Alex's evaluation!!!!

Questions

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

planning our work

We emailed the band and asked

them to answer a few questions about

their music video and the way they would like it to go. Their answers assisted us in the storyboarding and general planning of our music video piece.

In these early planning stages we mainly used email to communicate.

I also used a still shot camera to record the responses of the band because often I would email them and they would talk to me face to face when they saw me. I wrote down all their answers and then made compilations later.

We used Photoshop for our subsidiary tasks, we thought this would be the best software to use while making our poster and digipak because Charlie from our group had extensive knowledge and had access to it on her own laptop so we were not confined to working solely on the school computers.

The prior knowledge we had of the programme helped us greatly because we knew from the onset what effects we wanted and what would be a realistic achievement for us. We did have problems because the other three members of the group including me didn’t know how to use Photoshop to the standard we wanted, however we were able to learn quickly by having access and by creating our own little posters and images.

The programme was a good choice to use because it gave an amazing professional quality to our work.

Final cut and imovie were two more programmes that played a major part in our editing and uploading of film and movies. I had used final cut in other projects I had made so knew how to use it, the general outcomes of my video and what I was capable of. From the very beginning of this project thought I set my standards high and was determined to branch out and further my skills.

Once we had filmed all of the footage for the music video, we took it into school to upload, unfortunately final cut was not working on the day and to ensure we didn’t waste time we uploaded it to imovie so we could export it and import it into final cut later. This caused us no problems as the next lesson final cut did work and we were able to upload it. During the cause of the editing we had a final cut update and was forced to update our file however because of the exporting and importing and updating process lines appeared over our footage causing it to look slightly blurry and not to its high standard as normal. We consulted our media technician but his advice involved us having to start from scratch with the original footage, and as we were quite far into the project this was not a sensible option and we didn’t have a lot of time.

Final cut was definitely the best software to edit on, I was determined not to use imoive because I like the ability to scroll easily from frame to frame even in minuet quantities. However seeing as back up footage such as the vox pops I had recorded at how were upload to imove I used the software to export and upload to my blog, this furthered my knowledge and use of imoive.

The video camera we used to film was not of the highest quality, we had no means to buy our own so were forced to use the video cameras the school provided. We deemed this our best option because we had used them before, the downfalls of the camera is the recording sound but all our sound was non-diagetic and if anything went wrong with the camera we has several trained members of staff who knew what would be wrong with them

Our blog space on blogger is great because it gave us the opportunity to keep a constant update in short sharp segments, rather than every time wanting to write something writing a time consuming essay. Also being able to follow each others blog meant with one click you were able to see where other people were up to and keep in constant communication with each other.

Facebook and email were a huge help when this project was in its planning and research stages. I used face book on numerous occasions, sending out messages with the capability of just having to be someone’s ‘friend’ and not having to know their email address. Being able to send one message to large quantities of people so easily meant everyone got a clear message and nothing went wrong in the process. Also the chat on face book meant all of our group could be talking to each other while online, making sure everyone knew what they should be doing and when.

Email help immensely with communication with the band, I could not often find the members online on face book and I knew they didn’t check their accounts often so email gave me the opportunity to contact them and I knew they would read it very soon after.

Prezi was introduced to me only very recently I thought it was quite revolutionary because of the ability to group information together easily and also the presentation aspects gave it a more personal and fun feel. It looks less boring and it is something I would genuinely pay attention to was someone presenting it to me.

Reseach

We done quite extensive research in our music video, we looked in audience, conventions of music videos, what genre people believed the music video to be, what the band wanted to see and initial video ideas

When looking into audience we made questionnaires and gave them out to people, before answering the questions we played them the song and then asked for their feedback. We questioned them about what type of music they thought it was, were they would expect to hear it. After finding out what people thought of the song and what genre it fitted we then gathered together to plan

From the questionnaire we wrote down all the key genre words and stuck them onto a piece of paper, we then asked the band to question of what type of music genre did they think there music was. We also asked them what they would like to see in their music video, this would not dominate our whole ideas but the video was being made for the band and therefore we wanted their input. We then wrote down all their answers and made another collage of notes.

