, we then scanned these onto the computer and uploaded them onto our blog. Again by uploading sheets that are usually lost, it helped us keep good track of the work we had completed. 

We spent our first day of filming at our chosen destination of Ludlow Castle. After a day of filming we uploaded the footage to Final Cut Express, on one of the mac computers. This  is the editing software we used on our project. The mac computers were difficult to use  as we had to try and adjust to its formats. Nothing is in the same place as a regular computer. After working with them for a while we got used to it and made some really good progress with our work. I think the software final cut express, allowed us to represent fully what story line we wanted to portray throughout our music video. Some of the tools in final cut express limited our editing. For example we found it difficult to soften the edges on one clip of a chase scene. We tried to edit ourselves in , however it created a box around us. We managed to work around this with the simple effects that are given to you on final cut. 

Evaluation John and Josh

Media evaluation

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

The music we choose is indie rock genre and this didn’t reflect our music video. It was more fantasy based the story line was unique but lacked structure because it had no meaning indie rock videos tend to be more fictional. The story line was unexpected and mainly relied on effects like the blue screen to make it work. Mainly in real media products they would use less effect to make it seem more real

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RMp6HyR-fk

they use effects on thing like colour mainly black and white and the effect of this spray can works well and symbolizes the indie rock genre people as more like rebels out video doesn’t really show that. There was not a lot of band shots in the video which is symbolic to the indie rock culture. The clothes wore in the band shots weren’t indie rock a normal indie rock person wears skinny jeans and a shirt. So we didn’t really symbolize a indie rock person in terms of cloths.

http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m4/sep2008/4/8/5102CF01-D3CF-FDD3-55D10903026EFB4A.jpg

this link shows what a typical man or women wears in the indie rock culture. The poster is the only meida product that relates slightly to the genre it has the band in it with use of colour and simple. This is shown in these indie rock posters. http://www.submarinechannel.com/_src/diedyoung.jpg
http://images.teamsugar.com/files/upl0/6/61259/02_2008/aestheticapp.preview.jpg

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

The combination of both the main product and ancillary text are effective because they match the theme and genre of our video. An example of this would be that our digipak has still images from our music video that represent, symbolise and sum up the content of the video. We looked at the existing album from the band, MK Zero, to get inspiration from their designs, looking at the colour scheme they use and foundations of the CD. Looking at where text and images were placed appropriately in and around the CD.

We also looked at a few other albums for our research to get an idea of the general layout of a typical album. Where barcodes are usually placed, whether it has a sleeve to hold the album or if there is even a booklet inside. The band are seen as quite ambiguous because they are slightly scary due to the way the music video is made and by some of the songs that they have created. However throughout the video you can also see that they are having fun doing it which the 3 products we have made make the band look approachable, young, fun loving and adventurous.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

At the start of the year we created a questionnaire and a poll for people to answer about what they like to see in a music video and what they like about music videos that keeps them watching them. We posted the questionnaire and poll onto the social networking site ‘Facebook’ to get as many people to answer it, sadly not that many people did and we only got a handful of answers back. Most of the answers we got back were what you would expect asking anyone from 17-18 years old. Due to ‘Pop’ music always being high in the charts the main answers back to ‘What is your favorite genre?’ was RnB, Hip Hop and pop music. This is because it is always around where you go, on the radio, internet and even in shops. With most of the genres stated the main thing that occurs in these videos are dancing and women with not many clothes on, which could be why they get such high ratings and why many people always watch the videos. We got this from the polls that we created when dancing had more votes than any of the others apart from one other which was narrative. Our other poll asked people how they watch music video, if they watch them, only 5 people answered this and 3 out of the 5 say they watch the mainly on TV, which is a bit strange because of youtube becoming the way most people watch anything.
Once finishing our music video we posted it onto youtube to see if we could get any feedback, unfortunately only one person commented but they said that it was a good video. Another positive outcome that happened was that after posting it on youtube we managed to get 50 views in one day. We also posted it on Facebook to get as many of our friends to look at it which turned out well with many people commenting on how decent it was for an A2 video. Only a few bad comments were made but not saying that it was rubbish but just pointing out little mistakes that were easily fixable on final cut express.

Inside the digi pack

These images were used in the digi pack as part of our orignal plan apppart from the fact we changed the demon shot to a band shot instead becuase we thought it would capture the music video better. we didnt have the mirror in the shot becuase we couldnt get hold of one to go in our forest shot.

finished digi pack frount and back

We have kept witht he origional design but couldnt do the lighting behind the door becuase we didnt have the knowlegde to do this anbd the right software. i have also changed the mass head to m k 0 becuase it links with the poster also in my opinion looks better.

finished poster :)

This is the finished poster we have used elements from both posters we have researched also used the albulm cover as advertising. we have made sure we have put i tunes in there becuase it is extremely popular and in my opinion will replace the cd. the logo of the band is in the bottom right curner and the white text matches witht he outline of the m, k and 0. i placed the mk zero at the bottom of the other text but felt it looked better above it.