After the two collages we picked out key words, they were key because we agreed with them, thought they fitted well with the video and were realistic. With these words we created an all and final spider diagram, we decided the genre of the music was indie because many people had said it and we agreed and also these had the most obvious convention to us. So straight away we decided to research in indie video conventions and how our video would be influence by them. My music video deconstructions can be found on my blog at http://alexcastlea2.blogspot.com/

After groups meetings with our spider diagram and music video conventions researched we combined all the ideas of things that should go in our video and we made our story board.

After our storyboard was created we had to agree on a filming times and schedules, luckily with websites such as face book I was able to gather everyone quickly and effectively and to know whether people would be turning up or not.

We also used websites such as youtube in our resreach phase for video deconstruction. This was a valid and important part of our research because we looked at how effective our ideas would be by looking at videos that had already used them. Also the resreach informed us of the indie conventions so we knew the guidelines we had to use while creating our video to link it to the particular genre.

Decnstuction of music videos

Beyonce- if i were a boy

likes

the black and white effect is good

Although it's not as effective its good to view a song that doesnt edit to every beat

Slight narrative not heavily quite good

dislikes

Straight away i do not like the beginning bit i think it looks cheesy and not in proper keeping with the rest of the video

the slow motion as she steps out the door doesn't look very good because it doesnt keep in fitting with the beat

dont like the break for dialogue however it does give the small narrative a big push

Jamie T- Sticks and stones

Likes

-I like the mixture of black and white and colour and sepia tpye tones

-like his dull colours compared to the clown if i can do this i will

-love different camera angles as their running down alley way close up static and hand held angles

-no narrative but actions fit the words

-lots of different cast memebers doesnt look out of place

-stupid actions when they dance towards camera looks good worried it wouldn't

-not relient on special effects at all

-friends larking about the look i wanted

-smiling a lot different to beyonces 'if i were a boy'

-dark and night signifies they spend loads of time together close friends

-reverse looks good down alley way

-end is good smoke not just cut to black

Dislikes

There isn;t really anything i dislike about this ilm coming from the angle iw ant to tak with my video. I think this is the exact type of video i want to create. This is my biggest influence and i hope i can work to this standard.

In our project we used a series of semiotics to demonstrate what genre our music videos were and who we were trying to target. Our music video was the inide genre, indie the word originating from bands once on an independent music label and this description fitted our band because they are relatively unknown and write and perform all their own songs.

In my research of the conventions of indie I studied bands such as Jamie T, The Stroke and The Kooks and I saw that their videos were mainly performance led without a linear or even a narrative at all, so therefore I devised my piece without a narrative and with lots of band shots.

I chose the location based on other indie videos, it was not a recognisable location, just a casual backdrop. I saw the bands performance room as suitable, accessible and a realistic place to shoot and was able to do this.

We used iconography such as beer bottles and DJ decks to appeal to our youth culture target. We knew our audience target would mainly be people aged 17-26 because that is our age and the age of the band; therefore we would be able to give the most effective input and judge what would be most enjoyable. Also our whole media class is between those ages so we could ask for opinions from them, however had we had upped the age boundaries we made have made a product not appealing to older people. We were lucky because we didn’t want to use any violence and there is not swearing in the song we did not have to worry about times of the day it could be played on television or parental warnings. We used some stereotyping in our video, such as I ensured the female lead singer of the band was wearing a skirt which is stereotypically feminine. I wanted to use this because female lead singers in indie bands are still not the most common feature and having one I wanted to make a point of it. However in the video with the actors some of the girls are wearing jeans, which was culturally relevant to western society because in prominently Muslim countries many girls wouldn’t be wearing jeans. The hair and make up of both the band and the actors is casual because we didn’t want them to feel as though they were performing but just natural acting. This reinforces the indie idea because it is the same in most of their videos.

NME is featured in our music magazine, this brand was specifically chosen because I believe it’s where our band would be featured and for marketing purposes you would receive our video free with NME

I used elements of postmodern in our music video, suitable iconography which some people will recognise and some will not. I used the silver glove on the guitarist because the band Crazy P, a band considered to be post-modern, use a silver glove in their performances, so I paid homage to this. The clothing like mentioned previously is post-modern as well as culturally relative, because it is only recently girls wearing jeans and trousers have become a common and fashionable thing. It shows our music video moving with the time and representing society today and its norms and values.

Is this still you can see how we used

stereotyping of gender with the lead singer

wearing a skirt. The skirt is a very big feminist

symbol because western society secludes it to

females. We didn't use heavy stereotyping but we used

it lightly in these situations.

The cross dissolve in this still demonstrates how our skills

with media technology have advanced. It confirms that our choice

to use final cut was good because by using the cross dissolve function

it gives our video a more proffesional quality standard

The dancing in our video signifies

the fun and happiness we wanted

for our overall video.

The audience did say they had

fun whilst watching the video

so we conveyed this well.

Using green screen in our video

also demonstrates how we advanced

in using media technology. We had never

used green screen before so this really furthered

our knowledge.

The ensure our main and subsidiary tasks link well and worked effectively together we used a picture of the band as the poster cover

Then for the front cover of the digipak we used the same photo and edited the same for the poster. The poster was effectively advertising the digipak

We were able to edit the picture heavily because the band was featured so much in the video the audience would recognise it is the band

The continuity is a major aspect throughout the whole project, we have used the same location, same people, the same effects on photoshop and same iconography in every display of the band, this helps the audience to recognise and associate the bands with the music video we have created. Hopefully by generating interest in the band through we media and then placing poster about people will remember they have seen the video for that band and spread interest through word of mouth.

We chose the picture for the front cover and poster through audience researcher. I took several photos of the band and then complied several pages worth of pictures, i handed these out and asked picture to tick next to the one they like the most, the one we have chosen had the majority ruling as the favourite picture

There were several downfalls to our subsidiary tasks though such as the main colour for the poster and digipak being black and black doesn’t feature much in our video, we chose black however thought because we wanted a blackboard effect and for the neon colouring of the lines to really stand out, although it doesn’t feature much in the video I think it works as more eye grabbing with the neon lines than t would have done being a pastel colour.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience questionnaires

We asked memebers of our families and form to watch our film and fill in a questionnaire. We didn't film these respondents because we didn't want the hawthorne effect of just positive commments because they know their being filmed. So to avoid the same problem with our questionnaire we didn't ask the candidates for their name.

We wrote our questionnaire based on what would

give use the most valid answers

We then asked our form to watch our video and give their response.

We thought these people would be the most suitable because their our target age.

They watched it once then filled out our questionnaire, then they watched it again and

disscussed the video.

From these questionnaires we learnt we had met many of ourtarget criteria, such as people

recognised it as a inide genre, and more people of our target a

udience felt they could relate to our video.

audience response

In the end we done extensive audience feedback to see if we'd

met our target audience, however with our audience

filming session we were present in the room so we

were worrid it would effect audience feedback.

I felt very confident with our peice as a whole, and felt

the audeince genrally enjoyed it.

Our filmed audience response may not be a reliable source because

we were still in the room, because it wasn't practical to leave because of other

lessons, also though we mainly filmed media students. This means they

have a more in depth undertsanding. However we did also counteract this problem by

giving questionnaires to non media student.

Our music video and subsidery tasks were a success i believe.

There were obvious downsides such as some audiences not being able

to guess exactly the genre saying 'pop/indie' instead of just

Indie, however these people may not have studies that particular genre's

conventions.

I bleieve our work was a success because people recognised the tone, students

bleieved they were the target audience because theyrelated most to the acting

of the people in the video and because it containedmainly a young cast.

People said they thought they would see it more on the internet bcause it is for

tennagers and 'we media' is a major part of our genrations lives. Also they

said the video had a amerture feel which although wasn't our inital intention

we liked in the end because we feel it reinforced the indie feel of the video.

One of the main elements the audience picked up on which i thought was very important

was that the band didn't look like they were putting on a performance for publicity.

Theudience said the unrecognisable backgrond, the small size of the room and the messing about

made the video look as though the band were playing the music for themseleves. This is extremely

important because no other Inide band we took inspiration from our 'putting on a performance'.

group discussions

Double click anywhere & add an idea

Feedback Of our video

my Photoshop experiment

We used lots of different media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages of our project.

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

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